Writing the Underrepresented: Habits of Mind, Sex Scenes, and Political Action

[rsadelle]

Edit: The comments have made clear to me that I have done something I didn't want to and written a post that made people feel talked at. So this is a belated disclaimer: This post is about what I think about when I'm writing and what I think about this particular discussion in fandom. This is not a prescription for what you should do. I do believe the fandom as escapism approach is absolutely valid and useful, and I also go through periods of wanting just stories and no meta in between periods of wanting to tell you everything I think about meta topics. /edit

A very long while ago, inlovewithnight linked to a very interesting post about the question Why am I not writing the stories I say I want to read? In case you don't want to read the post, the question is specifically around the issue of saying we want more fic about women and poc characters but continuing to write slash about white men. (happydork phrases this entirely about her, but I'm using "we" deliberately because I think it extends beyond just her.)

For me, the one of her reasons that I'm actively changing in my own writing is the "habits of mind." She says, "There are comfortable ruts in my mind that any story I write can happily rest on. It takes me a long, long time to change these, and a lot of thought, insight and effort." But we can change them, and even if it takes a long time, you have to start somewhere. I've specifically, consciously been doing this around writing about women and gender roles. I'm sure I'm not always successful, but I have been making the effort. I specifically tried to avoid anything that referenced roles that were determined by gender in Fighting For (although I reread it somewhat recently and realized I missed one that needed to come out). I made an effort to make You Have My Heart (In Your Hands) pass the Bechdel test. When I edited A Great Idea to fix the sex scene, I also took out Andi's references to being "girly" as something she didn't want to be/like being.

Part of my resistance to editing my Gabe/Victoria accidental marriage story is that it's at least 40% about how Gabe doesn't sleep and Victoria gets him to - and I don't like the idea that a woman's role is to be in service to men. I've had people tell me that every relationship has its give and take, that if you have trouble sleeping it's easier with someone else in bed with you, and that one plot point is not necessarily a patriarchy-upholding pattern. And yet, I'm still uncomfortable with it. It may just be one plot point, but it's one plot point in the context of a society that tells us in a million other ways that women are supposed to serve men.

Now let's talk about the fandom reason and sex. In the last few things I've written where women have sex, I've deliberately been writing things different from what I'm accustomed to reading in fandom. I've said before that I have a deep rebellious streak that only manifests itself in fandom, and that's the first reason I've been writing different things. So many het stories have him go down on her, get her off, and then there's penetrative sex. So that's not how the sex goes in "You Have My Heart (In Your Hands)." That one's just a reaction to what other people are writing, but there's a deeper level to this. Years and years ago, a friend was worrying about how to write sex with female characters, and I told her she could always go with what she likes. But I've never really taken that advice myself; I've written my sex scenes along the patterns of what other people write. I've read enough complaints about "one finger, two fingers, three fingers, cock" that I know to mix up my m/m sex scenes, but we as fandom don't talk about girl!sex quite as much. A couple of months ago I was getting myself off and for some reason it occurred to me that at least one of the standard things you see in sex scenes about women doesn't do it for me. Since then, my sex scenes about women have been completely different. I don't know if they're working for anyone else, but I think it's a worthwhile exercise and I think stretching as a writer is a good thing.

This also connects in an interesting way (at least in my head and in my motivations for writing the way I do) with something thingswithwings said in a comment on happydork's post:

And you can't (or, okay, I can't) just write an aliens make them do it fic with female characters without pausing to wince at the different connotations it develops, compared to amtdi with male characters; similarly, lighthearted sex slave fic with characters of colour gives people pause. This isn't to say 'you just can't write these kinds of stories with these kinds of people!' but rather to say that perhaps sometimes we don't want to be reminded where our kinks (narrative or otherwise) for things like rapefic and slavefic come from (because imo it's not from stories about white men being raped or made into slaves).

I wrote a femslash hooker AU (Treat Her Right), and even though schuyler's original plot bunny was completely fluffy, the story came out significantly less so, and it was at least partially this. But the other way this plays out is in the same sex scenes I'm talking about above. On the one hand, I'm rebelling against fandom's sameness. On the other hand, fandom is rebelling against the dominant narrative about sex that involves women, particularly in het fic. So what I've been thinking about is: if I write a het story that defies the fannish pattern and skips straight to penis in vagina sex, am I just reinforcing the societal pattern of what we're told heterosexual sex is supposed to be? Is this what I really want to write - and what my characters really want to do - or is it coming from the part of me that has absorbed the messages we're all given about what heterosexual sex is supposed to be?

