liz_marcs | You did not just go there...

Current Mood: bitchy

You did not just go there...

I should just not read metafandom on LJ and meta_roundup on IJ some days.

Because when I see posts like this where fanfiction is compared to "gay marriage," I want to break things. (~~The correct term is equality marriage, BTW.~~ Edit: I've been told that "gay marriage" and "same-sex marriage" are as acceptable as "equality marriage." Just throwing that out there so it doesn't detract from my point.)

[NOTE: DO NOT go over and flame the OP or cause her problems. I'm providing the link so you can read the post and for no other reason.]

I first heard/seen it on LJ a few days ago. Then I saw it linked to on JF. It's now been linked to meta_roundup on IJ.

I've seen this same comparison three times in something like three days.

Each time I read it, I get a bit angrier.

Look, I understand that the Organization for Transformative Works (hereafter referred to as the OTW) is a big deal to some people. I've read the various arguments in support of it, and I'm still not horribly impressed. I see a lot of biiiiiiig words arguing why I should think the OTW (whatever it's supposed to be) is the greatest thing evah, but what I don't see is a lot of operational details that a wonk like me sees as remotely feasible.

Personally, when it comes to the OTW, I say the jury is waaaaay out on that one. Because all those words I'm reading really don't tell me a damn thing of what it's actually supposed to be and what it's supposed to accomplish. I feel a bit like someone who's listening to 5 blind men describe an elephant without knowing that they're describing an elephant. No one seems to actually agree on what "it" is supposed to be.

But far be it from me to harsh anyone's Big Idea That Will Change the World. Knock yourself out, sez I. Who knows? Maybe I'm too naturally suspicious of the Big Idea That Will Change the World. Maybe the supporters of OTW are right. Maybe it will actually turn out to be something pretty special. I could be wrong, and I'm willing to be wrong.

However, based on what I'm reading/seeing so far...let's just say I have my doubts about OTW and leave it at that.

That said, posts like "fanfiction is like gay marriage" is not going to win me over.

In fact, it really pisses me the hell off.

As someone who lives in the only state in the U.S. that actually recognizes equality marriage as a matter of law and who lived the 4 bruising years between 2003 and 2007 where the fight raged non-stop over any and all attempts to amend our state constitution to make our gay and lesbian friends, family members, and neighbors into second class citizens to the point where it overrode all other state issues I'm pretty fucking sure that fanfiction is not like "gay marriage" at all.

Let me explain something:

No one has ever been beaten into the hospital or the morgue because they wrote fanfiction
No one has ever found themselves put out on the street because their fanfic writing partner died and their writing partner's family didn't want that dirty little co-writer around
No one has ever been prevented from attending their fanfic writing partner's funeral by members of their fanfic writing partner's family who were fanficphobic
No one has ever been prevented from seeing their fanfic writing partner in the hospital because they wrote fanfic
No one has ever been treated as a second class citizen by society at large because they wrote fanfic
No one is arguing about making amending the U.S. Constitution to make fanfic illegal, thereby relegating you to permanent second-class citizenship because of your hobby (as opposed to, y'know, your very existence)
No one has ever had their civil rights violated because they wrote fanfic

I'm sure that list could be a lot longer, but that's just for a start on how writing fanfic is not at all like "gay marriage."

Listen, I'm not saying that fanfic writers haven't found themselves in shit RL situations like the ones I've listed above. I'm also not arguing that all fanfic writers are gay, lesbian, or bi any more than I'd argue the reverse.

However, 99% of the time verging on 100% of the time, when RL (as in: not on the Internet) sexism or racism or sexuality bias rears its ugly head and slaps an individual across the face, it's not because they write fanfiction. They may happen to write fanfiction, but it's not because they write fanfiction, damn it!

You see the difference, right? Because I see a pretty big difference between the two.

Listen, I understand that the very idea of the OTW inspires fanatical devotion among some in fandom to the point where they can be pretty annoying about it, but posts like this are not helping your cause.

And this isn't the first time I've seen/read posts in favor of the OTW that lacked any sort of perspective at all. I mean, for the record, writing fanfiction is not at all like being in an interracial marriage. And questioning the purpose of the OTW is not at all like being homophobic or racist (examples of arguments I've actually read).

Posts like this piss people off. It sure as hell pisses me off. And when you piss people off, you turn them off. Maybe permanently.

Hyperbole is no one's friend. Please keep that in mind for the future. Thanx.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

You can stop writing fanfic, but you can't stop being inspired to do so. And you can't stop being gay, but you can "refuse to act on your immoral urges."

So fan fic isn't just like gay marriage, it's like being gay? Oh, I see - you're completely insane!

Please get some perspective.

The drive to write fanfic, like being gay, is an intrinsic part of personality and psyche, and not removable without bizarre brainwashing techniques which pretty much destroy the entire personal identity.

