Nippon 2007: Yaoi v. Slash

[kate_nepveu]

Description:

"Simultaneous rise of the culture by Female around the world--it is Yaoi and Slash Fiction. This program gets . . . the program participants [to] approach the attractiveness and mystery of Yaoi / Slash Fiction through the comparison of them."

Mari Kotani, Ann Harris, Amy Thomson, Reiko Hikawa, Hisayo Ogushi, Junko Kaneda, Azusa Noa, Reona Kashiwazaki.



I completely failed to follow the introductions, which weren't fully translated anyway, so the only people I am sure of are the two American participants. If anyone can help attribute remarks, I'd be very grateful.

The title, plus my vague awareness of Internet debates, made me expect an oppositional stance between yaoi and slash, which there was not. Most of the panel was of the form "let's reaffirm our love for the panel topic"--this is *not* a criticism. And the room was very lively and engaged. But it means that I didn't feel compelled to write down a lot.

I am saving my comments for the end, because otherwise the flow was just impossible.

There was discussion about the acceptability and commercial potential of m/m romance. One of the Japanese panelists said that the publication rates of yaoi is parallel to that of Harlequin in the U.S.; a friend could go to the bookstore each release date and come home with a stack. The panel's general consensus was that the difference between yaoi and slash is that slash is overwhelmingly not commercially publishable, because it's fanfic.

Why do the panelists like yaoi and slash?

One of the Japanese panelists said that yaoi is a multi-layered fantasy:

* het romances can't avoid societal norms and hierarchies;

* it lets shy women avoid talking about their own bodies/experiences (or being seen as talking about);

* and it includes a layer or element of parody or self-referentiality that appeals.

Harris agreed that there was an element of the last in slash, though it seemed to me that the Japanese panelist was talking about an omnipresence and Harris was talking about a few stories. That may have been a translation issue?

Harris had a similar reason for liking slash: "I love romance but I hate heterosexual power dynamics." In same-sex relationship, any roles are assumed by choice and not dictated by society. Also likes breaking the taboo on male emotionality.

The sole male panelist said, what a great question, I'm a heterosexual male and I'm really not sure *why* I like yaoi. Are there heterosexual American men who like slash, and if so, why? The American panelists both said, sorry, insufficient data.

One of the Japanese panelists said that the first two yaoi manga she read, she had such a heteronormative mindset that she didn't even notice *both* participants in the romance were men. (This is heavily paraphrased.) When she realized on the third, though, her reaction was that this is what she'd always been wanting.

A Japanese audience member said something to the effect that the gay community in Japan is so non-visible that it *can* be a fantasy, but in America gay rights seem much more advanced, so does the gay community object to slash?

Harris thought that the newer queer community was more flexible, and said probably, yaoi yes, slash no--which I don't understand at all. Thomson said that there are sometimes complaints from gay men, but more often they appreciate it; cited the gay sex guide for slashers on the Internet.

Miscellany:

* Thomson mentioned that Joanna Russ filed the serial numbers off a _Star Trek_ fanfic and had it published in _Asimov's_: toddlers wreck the _Enterprise_. Slash was apaprently a very small part.

* A gay Regency romance is being published next summer as a romance mmpb, _Phyllida and the Brotherhood of Philander_ (author's homepage: "presents the situation of a man with a wife and a boyfriend as a love story, with a happily-ever-after ending for the three main characters.").

***

_My Comments_

First, disclaimers.

1) This turned into a braindump on my complicated feelings about slash, and so I am probably living dangerously by posting this when I have limited connectivity. But my availability won't get any better for nearly a month, so it might as well be now.

2) I've read and liked a lot of slash stories. I haven't read yaoi, but I don't object on principle. I am also not saying that people should or should not write, or should or should not like, anything. People write and read for a lot of different reasons and these comments will not be relevant to many of those reasons. No personal attacks are intended.

Now, my comments:

Again, I had the impression that it was somewhat controversial to equate slash and yaoi in some fandoms, but don't have specific knowledge.

As for my other comments, I think that this falls into two categories, content and context. The comments I particularly wanted to respond to were the comment about not noticing two m/m relationships, and the comments about slash & yaoi freeing writers and characters from gender roles. These end up mixing my two issues some, so I don't think I can structure the discussion very neatly, unfortunately.

