Completely Pointless Post Except in That I Think This Rambling is Made of Win and Awesome

[kiyakotari]

Browsing around the internet, trying to keep myself awake late into the night in preparation for the switch back from nearly a month of daytime-awake-schedule to my usual graveyard shifts, I discovered the possibly-weirdness of NBA slash fanfiction. I say possibly-weirdness because I know nothing about the NBA (aside from the fact that a basketball is somehow involved, and I believe that such balls are usually orange), and that the one fic I did read was by someone who clearly knows how to write. (I wish she'd spend some time in a fandom I'm more familiar with, just so I could enjoy that, though I'm willing to read the NBA stuff just to get at her characterizations of these people I've never heard of.) Like whoa.

Which is all a very roundabout way of getting to sharing this post of hers, which has very little to do with NBA and quite a bit to do with the male/female gaze argument, and how that argument has been shifting (or perhaps blending/becoming less comprehensively valid) in recent years. This post made me happy. I think this is a sign that I'm missing school, and can't wait to go back to it next month.

Comments

[kiyakotari.livejournal.com]

Indeed! I'm rather interested in how this is upsetting the male/female = active/inactive approach as set forth by Mulvey (and others). I've never liked that theory. Something about it has always struck me as being inherently incorrect, and I think that it's the fact that, to me, there is nothing strictly male in being the active viewer, or strictly female in being the passive viewed. I think that many things in our society are showing that this theory (while it is certainly valid in some context) is not completely comprehensive, and that the slash/yaoi fandom is one of them. Are the female participants taking on a male gaze? I think not. Rather, the active/passive gazes are breaking the boundaries of gender.

[nagasvoice.livejournal.com]

I agree. I'm seeing a surprising number of people we would call pretty uke boys who are clearly presenting themselves for viewing, clearly courting attention by being decorative, and waiting to be approached. You would expect if they're that hungry for attention they'd be aggressive or noisy, and some few are (in something close to a Priscilla Queen of the Desert manner) but a surprising percentage are hiding behind locks of hair in a very stereotypic manner. It's clear that many of them would probably welcome a controlling top in very classic BDSM manner, or already have one and are not exactly monogamous about it. I'm thinking some of these guys might as well be flashing big neon signs, for me to notice it when I'm half-asleep ont eh way to work!
I don't see as often the counterpart you would expect, the aggressive macha top with chains on her pants, but usually they're busy, impatient, and moving fast.