Neil said:
It's a comparison I've drawn in the past, and I think it's a very valid
one.
(Well, I would, wouldn't I, having drawn it myself?) Whilst obviously
never
having been privy to real life lesbian relationships, I wouldn't mind betting that the male-oriented porn bears precious little comparison to
the
reality.
Ummm, name an orientation or a paraphilia..porn bears precious little comparison to its reality.
Pseudo-lesbian porn, made by men for a male audience, exists to do more
than
merely titillate. It serves to distort, corrupt, contain, ridicule and ultimately deny the reality of the single biggest challenge to patriarchal hegemony.
Perhaps I'm being too modest, but I think you're overstating here.
Lesbianism threatens a fundamental axiom of patriarchal ideology, the dependence of women on men,
No matter how satisfactory a woman's relationship is with another woman, she still has to pay taxes and operate in a largely male-controlled workaday world. Rather, I'd say that lesbianism is no more or less valuable than any other situation--I hope the world will progress toward making it easier for each individual to find expression in many realms, including but not limited to the emotional and sexual.
and the pornographic depiction of lesbianism deliberately seeks to subvert that threat by reconstructing it within ideologically permissible limits. Homophobic? Not as such.
Heterosexist?
Yes, very. Oppressive? Definitely.
Naah, I think that most consumers aren't naive enough to mix up a particular entertainment genre with reality. They don't think that they're seeing something accurate about lesbian lives, they're watching some good-looking women have sex together without intervention of (from the heterosexual male spectator's viewpoint) males who are Not Wanted on Voyage.
Slash differs from male-oriented porn in that it does not serve the interests of the prevailing ideology. Quite the reverse, since it challenges the presumed heterosexual norm on which that ideology is
founded.
Furthermore, it roots that challenge within fictional characters who intentionally or otherwise were initially created as representations of
that
ideological norm. This is nothing less than subversive. Slash is
political
dynamite, and my single biggest reservation about it is the cavalier way
in
which its afficionados tend to handle explosives.
It's not like peasants used to clear minefields (see below)--the magazines are re-usable, not to mention the other equipment.
But just as m-o porn seizes control of female sexuality (straight or otherwise) for re-representation in the ideological interests of its consumers, so slash does likewise with male sexuality. Both are exercises in the creation of sexual myths with the end purpose of obscuring rather than revealing sexual truths. Both are intensely politicised, yet draw short of acknowledging their political dimension (more true for m-o porn than slash, which as has been pointed out can extend beyond the purely pornographic - as and when the writer chooses to do so).
Is slash homophobic? No, I don't think so. The reconstruction of homosexual reality (which, as Shane has asserted time and again, is only tenuously related at best to slash) to suit the preferences of the target audience does not represent a phobic attitude towards homosexuality per
se.
Is it heterosexist? If it were written and read solely by straight women, then I might be inclined to say yes, but this is clearly not so. Oppressive? It seems to me we have one marginalised faction of society
(ie;
women, specifically white, western, largely middle class women, not half
as
marginalised as some) using a smaller and even more marginalised faction (gay men) as a means of deconstructing the myths imposed upon them by a heterosexual and heterosexist patriarchy. Not oppressive as such, perhaps, but the first analogy that springs to mind is the old Red Army practice of using peasants to clear German minefields.
"Lighten up while you still can, Don't even try to understand, Just find a place to make your stand, And take it easy."
-(Y)