I’m starting to see why gay men don’t want people to know they like to write m/m Fanfiction. In particular, they don’t want to be known as Men writing fanfiction. That is an unfair way to start this post but bear with me. I’m feeling a little bit slighted. I ran afoul of feminine wokeness. And yes, it’s uncharitable to be selfish, but I recently had a bad experience with women writing m/m in a Facebook group dedicated to Destiel fanfiction.
Destiel is fanfiction based on the CW’s paranormal drama Supernatural (2005-2020) that pairs the hunter Dean Winchester with his angel friend Castiel as a gay/bi male couple. This pairing is very popular among fanfiction writers (who are predominately women) since the show frequently hinted at the two being a couple without ever actually confirming it. The show has been criticized for this behavior as a form of “queerbaiting” that strings along viewers to improve ratings but with no intention of ever actually making them a couple. In the final season, the angel Castiel came out and acknowledged his romantic feelings for Dean and was promptly killed off. The character of Dean was never allowed to reciprocate. This angered many viewers who wanted their relationship to become canonical (made official in the plot of the show). As a gay man, I was really hoping (even expecting in the series finale) that the writers would finally let them be acknowledged as an actual gay couple. It didn’t happen. Dean was subsequently killed off, and the show ended its fifteen-year run. I was devastated.
Supernatural, over the years, had developed a large fanbase. Many of those fans wrote fanfiction about characters from the show. Fans also produced fan art, songs, and videos to express their devotion, with Dean/Cas becoming the most popular pairing in all of fanfiction. I even made my own attempts at fanfiction. Alas, mine didn’t have an audience. I suspect the reason why is that my stories didn’t evoke the various plots and tropes that have become commonplace in fanfiction. Destiel fanfiction is not just about Dean/Cas but a certain kind of story about them, notably a romantic story with sexual content.
What has become clear over the years, is that fanfiction has become a woman’s domain, especially male/male fanfiction (in fact, women essentially created the genre), and I’m sorry as a gay man that I intruded into it. It’s not really a space for gay men, but rather a space for women to fantasize about gay men. The few men that do write Destiel fanfiction usually hide the fact that they are men behind pseudonyms. I naïvely ventured into one of these spaces. The women who make up the vast majority of fanfiction writers jealously guard their domain.
My project started out as a friendly gesture to give some exposure to fanfiction written by gay men. I wanted to read gay men celebrating Dean and Cas’s relationship in a manner that affirmed them as gay a couple with their gay lives and experiences. Much of what I found was women using Dean/Cas slash as a vehicle for women to express their own interests and fantasies, often at the expense of men. My inquiries quickly turned into a wasteland of recrimination and accusations of bias and bigotry against women. I was certainly naïve, and I was eventually banned from this Facebook group.
Now, I don’t want to attribute combative behavior to all the women in this group. That would be immensely unfair. There were several women who responded to me, giving positive feedback and answering my questions with informative comments.
Since I try to be as honest as I can in my blogs, I admit, I was upset about being banned from the Facebook group. I actually cried about it. I can be a silly old queer sometimes. Here is my explanation, if you want to accept it. You see, I had a dear online gay friend of mine who passed away a few months ago. I wrote about him in a previous post. If he were still around, I probably wouldn’t have pursued this project. I would still be chatting with him all through the night. Maybe, we would be plotting a new children’s story or watching some silly YouTube videos together. But since he is gone, I was looking for something new to work on. With this negative outcome, it made me realize just how much I still miss him, even though it’s been six months, and another crying spell. I wish now, I had picked something else, but I will see this through to the end. I’m not going to quit and give up.
I should probably give a “trigger warning” at this point. That seems to be the proper etiquette in today’s online culture, so people’s feelings don’t get hurt if they are not warned about content that might harm their sensitivities. Now, no one is going to be satisfied with what I write here, but just giving in to social pressure from angry women and saying nothing is just another form of censorship. I’m also not really the type of person to get on a soapbox (and yes, there is a little bit of passive-aggressive trolling in this statement), but seriously, if you are offended by this statement, consider this a trigger warning and don’t read any further. You can’t say I didn’t warn you ahead of time.
I will admit, that as a gay man, I don’t really understand women very well. It’s a cliché that gay men are basically women with dicks, and although there are a lot of gay men who are essentially silly people with jazz hands that women like to hang out with and clutch their pearls together. Truth be told, most gay men can’t stand those kinds of guys and think they make everyone else look like a caricature. Nevertheless, I think, I erroneously assumed, that since we both like Supernatural and admire Dean and Cas’s relationship as a (potential) gay/bi couple, that I might have some things in common with the members of the group. I still think there might be some commonalities with some of the members, many of whom were probably too intimidated to speak up (but happily, a few did!). Many of the responses from women to my inquiries were quite hostile.
My thoughts on this subject are evolving and may change over time. Here is what I’m thinking right now. I can only give you my side of the story. Here is what happened on my end.
Due to the length of this post, I have provided a table of contents. Click the heading to jump to that section:
- The First Post:
- The Second Post:
- The Second and the Third Question:
- The Third Post:
- Inappropriate and Banned!
- Afterward:
- Update: One Week Later:
The First Post:
This all started because I had this idea for a blog post to gather together links for gay male writers who wrote Supernatural fanfiction, especially Destiel, and promote them on my blog. I only knew of a few, so I went into some Destiel fanfiction groups on Facebook and asked for nominations. I was met with the accusation that I was trying to out gay men. I revised my request assuring people that was not my intent. I don’t want anyone outed that didn’t want others to know they were men. Here is the revised post:
I am working on a list of gay and bi-writers who are male and write Supernatural fanfiction. I am making this as a new list post for my website including links to their fanfiction. Does anyone have any ideas about who I should include? Maybe it will get them more attention. The writers should be openly known as men and have revealed their gender publicly. Some of the guys might not want readers to know they are men. There are many male fanfiction writers who do not want their genders known and write under pseudonyms to protect their identity. I did not want to out any author that does not want their gender known.
If you are a gay/bi male writer of Supernatural fanfiction and want to be included, tell me and give me your link.
I have not posted it yet; I am still writing. Here are my criteria:
Must be a gay or bisexual male writing supernatural fanfiction (I am curious how their fiction is different from women writers).
The fanfiction should be gay-themed (I suspect most will be Destiel stories, but other romantic combinations are welcome too: Sam/Gabriel, Adam/Michael are good too)
Not smut. Stories can have sexual content, but not sex for the sake of sex. Stories that are romance, adventure, paranormal, thrillers, etc.
