Quantity not quality?

[farad]

I was drawn into this essay as it seemed to be a continuation of another discussion about tropes in m/m fiction; it is, tangentially, on that topic, but more about something that reminded me a lot of the discussions we have in this fandom about the fanoning, particularly in ATF.  Some of this author's points are interesting, and have me musing.  Her basic argument, constructed about tropes in romance fiction, is that it's not a particular one thing that grates on us as readers - her example is that the title and position of 'duke' are used often in Regency Romance, almost as a default for the male 'lead' character - but its overuse - as she points out, there were only 27 dukes during the Regency period, so regency romance readers today think this a far more common title and position that it was.  She does a lovely break down of how on reader could possibly read 27 Regency romance books with this knowledge and accept it, but that after a point, it becomes overkill. 

Making it relevant to us is the use of certain characteristics for each of the seven in, for the sake of ease, ATF fic.  The first few stories one reads with Vin as a junk-food eater and Ezra obsessed with his Jaguar and Chris yelling at everyone for every little thing are amusing.  For those of us looking for characterizations closer to canon, by the time you get to the 25th or 30th story using these characterizations, the shine has worn off. 

Kaetrin, the author of the piece, goes on to discuss the right of an author to continue to write the stories with dukes and other tropes, and she's right, of course; it's not an author's 'fault' that the author wants to write in the trope.  And as with most tropes, there are readers who will be interested in reading them.   But writers should perhaps be aware that readers can become over-indulged in certain tropes which will make their stories less appealing to the 'market at large'. 

In the m/m - slash vein, two tropes that were discussed particularly and are ones also seen in fandom are the 'Gay for You' trope - the het guy who 'turns gay' for his male lover/soulmate - and the 'Out for you' trope, where a person who's been in the closet finally comes out in order to be with his lover.  I think we see a goodly amount of this in the fandom, particularly in C/V fiction (and again, an over-indulgence?)

These are discussed in more detail in the "M/M Roundtable: a Guide for the Perplexed" that was the parent discussion for Kaetrin's essay, in the comments particularly.  This roundtable is interesting not only for the trope discussion but also for conversations in the comments addressing the ever-popular question of why we write m/m.

Anyway, some interesting ideas in these two essays, for anyone interested. 

Comments

[huntersglenn]

Commenting here without reading the article. But, I've been recently buried in Mag 7 slash, and the number of stories where 'straight' Chris is now with 'gay' Vin is pretty high. And of course, all cover the 'turned gay' issue by having Josiah or some other wise person simply stating that love doesn't recognize gender. And in the majority of the stories, it's Vin who's gay, even the old west stories where straight Chris falls for Vin.

The junk food one/Ezra being prissy or fastidious/Chris overly grumpy/etc. bother me more when they're poorly done. Some of them have passed into fanon, which is a shame, because some of that is poorly done. But, I'm just as bothered by the Vin being a voracious eater as I am with Vin being a junk food junky (or sugar hound if it's Old West). We didn't see a lot of Vin eating in the show - we didn't really see a lot of any of them eating. But, a trope, be it canon or fanon, isn't bad when it's done right - and those are probably the ones that we gloss over. It's the poorly executed ones that make us cringe and have to decide on whether to back out of that story or stick around because it certainly can't get worse (although, they usually do).

As for the example of the dukes in the Regency era - how many romance readers really know what the Regency period entailed to begin with? My mother-in-law and sister-in-law read a lot (as in she receives shipments of boxes of books) of romance. They can run the gamut from medieval to modern day. I don't know if they read every single book that is delivered, but I do know that the ones by authors they like, are ones they read because they like the author, and not because of the subject matter. So, when they read ones set in that time period, it's not because they like the time period, it's because they like the premise or the author. That said, just because there were only 27 dukes during that period, isn't really a reason to quit reading those kinds of books, or find fault with the trope. There is creative license for a reason. These are pretend people in pretend worlds.

And now I'm off to read those articles (grin).

[farad]

LOL - starting backwards, yes, she does make the point somewhere in the article that now all people reading Regency Romance will know that there were only 27. Part of what her point is, that I didn't make clear, is that the sheer number of them in that genre give many readers an inaccurate idea of 'real history'. I think the better parallel for us would be those people who come into Mag 7 reading ATF fic and are shocked to learn that the series itself is set in the Old West - and that so many of the characteristics that they've read about aren't there in the canon characters.

I'm of mixed minds on the quality issue versus the fanoning itself. I'm currently re-reading one of the best ATF stories out there, and one of the very best stories in the fandom, yet every time I come across a 'fanon' thing, it still jerks me out of frame. It might be because the canon characterizations are so very good that the fanoning jumps out more, but I do think it's because I just hate the fanoning so much.

Canonically, we do have more support for Chris being straight than gay - you know, that whole wacky 'married with child' pre-history. *G* So 'gay for you' is more common with him than probably any of the others except perhaps Buck. I can see Vin and Ezra as gay pretty easily, more so than the other five. I think the bigger issue, though, is the idea of 'variable sexuality'. While I personally believe that there is a 'sliding scale' so sexuality with very few truly 'gay' people and very few truly 'straight' people, I do think that it takes some real chemistry to move someone into sexual attraction when it's not their natural predisposition. And more to keep them there for a relationship. The genre of romance is based in the idea of a love that will overcome everything, great obstacles included, like someone's sexuality. After all, what speaks more of an overwhelming love that changing one's sexual identity only for that person? But it's not realistic.

Which is perhaps why I don't think I'm as much a romance writer as - some other category - ?

[huntersglenn]

Regarding the fanon issues, there are so many of them that you really dislike, and no matter how well written the story might be, those particular fanon things will never set right with you (grin).

