[LMB] Re: Slash (was OT) now Bujold Romance/Slash Meta

[Lois McMaster Bujold]

Lois remarks at the ***...


Kirsten Edwards carbonelle at juno.com
Wed Jan 3 04:24:25 GMT 2007

   
(Don't forget that if you lose the Bujold tack (about 1/2 way down) to
switch back to the "OT" marker--!)

Marna wrote regarding my (and possibly Bill. W.'s) irritation with the
"oh, they can't merely be true and loyal friends, with a bond greater
(for them), albeit different than any of their romantic partnerships"



*** They could, but then it would be genfic.  Of which there are also 
tons out there.  And some of which also has the readers scratching their 
heads and going, "*What* are these writers *thinking*?", but for other 
reasons than gender analysis.

There's a definitional thing going on, here.  Don't miss that turn, or 
you'll be unnecessarily confused.  Genfic, hetfic, slash, three 
different things.  There may be yet more categories that have escaped my 
attention.  ***



To suggest that, "while there's a certain amount of that at play,
there's also a diametrically opposite motive, which is 'so why does it
have to be SO different? So they're boinking; why does that mean they
aren't exactly the good and true friends shown in canon?"

To which I reply (as she no doubt expects me to) that we live in a
Dionysian age, those of us in the West (the rest of you can pipe up
with your local zietgeist, of course) and hence have rather more
use for Apollonian correctives.



*** We might if they were correcting the right things.  Alas...  ***


 I would also like to add that the
"so they're boinking?" is probably best applied to homo-sexual
stories (aka "slash"--?) as the sex therein really does seem to
fly as an uncomplicated layer in the relationship



*** I see you haven't read much slash.  The amount of angst attached to 
(some) relationships by (some) writers would re-sink the Titanic.  ***



(again, with
 the !!?? caveat that Real Live (TM) gay lovers would no doubt
volunteer)


*** Slash is seriously not about real live gay lovers.  My current 
theory is that it is about hijacking characters to carry out stories 
about the emotional concerns of the female writers.  Which, granted, is 
also done in genfic and hetfic.  And yet, why slash and not Mary Sue?  
What does slash do that a Mary Sue story does not do?  I don't know the 
answer, although "deep disguise for safety" is floating about on the 
fringes.  Lard concerns onto a Sue, and she and her writer will both be 
savaged; lard them into an existing male character, and they can be 
smuggled past intact....?  ***



Which brings me to something that Lois wrote a while back (I am still
playing a v. mad game of "catch-up on the internet stuff" after an
enforced GAFIATION-cum-24-cum-Veronica Mars Marathon. But I
digress) that struck me as interesting-but-flawed. For values of flawed
equalling "heh, I'm d-d'd if I can put my finger on what's troubling me")
That line about the "status emergency"  tied in with the "why
CAN'T they be boinking too?" helped me realise that there was a
uniquely 20th century blindspot there.

It seems to me that, in a broad look down the avenues of history,
what men have wanted is not [*] a barque of frailty, but a wife.


*** Depends on the man.  But yes, frequently.  Because, really, who 
wouldn't want a wife?  ***

 Not
to "win" i.e. "be the screw-er" but "win a woman to care for him" in ways
that yes, culturally, another man can't/won't do for him. Because of
course, screwing, fairly inevitably, tended to involve children,
descendents, and family connections--which are both good and difficult
things.


***  Status emergency is a different matter altogether.  Fertile healthy 
voluntary heterosexual relations went under the heading of "and then it 
goes fractal" in my original post, and was outside the scope of the 
definition/meme/whatever.

Remember, a key sign of a status emergency is a heated or violent 
response disproportionate to the apparent cause.  It's not a concept to 
be blithely applied to every human interaction to come down the pike.  
Just to certain bewilderingly whacko ones.  ***



Only in our modern Western age have we been able to divorce the
sexual goodies from the big messy human family package (Cue the
cordwainer smith djinn for ironic effect here)

Think about it. How many romances do you read in which the heroine
and the hero have their kids in the picture? 


*** Boatloads.  There's a whole sub-genre out there.  Any LaVyrle 
Spencer, ferex (a recent favorite of mine being _Morning Glory_.)  The 
woman was obsessed with pregnancy.

Although, to be fair, such a romance can only happen to older, more 
experienced protagonists.  Normally, romance happens as a precursor to 
children, for younger protagonists.

When the children happen, the tales move out of the marketing category 
of "romance" and into the category of "women's fiction", generally 
domestic dramas.  There's boatloads of them out there, too.  Towing 
barges. 

Again, watch out for how definitions fundamentally constrain the 
selection of data points. ***

s
p
o
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e
r
Imagine how Miss Fawn's sexual healing would've gone if she'd been
farther along, say, with twins, and had (1) spontaneous abortion + (2)
live birth and been (3) nursing the survivor?

Hella romantic, no? No.


*** Indeed no.  You will see in Volume 2 why it could not have been the 
book I wanted to write about the themes I wished to grapple with had 
events gone another way.

s
p
o
i
l
e
r

The question simply doesn't arise with slash. The characters can
sidestep that whole "diaper-years" crushing of the Big Romance entirely
and stick to the fun.

Anyhoo. Am I on to something here--?


*** Nope.  Your database is too small to balance a theory upon.  So, for 
that matter, is mine.  (For your consolation, at one time early in my 
reading I also held that exact same theory.  It did not survive further 
contact with the e/n/e/m/y data.)

I'm still scratching my head over an entire sub-genre or trope (crossing 
many fandoms) of slash about male pregnancy.  Why take all that stuff 
out, and then turn around and put it all *right back in*?  What are 
these writers *thinking*?  And why?

Ta, L.