#this is a messy conversation and there just isn't a single black and white conclusion

[rollercoasterwords]

hi, i think i’m the anon from earlier more so meant the people looking up explicit mlm fics don’t see their own hypocrisy in complaining about lesbian fetishisation?

idk. as an mlm myself i think some marauders fics revolving around mlm relationships are heavily sexualised for authors that, yes are queer, but don’t identify as men. and there’s absolutely no problem with writing queer smut, i want to make that very clear. but it’s when it becomes something that is done in every chapter and so explicit despite the fact that the author would have never experienced that type of sexual relationship.

and these fics are more so consumed by women. again, no harm in that. but you have to ask why they’re specifically looking for explicit mlm fics.

i more so see this type of behaviour on tiktok, specifically regarding sweater weather (me and a lot of my mlm mutual found it very uncomfortable to read) and it’s a very popular fic.

anyways, i agree that queer sex shouldn’t be a taboo topic but i think there should be boundaries or lines (whether they be messy or not) drawn on who can consume that media. there’s no harm in explicit queer smut but i think it becomes problematic when it is written by and read by cis women.

men consuming lesbian smut and porn is uncomfortable and disgusting, i think the same opinions should be applied when women do the same to explicit gay media.

i also want to outline this is not an attack towards you or anyone else, it’s simply my opinion, i can be quite blunt in my delivery but i promise there’s no malice in this.

much love :)

hi! i appreciate the clarification and i appreciate the desire to engage in a conversation about this. i don't think you were too blunt or harsh, and i am also sending you much love! there's a lot to unpack here, so i'm gonna go ahead and respond as best i can, bearing in mind that i think our opinions on this topic might just differ.

so, this is me wading into the weeds on the fetishization conversation. my response is gonna get long and considering the nature of the topic i'm going to be talking about sex, so if that's something you don't want to see then just keep scrolling!

ok so before i even start this conversation, a few ground rules since this is a sensitive topic -

this is a conversation. i am not presenting my thoughts here with the intention of saying that i am absolutely 100% correct or that everyone needs to think the way i do. i am also not presenting my thoughts here with the intent of engaging in any sort of debate or argument. this is a subject on which my own thoughts have changed and could change again, and i value perspectives and opinions different from my own that challenge me to consider why i think the way i do. so if you've read this far - please only continue to read if you are capable of engaging with this post as a conversation. thanks!

i am only speaking about the marauders fandom here. everything i say is being said within that scope. that is because it is the only fandom space that i am plugged into. what i say here may not apply in other fandoms, and it may not apply to fanfiction as a whole in broad, sweeping terms. that is because i am only talking about the marauders fandom

everything i say here is being said with the premise that i do not think either gender or sexuality are fixed, inherent identities. this is part of my own personal worldview, and it is not something that everyone will agree with. if anyone is curious about why i think that way, i'm happy to explain further - but i won't right now, because that's not the purpose of this post. suffice it to say that if you disagree with that premise, you may disagree with a lot of the thoughts building off of it, but what matters is that we are all operating from the same premise for the purposes of this post. and since it's my post, i get to choose the premise! fun :)

i am defining "fetishization" as used in this essay as the reduction of someone's sexuality to a sex object; essentially, viewing homosexuality as nothing more than a means by which to get off, rather than a complex experience and identity.

okay if you've made it through the ground rules and are still here, great! let's get into it. first, anon, i'm going to try to summarize your point - if i'm misinterpreting or misconstruing anything, please let me know! but from what i understand right now, the gist of what you're saying is:

it's uncomfortable/problematic when cis women read and write highly explicit/graphic sexual content about mlm because they themselves would never/have never experienced those types sexual relationships

and your final sort of "conclusion" seems to be this part:

"...there should be boundaries or lines (whether they be messy or not) drawn on who can consume that media."

so bear with me, but i essentially want to push back a little and ask some questions about assumptions that might be underlying that viewpoint. again, i'm not trying to argue or debate; i am not saying that this opinion is wrong and you shouldn't have it. i'm just saying hey! i don't entirely agree, but your points challenged me to think about why, so let's talk about it!

first, i want to do a little thought experiment. you draw this conclusion that you think there do need to be some boundaries and lines, and the boundary you seem to be suggesting is that "the author would have never experienced that type of sexual relationship." so, let's run with that - let's say that writers should only write about the types of sexual relationships they've experienced.

i'm a lesbian. i've written about two gay men having sex. does that create the same discomfort?