I made this request in several Supernatural fanfiction groups and it was non-controversial. I did receive a few nominations for my list, but my post was subsequently removed from one of the groups, and it’s this group that eventually banned me, and it’s that group I will be referring to for the remainder of the post.
One of the administrators of that group did admit that they had inadvertently outed a gay male writer once in the group. My suspicion is that they projected that motive onto me and for that reason removed my post. In retrospect, I wonder if that concern was a signal for me to desist with my search, and I was too tone-deaf to pick up on it. I plowed forward anyway when I should have stopped there.
The Second Post:
I accepted the possibility of outing as a legitimate concern, and took a different approach, and made a second post to this group. This is when things got really acrimonious. Here is the second post:
A few days ago, I posted a request for gay male authors that write Supernatural Fanfiction. My request was removed by the administrators because of a fear that gay writers might be identified as a man who did not want their genders known. Ok, that’s fair enough. So let me approach this differently.
What I was wanted to get at was how do gay/bi men approach their (gay-themed) fanfiction differently than women do. It seems much fanfiction is written by women, who seem really interested in gay men. So maybe you all can help me (I am writing this for a blog post) and give me some insight.
First of all, why are women writing gay fiction in the first place? What is it about gay stories/men that have you so interested?
Second, what is it about being gay (or bi) that informs your stories that are different from what women (in all of their female varieties) bring to their stories?
Third, are they any specific tropes that could be identified as particularly gay/bi male, and others notably heterosexual or female? That seems a bit sexist, interpret it how you wish.
I am still floundering around here, trying to figure out what to think. Any suggestions?
Not being a woman, I feel wary of imputing any motivation to women without asking, so I did, but the act of asking was interpreted as misogyny and inappropriate. On this second attempt, I tried to include women’s interests, not just gay men, and give people, including any gay men that might be in the group an opportunity to speak up on their own. This mostly backfired. The women in the group interpreted my questions as being misogynist and exclusionary, and almost no men spoke up. Women saw my post as having the intent of denigrating their interest in writing gay-themed fanfiction and as an attempt to disenfranchise them. Of course, that is not my intent, but it made me wonder where all their defensiveness came from. I still had a lot to learn about women and fanfiction.
Many of the women in this group were offended by this post and let me know it. Rereading this post, I see that I could have been more careful in the phrasing of my questions. What I initially thought was the problem, the potential of outing gay male writers, vanished in all the outrage. Luckily, I made a copy of the responses to this post, and it’s a good thing I did, or I would have lost access to them when I was banned from the room.
Before I get to the outrage, I want to spend some space reviewing comments from women who gave meaningful responses to my questions. Graciously, not all of the answers were accusatory. I’m going to quote directly from the comments of the women from this group, but remove their names to keep them anonymous to protect their privacy outside of the group where the comments were posted.
Why do Women like Destiel so much?
On the first question of my post, why do women like writing gay fiction (I should have said Destiel fanfiction); what is it about these men (Dean and Cas) that have you so interested? Here are some of the responses:
- “I write Destiel fanfiction because I love Dean Winchester and Castiel. I create love stories between these two men because the writers of the show failed us.”
- “We love these characters. We already see a lot of cis relationships. I also think the socialization of women as being more “creative” has a lot to do with it also. And of course, it’s made fun of because just about everything that women like is made fun of, even if men like it too.”
- “First of all, why are women writing gay fiction in the first place?” – Well, we aren’t! We’re just writing fiction about characters that inspired us. They happen to be gay. I’ve never known a fic writer that sat down and went “I’m going to write about gay men” and hunted down a ship – it’s the total reverse. They fell in love with some characters and those characters just happened to be presenting as male in the cases you are addressing. Then they felt compelled to tell more stories about them. Fic is more effort than people think it is, honestly. If people just want gay men, there’s plenty of m/m erotica out there already. That’s not the whole deal here.”
- “It is mainly about telling a story. And sometimes it’s a story I wish I could read or a story I wish someone had written or a story I need personally to deal with whatever is going on in my life. So likewise, I think that’s how mlm fiction goes. Of course, I can’t speak for everyone but personally, it’s usually about the story and not the pairing itself. So, if I as a person identify with Dean Winchester and I decide to write a story where he is his happiest, I would choose to stay true to his character and if that means his happiness lies in Castiel then that’s the pairing. Because all I am trying to do is write a happy story.”
- “Well, I’m a heterosexual woman and I’m completely obsessed with Destiel. Don’t know if there’s a real answer for why I like it. Besides that, it’s hot as hell! I do have an obsession for the characters. So, I’m sure that’s a big reason. Plus, their love story has been on my TV for so many years. It’s like, you know them. If I could write, I’d be writing Destiel fan fiction for the rest of my life.
“I don’t write about them specifically because they’re gay, I write about them because their love moved me and hit something in my soul. It has little to do with the fact that they’re both men, and everything to do with wanting to write/draw queer stories because I’m queer, and they just happen to be the couple I am most invested in. Because I love THEM; as characters and as people in love with each other.
“Their bond is beautiful. The way they love each other is beautiful. Their story was beautiful (until it was fucked with). The overall thing to remember is that most (if not all) who write fic aren’t doing so just for the sake of writing about mlm romance/sex, we’re doing it because we love Destiel and we want to have more stories about them in the world.”
Reading these comments, certain themes stand out. Women find the characters of Dean and Cas to be inspiring and find in their relationship personal affirmations that carry over into the lives of these women. They also find Dean and Cas to be sexy and arousing. For these reasons, women feel inspired to produce more stories about this pair beyond what was scripted for them on the T.V. show. Some of the women felt betrayed by the show, especially its conclusion that failed to make Destiel fully canonical. Women write Destiel fanfiction to give their favorite couple more stories to fuel their imaginations and deepen their attachment to these characters.
I can sympathize with these emotions. Dean and Cas inspire me as well and bring some personal affirmation to my life as a gay man. They are a couple worthy of admiration, even though they are fictional. So, what about Destiel draws my admirations?
First of all, they are actual real (gay/bi) men, in the sense that they have not been reduced to bars, sex, and hairdressers. That is, they have not been rendered into cliches. I like that much of their intimacy is conveyed through looks and touches. They are not constantly put on display as shirtless sex objects. Their significant attachment to each other is dramatized through frustration and forgiveness, through mutual aid, and grieving through separations. We believe in their relationship because it is built over time.