I'm thinking that the real history versus 'romance' history issue might be one of education. I kinda hate to use that term, because that implies that some people who read romance novels, especially Regency ones, might not be educated. What I mean is that there are people out there who know how to do research. People who were the ones in school who were always looking things up. The people who would go to a library and spend nearly as much time in the encyclopedia/reference area as in the fiction one. Then you have the people who weren't dumb, but didn't put forth the effort to learn more on their own. The ones who want their history handed to them, instead of having to go looking for it on their own. For people born and/or raised in the internet age, these would be the ones who have the 'it's on the internet, it must be true' mentality, regardless of the subject.

So, yes, SOME people who read Regency romance might come away thinking that they've been reading 'real' history. But, some will also be approaching it from the entertainment angle - they read for the pleasure, for the escape element. I do think that in the past 10 years or so, a lot of people have moved away from the escapism aspect of novels, TV shows and movies. They want things to be realistic and accurate. Movies get picked apart because an exploding ship in space made a sound. There's no creative license allowed, or perhaps not allowed, but not welcomed. And, I'm somewhat guilty of that. I've lost count of how many hours I've spent researching things that ended up being barely mentioned in a story, just because I wanted to be accurate (yes, I am that anal).

With Chris, I don't automatically associate being married with a child as more straight than gay. This is probably because over the years, I've met a few gay men who had been married and had kids. Gay, and not bi-sexual. For each of the men, they pretty much knew they were gay, but were conforming to what society/family/church expected of them, and so they married. I would expect that a similar attitude would have been present with many men in the 1800s - with some repressing their attraction to other men, and others sneaking around while being 'happily' married. And then you'd have the confirmed bachelors, who never seemed to go courting, but instead were loving and diligent sons, staying unmarried so they could take care of their parents. Or the men who found themselves giving in to society and marrying women who were flat as boards and more mannish in their mannerisms. When dealing with other time periods, we always run the risk of viewing it through modern lenses - as a genealogist, I run into that. There are some prominent genealogists who I look up to, and they all have versions of the same thing: that you cannot understand the past unless you know the context of the past. Why were records created at a certain time, what rights did women have when it came to owning property or inheriting, what rights did children born out-of-wedlock have? Answers to those questions are going to be different depending on not only where the events are happening, but also when they're happening.

Chris Larabee of Indiana (going with the idea that that is where he was from), by what we can tell of how he behaves and interacts with others, would have been brought up expected to sow some wild oats, then settle down, get married and have a family, preferably on the family farm. Buck was not raised with those expectations - his mother's occupation ensured that as long as he remained in the same geographic area, Buck would never be viewed as suitable marriage material. If Josiah had really been a Catholic priest, then marriage would have been off the table for him, and outside of a few musings and gazing at Maude and Emma, Josiah seems to be more non-sexual. I think you'd pegged it pretty well that Josiah fell more in love with the image of Emma, than with Emma, and has probably never been with a woman. J. D. would have been considered good marriage material, as would Nathan. Vin would not, nor would Ezra (in the eyes of society as a whole).

As for the 'sliding scale', I believe it's there, and I do agree with you on the chemistry aspect. But, and that's a big BUT, whether or not that chemistry would make someone move into sexual attraction/love/committed relationship depends on so many other variables. For instance, I dearly love my BFF. I've known her since I was 12, and I'm now in my early 50s. But, if she was a male, I would not be sexually interested in her, nor romantically interested (and I do believe that those can be two separate things). However, my youngest son and his BFF are so close that if one of them was of the opposite gender, they'd be a couple. Even my son's fiance agrees with me on that. So, what would make them be a couple with them both being male? One is a good, Catholic-Italian-Puerto Rican boy, the other has barely attended church and describes himself as more of a Deist than anything else. The death of every female on earth might result with him being a couple, but they are pretty het guys. Who would so be all over each other if one of them was a woman.

So, now addressing the sexual relationship and romantic relationship being different things. Years ago, I was a regular participant in a chat room for an internet radio show. The host was gay, and most of the other chatters were, too. Some were bi (the host had a daughter from a marriage, but was divorced and at that time, had been with his partner for close to 10 years). The guys were very open and willing to answer questions. One guy didn't like anal sex, and only gave blow jobs because he liked getting them. He thought it was only fair to reciprocate. He never had any thoughts or feelings toward his oral sex partners that bordered near the romantic. He didn't want love or a relationship, he wanted to have his cock sucked. Period. This is something that I think women tend to have problems with - the concept of sex as being pure physical release, with no emotion. Hence the romance along with the sex in romance novels. We tend to write our slash stories the same way, even our PWP stories will feature men who are in a relationship, but just having sex for the heck of it. A PWP is just that - no plot, just a description of two men - in a relationship - having sex. Women also tend to have 'cleaner' sex than men, or I should say, to write it. There's a reason that porn movies have the money shots - men like that, they like doing it, they like seeing it, they like messy. Which can lead to some interesting problems when you have a couple where one is really into enjoying the messy and the other is horrified at messing up the 500 count Egyptian cotton sheets. Anal sex is messy. Women don't dwell on that, either. But, going back to the sex versus relationship - for most women, the two are together 'sexual relationship', for most men, they can be two totally separate things. So, yes, a man can be in love with another man, yet not want to immediately hop into the sack with him. But be more than willing to drop his pants while the other guy goes to his knees. Or might not like that, either, and just wants to spend time together, never crossing the sexual boundary - but those guys are probably going to be that way with other men, too.

I do like romance with my slash, or rather, I should say that I like love with my slash (grin). And again, romance and love are not always the same thing.