"well, rae," you might say, "obviously not. obviously you aren't fetishizing gay men. you're gay, too! you understand homosexuality, and it isn't just a fetish to you."

ok! cool. lesbians get the green card to write about gay sex. awesome, love that for us. what about a bisexual woman?

now here, this conversation can go one of two ways. either you say - yeah, of course, any queer person can write about queer sex. in which case i say - cool! sounds good. from what i've seen, the majority of sexual content in the marauders fandom is queer people writing about queer sex, so this whole conversation about fetishization just doesn't really seem like an issue here to me.

OR you say no, that's where i'm drawing the line, because bi women experience attraction to men, which means that if they write about men having graphic sex with each other they are reducing those men to sex objects. to which i just kind of say...really? like, are you sure?

you use the fic sweater weather as an example. and i have read that fic, although it's been a while, so it's not entirely fresh in my mind, and i also do not know anything about the writer's gender, sexuality, or the types of sex they may or may not have had. based on your ask, it seems like the writer is a woman, which, ok. trusting u on that one. you said that the explicit sexual content made you and some of your mlm friends uncomfortable when you read it, and my very first initial thought to that is - then why did you read it?

like, the thing about fanfic is that nobody has to read it. and even if it's popular, there's nobody profiting off of it. i actually went to check in ao3, and sweater weather is not only tagged as "Explicit," but it also contains the tags, "smut," "sexual content," "blow jobs," "anal sex," and "semi-public sex," which means that before even reading the first sentence, you would have known to expect all of that explicit sexual content. so right off the bat, if that type of explicit sexual content makes you uncomfortable, i am genuinely asking from a place of confusion: why read it? or if you thought it wouldn't make you uncomfortable but then you got to it and it did, why keep reading? why not simply close the fic?

regardless, we have both read that fic, and although like i said, it's been a while, and it's not exactly fresh in my mind, i personally did not come away from it thinking that the explicit sexual content was fetishizing. we may just have a difference of opinion here, and obviously we're going to have different perspectives, so maybe this is just something that i need explained a bit more to me to understand (and i would value the input of any gay men/mlm who would like to talk to me about this!). but from what i remember, there's a lot more to the story than just the sexual content, the characters are fleshed out beyond their sexualities, and the sexual content was actually relevant in the context of the broader story being told in the ways that it deepened the characters' relationship, explored the ways in which they related to each other, and was situated in a larger story involving homophobia amidst hockey culture. at the end of the day, i just didn't get the sense that the writer was reducing gay men to nothing more than sexual objects.

and so this might be getting back into that limit you set earlier - "the author would have never experienced that type of sexual relationship." like, currently, that seems to be your baseline for fetishization - that if an author has never experienced a certain type of sexual relationship, they cannot write about it without reducing it to an object of fetish. but the reason that i just can't get behind this is that at the end of the day, you have no way of knowing what kinds of sexual relationships a writer has or has not engaged in, because a person's gender and sexuality tells you nothing about what kind of sex they have. identity can change over time, and just because someone identifies a certain way now doesn't mean they always have. something that was interesting to me about your ask is later on when you specify, "there’s no harm in explicit queer smut but i think it becomes problematic when it is written by and read by cis women." the specification on cis women here interests me simply because...cis women can have queer sex. additionally, i want to challenge you to pause and think about why you're placing trans and cis women in different categories here. what assumptions might you be making about the types of sexual relationships trans women and cis women have, and why might those assumptions lead you decide that one type of woman is more qualified to write about certain sexual experiences than another? again, i will reiterate: a person's gender and sexuality does not actually give you any information about the types of sexual relationships they have had, are having, or may have in the future. this is why i think "only write about sexual relationships you have had" is an impossible boundary to set.

