Looking forward to your more thought out response.
Your gut reaction makes sense, though perhaps I'm an insensitive ass to think that feeling guilty about enjoying something that has a problematic history is a bit counter productive.
I read Dancer From the Dance and Giovanni's Room, the former is a great description of gay culture in NYC post-Stonewall Pre-AIDS and the latter is a tragedy about a man who can't find happiness no matter who he's with and is of a very melancholy nature.
Both books are about gay men, written by gay men and there were scenes which (I'll be blunt) turned me on. Pretty sure, I'm not the intended audience. And that's where I think lies the problematic issues - who is the intended audience and why the grabbiness?!
The appropriation of identity, m/m isn't actually something "for" women "by" women. Again, it's the grabbiness that makes a difference, note of course, that femslash is not spoken about as much - I wonder if it's because Lesbianism has been appropriated for the male gaze in entertainment for many a decade (centuries) that it no longer appears to be an "issue", while male privilege is once again going head on with female creativity.
Yex, it's a finicky debate, but I'm unclear as to why you'd feel guilty about enjoying the subject matter.
no subject
Your gut reaction makes sense, though perhaps I'm an insensitive ass to think that feeling guilty about enjoying something that has a problematic history is a bit counter productive.
I read Dancer From the Dance and Giovanni's Room, the former is a great description of gay culture in NYC post-Stonewall Pre-AIDS and the latter is a tragedy about a man who can't find happiness no matter who he's with and is of a very melancholy nature.
Both books are about gay men, written by gay men and there were scenes which (I'll be blunt) turned me on. Pretty sure, I'm not the intended audience. And that's where I think lies the problematic issues - who is the intended audience and why the grabbiness?!
The appropriation of identity, m/m isn't actually something "for" women "by" women. Again, it's the grabbiness that makes a difference, note of course, that femslash is not spoken about as much - I wonder if it's because Lesbianism has been appropriated for the male gaze in entertainment for many a decade (centuries) that it no longer appears to be an "issue", while male privilege is once again going head on with female creativity.
Yex, it's a finicky debate, but I'm unclear as to why you'd feel guilty about enjoying the subject matter.