The comment about not noticing two m/m relationships: it raises the cultural defaults thing that generated such discussion before WRT race. But it also raises the question (about both content and context) of the level on which writers write and readers read. Is it possible to ignore the cultural defaults and write/read a truly equal opposite-sex relationship? It might be just as much a fantasy as yaoi was called, but that would be some of the appeal. And I think I see something like that in the panelist's apparent focus on the non-gendered aspects of the personalities of the characters in the manga she read. But it raises the question and challenge of writing/reading about individuals to whom gender roles are normally assigned in a way that subverts or rejects those roles.

The analogy that keeps coming to mind is het relationship : explicitly multi-racial cast :: slash relationship : cast of non-specified race.

As for the comment about roles in a same-sex relationship being freely chosen--well, as a prefatory matter, is that accurate? It sounded a little utopian to me, especially since I believe I've seen references to research (perhaps in the domestic violence context?) showing that same-sex relationships have a very strong tendency to mimic het gender power structures. But, regardless, I'm given to understand that yaoi, or at least the yaoi that gets published and scanlated in the U.S., also tends to mimic gendered power imbalances in specific stylizied ways. Is this not a prevalent or significant strain in all yaoi? What about in slash? How does this fit with the attractions stated by the panelists?

And to move away from the panel a bit, to the question of slash's place in a larger feminist context, besides what I've already said--

There are a couple other discomforts I tend to feel about slash, which I would have liked to explore--and see whether and how yaoi deals with them. These are a tendency for slash stories to displace (1) women and/or (2) non-romantic or -sexual relationships in order to make way for a m/m relationship. Neither of these seems like a plus for me in feminist terms. Also, that last strikes me as the other side of the coin: everything *can* be about sex (slash), but everything *shouldn't* be about sex (feminism, at least my version thereof). And I think those are both useful analytic tools that are most useful when deployed together.

Finally, I can see that as a writer, it would be *tiring* to constantly be writing upstream against sexist norms in a het romance. But on the other hand, a response that's solely moving to slash or yaoi seems like abandoning the field to the "Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus" crowd. I don't think there's a general-purpose answer to resolving that tension, but I would have liked to see it acknowledged as a complication.

. . . I keep trying to disentangle this, and failing. I'll try to respond to comments relatively often, given the time differences--it appears that Internet access at the con is working now, or at least it was before I went to lunch and then worked on this.

Comments

[cofax7]

Oh, good thinky thoughts.

These are a tendency for slash stories to displace (1) women and/or (2) non-romantic or -sexual relationships in order to make way for a m/m relationship. Neither of these seems like a plus for me in feminist terms.

These thoughts in particular I agree with. And these are issues that fandom seems to struggle with--by which I mean, dance around and not fully address except occasionally (or when forced to). So much of slash comes from the id, and the id? not very self-aware, from a political perspective. (Well, duh, it's the id.)

I have a hobby-horse about the sidelining of het- and gen-writing in the popular and academic discourse about fanfiction, but I'll merely mention it and then pass on. I think I'm beginning to bore people on the subject.

[kate_nepveu]

Stuff from the id is great, and I think it's great that fanfic is such a space for that. It's when people start talking about stories in non-id terms that my concerns arise.

I wonder if as the discourse on ff stops being a novelty, the focus will broaden?

[oyceter]

These are a tendency for slash stories to displace (1) women and/or (2) non-romantic or -sexual relationships in order to make way for a m/m relationship.

Yeah, that's one of my biggest beefs with slash and yaoi as well, and I speak as someone who reads and writes slash and reads yaoi. I wish there were more femslash and yuri; I think I would feel better about the popularity of slash and yaoi in fandom and the mangaverse if there were equal numbers of f/f romances.

[kate_nepveu]

The only mention of femslash at the panel was _Xena_, WRT a q. on whether creators encourage slashers.

I thought the comment about removing oneself from the story, WRT embarassment, was interesting in this regard.

[snarp]

I'm given to understand that yaoi, or at least the yaoi that gets published and scanlated in the U.S., also tends to mimic gendered power imbalances in specific stylizied ways. Is this not a prevalent or significant strain in all yaoi?