They are adult men, with adult issues, not insipid angsty adolescents having their first crushes and coming out. They are models for older middle-aged men, who have almost no presence in media. They are not young pretty boys chasing sex. Dean seems to have outgrown his amorous ways after Lisa. After her, it is just Cas. They are mature adult men having their own adult issues, not constantly falling into bed all the time.
Both Dean and Cas have character arcs that humanize them. Dean outgrows his manly promiscuous swagger and is allowed to shed his cocky youthful attitude and develop softer attributes as he ages. Over time, he cooks, he cries, he nurtures. Cas starts off as a warrior but comes to find his humanness through struggle and failure, and the human influence of the Winchester brothers. They both grow and overcome their own selfishness and become parents.
Another reason why I think people feel attracted to Dean and Cas is because the actors who play those roles also have a lot of affection for the fans. Jared and Jensen and Misha all exude warmth like they would be nice guys that you would want to be friends with, not stuck-up entitled celebrities. Further, they are openly supportive of LGBT+ causes. Misha runs his own charity. And they are all charming men and devoted husbands and fathers.
Women fight the Patriarchy:
Although liking and loving Dean and Cas and their story is a good place to start to find an explanation for why women write Destiel fanfiction, that was not the only explanation that some of the women offered. Some women grounded their answers in how women are treated by society and offered an explanation that stressed the experience of bias toward women. Some women felt attracted to m/m fanfiction as a remedy against feelings of disenfranchised by society, the exclusion of their interests from the media, and discrimination against women and gender-diverse people.
- “Some people are non-binary and this affects their view of gender and sexuality. Being AFAB doesn’t need to limit you. I write about all different types of characters but as a queer (enbi) person it’s wonderful to me to write from outside the narrow confines of heteronormativity. It expands my experience of the world and helps me create stories which challenge the usual view of love and life, especially the model of male-female ‘power relations’. The idea of men showing tenderness to each other is to me a challenge to everything harsh and damaging in the world, and I love to write about it.”
- “So, I think part of the issue here is my old nemesis The Patriarchy. Now, this is just my opinion, but….
“Women love horror shows, the paranormal, fantasy and sci-fi. Think about how many women are fans of Dr. Who, or Star Trek (and have been for many years) But for some reason, it’s not marketed to us. There are very few female characters and when there are some, they aren’t usually written very well.
“So, you take that and combine it with Gatekeeping, which happens when people (usually men) want to keep someone they don’t feel “fits” out of their fandom.
“Combine this with people just straight-up kink-shaming and well, the women who are reading this are going to be defensive even if it was worded differently.
“Supernatural gives us some great characters but it ALSO gives us action and violence and stories that have weight. And women like that, because they are human. But when we choose that media, we’re trying to be “one of the boys”
“The Patriarchy wants to put us into a box where we watch talk shows, and RomComs, and Hallmark TV. And there’s nothing wrong with that. But women ALSO like these other things too.”
- “I think it’s a combination of all the above. Gatekeeping by men in fandoms because they don’t want to market to women. Fanfiction being a “woman’s hobby” because it is “acceptable.” Simply because we love the characters. But I think also that is also one more thing: in Fanfiction the two characters are equals. In common romance het books, the men are always pigeonholed into rescuing the women and the women are being rescued. It’s a banal trope and a lot of people are tired of it. So, we seek out Fanfiction of two beloved characters to read something innovative and new. Stories that are full of growth, “rescuing” each other, hurt, comfort, angst, and ultimately romance.
I’m not sure that I believe that fighting the patriarchy is the actual reason why many women write m/m fanfiction. It sounds to me more like an excuse, a rationalization, a justification, but not an actual explanation. However, as a male, I’m not in any real position to doubt this as a legitimate motive for some women. I suppose I would have to judge by the actual content of the story, the way in which gender diversity is actually modifying the narrative arch, and the presentation of the characters within the work. There is a long history of works of literature and fiction written specifically for social purposes, with overt political agendas. If swapping out m/m couples for m/f couples is the only real distinction in the work, then I’m not sure that rises to the distinction of social protest or challenges to the “heteronormative” forces of patriarchal culture.
I’m wondering, based on these comments, if maybe we should be understanding women’s m/m more as empowering female modes of expression rather than challenging male forms of domination. As one commenter pointed out, women love forms of storytelling that are usually ascribed to men. Women don’t want to banish these forms but be included in them in a way that better represents them as complex women and not stereotypes of women. Another commenter emphasized allowing representations of men that encompass a wider range of emotions than the narrow masculine presentation allowed of men; to allow men access to emotional expressions that are normally restricted to women.
This argument certainly needs more consideration than I’m able to give it, but one this is sure, many of the women who commented identified me as part of the evil “patriarchy.”
On Representation and Identification:
Representation is a big issue for people who identify as belonging to underrepresented communities. In other words, not straight white men. People want characters in the stories they read and the media they watch that they can identify with. When there is so little, people create it for themselves, and the internet allows communities to form where people can share that work with each other and see images of themselves reflected in other people’s efforts.
- “Queer people have to write their own stories if we want to see ourselves represented. And, I see a whole lot of people identifying as things other than cishet in these comments. Also, Dean Winchester was setup with a lot of tropes that are usually associated with female characters, so women identifying with him in this particular fandom isn’t a huge leap. There isn’t one answer to this.
“I’m not sure that being gay or bi brings any one specific experience with it except for hardly ever seeing ourselves represented in media. I think the reason we see so much queer text in transformative works is because we have been forced to find the subtext in media we’ve consumed our whole lives, so of course, we would create textual media for ourselves. And, we are used to identifying with characters who are different than us, so it’s not hard to identify with a gay man as a pan person or something like that.“
- “Now, a lot of the reason people become inspired to write fic in the first place is because they enjoy a pairing but are unsatisfied with what they see on the screen, which is, of course, one of the reasons why so much fic is m/m – our m/f ships are represented well already. (There are less well-crafted female characters in genre TV shows to begin with so we don’t get as much to work with, leading to many less f/f ships, which is a whole separate issue of its own.) NB characters are still sadly rare, as much as I love to see them. More rep needed just in general there.”
- “I do think that this could’ve been worded completely differently, if it wasn’t trying to take apart women from gay men. It could’ve been worded as, I’m interested in doing an article focusing on gay men and fan fiction, which could have ended it without putting down women.”
I don’t need to add much to these comments, but as one of the commenters noted, women do identify with the portrayal of Dean, because (despite all his aggressive manly features) he is allowed to have a vulnerable, nurturing side to his character that attracts identification from women. Dean, in many ways, is also the idealized gay man. He is manly, handsome, charming, aggressive, can hold his liquor, and is sexually virile, while also being nurturing, knowing his way around the kitchen, and able to shed a tear. No wonder we so badly want to see him together with Castiel, his loyal friend who sacrifices everything for him.