I'm fully aware that various artistic drives are a lot less important as societal issues than the right to marry.

I'm aware that Lee Goldberg's anti-fanfic rants are teacup storms, the proper reaction to which is the occasional fandom_wank entry, and that Phelps' protesting gay funerals is oppression, the proper reaction to which involves police activity and congressional rulings.

But a difference in scale doesn't mean a difference in core issues. And as long as the right for equal marriage is perceived as "gays want to have legal sex," it'll be ignored--it has to be framed as "all people deserve equal rights to express their love and commitment."

Please get some perspective.

I'm happy with my perspective. I'm open to more, if you're sharing.

Ummmmmm, no. You're still not making sense.

I the drive to write fanfic is nothing like being gay, because one is an action, the other is a state of being. It's still a piss-poor analogy. And how you keep missing this point positively boggles my mind.

Now, if you said "the drive to write" is an intrinsic part of someone's personality and psyche and affects the way one views the world, you'd have a better argument. I probably would still think you're overstating your case (i.e. the drive to write = equality marriage) but I could actually see something in it, especially since the Committee to Protect Journalists keeps a running tab of journalists who've been disappeared or killed because of what they write.

However, comparing reporter deaths worldwide and/or gay marriage to fanfiction is really overstating the case and obscuring whatever argument you're trying to make.

What I'm trying to say here is that this course of argument is not helping you at all. You seriously need to step back and really rethink the argument, and argument you've already admitted was an exaggerated one.

The drive to write fanfic, like being gay, is an intrinsic part of personality and psyche

I... uh... WHAT?!?

The drive to write fanfic, like being gay, is an intrinsic part of personality and psyche, and not removable without bizarre brainwashing techniques which pretty much destroy the entire personal identity.

The drive to write maybe. I'm a queer writer. I cannot divorce myself from one thing or the other. As

liz_marcs points out, writers have been persecuted for their writing. And as her original post explains, gay men and women have been persecuted for their sexuality.

Fan fiction writers - that's a whole other ballgame. I have little authority to speak on that matter. Very occasionally I am inspired by a television series to write a short story or a script. Actually, for years I wanted to get into TV and wrote a heap of spec scripts - which is really in no way different to writing fan fic, except for the intent. So I get the idea you can be inspired to write fan fic - but I kind of balk at the idea that this is as intrinsic to you as my sexuality is to me.

I'm queer because I am queer. I write because I am a writer.

Marriage and fan fic hold little interest for me - but I understand why people want them. But beyond that the comparison is terribly weak.

So I get the idea you can be inspired to write fan fic - but I kind of balk at the idea that this is as intrinsic to you as my sexuality is to me.

A smaller part of the persona, but just as intrinsic. Couldn't remove it without destroying me-as-a-person.

I politely submit (as politely as you can imagine me being, at this point of the discussion) that you aren't able to judge what elements of my psyche are crucial to my identity.

The drive to write maybe.

Do you think the "drive to write" is intrinsic, but "the drive to write poetry" or "the drive to write essays" or "the drive to write plays" are separable from that, and the drive can be redirected to a different format if the main one isn't available or acceptable? (This is a serious question. I see the drive to write fanfic as no different from the drive to write songs... writing software documentation will not fulfill the drive.)

Let's call it the "drive to create," then, shall we? This makes it clear that non-creative writing such as software documentation isn't what's referred to.

The creative urge isn't usually specific to only one kind of creativity. If you have that drive, you have it; you can and do choose what form you employ to express it. Anyone who's only driven to write fanfic is usually motivated by a need not to create but to find a way to insert him- or herself into the universe of the fandom in question. It's more like an externalized fantasy than a true "drive to create."

Anyone who is driven to create can and usually does find multiple outlets for that drive. To suggest that fanfic writing can be as intrinsic to one's identity and existence as one's sexuality is, at best, naive.

non-creative writing such as software documentation

How much software documentation have you written?!? I picked that one because it's one I like... but doesn't scratch the itch to write songs. Nonfiction writing is still creative.

Anyone who is driven to create can and usually does find multiple outlets for that drive.

1) There are people who aren't driven to create? I thought it was a basic human drive, like sex. That anyone who doesn't have it is considered weird and broken by most people, and that evolution had pretty much removed people who don't have it from the gene pool, so the lack only shows up in the occasional mutation.

2) "Find multiple outlets" is not the same as "any of these outlets will do for any particular inspiration. A person usually lusts after several other people... but that doesn't mean it's reasonable to say "well, this one is closed to you--just switch to someone else."

The drive to write fanfic cannot be fulfilled by suppressing it and choreographing dances instead.