In an article in the Shoujo Manga: Girl Power exhibit catalog, Yoko Nagakubo claims that uke/seme role assignment is actually part of the genre definition. But (paraphrasing) she also says that these role assignments are "comparative" in nature, and based on the two characters' relative femininity/masculinity compared to one another. She claims that it's also necessary that there be at least the potential for one/both to at some point take on the other role, either through involvement with a third character whose femininity/masculinity sort of changes the differential, or by somehow altering their own attributes and tipping the balance.

This does not quite synch with my limited personal knowledge of bl/yaoi - there are a some where the roles seem to be depicted as immutable - but it does pretty accurately describe the kind that I like.

[kate_nepveu]

That is very interesting--sounds kind of prescriptive, rather than descriptive, but as such, interesting. Thanks.

[papersky.livejournal.com]

I know very little about slash, and zilch about yaoi.

However, when I was a teenager I used to love male/male love stories, especially Mary Renault's ancient Greek ones, and the reason for this was pretty much what you've said here -- relationship of equals, lack of societal defaults, no icky girl bits (well, actually, no bits at all as such) and so on. And when I got to know some real gay guys I saw that this was utterly utopian and idealised and had a lot more to do with women than it did with actual gay men -- I tried to say this somewhat in my post about Brokeback Mountain.

And yes, I think you are absolutely right in what you're saying and equating there, about the lack of women, and all that.

In SF there's no reason we have to stick to societal defaults, but where are the equal relationship straight romances? This reminds me of when someone said on rasfw "What are good SF books about future marriage?" and nine zillion people replied Courtship Rite and The Gameplayers of Zan and The Moon is a Harsh Mistress.

Geez, now I've fulfilled my ambition to write a book in which the main characters are in love and married all the way through, I suppose I ought to write an equal heterosexual romance. That really isn't going to be easy. And why is my first thought that I can write it between two androgynous lizardpeople? (Really!)

[kate_nepveu]

The q. makes me very uneasy because it makes me wonder what I'm not seeing about existing het inequalities, but I think it's a really important thing for me to think about, and if you write something I'll be really eager to read it.

More responses to comments later--computer situation been worse than I hoped.

less about yaoi/slash than about the wider world

[redbird]

If both (all) partners in a relationship are of the same gender, it's a lot easier to say that any roles are chosen than if they're of different genders. That doesn't mean it's necessarily true: what should be an obvious point is that the participants, and outsiders, may be reacting to the different ways different people are enacting gender. But it can be comforting to assert or believe that the roles are chosen, just as some people in fairly old-fashioned heterosexual marriages will say that it "just happens" that the partner who does most of the housework and stays home from work if there's a sick child is the woman.

A woman who likes to dress and look more femme than her female partner doesn't necessarily want to be the housewife, and someone can read as butch and not be interested in fixing her own car. That doesn't mean outsiders will realize this, and it also doesn't mean that a woman who reads as butch and does want to fix her own car won't take for granted that her femme partner is, or should be, willing to do the cooking. My wanting--or not wanting--one set of roles doesn't inherently mean my partners will have complementary desires or expectations.

There are (again, restating what should be obvious) plenty of other differences that can produce that sort of inequality, especially if taken for granted, notably class and education, and the ways they affect employment.

That doesn't mean these things can't be equal, or that they can't be discussed and resolved in a mixed-sex relationship.

Re: less about yaoi/slash than about the wider world

[kate_nepveu]

Thank you, that was helpful, especially being reminded about all the many axes (that is the plural of axis, right?) that people work on.

Re: less about yaoi/slash than about the wider world

[redbird]

Yes, plural of axis, not of ax.

[desdenova.livejournal.com]

These are a tendency for slash stories to displace (1) women and/or (2) non-romantic or -sexual relationships in order to make way for a m/m relationship. Neither of these seems like a plus for me in feminist terms.

On the one hand, you're right that this is a problematic aspect of slash.

On the other, I have a... hypothesis, I guess, that the predominance of m/m fanfic in certain areas of fandom is nourished by a desire to maintain woman-dominated fan-spaces. It's like painting the clubhouse pink; due to our society's notions of what constitutes proper masculine behavior, a sea of m/m fanfic is very discouraging to fanboys who might otherwise barge in and attempt to dominate the discourse. I'm not saying that this is the only, or even the primary, appeal of slash, just that it's a side-benefit that serves to reinforce the slashy status quo.

