1. I refuse to write, or post, or even start, a dear yuletide letter when nominations aren't even open yet. Sorry! (Well, I did do the relevant astronomical calculations, but that doesn't count.)

I have gone through and figured out what I'm offering, though. Since the time is significantly shorter this year, I decided I'm only offering fandoms that make me go "Ooh, yes! I want an excuse to reread/rewatch that in a hurry!" (as opposed to the usual criterion, which is "Ooh, I wish that had more fic, I bet I could acquire canon by the deadline." As a result, I'm only offering somewhere around 115 fandoms this time (depending on how the final list handles duplicates.)

2. A couple of days ago I got my sign-ups and induction stuff to be an AO3 tag wrangler. Which, yay? But I thought they weren't signing anyone up until after yuletide? And in fact wrangling is closed until after yuletide? So other than read through the docs, I am not sure what I am supposed to be doing about my new tag wrangler status. Other than continuing to lurk the chatroom, obvs. (Oh, AO3, your communication skills at the moment are so inspiring.)

3. I don't know how helpful this will be, but the long-running rift between two segments of fandom (with other segments chiming in from the sidelines) which has suddenly broken off the scabs and started bleeding again, hurts. I see it in a split down fandom communities; down my own circle of friends; and down my own self. So, I want to do this, if only for myself; and I would love to see other people do it, too; I don't know if it will help heal the rift, but it might help some of us across it.

I am a fan, I am a geek. I have always been. You may, reading this journal or my comments, get the impression that I am a slash fan and/or a media fan - and I will admit, my primary allegiance is to that community. But that's not all I am. That is the last, and in some ways the least, of my fannish IDs. What else am I? Well, in roughly chronological order:

( I am a fan of genre fiction. )

( I am a math, science, and tech geek. )

( I am a science fiction fan. )

( I am a comics fan. )

( I am an anime/manga fan. )

( I am a media fan and a slash fan. )


...wow, I totally didn't intend that to be the effect, but I am kind of filled with love and awesome and sparkles now after writing that. Love and awesome and sparkles to all fans everywhere, regardless of what kind of fans you are!

ETA early morning jan 18: a short follow-up with more poll numbers + things /ETA

I was going to wait and post this later, with a much more elaborate stastistical work-up, population variables and meta-analysis - because I think it's interesting in its own right - but the ongoing conversation I'm seeing, and the extremely clear result I'm getting, is making me think it's more important to get the facts out there, than to make them pretty.

So: Are slashers straight?

I spent an afternoon and evening finding all of the polls & surveys of slash demographics I could that included a question on sexuality. Some I already had bookmarked, some I found through google, delicious, and following citations in academic papers. I'm sure there are more out there, and if you have links to more more polls I would love to add their data to my analysis. But you know what? The results of the ones I've found are pretty consistent, across a large range of survey population. And it is, to be quite honest, not the result I was expecting, even as a slasher who does not herself identify as straight, and is used to finding people like her in fandom.

Are slashers straight?

( Over half of slashers self-identify as somewhere on the spectrum of lgbqqa. )

So, over 9 polls, in a variety of slash subfandoms from the late-teens yaoi set to the mid-thirties meta fans set, dates ranging over 7 years. Only onetwo polls had less than 50% queer participants, and that wasone of them the earliest one, and even they were at 37% and 47%. The median percent of queer participants was 59.7%, and the mean was 61.5% 60.8%.

SO when people say things like "slash fans are appropriating queer experience", what THE MAJORITY OF SLASHERS, WHO IDENTIFY AS QUEER hear is either "you aren't queer enough, your queer identity isn't real" or "male voices are the only ones qualified to speak for the queer community."

I think the question of how queer women can appropriate queer men's identity, and the damage that can be done when gay men speaking about themselves are drowned out by women, are valid discussion topics, and worth addressing. That is not a conversation that is going to happen as long as THE MAJORITY OF SLASHERS, WHO IDENTIFY AS QUEER, are being erased from the discussion. fyi.

And SO when people say things like "slash is a legitimate way for straight women to express their sexuality", what THE MAJORITY OF SLASHERS, WHO IDENTIFY AS QUEER hear is either "you aren't queer enough, your queer identity isn't relevant" or "straight voices are the only ones qualified to speak for the slash community".

I think the question of how straight women's sexuality interacts with queer sexuality, and the ways straight women's sexuality defines slash, are valid discussion topics, and worth addressing. That is not a conversation that is going to happen as long as THE MAJORITY OF SLASHERS, WHO IDENTIFY AS QUEER, are being erased from the discussion. fyi.

Can I say that one more time? I like saying it. Science makes me happy.

THE MAJORITY OF SLASHERS IDENTIFY AS QUEER.

ETA: People in comments have pointed out math errors that change the numbers slightly: I've added corrections in the relevant places. The conclusions still stand, however (for now.)

ETA 2 early morning jan 18: a short follow-up with more poll numbers + things /ETA 2

(Meta for Notcapade)
(And many, many thanks to siegeofangels and stellar_dust for readover and reassurance that I am not completely mad. I have learned why people rarely get meta betas: because they are smarter than you are, and won't stop thinking long enough to let you post!)

( Or, 'My Thoughts on Yaoi.' Don't read if you don't want to know, guys. )

Whew! Long essay. And I made it all the way to the end without ever using the terms 'patriarchy', 'privilege', 'subversion' or 'objectification'! Go me. There's a lot in there and a *lot* of places I could take it from there - I keep coming up with ways to answer old fannish questions in terms of this theory, which if I were an astrophycist at least would be a point in my favor. And more importantly, maybe, I need to think some more about the ethical implications of using, and glorifying, that particular way of seeing.

But I've been unable to stop thinking about things in terms of slasher's gaze ever since I first found it - which is probably part of the reason I've been quiet on the meta front; I was waiting for a way to talk about what I've been thinking effectively, and to figure out whether it works at all outside my own head. I'm not entirely sure I've succeeded, but I'm desperate for any sort of answer back from the void on this. So, please, feedback, discuss, tell me I'm off my rocker, tell me somebody else came up with all this ten years ago! Or just go off and ponder it all in your hearts for awhile, like I did. I'm just tired of not having anyone else who knows what I'm talking about.

And that's really what fandom's for, after all.

Right?

3/10, ETA: Okay, two weeks later, I think I'm finally caught up on comments here - I'll do my best to be better to keep up with new ones coming in. I'm really sorry it took so long. I have issues, which is neither an apology or an excuse, but at least believe me it wasn't personal. (Except with stellar_dust. That was totally personal, that was :P)

To Jon Stewart and the Daily Show:
How on *earth* do you do an entire segment on a new drink named after cocaine and *neglect* to mention, even obliquely, that he totally stole that gimmick from the world's most popular soft drink?


To Denny Crane and Boston Legal:
Okay, now I *know* that you're just screwing with the slashers, because that entire speech to Alan could have come right off of a passive-aggressive "why do we slash?" rant on metafandom. I'm beginning to think that my giddy dreams are right, and Boston Legal is being written to deliberately end slash as we know it. William Shatner giveth, and William Shatner taketh away...