3) (Deep breath; this is where you write me off as a total wingnut and decide I'm not worth replying to anymore. Or that you'll continue to bicker with me, but have concluded that I'm an utter waste of bandwidth and any goal I support is at best, of dubious value, because if a crackpot like me can be in favor of it, it must have serious problems.)

Conflating sexuality with creativity is a central issue in my religion, and I'm content to discuss it for days.

I know what I want to write. I know who I want to fuck. And I know how closely those two drives are connected, how much my creativity and sexuality overlap.

Maybe for you, they're not, and they don't. That's not my concern. I don't get to define your sexuality... and you don't get to define mine.

How much software documentation have you written?!? I picked that one because it's one I like... but doesn't scratch the itch to write songs. Nonfiction writing is still creative.

A fair amount, actually. In fact, I've done both business-related writing and nonfiction journalism professionally, so I think I have a really good grasp of how much software documentation fulfilled my need to create. Which is to say, it fucking didn't.

There are people who aren't driven to create? I thought it was a basic human drive, like sex. That anyone who doesn't have it is considered weird and broken by most people, and that evolution had pretty much removed people who don't have it from the gene pool, so the lack only shows up in the occasional mutation.

I am going to assume that this is another one of your hyperbole games and that you don't actually believe it. Yes, there are people for whom the drive to create seems to be missing or to be very weak. I know many. I am related to some.

"Find multiple outlets" is not the same as "any of these outlets will do for any particular inspiration. A person usually lusts after several other people... but that doesn't mean it's reasonable to say "well, this one is closed to you--just switch to someone else."

Um, well, you've already stated that for you, creativity and sexuality are the same thing, so there's no point in arguing this. For me, they aren't. The act of creating and the act of sex may each bring similar feelings, but whereas I am pretty much consistently attracted to men, I am equally fulfilled by various kinds of writing, by performing music or theater, or creating some kind of visual or physical art. I write a lot of fanfic, but I never feel like only that and that alone will satisfy me.

(Deep breath; this is where you write me off as a total wingnut and decide I'm not worth replying to anymore. Or that you'll continue to bicker with me, but have concluded that I'm an utter waste of bandwidth and any goal I support is at best, of dubious value, because if a crackpot like me can be in favor of it, it must have serious problems.)

No, apparently this is where you get to paint me as a closed-minded judgmental jerk. So, you know... thanks for that.

I get that for you, creativity and sexuality are somehow the same. I accept that you believe that. I think, however, that it's a mistake to proceed in the public sphere as though this is a universally accepted truth and make over the top arguments that rely on that principle, and then use the "well, in my religion, it's so" argument to deal with people who beg to differ.

I know what I want to write and who I want to fuck, too. And yeah, the drives are CONNECTED. To me, at least, they are not identical, and they definitely don't say, "Write fanfic and nothing else!"

I'm not the least bit interested in defining your sexuality. Sorry, I didn't think it was necessary to state that outright earlier.

Be aware, some of where

elfwreck may be coming from is to stir up shit and start a flamewar in an effort to encourage communication.

Just be aware that some statements may be thrown out there just to get a reaction from you.

(no subject)

blade-girl.livejournal.com - 2008-01-21 04:41 (UTC) - Expand

I politely submit (as politely as you can imagine me being, at this point of the discussion) that you aren't able to judge what elements of my psyche are crucial to my identity.

To be clear, I was using the collective "you" rather than the specific you. You're right, I have no idea what elements are crucial to

elfwreck's psyche.

Do you think the "drive to write" is intrinsic, but "the drive to write poetry" or "the drive to write essays" or "the drive to write plays" are separable from that, and the drive can be redirected to a different format if the main one isn't available or acceptable?

Now that's an interesting argument. And for me it's all about the story I want to tell. If it feels like a short story I write that. If it feels like a poem, I write a poem. If it feels like a stage play, I write a play.

I understand that some writers have their preference of medium. And a preference for genre. And their own style.

I personally don't understand the pull to writing fan fic over original fic, but I support your right to write it. However, it doesn't compare to centuries of persecution of homosexuals nor the lengthy battle for same-sex marriage.

The drive to write fanfic, like being gay, is an intrinsic part of personality and psyche

You are an offense. By this I do not simply mean that you are being offensive. I mean that the very fact that something like you exists, to go around and say things like that with no sense of shame, no sense of proportion, and no sense of what the HELL you are talking about is an offense against the world.

I thank you for taking the time to share your perspective with me.

I have, however, no idea how you expect me to react. But I'm sure it was useful to you to rant a bit in my general direction.

No reaction is required. It is useful to me inasmuch as your post was so truly offensive to someone that has actually experienced the emotional pain and turmoil of alternative sexuality that I could not let it go unremarked. However, it is clear that you do not care who you offend, or will even acknowledge that what you say and do is offensive and wrong, and this is why you are an offense.