The last comment, I attached here because it seemed to speak to an identification that women have with gay men (the present one excluded). Somehow, separating women from gay men was considered a put down to women. Interestingly, I think my question broke women’s identification with gay men in some significant way. How curious is that? I don’t know what that means. For some of the women, contrasting women and gay men was hurtful. Do some women who write m/m fanfiction have proprietary feelings of ownership over gay men (at least the compliant ones)? What does that mean? Intriguing. I would inquire, but that is just asking for trouble.
Women Get Defensive:
One of the women commenting above noted that “the women who are reading this are going to be defensive even if it was worded differently,” spotlighted something I didn’t comprehend at first. Many of the comments from women did get quite defensive:
- “Why does anyone write about any kind of love? Why do gay male writers write straight romance? Why do straight women write wlw romance? Idk if it’s your intention, but the first question is so off-putting to me. I’m a queer person and I write queer stories. Dean and Cas are my favorite pairing of all time, so I write primarily about them. I have plenty of experience with dicks and also with being queer, so I guess I don’t see how I’m less qualified than a mlm, but regardless, anyone can write about any pairing they’re passionate about.”
- “I also find the question very off-putting. I’m non-binary and queer and I write queer stories. The fact that most of them are MLM has less to do with my gender or experience and more to do with them being characters I really enjoy. Bottom line is I write it because I feel like it, and I don’t really think any other answer is necessary.”
- “AMEN!!!! I’m a bi woman … My het pairs are there because they make sense to me and I enjoy writing them. My m/m and f/f pairs are there because they make sense to me and I enjoy writing them. My unattached ace character is there because, you guessed it, THEY MAKE SENSE TO ME AND I ENJOY WRITING THEM! Can’t people just let us women (trans included, duh) and non-binary folks enjoy our reading and writing?
- “There’s also something to be said for questions like this furthering the idea that ONLY queer people who have had *that specific* queer experience can write queer romance, and that’s nuts. … We WANT everyone to write queer stories. Respectfully, yes, but mainstream means *everyone* is welcome. But mainly I’m just irritated because my own queer experiences feature in themes in my stories, but I guess because they’re two dudes that’s all invalid.”
Now as a gay man, I will never understand the depth and emotion of women who are feeling disenfranchised from their own experiences. I will have to let these women speak for themselves. Now, I understand that not all of these women identify as women in the strict cis-het-human female sense. I will have to leave it for these women to make their own gender identifications, even if it doesn’t include the word woman at all. I’m in no position to decided who belongs in what category.
One thing, I think I can say based on the defensiveness of these comments, is that some women do not want to be questions about why they like to read and write m/m and Destiel fanfiction. I think, I inadvertently triggered some defensive feelings from some of the women in the group that caused them to feel resentment toward me for implicitly asking them to justify their interest. That asking as a gay male somehow insinuated that they were doing something wrong; that they were intruding into gay men’s territory. I didn’t expect that response when I started this project, and it took me a while to catch on to those feelings.
I think this might be the same reaction that lies behind the backlash against what women call kink-shaming. Why some people get so defensive about it is because they feel like they are being judged for experiencing some guilty pleasure (like Dean and Dr. Sexy) or a shameful feeling they shouldn’t. The accusation of “kink-shaming” most likely derives from a resistance against acknowledging one’s enjoyment of some embarrassing form of entertainment that others might find objectionable. That result is that women crying out “stop kink-shaming us” is a way to save face. A lot of gay men also enjoy these same kinks, and sometimes in even more aggressive versions, many even act them out in real sexual encounters rather than just write about them as fantasy. So, yeah, people don’t like being publicly embarrassed. The anti-kink-shaming defense is a pose to protect one’s ego from judgment. After all, if kinks were publicly open and generally acceptable behavior, they wouldn’t be kinks. What makes something kinky is breaking cultural taboos.
I touched a nerve, especially by asking as an acknowledged gay man, that some women felt like they were being accused of trampling on someone else’s territory uninvited. However, m/m is a territory that was created by women for themselves, and gay men are the real interlopers there. Gay men are often confused by m/m, when they ask, why are women (especially cis het women) writing this about us?
Women Get Offended; Accusations of Misogyny:
Some women just took outright offense at me asking questions. In addition to the defensiveness, some women understood my questions in a way that sparked feelings of being excluded, shamed, and condescended to. Some were simply offended by how I asked the questions; others took the act of asking questions itself as evidence of bias. A kind of “just asking a question like that proves you are a misogynist.”
I didn’t want to be presumptuous and try to speak on behalf of women, trans-men, gender-fluid, pan, or non-binary people, since I don’t identify as any of them. But because I didn’t include them in the wording of my question, they felt excluded. I was accused of being misogynist, transphobic and bigoted.
Gay men are always complaining about being reduced to cliches, or being only viewed through a sexual lens as if being gay was the only important thing about their identities, and have to constantly remind others that there is more to them than being gay. They are people first who also happen to be gay. Judging from the comments from these women, I get the sense that they want to be reduced to a gender identity. They act as if the most important thing to them is that they are identified as non-binary, or trans, or pan, or whatever identity marker they choose as if that is the most important thing about them.
Of course, when I wrote this post, I had women in general in mind. I was not differentiating between different gender expressions. I thought the problem was the potential outing of gay male writers, so it didn’t occur to me that this would be an issue. However, this was a problem for many of the respondents. Here are some of their comments:
- “I can smell the misogyny.”
- “Do you mean to come across as talking-down-your-nose? Because that’s how this sounds.”
- “I’m sure this wasn’t your intention but this post seems awfully condescending to women. Maybe it’s the way it’s worded or perhaps I’m just reading it wrong but yikes. Why are you lumping all women in with heterosexuals? Queer women exist too. I’m just really confused about this post, I guess. What exactly is the issue?”
- “Why do women write gay fanfics? Can’t answer for everyone, but for me it’s simple. Love is love. I don’t care whether two FICTIONAL characters are male, female, gay, straight, bi or even human. If I’m inspired to write, I write and I don’t understand what my (or any author’s) gender or sexuality has to do with it…Honestly, I am a little offended by the implication that being female somehow makes the author less of a writer.”