In that sense, I don't think it's so much "abandoning the field" as "circling the wagons" or "building really thick city walls and a moat."

[skwidly.livejournal.com]

This is a very interesting idea. I know when I was in college I would occasionally read some het erotic fanfic, but the number of hetero stories being produced seemed to dwindle away, and eventually I stopped looking. It never occurred to me that that might be by design, but I can certainly understand the appeal...

[desdenova.livejournal.com]

I'm thinking more like "by evolution" than "by design."

[kate_nepveu]

Hmm. That certainly seems possible. There were comments about the appeal of women performing for women.

I can only think of one male fanfic writer (copperbadge), who is much-loved and -admired, but he is also clueful, so that is an ambiguous data point.

[takumashii.livejournal.com]

But, regardless, I'm given to understand that yaoi, or at least the yaoi that gets published and scanlated in the U.S., also tends to mimic gendered power imbalances in specific stylizied ways. Is this not a prevalent or significant strain in all yaoi? What about in slash? How does this fit with the attractions stated by the panelists?

Speaking as a westerner who has read quite a lot of yaoi and not so much slash: I feel like the majority of yaoi is not so much about equalizing power dynamics as it is about playing with power dynamics that can be very unequal in a way that doesn't feel like Betraying The Feminist Cause. Like, I may find unequal power dynamics hot or interesting, but when I see it in a het romance I want to go, "Gah, stand up for yourself, woman! Get away from the skanky guy!" And if it's a het romance I have to evaluate it in terms like "Would I want to date the skanky guy in real life?" but yaoi is so much a fantasy that I don't evaluate it in those terms. And in a het romance, usually it's too obvious who has which forms of power and which forms of status: the woman has the beauty, the man has the money and status. You can play with that a little bit in yaoi.

Harris thought that the newer queer community was more flexible, and said probably, yaoi yes, slash no--which I don't understand at all.

So, gay men object more to yaoi than to slash?
I can easily believe that because slash writers seem to see things like realism and writing gay men "right" as a good thing, whereas... that's not even an issue for yaoi. It's like asking whether all the science works out in a science fiction novel. There are writers who'll make sure that it does, and publications that play up the authenticity or realism, but for the majority of readers it's not much of an issue, nor any sense that a particular story would be improved by greater realism/authenticity. And it's pretty obvious to me that "We're going to write about gay people, but we don't actually care how real gay people act" is going to offend. It's an issue that makes me nervous even though I don't actually write either yaoi or slash.

[kate_nepveu]

very unequal in a way that doesn't feel like Betraying The Feminist Cause

That also makes sense to me, thanks for pointing it out.

As for gay men & yaoi v. slash--I'd interpreted the "yaoi yes, slash no" question the other way 'round, which puzzled me, but your reading makes more sense to me, thanks.

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

Maybe it helps if you think of yaoi and slash as in the same set as romance novels? That might explain why the personal and sexual relationships are the be-all and end-all of the work, and why there's an absence of things like economics, politics, hard science, weather, and women. It's just the givens of this very artificial genre. Add balance and a wider world-view to either yaoi or slash and, quite simply, they aren't yaoi and slash any more, but mainstream lit with m/m content. And at that point they also cease to be sexual fantasies, which is their other main function in life. Porn is not known for its balanced approach to the human condition.

[kate_nepveu]

My problem is that I like romance novels that manage to include stuff other than the relationships while still maintaining a focus. => (I read pretty narrowly in the romance genre.) So a lot of this is very likely just that I'm not the audience--but the implications still interest me, especially when the genres get spoken of in those terms.

[takumashii.livejournal.com]

And I think there is some pressure, given the monthly serial publishing format of a lot of yaoi, to have Something Exciting! happening in every issue, where that something exciting is often sex.

But on the other hand there is a lot of shoujo out there where the main mail characters have intimate friendships and longing glances and angst angst angst angst over anything that could take them away from each other-- but the plot is not 100% focused on the relationships, they also fight crime or something. Yami no Matsuei is the first that comes to mind that's been translated commercially, and a lot of people think of it as yaoi--but really it's just shoujo with a lot of unresolved m/m sexual tension. Like The X-Files.

