Lust versus Love versus friendship versus slash culture versus blah blah blah
Originally written Dec. 18, 2002:
The following was just supposed to be short, but I found that the more I wrote the more I had to say, so it turned into a very long, ultimately very bitter rant.
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Why does mentioning the word "lust" when talking about a relationship automatically make people think you're cheapening the relationship? Why is it that people think lust in itself is some sort of lower emotion? I don't know about the rest of you, but I've pretty much always felt deep lust
only for people I already had a strong emotional bond with. And yet it feels like whenever you even mention lust in a conversation about love, people assume that you're putting whatever relationship you're discussing at the time on a level with high schoolers ogling Justin Timberlake in a
Seventeen magazine at a sleepover.
I mean, what's so bad about lust? Are there *any* emotions that are inherently *bad* in and of themselves? Or is it just what people do with them that make them positive or negative? Because, let's face it, love can be the most destructive weapon of all, just as easily as hate, when it's used as the excuse for causing pain. And then there's lust. Lust is fun, it's exciting, it's refreshing and hot and *harmless* in and of itself. Lust is natural, but it doesn't follow that it's automatically something that's base. I'm thinking, here's Sam, wholly devoted to Frodo, following him around like a lovesick puppy; and here's Frodo, wholly devoted to Sam, so very aware of how good Sam is to him and for him, and trying his best to make him understand how much he loves and appreciates him--if occasionally they give each other quiet 'come hither' looks, why would it be such a big deal? Why would feeling lust automatically be changing the nature of their relationship, even more than the love you already feel?
And for that matter, who's to say that anybody ever even
knows the nature of a relationship save the two people who are in it? All of us, who are going on and on about how DV Harry and Draco
need to be together romantically in order to be happy, or crying that introducing romance would ruin everything and drastically alter the kind of relationship they have--who are we to say what kind of relationship that is to begin with? For all any of us know, save Cassie, Harry, and Draco themselves, they've already privately acknowledged further depths and unexplored sexual/romantic aspects of their relationship with each other, and have built upon those things as well as on the things we've seen. For all we know, they could have acknowledged long ago that they love each other as brothers and the idea of anything more existing between them is absolutely the weirdest thing ever and all ewwwy, and moved on. They could be telepathically jumping each other's bones in their sleep each night. We don't know. But am certain that if they've ever felt lust towards one another, it would never make them any less deeply devoted, passionate, tender, loyal, or love-filled towards one another than they already are.
Look, even without a single sexual thought entertained between them, their love, and Frodo and Sam's, still brings me to tears. But why do people resist the idea of it? I mean, to me it just seems natural that it should be
some sort of consideration, even if in passing. Don't tell me you've never had passing thoughts about your best friend. The beautiful power and love inspired by true friendship is deeply satisfying, and no less moving than that that leads to romantic feelings. But I hate that every time anyone even *acknowledges* the possibility of more existing between two friends who are deeply devoted to one another, we
always hear somebody responding with "what's wrong with just friendship? why does it always have to be about romance?"
Well, why shouldn't it be, if there's evidence that it exists? And in a loving relationship with someone you
already care about so deeply, why would lustful, passionate feelings automatically make the deep friendship you already feel for them less cherished or pure or sincere? It wouldn't, as far as I'm concerned.
I maintain that that Look Elijah gave Sean was the most inviting, I've-got-your-number, shag-inspiring look of the year. And hey, I was surrounded last night by a huge audience of straight guys who burst into applause when I yelled what I did. So if a huge audience of straight guys can see it, I'm thinking it's a credible possibility. I'm not seeing it because I
want to see it, in the case of Frodo and Sam, or DV Harry and Draco. I'm seeing it because it's
there.
I mean, if you see evidence of romantic love or sexual attraction in Remus/Sirius, you're seeing it because you want to see it. If you see evidence of romantic love or sexual attraction in Legolas/Aragorn, or Harry/Draco, you're seeing it because you want to see it. That goes for virtually any ship in the HP canon except for a handful like Molly/Arthur or Hermione/Viktor--which ironically are among the least popular ships written about in fanfic. But if you see evidence of romantic love or sexual attraction in the Trilogy, or in the
much-debated Frodo/Sam relationship, you're seeing it because the evidence is already there. It's
strongly there. Who cares if ultimately it's your interpretation against somebody else's? It's still an interpretation supported by text.
But instead it's not viewed as an interpretation supported by text but as a flight of fancy indulged by slashers, who of course just go around slashing everyone we see. It's frustrating. Especially because, I don't know about the rest of you, but I
don't slash just because I can. Yes, I pick up on male-male subtext generally and I point it out, sure, but as far as
believing in the existence of romantic or sexual male-male attraction because I believe it's there or could be there, it's happened very rarely. Harry/Draco. Trilogy H/D. Frodo/Sam. Maybe Robert Sean Leonard and that other guy from Dead Poet's Society, but it's been a long time since I've seen it. But really, it doesn't happen that often for me.