It is not in your general direction. It is directly at you. You should be ashamed of yourself, and everyone you know should be ashamed of you as well. That you are not merely proves my point.

Several people who've experienced the emotional pain and turmoil of alternative sexuality have told me it's a very apt analogy. I'm sorry it bothers you.

I am not, as you notice, ashamed. I am puzzled. However, no amount of hate or disgust from strangers on the internet is going to change how I think. Certainly, I'm not going to be convinced I was wrong by people saying "I am offended that you even exist."

Plenty of people are offended that I exist. Get in line.

I have no opinion either way on the subject of OTW, but I did want to say that I understand what you're saying with your metaphor. No one insists on both items in a metaphor being *exactly* alike. It's important that they be enough alike to make the point, that's all. So 'I hunt down my plots in the same way a lion hunts its prey' doesn't mean I put on fur and lie in the grass (it probably means you're quiet and stealthy and wait for them to come to you).

'Owning up to writing fanfiction is like coming out of the closet' doesn't mean it exposes you to the threat of death/being beaten up/being unable to marry etc. It just means 'you are afraid of the potential ridicule and contempt of your friends, family and collegues, and the possible job-loss/other loss of status and esteem, when they find out about your fic.'

At least, that's what I take from the comparison.

I respect your point to the highest regard- and yet I'm somewhat inclined to back up elfwreck on this one. To be completely honest, I do understand her point, though it is definitely not my viewpoint. Disagree with her! That's fine!

My problem is with this statement:

"It is not in your general direction. It is directly at you. You should be ashamed of yourself, and everyone you know should be ashamed of you as well. That you are not merely proves my point."

How can you possibly feel the right to say that to someone? Fundamentally, this could easily be spoken by a hyper-conservative person in regards to how homosexuality offends them...

A difference in opinion does not justify the hatred of the person them self (though that's most definitely subjective), particularly if you don't actually KNOW them.

It's only censorship if what's being said is politically correct. Hah.

"I may disagree with what you have to say, but I shall defend, to the death, your right to say it."

I have not at any point infringed upon her right to say anything.

However, that does not at all keep me from pointing out that she is a horrible person for holding the opinion that she does. Disagreement with a statement or even disagreement with making a statement is not "censorship". Free speech is not some first-come-first-served right where the first one to claim it gets to say whatever they want and everyone else has to just silently respect that.

A difference in opinion does not justify the hatred of the person them self (though that's most definitely subjective), particularly if you don't actually KNOW them.

So you can hate the statement "Kill all the niggers" but the Klansman saying it is probably a pretty decent guy and you shouldn't judge 'im, eh? At least not without sitting down to coffee and hearing his life's story.

Listen, the real world is not some convenient batch of feel-good self-help book statements that you can trot out whenever they're convenient and someone says something that offends your idealistic sensibilities. If you want to whine over me not hating the sin but loving the sinner, I personally could not care less.

Now I want you to think before you hit reply. Are you actually going to be saying anything that's not going to make you a massive hypocrite? After all, you're essentially condemning me for saying something that offended you in response to my replying to something that offended me, and saying I should not condemn people for saying things I find offensive.

See where this is going yet?

Oh, by the way:

this could easily be spoken by a hyper-conservative person in regards to how homosexuality offends them...

I do not give a fuck. Just because I want people to have equal rights does not mean that I think we all need to live in a land of hugs and kissies where we spend each day giving each other's every thought validation. I am not going to be, by your own definition, censored just because "Oh noes, that's something a mean ol' conservative would say!"

So you can hate the statement "Kill all the niggers" but the Klansman saying it is probably a pretty decent guy and you shouldn't judge 'im, eh? At least not without sitting down to coffee and hearing his life's story.

And that's precisely why I said it's subjective. Listen, I agree with you. I do. My only point was that you attacked the PERSON rather than her opinions. Sometimes, that's definitely justified, you're right. We don't live in a world of sweetness and light, but that doesn't, in my opinion, justify the abject hatred of most people.

I don't think I'm responding well, and you can take this however you wish. It's just my opinion.

I'm still boggling that somehow being told that your time is better spent writing original fiction is just like people telling gays that they can be cured. Ummmm, WAT? Waaaaaay to get insulting there.

The whole notion is ridiculous, from the original post to the continuing of the metaphor here. Your post makes it perfectly clear how ridiculous the argument is, but clearly now she's got it in her head, there's no discussing it with her.

And some of my best friends are fan fic writers :-)

And some of my best friends are fan fic writers :-)

You're brilliant. :)

Thank you, sir.

I don't mind if people write fanfic, just as long as I don't have to hear them talk about it.

(Oh, and here via metafandom.)

Hell, I just don't understand why all those fanficcers keep insisting on bringing their laptops out into public.

They should use desktops like decent people. *nods*

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only