There are moments when I am a little uncomfortable writing M/M slash fanfic.  It is not because of the sexual content.  I understand and appreciate the erotic nature of this genre.  I just feel lost at times because it is such a male world.  I realize that it is often a perfected male world, made perfect by the women who write slash.  Women, however, are often portrayed as the enemy in this world.

This all crystallized for me when I was lurking at a certain TV series message board.  The show was in danger of being cancelled and the male lead had supposedly come on the message board and posted, as himself, asking for fans to write to the network and save the show.  This happened over a month before I ever discovered the message board so the entire drama had played out by the time I arrived.  After the initial plea for support, the actor came on several more times, and each message displayed increasing anger.  Later posts trashed his network, and without naming them, his female co-stars.  In his later apology for the brashness of his posts, he stated how much he respected his male co-stars and one actress who played a platonic friend to his character.

Beaded through these posts was a discussion about whether this really was the actor saying these things.  Some showed proof it was by his confession during an on-line chat that he did post on the board.  Others still weren't convinced.  Those that disagreed that it wasn't really him,  or worse yet, posted their disappointment that he would air his grievances in this way were taken to task in the same harsh manner the actor had used against his network and fellow actors.  An all too familiar reaction in fandom that the actor can do no wrong.

If it was the actor posting I was thinking: you don't really like working with women, do you?  If it was a delusional fan creating these messages, I thought: you really don't like women, do you?  These posts fit perfectly the "fan" pattern I have seen so many times since I first stumbled into internet fandom.  "The actor" was angry at his nameless unprofessional co-stars who, it was made clear in his apology, were his characters love interest on the show.  "The actor" never went into detail so the post could easily be read as a fan's jealous rant about the women on the show.

This idea was reinforced by several posts from women participants who thought the show could be saved if all the women characters were cut and only the men remained.  Growing up, I was burdened with the patriarchal "divide and conquer" ideology which required that I see other women as the competition.  Unfortunately, this damaging way of thinking is still very prevalent.

Just like the message board I visited, I find M/M slash fanfic is often a community of women who want to "save" the story by cutting all the women characters.  My personal experience with fandom and slash writing has been confined to The X-Files and Once a Thief.  In the X-Files, there is a common scenario that has Scully as the obstruction to the plot, or worse, she is in competition with Krycek for Mulder's affection.  The narrative is structured so that the happy ending always entails her losing out to the other M of the M/M story.  The reader comes to believe that the only characters that matter are the male characters.  It is rare in slash when a female character has any prominent role to play, and then she is usually little more than the stereotype of whore, mother or crone.
 

In Once a Thief, LiAnn is usually portrayed as cold and selfish.  I have been guilty of this myself.

Excerpt from BENT:

"Did LiAnn ever blow you?" he asked, apparently not eager to hear the answer.
Mac laughed and propped himself on one elbow.  He shook his head no.
"You kidding?"
Vic looked back at the ceiling.
"I asked her once.  But she pitched such a fit I never said anything again."
"I can't imagine her blowing anybody.  I can't imagine her doing anything except laying there and asking, 'are you finished yet?'"
Vic turned his head quickly and looked at Mac.
"I thought it was just me!"
Mac grinned.  "No.  It's definitely her."

It is not enough to put the two men together, we must try and destroy the woman the man is attracted to --- the competition, in other words.  If there is not an openly hostile attitude towards the series' females there is at least some dismissal of the characters.  Both Scully and LiAnn are away on business a great deal, or sometimes even dead as the story opens.

I wanted to redeem a female character, who in OaT cannon had betrayed Victor Mansfield setting him up to be murdered.  The actress who portrayed Ivy Moen had invested her brief portrayal with such nuance that I came away with the certainty that Victor had been a very important part of the character's life and that her betrayal had cost her dearly.  I threw the two together and let Vic flounder while Ivy tried to make amends and win him back.  Mac was instantly jealous and reactive.  The feedback was overwhelmingly: poor Mac...  That Bitch!  I don't know if this lack of sympathy for Ivy was do to some inability on my part to portray her as I had wanted to, or the fact that here was a woman who posed a real threat to the M/M relationship and, as a result, was perceived as competition by the reader.
 

Many of the M/M slash stories I have read seem to me to play out the ancient societal edict that a man must be the total focus of a woman's life, and gaining his affection is the culminating accomplishment of her life.  Yet the woman herself is still not worthy of the man, and the writer substitutes another man as the victor.

Female M/M slash writers are often ridiculed if they create a strong female character as the protagonist.  She has committed that most heinous of all crimes, writing a Mary Sue: a character who is achingly beautiful, the smartest person in the room and always has the best dialogue.  Of course, it is the heart of the M/M slash genre to perfect our male characters in just this way.  And who will acknowledge that many of us identify with one of the male characters and are really writing that perfect image of ourselves through him?  All writing is Mary Sue writing in some way.  So there are few portrayals of women because the author will incur scorn from the women of her writing community.  The standard is that men need to be the focus.

This male centric attitude is what I find the disturbing side effect of slash writing.  In the RL world of fandom, I have seen horrendous wars between women for the imagined attentions, and/or possession, of the object of their desire.  When David Duchovny announced his marriage there was a wave of ugly hostility from some fans towards Tea Leoni.  I was reminded of this when I read "the actor's" posts on the message board mentioned above, that made it clear the women around him were the problem.

I have read male slash writers' complaints that women do not include them as full participants in the M/M slash world.  For every incident like that, I have seen another where the only opinion valued is from the sole male in attendance.

A friend told me she found it disturbing that women, especially young women, would become involved in a genre that did not address their being women.  At first I defended this as an empowering sort of writing where women made men in their own image, and for the most part this is the case.  Now, that I have been involved for a few years I cannot deny that there is an element who prefer only the company of men.

I like the eroticism of M/M slash writing and the emotional complexity the writer puts her men through.  I don't, however, want to make being a woman a second class endeavor.  There are plenty of men out there to do that for me.  I would hope that all women M/M slash writers have as much respect and loyalty for each other as they do for the men they write.