There's one more point in this discussion where you might have figured out what I think but I'd like to say it explicitly. In a comment on inlovewithnight's post, mosca said:

I think there's an additional wrinkle here, which is that there's so much "We have to write more women and people of color!" talk, that when one actually writes about a woman or a person of color (especially the latter), it's often seen as a political move rather than an actual expression of fannish affection for that character.

There's an implication in mosca's comment - and particularly in the fannish response it describes - that writing about a woman or a person of color as a political move is a bad thing. I don't think it is. Fandom isn't going to change unless we - the people who make up fandom - make that change happen. One way to make that change happen is to choose to tell stories based on the political change we want to make in combination with what interests us.

Comments

[idahophoenix.livejournal.com]

This is really interesting. It's too late for thinky-thinky thoughts or comments from me. Maybe later, but I just wanted you to know I read it and am contemplating....(oh-thought you'd find the icon familiar..)

[rsadelle]

:)

[idahophoenix.livejournal.com]

The thing about posting your thinking is that if you've touched on something, people will react, one way or another. So, imo no need to apologize.

One of the things that is so interesting to me is that what gets me off about women is so different than what I respond to about m/m. Honestly, I think one of the sexiest things I've seen ever is the expression on Willow's face in the very first part of the youtube clip I just posted on my LJ. I mean, that does it for me in a really deep way and I think helps explain why I'm less drawn to reading f/f for the sex...although the story is another thing.

I know this is not responding directly to what you wrote--but it's because what you wrote sent me down a whole lot of interesting paths in my brain. This is why I do like meta stuff. And then I run a go read a good cracky kradam fic and my shallow self is all happy too. YES. I can have it all.

[rsadelle]

Fandom has had a lot of long conversations over the last couple of years about making fandom a safe space for people. I wholeheartedly believe in the right to my own opinions and the right to talk about them, and I believe in doing so in a way that doesn't hurt other people.

Interesting! I'm not even sure what I like in f/f fic because there's so little of it out there. (Although I do want sex scenes because I usually like sex scenes.)

I'm glad this is making you think. :)

[megyal]

I'm thinking that I don't really want to rebel against fandom. I'm a person of colour, female, and also not American, so a lot of your posts about fandom, sexuality, race and other related aspects sometimes make me feel inadequate, as if there's something I need to know and I just don't get it. It happens a lot with other people's posts too, and it makes me dislike fandom sometimes for trying so hard at everything, or being trying to be fair to everyone, when my experience patently and emphatically explains that in real life once I leave my own country, and even when I'm in it, I have to go against a lot of walls every day, and it's tiring. I don't like things that make me think too hard in fandom, when I get daily arguments about the same things in meatspace, but I figure that's the point of the whole thing. Which is why I read the posts, because I learn a lot and try to change.

I personally have never thought of writing the stories I say I want to read. I've actually never thought of what I want to read in fandom. It's....it probably seems super simplistic and naive to you, for the rabbit hole simply doesn't go down that deep for me. When it comes to writing original stuff though, I find I go a little farther. I tend to prefer writing f/f in original stuff, surprisingly, and I guess I think about it more...and not because I want to be a published writer, because I'm thinking that I really don't want to be. But it means more to me in that way to include POC in original stuff.

*thinks*

[rsadelle]

Marie! I'm so sorry I made you feel that way. :(((( I have edited in a disclaimer to this post that I hope will help keep other people from feeling that way because of it.

I oscillate between periods of "No meta! Just tell me a story!" and periods of "Let met tell you every critical thought I have about everything," and I don't think either one of those is a more or less valid way to experience fandom. I'm glad you have fandom as a place to not deal with the same crap you deal with every day. I think that's an important function of any space.

I find it interesting that you prefer writing f/f in original stuff! I find that the more I work on my original m/m novels (and they are things I'm writing for a specific market I hope to sell them to), the more I want to write female characters in fandom.

[megyal]

It's good that fandom has that fluid capacity to accommodate meta and...not-meta?

