Homophobia, Misogyny and Bias in Culture and Fandom
You know what? I love fandom a lot. It's given me so many things--friendships, delight, Story and story and stories until I'm positively surfeited, meta and analysis and exegesis, a wider sensitivity to issues that I never would have even thought of had I been left to my own self-centered devices, and probably a dozen more things that I can't even think of because I'm only on my second cup of coffee this morning.
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But look. Can you lay off announcing your posts with things like "It's time for some [schoolname]faggotry"? And stop talking about one character going to sex another up as "rape" (or "raep" as some would have it)? And maybe lay off calling everything "gay" or "ghei" (written_in_blue)?
This has been a huge problem in culture and especially in the fandom/gaming community. Not too long ago, Brian and I had to kick a couple guys from a group in an online game for saying repeatedly that they wanted to go rape an instance. To make matter worse, we could not get them to understand why that phrase was totally unacceptable. After a long, fruitless debate, we just added the individuals to our ignore lists.
Once, when I was playing a female toon, a player mock raped me after defeating me in PVP. He sent me tells filled with graphic and violent imagery, and when I reported him to the GMs, his guild attacked me, each sending me similar lurid tells.
Fanfiction has become infected with these images to the point where I am not sure where to go to find my fanfic anymore.
The blame for this comes down to people like me tolerating this sort of hate speech in our causal acquaintances and friends for too long. Something we never would have done if people where saying, that is so "N-word," or "Let's linch X."
I hate to be PC, and I am not saying that we fight for an absolute ban on the use of "That's so gay," even though I think we have to crack down on it, and stop the use the word rape in any way that could ever be perceived as positive.
On P:SI #249 “OMG A White Namic,” I used the phrase, "That is so Gay," about a pink pedal powered tank that fires hot dogs (DV!CE), because it is. As a gay man, I have to say, that is the gayest thing I have ever seen, but I would never use the phrase to mean something was bad.
Other than turning it around on people, it is helpful to use the word or phrase in a correct way.
It is time for us to get past the hate and get back to what fans do best. Celebrate the things we love.