Views on homo- and heterosexuality in fandoms

The fact that I’ve still paired up Jack and Karen from Will & Grace, in a series of humorous stories, has it’s funny and complicated explanation in the fics. I’m not saying Jack isn’t gay. Obviously he is. That’s why he’s not involved with Karen in the traditional sense. It’s all a long and complicated story.

Will, on the other hand, I perceive as a gay man who has some straight tendencies. He’s clearly still partial to Grace and just like many straight guys, he’s fascinated with any hints of lesbian connections between women. You get the impression Will wouldn’t mind living in a culture where it’s totally acceptable to be married to a woman, and still have gay relations on the side. I imagine there are many men like that in real life too.

Actually, it’s quite odd that though it’s a very common and completely accepted practice, in fan fiction, to make a straight character gay, the opposite – making a gay character straight – is completely off limits and taboo. When I pair up Will and Grace – not because I’m in any way can be considered a ‘shipper’ (someone who is for a particular ‘ship’ i e relationship, in practice a pairing) – I immediately get enraged comments. ‘That could never happen!”.

Before I wrote those stories I asked my gay/bi/sex addicted friend for advice. I also checked what Minotaur had to say. Minotaur, if you didn’t know that already, is what is extremely rare – a gay man who writes fan fiction. He has a big site with advice for the slash writer. According to Minotaur, it’s common for gay men to have sex with women, when they’re drunk. Why they do that, is beyond me, but if that’s how it is, why shouldn’t Will have sex with Grace? He’ll still be attracted to men, but he might also find out that sex with a particular woman might be pretty good too.

There was a comment added to the reply – about gay men having sex with women. You have to watch out so you don’t write something homophobic. If that’s the reason you want to ‘convert’ a gay character. What no one seems to consider is that there might actually be heterophobic tendencies floating around in the fan fiction world.

I’m not homophobic and the fact that I don’t read femslash/femmeslash – stories about sex and/or love between women doesn’t mean that I’m opposed to it on principle. It’s simply not my thing. It doesn’t interest me. Deathfics don’t and not songfics either. I don’t read fics with the ‘wrong’ pairing from my point of view or fanfics based on fandoms I’m not into. I’m the ‘customer’. Don’t I have the right to choose what to read?

I’m not a beta reader (someone who edits and comments other people’s stories), but if I had been, I would naturally have read and commented on a femslash story too. Of course, I don’t know how much my opinion would be worth, since I don’t read femslash, but in any case I could check on spelling, grammar, plot, character descriptions etc.

In real life, I wish everyone all the best, if they can find a partner to be happy with. I hope they’ll be very happy. Naturally this only goes for pairings made up of two consenting adults of normal intelligence or two adult people with learning disabilities. No one should be allowed to abuse children, animals, retarded people, the mentally ill, senile or dead people. If someone falls for a pair of shoes, fine. That won’t hurt anyone.

I don’t know if this is true or not, but I have heard that several men have expressed a wish to marry their motorcycles or the big new tv. Yes, that’s what I heard. I don’t know if it’s right to marry a gadget, but if the gadgets turn them on, well, at least no one gets hurt.