- “As a pan woman (so an irrelevant to who you want a response from) I find this topic/question feeling along the same lines as the viewpoint women can’t write gay sex (which is VERY wrongly assuming women don’t like anal or participate in bringing their male partner pleasure in such a way). It comes across as condescending to women. Especially the one where writing in previous years as well as current day is perceived as a “woman’s hobby”.
And then there was this nasty little nugget. This one baffles me because I have no idea where it’s coming from:
- “So, I see that you’re trying to get women and non-binary folks to do emotional labor for you while questioning their right to be in the conversation because of your own prejudice? Points for trying to gussy it up by pretending that you’re asking honest questions, but most folks here are smart enough to know when you’re selling them chicken shit but calling it chicken salad.”
This all was eye-opening. I hadn’t really thought about how some people might consider “woman” to be an exclusionary category because several respondents understood this term to leave out women who do not identify as “cis heterosexual human female.” I hadn’t expected that response and stumbled into it blindly.
In asking my questions, I had juxtaposed gay men against women as a matter of convenience. It makes me wonder if bring up women in the context of men triggered that response; an implicit assumption that I considered one superior to the other? This I cannot know.
I get the sense that many of these women have experienced their writing and interests devalued by men, and for many of them this was a gut-level reaction. But it might not be; there might be more going on here than I’m comprehending. Of course, it was never my intention to question the value of their writing or their interests in the subject as invalid or meaningless.
I’m surmising, wrongful or not, that the gender politics of our times and people’s sensitivities about recognition and inclusion got in the way of some respondents being able to take my questions seriously. Because, for some of them, taking the questions seriously, could imply that women were engaging in some kind of wrongdoing against gay men by writing m/m. Thus, triggering a (probably unconscious) need to push back against the intrusive gay man who is asking bothersome questions, or as the last comment put it “questioning their right to be in the conversation.”
Emotional Labor:
Let me return to that last nasty comment for a moment. There is one thing she said that struck me as significant: “I see that you’re trying to get women and non-binary folks to do emotional labor for you while questioning their right to be in the conversation.” It’s that “emotional labor” that struck me. Now, I don’t know exactly what she meant by that, but it certainly gives me the sense that she thinks I’m trying to steal something from her without giving her due credit. A kind of emotional plagiarism. That I wouldn’t work out my own thoughts and feelings on a subject, but lift them from others in some kind of soul theft.
I was going to say more, but don’t really want to. Suffice it to say, this comment strikes me as a projection of her own personal insecurities. I’ll leave it at that.
[I’m inserting this comment several months after writing the original post because I just learned that “emotional labor” is an actual Woke concept that I didn’t realize at the time. Apparently, “emotional labor” means something like being forced to display some emotions and suppress other emotions for the purpose of inhabiting and performing an oppressed minority identity, such as being a “woman,” or a trans person, or some minority gender. “Labor” that oppressed people are unjustly expected to “perform” but goes uncompensated. These ongoing “performances” take an emotional toll on oppressed people who must perform them to function in a heteronormative, homophobic, and transphobic society. This “emotional labor” is a form of exploitation by heterosexual men who require “women” and trans people to perform and should be considered at least a microaggression, and something that oppressed people should receive some kind of payment for. A payment to “women” and trans people for having to act out the roles of oppression for the benefit of dominant and privileged men (including gay men like myself) because it forces them to relive on a daily basis the trauma of oppressive misogyny and transphobia. Further, “emotional labor” also refers to having to talk about being a member of any minority group, say a woman, and having to womanplain the evils of misogyny to privileged gay men like me. So, maybe I should send her some money for the labor she spent in writing this comment to compensate her for having to relive the trauma of being a woman? Well, at least her comment makes a little more sense to me now].
The Second and the Third Question:
My second and third questions didn’t provoke the same ire and consequently didn’t get as much feedback. The women did bring up some issues that I didn’t inquire about. However, I think many of the women probably implicitly attributed attitudes to me that I actually don’t hold.
Do Women make Gay Men into a Fetish?:
This is another subject that women are defensive about. I didn’t ask about this; they brought it up. I’m guessing the same women who took so much offensive, probably also attributed this opinion to me, and thought I believed that m/m written by women was a fetish.
- “I am a queer, cis woman that has been writing Fanfiction since 2004….I think the assumption that women are fetishizing gay ships is just not accurate. While it DOES happen, I don’t think it’s the majority, not like the straight men “fetishizing” lesbian porn in the porn industry.
“I also think it’s unfair to think women are making gay fanfic a fetish when most fanfic writers spend a significant amount of time and energy creating fanwork and fanart and I feel like writing it off as a fetish is very invalidating of the talent, passion, and drive put into creating.”
I don’t know what constitutes a fetish in fanfiction. This seems to me it would be a matter of opinion. The dictionary defines a fetish as:
- “A form of sexual desire in which gratification is linked to an abnormal degree to a particular object, item of clothing, part of the body, etc.”
- “An object or bodily part whose real or fantasied presence is psychologically necessary for sexual gratification and that is an object of fixation to the extent that it may interfere with complete sexual expression”
So, some of the explicitly sexualized works by women could be categorized as a fetish. There are quite a few of these stories among Destiel fanfiction, but not all works get that specific. I suspect that only women could answer that for themselves since to fetishize sometimes is to turn it into something sexually arousing. As a gay man, I usually don’t get aroused by gay sex scenes. I tend to find them gross or absurd, or, in many cases, degrading. I don’t know by what standard I would judge a women’s response to other women writing about gay sex. My sense is that whatever women find arousing about Dean and Cas having gay sex probably doesn’t have a lot to do with the actual sex act itself. I don’t know.
The charge of women fetishizing gay men is most likely leveled at women by men who are uncomfortable with their work. It’s an easy, but mostly meaningless attack, that tries to belittle women for having sexual feelings that are not focused on straight men, men who forget that m/m is women talking to other women.
I should add, when it comes to fetishizing sex, gay men are among the worst offenders. So many gay men (and it’s one of the things about gay men that so disheartens me) want to turn everything into something sexualized. Everything is an occasion for a crude pun or a vulgar remark about their sexual prowess or their penis size. Gay men are constantly (they are still men after all, with all the testosterone that come with the testis) fetishizing intimate behavior, reducing other men to sexual conquests, judging each other by shallow categories (often named after animals), devaluing each other and degrading their peers into sexualized objects.
Men (not) Writing Fanfiction:
Fanfiction, especially romantic m/m like Destiel, is a women’s genre. Very few men write fanfiction, and the ones that do are usually gay (or trans-men). Women have their explanations for why this is the case. I’m not going to dump on them. Men have things that they like to write about, especially involving guns and cars. You would think the Winchester brothers would be a ripe field for men to explore their masculine fantasies, but apparently not. Writing has been a male-dominated domain for centuries, but not this one.