Yeah, I actually am surprised at myself with that. When I look in my ideas folder, more than half of them are f/f, and the more I write m/m in fandom, is the more part of my mind is simultaneously transliterating it for f/f...to the point where I start to fear I'm blurring whatever gender roles there are. A fic I personally like a lot started out with an all-male cast. When I finished, I went back over it and changed out most of the male characters to female, and now I wish it was a chaptered thing, it felt so good. And the next thing I want to work on has a swordswoman with one arm. There must be a meta f/f-m/m switching, somewhere.

ETA: I was also thinking about the whole writing as a political statement thing, and trying to figure if that was the reason I included a POC as a major character in one of my original m/m...and now that I think about it, there's always a POC as part of the main pairing in my original stuff. I don't actively think that I'm trying to SAY something, but I do remember thinking one day when I was contemplating some characters, "Aha! I KNOW he's going to be a black guy with Latin American roots! I can do this here!" And it wasn't really because I felt locked in in fandom (although most times I DO, I've been craving a Blaise-centric fic in the Harry Potter fandom for awhile now).

Thinking Marie is thinking.

[rsadelle]

Fandom has an amazing ability to accept and accommodate such a wide variety of interests and participation styles.

Fascinating! Other people's writing habits are so interesting. :) And I'm always excited when people are writing about women. (Fan fiction and young adult novels are the only genres where I really read stories about male characters.)

I think it's great that you just include POC characters without trying to do so - so many of us (and especially those of us with white privilege - I keep thinking of the conversation that often comes up around racism and privilege that points out that white privilege means white people can get away with not thinking about issues of race where racism means POC always have to consider issues of race) aren't good at that. I am not good at that, and it's one of the habits of mind I need to change. Also, this is reminding me that I think I have your original fic journal friended and I'm not sure if I've read any of it. I will have to go do that!

I hope this is useful/interesting thinking. ♥

[inlovewithnight.livejournal.com]

I disagree with a lot of this, but I'm glad my post was thought-provoking. ♥

[rsadelle]

:)

[morganya.livejournal.com]

Have you read this post? (http://sailorptah.dreamwidth.org/227668.html) The author touches on writing about under-represented characters as well as writing as a political move, writing because it's an important issue rather than because you need to tell a story or because you find a certain situation hot. Stories tell us as much about the author as they do about the characters, and the danger of crafting a story with the idea, however supplemental, of "this is not the way fandom at large does things and I want to change that" is that the author can turn the characters into authorial mouthpieces rather than characters, and what can result is well-intentioned but structurally shaky. I absolutely believe in writing more women and POC, but I'm unsure that bringing in "this is how I will take fandom to the next level" is the best way to do that.

[rsadelle]

I hadn't read that. Interesting! Thanks for the link! I think the key for me, which is also in that post, is that if you're writing a specific kind of story from a political motivation, it also needs to be something interesting to you as a writer. I do think it can be done - the set of feedback I'm most proud of are the comments pointing out how much people liked the feminist aspects of "You Have My Heart (In Your Hands)," which is a story where I was very aware as I was writing that I wanted to make it a feminist story - and that post gives a lot of really good hints on how to do it.

[westingturtle.livejournal.com]

On the Gabe/Victoria marriage story I can see where you're coming from on the connotations of "a woman's job is to take care of her spouse" but without reading it I can only say A)How much of Victoria's character is based on that aspect? and B) What does Gabe do for Victoria?

I will say that what I've enjoyed reading in your fic is the way so many cliches, especially heterosexual, stereotyped situation cliches have been avoided. In You Have My Heart (In Your Hands) there were so many places where I was half expecting "and then they had sex" or "and then they were desperately in love" as a shortcut to characterization, but your writing made it clear that they were people, not storytelling tricks. I loved that the sense of family came first.

I guess what that boils down to (and following my own narrative kinks) if you make them real as people as opposed to plot devices, I think you can make it a person's action as opposed to a cultural stereotype, and I think that's something you've been successful at in the past.

[rsadelle]

I think that question B - What does Gabe do for Victoria? - is part of what I'm not sure about in the story. My beta reader also said she needs stronger motivation for staying married; maybe that's part of what I need to work on it.

♥ Thank you so much. I'm still incredibly proud of how that story turned out and how much people liked it.

Yes, that real people thing is the thing that comes up over and over again. I'm glad to know it's working for me so far!