Oh, I'm glad you linked me to this, it's fascinating, and probably may well be a guide to my thinking about what interests me in het.
I totally feel for you in terms of the lj meta context, where the talk is about slash, and that feels like the norm. Using it as an opportunity to look at where a het-fancier's 'yes, buts' come in, is a great way of going about it, and doing so without being defensive but more about how you've got to where you are is completely to be commended, because it's helpful.
I take on board your point bout reading about strong and intereting women (though what I have to figure out is why I prefer to read about some women over others, is i self-identification or more complicated?) The colour-blindness metaphor, or rather the point that it lead to about being able to see slashy undertones, but nt feeling them, is true to my experience.
I'm riveted to the intellectual and political challenge of how, given all our cultural baggage, bulging with centuries worth of expectations for how 'men' and 'women' are supposed to behave, men and women actually create and maintain meaningful and mutually satisfying relationships, now or in any time. I'm not sure that this is entirely it, for me, my interest is in particular men and women, and how they make it work.
Perhaps then, the fact that the more general philosophical question that interests you isn't at the core of my reading, or not so consciously, anyway, because I prefer stories where characters make it work that does look at the interior, the emotional and psychological aspects of that, that makes me say that. So I don't knowingly look out for it, or don't see the sites of conflict in this light, because it seemed to me, in reading your description about the working out that is part of a m/f ship (with the added view of gender expectations) that would be something that would happen in longer fics and established relationship fics. I tend to see fandom as providing shorter first time fics, though that may be because I read unconventional ships which have different story needs? Or maybe we're just reading different? But I do agree with you about the problematic resolutions of the more forgettable/frustrating fic - especially when it seems to jettison what we know about characters.
What you're saying about LFN (I haven't watched it) as a mainly het fandom is interesting - Dark Angel too has very little slash, though there was space in the canon for femslash, at least.
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I totally feel for you in terms of the lj meta context, where the talk is about slash, and that feels like the norm. Using it as an opportunity to look at where a het-fancier's 'yes, buts' come in, is a great way of going about it, and doing so without being defensive but more about how you've got to where you are is completely to be commended, because it's helpful.
I take on board your point bout reading about strong and intereting women (though what I have to figure out is why I prefer to read about some women over others, is i self-identification or more complicated?) The colour-blindness metaphor, or rather the point that it lead to about being able to see slashy undertones, but nt feeling them, is true to my experience.
I'm riveted to the intellectual and political challenge of how, given all our cultural baggage, bulging with centuries worth of expectations for how 'men' and 'women' are supposed to behave, men and women actually create and maintain meaningful and mutually satisfying relationships, now or in any time. I'm not sure that this is entirely it, for me, my interest is in particular men and women, and how they make it work.
Perhaps then, the fact that the more general philosophical question that interests you isn't at the core of my reading, or not so consciously, anyway, because I prefer stories where characters make it work that does look at the interior, the emotional and psychological aspects of that, that makes me say that. So I don't knowingly look out for it, or don't see the sites of conflict in this light, because it seemed to me, in reading your description about the working out that is part of a m/f ship (with the added view of gender expectations) that would be something that would happen in longer fics and established relationship fics. I tend to see fandom as providing shorter first time fics, though that may be because I read unconventional ships which have different story needs? Or maybe we're just reading different? But I do agree with you about the problematic resolutions of the more forgettable/frustrating fic - especially when it seems to jettison what we know about characters.
What you're saying about LFN (I haven't watched it) as a mainly het fandom is interesting - Dark Angel too has very little slash, though there was space in the canon for femslash, at least.