- “Why are there so many women *compared to men* writing m/m fic? The answer here is quite simple, I believe, that a lot of men were never encouraged to write as it was not seen as a “masculine” hobby because it doesn’t involve grunting or mud. Yup, that’s utter bullshit. Yup, anyone can write. But nonetheless, it remains a pervasive attitude, particularly among middle-aged men. Even more generally, it’s considered “feminine” to be passionate about things. Is it? Of course, it’s not, that’s the most needlessly gendered thing in existence, but these are unfortunately ideas that people hold in society and they ARE a barrier to a lot of men feeling comfortable picking up these sorts of hobbies. There’s also the idea, following on from that, that the concept of “fandom” itself is stereotyped as “the shrieking twilight fangirl.” There are so many reasons why men may be afraid to join these spaces in the first place. So of course, there will be more women writing gay fic. Who else is going to?”
- “So, the thing I’m curious about myself. If you pick up a book in a book store, there’s just as much chance it was written by a man or a woman. The POV of the character or their love interest is not dictated by the sex/gender of the author. I guess my question to YOU is – what in your mind is making fic somehow different to that?”
- “I do have a question for you – if you think women fetishize mlm fanfic… does that change how you write your fic? Do you write and cater to what you think women want, since they’re mostly the audience that will read your work?”
Two of the commenters posed questions for me in return. So, I should attempt to answer them. Certainly, any writer (male or female) can write their books from the point of view of a male or female character. I don’t dispute that. I have written, in the past, an occasional story from the point of view of a woman. However, I think this misses the question I was trying to ask. Essentially, I wanted to know, do women writers handle gay stories in a way that is different from how a gay man would write a gay story. Does the gender and sexuality of the author matter? Judging from some of the responses I got, I think many of the women would answer, there are no meaningful differences, the gender of the author is irrelevant to character development or plot structure of the story. The interests and sensibilities of women are more than adequate to convey the complexities of the lives of gay men. It’s not important to the story. Women don’t need to be gay men to understand them or write meaningfully about them.
While some women write quite well about gay men; other women don’t. I don’t actually agree with this position. It assumes that there are no meaningful differences between gay men and women. That gay men are basically women with dicks. That being gay puts gay men in the sphere of women, rather than still remaining men. If that were the case, there would be no point of gay men writing about their own lives or creating their own representations. Women could just handle that for them.
I’m not suggesting that women should never write about gay men or men in general. Men have been writing about women for centuries, sometimes with insight, and often times with misogynistic impulses. Women complain that men don’t understand them, which I’m pretty sure is true. And it’s also true in the reverse direction.
The second question is meant to be a “got ya” question. The premise being, if I think women fetishize gay men in their writing then I must do the same thing when I write m/m fanfiction since the audience for this work is women. I have to shape my work to appeal to an audience that fetishizes gay men thereby proving that I’m a hypocrite and a misogynist. But as I said before, I don’t think my attempts at fanfiction have an audience among women. I’m disappointed by that, but that seems to be the case. I started writing a story that interested me, but it got very few readers. They might read the first chapter or two, but don’t continue on. Maybe that was part of the reason why I was looking for gay male writers in the first place. There are so few gay men writing Supernatural fanfiction (at least publicly acknowledged ones). I only came up with about a dozen writers in comparison to the thousands of women that write and contribute fanfiction to AO3. I will try to finish the fanfiction I started. It’s important to finish, but I don’t think I will continue to write in that genre. It never really was m/m to start with despite featuring Dean and Castiel as a potential gay couple.
Gay Men’s Fanfiction vs. Women’s:
On the third question, many made it clear that they make no distinction between women’s and gay men’s writing.
- “On the whole, I pay next to no attention to the gender or sexuality of the writers that I like. In most cases, I don’t know, and I don’t think it matters when it comes to output. Any decent author of any genre does some research about things that they haven’t personally experienced, so I think everyone can come at fanfic – explicit or not – from a position of intelligence and care.”
- “The fact that the ship happens to be two males is entirely irrelevant to most of us I would say. We love the individual characters. Gay, Bi, Ace, Pan, or whatever. You’re missing the point of the group. Our fiction isn’t really trope centered; its character driven.”
This one I’m going to take some exception to. These comments seem to insist that the differences between how a woman would handle m/m and how gay men would write about themselves is insignificant. A kind of “you can’t judge me for writing m/m because it makes no difference who writes it.” Doing your “research” is all you need. There is nothing unique about being gay that women writers can’t handle.
I think it’s ironic that when it comes to women’s gender identities, a facet they claim to be so central and determinative of their work, is not granted to the work of gay men. When it comes to gay men’s writing, it really doesn’t matter that much, so that women are just as capable of expressing the concerns and emotions of gay men as actual gay men are. When it comes to gay men’s gender/sexuality it’s irrelevant. This position makes total sense if we consider that women completely dominate the realm of m/m and gay-themed fanfiction. If they didn’t feel this way, they would have no rational reason for writing m/m or no reason to see their work as a form of gender imperialism as they would see men writing about women.
This is also problematic when it comes to the issue of “representation.” Should we consider representations of the lives of gay men as an adequate representation if it’s done by women? I’m actually of the opinion that it does matter who is writing, but this is m/m and m/m is a women’s domain. We shouldn’t consider m/m a representation of gay men’s lives, but rather a projection of women’s fantasies. Gay men should look elsewhere for their representations.
In a companion blog to this one, I searched out gay men who write Destiel and Supernatural fanfiction. You can read their work and see how they handled writing gay-themed fanfiction as gay men.
The Third Post:
Me being persistent, I wasn’t ready to give up yet. So, I wrote a third longer post. I will admit, at this point, after being accused of being a misogynist, there was an element of passive-aggressive trolling in my last post. I did, however, try to handle it with sincerity and open-mindedness. I did, however, lay it on a bit thick. Oh boy, did it set off a shitstorm. Here is the post that got me banned from the Facebook group:
Several days ago, I asked some questions about fanfiction that evoked a lot of anger from members of this group. The administrators shut down comments on the feed before I was able to comment. I posted an independent comment, but the administrators seem to have removed that one, since I don’t see it anywhere. So, this will be my last comment. Hopefully, the administrators will leave it long enough for me to see the comments. Many members of this group have made it clear that I’m not welcome here. I am a bit disappointed, but it is what it is. Once I finish my blog, I will post it for anyone who wants to see it. Then I will leave the group.