[kate_nepveu]

There does seem to be a lot more explicit publisher pressure on creators in Japan, judging by comments at Worldcon--though implicit pressure would work just as well, here, given the format and reader expectations.

[stormfeather.livejournal.com]

Hrm, I'm still not totally awake, but given my Love Of Things Yaoi, I guess I have to comment at least a bit... ;)

[about power struggles, freely chosen gender roles...]"Is this not a prevalent or significant strain in all yaoi? What about in slash? How does this fit with the attractions stated by the panelists?"

Well, I think if they're trying to sell all yaoi as having freely-chosen gender roles, they're a bit off, since a lot more yaoi than I'd like starts to dip into things like rape, power struggles, etc etc. So frankly, I think that's so much bullshit meant to be an "excuse" to like yaoi more than heterosexual relationships in books or something. Or they just have been veeeerry narrow in their yaoi reading and haven't run across the other stuff, or whatever.

But now that I think about it, I still get what they might be trying to say, in a way. Even if there IS all that stuff, it's not because one of the couple is "inherently" weak/inferior/whatever other baggage someone might bring in, because they're a girl. It's showing the power struggles as what they are - just a part of normal human interactions, rather than a male/female-and-male-is-naturally-superior thing. Which is kinda cool, when I think about it.

Anyhow...

"There are a couple other discomforts I tend to feel about slash, which I would have liked to explore--and see whether and how yaoi deals with them. These are a tendency for slash stories to displace (1) women and/or (2) non-romantic or -sexual relationships in order to make way for a m/m relationship."

Well, I guess whether you see this in yaoi or not depends on the particular book, and what it's trying to do. There are some where such relationships are displaced, yes, but it's usually more because the book is more baldly a "two guys fucking" book, where it's just about the pr0n, as it were. And you wouldn't expect to see female and non-sexual relationships paraded about a bunch, any more than you'd expect to see a nice sit-down chat on gender roles and stereotypes alongside the Playboy centerfold.

There is other yaoi though, the longer series, the more in-depth ones, and frankly the ones that get labeled yaoi because they have boys-love and mayyyybe some graphicness, but are really more like a normal shojou manga that just happens to have some m/m love in it. And from what I've seen and recall, those do tend to include such things as, y'know, icky girls, and non-sexual relationships. (Bah! Girls!) Maybe, for instance, as a sister of one of the characters who finds out about the relationship, and is one of the few in-the-know supporters giving a helping hand. Or in the case of those taking place in school (where still, all the individuals shown are at least 18, honest guv!), maybe club members, student council members, someone else taking a somewhat large role that happens to be, y'know, female. Or maybe the male non-sexual friend who gives some support, or is a comic foil, or what have you.

I guess yaoi is really a lot like any other genre - you get your good stuff, your bad stuff, and stuff that doesn't really have any one defining feature that you can point at it all and say "it does/doesn't do this," except, y'know, the guy/guy thing.

[kate_nepveu]

the power struggles as what they are - just a part of normal human interactions

This seems related to me to what takumashii was saying above--removing the weight of het expectations from the arena.

And yeah, it would have been really helpful to me if the panel had *defined* yaoi, or at least what they meant by yaoi, because at least slash has the connotation of fanfic to separate it from gay romance. I mean, I saw a debate over whether _Antique Bakery_ is yaoi, and so there seems to be some confusion in the U.S. over the label.

Thanks.

[don-fitch.livejournal.com]

I know practically nothing about either genre, but have to wonder if yaoi might be more popular in Japan partly because the language doesn't use sex-indicative pronouns, so the reader isn't constantly reminded. And I seem to remember that there are at least some sexually-ambiguous first names, so it would be possible to get well into a story, much as some pioneering s-f writers just casually revealed that the protagonist was Black (or Asian) more than three-quarters of the way though the story.

[kate_nepveu]

A lot of yaoi is manga, so that wouldn't explain it completely, though I don't know what the breakdowns are between text-only and manga stories.

I think it would be really interesting to see if a romance story could be written in English without revealing anyone's gender and without making a big deal about the non-reveal. Probably it isn't possible, but it interests me.

[sticktothestory.livejournal.com]

I believe the protagonist's gender is never revealed in Jeanette Winterson's Written on the Body.