That's why when it
does happen, I feel like whatever male-male pairing I'm trying to discuss is automatically being placed in some separate category from where the
real discussion is going on, because it's a "slash" pairing and therefore can't really be legitimate, in the way that, say, Harry/Ginny is legitimate in the canon. Bullshit. And no matter
how much evidence you present that the specified pairing is full of examples indicating romance, there's always going to be somebody, a whole legion of people, popping up to say "why does it always have to be about runing the beautiful friendship?"
But it's NOT. It's
not always about romantic/sexual love. I mean, look at Remus and Sirius. I love their friendship. A long time ago, before I entered the fandom, before I ever even liked "slash," I thought, 'man, it'd be nice if they were in love once.' But that's it. I don't believe they're canonically anything more than friends, and I love them as friends. I love James and Sirius as friends. I love Ron and Harry as friends. And I have no interest in drooling over the supposed incest subtext in Igby Goes Down. But does anybody ever think about that, before they start asking why it's always got to be about love and not just friendship? It's too easy. Too easy to just assume that people are just milking the subtext for all it's worth and write off what some of us are trying to say about the relationships we're discussing.
I hate, I fucking
hate, that because I choose to engage in some sort of public discourse about the legitimacy of a pairing, I get maligned from non-slashers because I'm trying to inject slash into something that doesn't outright state "AND THEN HARRY AND DRACO FUCKED LIKE RABBITS"--and then, haha, I get maligned from other slashers because my
rabid shippiness is so annoying.
According to the rules of this fandom I'm not really even a slasher. I should quit calling myself one. I like male-male pairings when I see evidence for them. But I'm sick of being lumped in with some sort of huge homogeneous group of people that live only to slash everything they see. I don't give a fuck about Snapeslash. I don't read stories just for the slashy interaction. I don't skip the plot of a story just to get to the next Harry/Draco scene. I don't give a damn about James/Sirius or Lucius/Harry or Ron/Bill, any more than I do about het ships. I've gotten to the point where I don't even like to put "slash" in the disclaimers of my stories because once you say "slash" there's no way you can have your story interpreted on its own merits because it's already got that "oh, you're a slasher" stigma attached to it--the same way it feels like whenever I bring up DV Harry and Draco in a general mixed arena like PoU, all the het shippers are rolling their eyes going, 'oh, she's a slasher,' and automatically writing off whatever it is I have to say.
< disdain> Because, I mean, god forbid Harry/Draco ever have as much textual validity in the Trilogy as Draco/Ginny. </ disdain>
I meant this to be just a question about how we talk about lust in relationship to love, but now that I look at what I'm frustrated about, it's not about different interpretations of lust versus love. I can have a discussion about lust versus love with people who take interpretations of homesexual subtext seriously, and it would prove very intriguing and productive.
What I'm frustrated about is the fact that no matter WHAT we do, if we're writing about homosexual relationships, no matter
how we talk about them--no matter how much evidence we gather or how intelligently we debate them,
somebody's always going to be saying we're cheapening a relationship. And for every person that says we're cheapening what's meant to be a beautiful friendship, somebody
else, some other slasher, will always be quick to point out how stupid we are for thinking that
our pairing is so great that it's worth gushing about.
You know what? The way I see it, it's probably too much to ask that the general populace accept homosexual subtext, ala Frodo and Sam, as valid and likely the way they accept heterosexual subtext, ala Mulder and Scully. It's probably too much to ask that people might refrain from automatically rolling their eyes whenever somebody makes an offhand but serious comment about how so-and-so must have intentionally been playing up that particular bit of subtext in such-and-such movie. It's probably too much to ask that slash relationships be discussed in comparison with other similar
heterosexual relationships, and not always with other subtexty slash relationships that bear little or no resemblance to one another, except in the fact that, hey, they're both male! And it's probably WAY too much to ask that other slashers get over the tendency to mock the ones of us who just want to focus on one relationship.
But since it's probably too much to ask all that, since you can't control what people think, and the assumptions they draw about your pairing, or you, no matter
what you do, you might as well say 'fuck them all' and enjoy writing and discussing the pairings you want to write and discuss, without worrying who the next person is who's going to say that your pairing is so last season, or that you're just subverting the text because you're a perv who can't get enough dick in real life so you have to write men getting it on with each other.
Mahoney, I'm remembering something you said that I've meant to respond to for a while--that you think of me when you think 'slash.' I'm not a slasher. I like slash. I love Harry/Draco. The sweet t00by boy love in any context makes me coo and gush and be happy. If that's what being a slasher is, then maybe that counts. But I've come to think of "slashers" as a group of people separate from me lately. I'm a shipper. I have taken and will continue to take a lot of flak for it. I don't care.
I just hope that someday people will to make that final distinction between "slash" and "pairings," and stop making blanket judgments about each, so that when we try to talk about things like lust versus love, there
won't be this overhanging issue of "oh, you're just trying to turn it into slash" that inevitably haunts fandom discourse.