As far as people’s responses go, it seems to me that most of the anger people expressed was over how I asked my question (and people feeling resentful or feeling defensive over having to justify their interest in writing Destiel/Supernatural fanfiction.) I had not anticipated that response. Several respondents accused me of being a misogynist and transphobic. I think the (correct me if I am wrong) problem is that I asked what “women” thought, not realizing that “women” was now considered a biased and prejudiced term that made many people feel excluded from the question I asked because I didn’t make clear that those persons who also identify as trans-women, non-binary, gender-fluid, pansexual, asexual, bi-sexual, intersexed, and so forth, were also welcome to also contribute their opinions (honestly, I didn’t think to do so, I simply, thoughtlessly, defaulted to “women” as a general term.)
And yes, there is also the issue of trans-men that I have not touched on here. I don’t know if I should or should not include trans-men under the category of “gay men” or not. That seems dicey considering the responses I got over the issue of women.
I was doing some research on inclusive terms and found an article that lists 58 different genders. I did not realize there were so many now. I am a gay man in my 50’s and have not been following the gender debates. I have long since settled on “gay male” (as opposed to “man”) as my sexuality/gender marker. The idea of “man,” I never felt particularly attached to. If I was thirty years younger, I could use non-binary to apply to myself, but that would seem like a presumptuous thing to do now that I am in my 50s. Did You Know There Are 58 Gender Options?
Now that I am once again on the subject, could I ask for some more help? I was searching for an inclusive term for those people who inhabit the sphere of human femaleness in all of its dimensions of sexuality and gender. That was a very awkward way of saying that. Here are some terms I discovered:
Womxn: This term was originally coined with the purpose of excluding “men” from the word “women,” but is considered today as having the effect of excluding trans and non-binary people.
Womyn: Is consider more inclusive but is also sometimes used as an anti-trans term by TERFs. I had to look up what TERF meant. So that is what all the anger at J. K. Rowlings is about.
Wombyn: Focuses on the womb, but is considered exclusionary of trans-women and cis women who can’t get pregnant.
I also discovered the term AFAB (assigned female at birth). This usage seems cold and clinical, and I dislike it, but perhaps would this be people’s preferred term? Should I use AFAB who write Destiel and Supernatural fanfiction in my blog post instead of “women”? Other suggestions?
As I said, once I post my blog, (for those who are interested). I will leave the group and you won’t have to hear from me again. Unless you want me to go now. Let me know.
The administrator of the group let me know quickly, they wanted me to leave now, and I was banned from the group within thirty minutes of this post. Before I was banned, I did manage to get one comment onto the feed addressing a trans-man accusing me of being transphobic. I wrote:
“I have tried being polite, but honestly, I am getting the sense that my curiosity about reading fanfiction writing by gay men is considered out of bounds, and it is considered offensive to consider the writings of gay males as distinct from trans-male writing or assigned female at birth fanfiction writing. That feels offensive to me as a gay man since it basically insists that I have to be excluded from the writing of my peers because you as a trans-man don’t like it. Sorry to offend.”
I shouldn’t have let him get under my skin. I lost my cool and lashed out the way I did. And with that, boom, I was banned.
I get the sense that all the “women” rallied around each other to expel the gay male interloper from their m/m fantasy domain. Ironically, my complaint about exclusion got me ejected from the group, while all the fuming about exclusion and bias from the “women” was perfectly acceptable.
Inappropriate and Banned!
Before I was booted from the group, I did manage to see a few of the initial comments on this last post. I didn’t get a chance to make copies of them. Responses were still coming in, so most of them I didn’t see. It happened so fast.
One comment I did see was from the administrator who wrote that my post was inappropriate. They didn’t elaborate. This raised the question in my mind: why was it inappropriate? I have tried to be restrained in my comments so far, but now I’m going to be a bit immature. I’m going out on a limb here and suggesting that my post was too serious for a group that was largely frivolous. I interjected seriousness into a space that was intended for levity and fun. I disturbed the silliness of the women’s chatter. This is what made it inappropriate. Here are some examples of common posts that erupt in these groups. Women being Destiel fangirls.
- I’m having such a hard time today. I need a story with lots of angst and a happy ending.
- Such great far art. I need this in my life!
- That sounds so good. I would totally read that!
- Dean and Cas are so hot together. I’m dead!
In addition to all the fangirling, the women cover the feed of the group with fan art (some of it quite good) most of it is sexually suggestive. There are many images of Dean and Cas kissing in romantic embraces and posed in sexual positions, and numerous video clips from the show captioned with sexually suggestive subtitles. They litter the feed with emojis, memes, and emoticons expressing the women’s sexual arousal.
They also swap favorite stories and share AO3 links, with the women calling for recommendations for specific plots, kinks, and levels of angst and smut, as well as, suggesting prompts for stories they want to read and encouraging each other to write.
So, I was to serious and inappropriate.
Afterward:
After all this went down, someone from the group private messaged me with some kind, supportive words, and sent me this link to ponder: the paradox of tolerance. Keeping with the policy of anonymity, I have only identified this person as Her. Here is an excerpt from our chat:
Her: I’m so sorry you got so much pushback. Young people are so reactionary it’s really heartbreaking.
Me: Thank you. I seem to be banned from the room now. So, I did not get a chance to see most of the comments.
Her: Trust me they’re not worth reading. But I would provide you with screenshots if you want. I don’t get why these people got so heated over this. I felt like you were asking straightforward questions which didn’t have any implicit bias one way or the other. You were trying to educate yourself and they were just looking at keywords and taking offense. I read somewhere that in a culture of tolerance (70s) will ultimately lead to intolerance. I think, sadly, that’s where we are now.
….
Me: I was quite upset a while ago. Now I am writing a blog post I did not expect to write to get my thoughts together.
Her: Sounds like excellent therapy.
Me: I don’t know, seems like no matter how even-handed I try to be people still get pissed off.
Her: I weep for people who are so intolerant. Trust me. It’s them, it’s not you. I don’t think there is any way you could have asked your question where nobody would have been offended. And yet it was a valid question.
Me: Honestly, I was struggling to understand what caused the offensive. I still don’t know.
Her: Perceived slights. The reader was internalizing their own insecurities over feelings of exclusion. And lashing out. It has nothing to do with logic. Which is why it’s impossible to have a reasonable conversation about it.