furthermore, i actually think that fanfiction should be a safe space for people to explore types of sexual relationships they maybe haven't had! gender and sexuality are not static or fixed; they are identities that can change throughout a person's life, and they are identities that i think people should be encouraged to explore. a cis woman writing or reading about gay sex may be exploring some things about her own gender and sexuality, and because of the nature of fanfiction (outside the profit economy, tagging system that helps protect people from being forced to see things they don't want to see, etc) i actually think it should remain a safe space for her to do that.

and so here you might say -- ok rae, i'm with you on most of this, but surely there must be some aspect of fetishization going on? why else would explicit mlm fics be so wildly popular when explicit wlw fics are not? and the thing is, i've talked about that question at length in this post, so i'm not gonna say it all again -- but essentially, i think a lot of it has to do with the ways in which people taught to be women are systematically alienated from their own bodies and desires, making it easier to explore sexual desire through the medium of fictional men.

so like...when you say "you have to ask why they’re specifically looking for explicit mlm fics." there's a lot of possible answers to this question! maybe they're questioning their own gender or sexuality. maybe they have some complicated internalized feelings surrounding their own sexual desire that make it easier to read something the feels a few steps removed. maybe they're curious about a type of sex they've never had before. or maybe they are just reading it to get off--and we might have a difference of opinion here, but i do not think that that in and of itself is problematic, because there is a difference between "somebody gets off to x thing" and "somebody views x thing exclusively as material for getting off." one is fetishization, the other is just...human sexual desire.

and the thing is, there is no way to know the reasons behind why every single person who is reading mlm fic is reading it. there is no line you can draw in the sand that will ensure everyone is always reading it for "the right reasons" without in some way excluding queer people from access to what should be a safe space to explore sex and sexuality. and that's why i tend to be wary anytime i see these conversations about fetishization popping up within the marauders fandom.

one last thing i feel the need to address: you say that "men consuming lesbian smut and porn is uncomfortable and disgusting, i think the same opinions should be applied when women do the same to explicit gay media." and i'm going to disagree with you here, for a number of reasons.

we're not talking porn as a whole (or at least, i'm not). we're talking about fanfiction, which is a unqiue form of media and should be treated as its own thing.

i agree that all fetishization is bad, but the fetishization of lesbians by men versus the fetishization of gay men by women are two entirely different situations. like. the power dynamics at play are very different, and the ways each group is affected looks different, and the ways in which that fetishization happens look different and just...idk, this feels like a simplification of a much more nuanced conversation that i do not have time to get into right now.

WITHIN this conversation we're having about marauders fanfiction and explicit sexual content there though - i actually do not agree that men consuming explicit sexual content about lesbians is always going to be uncomfortable and disgusting. in fact, within the context of marauders fic, i'd say that everything i've already said about women consuming mlm content could probably be applied to men consuming wlw content. like...i don't mind if men are reading and enjoying my lesbian sex scenes. obviously i don't want anyone fetishizing them, but i sincerely doubt that that's what's happening in a majority-queer space like the marauders fandom--if there are men reading and enjoying the sex scenes i write, i think it's far more likely that they are probably finding some common ground in our shared queerness. and even if there is a cishet man out there reading my work -- i don't mind him engaging with a portrayal of lesbian sexuality, and maybe it's even a good thing for him to venture outside the heteronormative bubble and get an idea of what queer sex looks like to queer people. is it a risk that someone might read it and fetishize it? sure. but lesbians are going to be fetishized no matter what boundaries i try to set, so i would rather my work remain a safe space for queer people of any identity than try to cherry pick who can and cannot read it. also, i have read fic with lesbian sex that was not written by lesbians or wlw, and was still done well, and was still not fetishizing. at the end of the day, it's the actual content that matters to me, and not the identity of the writer. obviously, the identity of the writer will inform their content to a certain extent, but that doesn't mean writers should only be limited to writing experiences that they personally have had. especially in fanfic, which i view as a safe space for exploration.

anyway, as i warned at the beginning, this got very long, but i wanted to take the time to flesh out my thoughts and really address the points you were making. hopefully this provides some food for thought on the conversation about fetishization within the marauders fandom, and hopefully it helps to explain why i'm wary of trying to create boundaries around who does or doesn't have a right to read or write certain types of fanfiction!

much love <3