Hey, very cool that you were writing "slash" back in the day.
Well, I think the dividing line between genders is more fluid than generally supposed, but that doesn't mean I don't think there are any differences. Seems to me, it's more accurate to talk about a spectrum of response rather than the dichotomy we're led to believe in our society, you know the men are from Mars, women from Venus sort of thing, but I agree with you that there are differences. When I first got into writing slash I had the notion that I wanted to do it right and have my characters be men who liked men, rather than women with penises. So I read a lot of gay porn written by men (in the interest of research you understand), in addition to reading women-authored slash. Taken as a whole, I found that sex written by men tends to be more aggressive, more about the power play in the relationship and more focussed on the sex act itself, the physicality of it and the sensations the characters derive. It's more likely to go into detailed description of genitals and the act itself, and also more likely to treat the encounter humorously. Women tend to focus on the romance, the relationship, the long drawn-out encounter, teasing conversation, impediments preventing the couple from getting together culminating at the end with a permanent relationship. Not always, I'm generalizing here, certainly I've read romantic encounters written by men and hot pwps written by women. But I think the differences make sense given what we know about male and female sexual response. A male slasher friend characterized sexual encounters written by men as "spicy" and by women as "sweet," which seems fairly accurate. However, I also found that in many stories written by men, at the end, after all the hot meaningless encounters, the story WAS about finding someone the main character really cared about, someone who was not only hot in bed, but also someone he could love as a companion. Finding love seemed to be the same end goal for both sexes.
Do you think those observations are accurate or do you have a different take?
As I said, I made several good friends among male slash-writers who betaed my stories, and on a couple of occasions called me on it if my men weren't acting like men. It was rare actually that they thought I'd gotten it wrong. You mentioned that you would be unlikely to talk about men with a woman friend in the same way as a male friend, and I understand what you're saying. But I remember the night that a gay friend and I spent pretending that we were in a bar oogling and commenting on the attractiveness of various actors who we imagined had walked into the bar. We had a blast and laughed a lot together. I can't imagine doing something similar with a straight male friend.
As far as your question about whether there are any straight men who've written slash, I know of two mostly straight men who enjoy writing and reading slash. The operative word here being "mostly."
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regna
(no subject)
Date: 2010-07-20 05:38 am (UTC)Well, I think the dividing line between genders is more fluid than generally supposed, but that doesn't mean I don't think there are any differences. Seems to me, it's more accurate to talk about a spectrum of response rather than the dichotomy we're led to believe in our society, you know the men are from Mars, women from Venus sort of thing, but I agree with you that there are differences. When I first got into writing slash I had the notion that I wanted to do it right and have my characters be men who liked men, rather than women with penises. So I read a lot of gay porn written by men (in the interest of research you understand), in addition to reading women-authored slash. Taken as a whole, I found that sex written by men tends to be more aggressive, more about the power play in the relationship and more focussed on the sex act itself, the physicality of it and the sensations the characters derive. It's more likely to go into detailed description of genitals and the act itself, and also more likely to treat the encounter humorously. Women tend to focus on the romance, the relationship, the long drawn-out encounter, teasing conversation, impediments preventing the couple from getting together culminating at the end with a permanent relationship. Not always, I'm generalizing here, certainly I've read romantic encounters written by men and hot pwps written by women. But I think the differences make sense given what we know about male and female sexual response. A male slasher friend characterized sexual encounters written by men as "spicy" and by women as "sweet," which seems fairly accurate. However, I also found that in many stories written by men, at the end, after all the hot meaningless encounters, the story WAS about finding someone the main character really cared about, someone who was not only hot in bed, but also someone he could love as a companion. Finding love seemed to be the same end goal for both sexes.
Do you think those observations are accurate or do you have a different take?
As I said, I made several good friends among male slash-writers who betaed my stories, and on a couple of occasions called me on it if my men weren't acting like men. It was rare actually that they thought I'd gotten it wrong. You mentioned that you would be unlikely to talk about men with a woman friend in the same way as a male friend, and I understand what you're saying. But I remember the night that a gay friend and I spent pretending that we were in a bar oogling and commenting on the attractiveness of various actors who we imagined had walked into the bar. We had a blast and laughed a lot together. I can't imagine doing something similar with a straight male friend.
As far as your question about whether there are any straight men who've written slash, I know of two mostly straight men who enjoy writing and reading slash. The operative word here being "mostly."