Her: Personally, I’ve noticed a huge difference between male and female writers of m/m fanfic. And I have wondered the same thing as you. I don’t care what people’s gender identity is. If you were born and raised as female, you have a certain way of understanding and writing gay male characters. Different from people born male. It’s just the way it is. I don’t care how offended they get, it’s just the bottom-line truth.
Me: I was hoping to identify some of those things. The resistance surprised me.
Her: It’s the intolerance of the perception that they are being treated differently than other males. I’m not surprised. I’ve been seeing this intolerance for years now.
Me: I wanted to be fair and ask people who wrote fanfiction what they thought. Now that seems the wrong strategy.
Her: Basically, the way they came at you is why I’ve never brought this up myself because I’ve wondered the same thing.
Her: If you really want to study this probably the way to go is to approach individuals who are reasonable and get their opinion. The other possibility is to join this other Destiel group that’s more tolerant. Let me find the name…
She provided me with a link to another group that she assured me is more mature and less likely to be offended. So, I joined a new Destiel Facebook group. I have to thank this person for their time and concern. They helped me calm down when I was actually quite upset.
There is one other person I should thank. I actually had a defender in the room. It was kind of neat (do people say “neat” anymore?).
“Okay, I really don’t want to be the ass kisser here LOL, but really hoping that you guys can all appreciate that instead of the OP making snap judgments and remaining uninformed, he reached out and asked a question in order to learn and understand where people are coming from. The entire foundation that bigotry stems from is ignorance that refuses to seek knowledge. This man is trying to seek knowledge. If everyone could do this instead of deciding that this is supposed to be this way and that is supposed to be that way; if everyone chose to reach out and seek to learn, we’d all be a whole lot better off. And to the OP, I’m sorry I can’t give you any insight further than to say that I’m just a Pan woman who freaking loves Destiel because who the hell doesn’t? Lol. I really hope you find the information here that you’re looking for.”
Thanks, that was neat. 😊
I think Destiel is pretty amazing too. I have never taken any interest in fanfiction before. I always thought Harry Potter, or Twilight, or StarTrek fanfiction was kind of dumb. I have a college degree in English literature, and I’m generally a bit of a snob about what I read. Nevertheless, I liked Destiel and enjoyed reading people’s fanfiction about them, even if it gets a bit strange at times (I’m referring to all that A/B/O stuff, but like Dean’s “Dr. Sexy,” it might be a guilty pleasure for me, even if sometimes, as a gay man, it can be rather alarming! But I do love a pregnant Omega Dean). Destiel tempted the literary critic in me who wanted to investigate further.
What conclusions can I come to about this experience with women writers of Destiel?
- Like it or not, Destiel and Supernatural fanfiction is a woman’s thing. It might very well be a “woman’s hobby.” They own this space. Gay guys, if you are looking for “representation,” this is not for you.
- Women don’t like to be asked about why they like and write gay-themed and sexually explicit stories about these male characters from a TV show. They get all defensive.
- When it comes to gender, women get very anxious about the potential of being excluded or slighted. Especially in a space that they consider to be inclusive. The perception of bias will get you tossed out.
- It’s a crush; it has to be. It’s why women get so excited about Dean Winchester and his angel Castiel. And I can totally understand having a celebrity crush on Jensen Ackles (we have the same birthday) and being all fangirl about him.
Destiel is fantasy. Enjoy the fantasy.
Update: One Week Later:
Well now, I have been banned from that second room I joined. Oddly, this is the comment that I was banned for:
“Misha is a lion/dragon (Leo born in the year of the Dragon) and Jensen is a horsey/fish (Pisces born in the year of the Horse). Seems like there should be a shape-shifting fantasy story in there somewhere. Can a fire-breathing lion-dragon love an ocean-dwelling horsey-fish? Happy Birthday, Misha.”
Being banned over that seems rather random, but here is what I think happened. This is my speculation. The administrator from the first room was also a member of the second room so when I joined and posted. They left a nasty comment insinuating I was transphobic. I didn’t save that first comment so I can’t quote it here, but I had posted a link to my project as it then stood (I have since rewritten it), and the comment seemed non-controversial, but nevertheless, I removed my post (which also removed the comments attached to it) because I didn’t what to get into an argument.
It was my second comment (I only left three comments in the room before being banned) was probably the one that got me in trouble. My project wasn’t going well. Women were resistant to it and the gay/bi men were reluctant to participate. Out of frustration, I asked for help and wrote this.
“I’m saddened by this, but my project has fallen afoul of political correctness and intolerant Woke culture. Some of the writers on my list have indicated that they do not wish to be included, and I have removed their links. Some that I contacted have not returned my messages. Others I don’t have contact information for. If anyone knows the following writers, could you contact them and ask if they also want their links removed? [list of author pseudonyms] Thanks. If I only end up with a handful of entries, at least I will know that all consented.”
The first administrator also left a comment on this post. I didn’t see what the comment said. I got the notification of the comment but was busy and didn’t come to read it until later. When I returned, the administrator of the second room had removed my post and the comments on it.
My guess is that either the administrator of the second room didn’t want to mess with us getting into an argument, although I never answered what struck me as a bullying attempt from the first administrator. Or the second administrator is a proponent of what I called “political correctness and intolerant Woke culture,” so when I returned with my silly comment on Misha’s birthday, the administrator shut me down and kicked me out.
[I found out from another member of the group, that, as expected, it was me who was removed, but the other administrator who was harassing me was allowed to stay. They both were women, if that means anything.]
One thing that struck me, that I hadn’t considered until now, is that there is a deep suspicion and distrust among fanfiction writers (particularly among women) of people like me asking questions. They immediately interpreted my intentions as hostile and trolling (if you recall the misogyny accusations, the defensive comment from women above, and the bullying behavior of the first administrator as examples). My thought is that these women have experienced ridicule and dismissals, the gay and transmen too, so I never really had a chance with them. They wanted their space to be closed to open inquiry and remain a place of silly indulgence. I suppose I shouldn’t criticize them too much. This is their “safe space” and they wanted it safe from the likes of me as well. I also suspect the gay/bi men I was asking about were reluctant because they too have embraced Woke culture (and its “intolerance of intolerance” — which I was deemed “intolerant”) and because they probably didn’t want to run afoul of the women who, yes, dominate this genre and make the rules by which even the gay men have to abide by when telling their own gay-themed fanfiction to represent themselves. They also did not want to be attacked either, so they kept quiet.
That sucks.
Sign-up to my newsletter to receive updates and announcements from me about new stories and events by clicking on the subscribe button.
c. e. hammock 