fuck this shit.

[rockinhamburger]

i'm done.

i've tried to ignore the fuckery over at aianonlovefest. i love writing and reading fic here in the fandom, and i'll continue to do so, but not at the meme. i am so fucking sick of the asshattery and the wank and the misogyny (from a mostly female fanbase; what the fuck!?), and i just can't do it anymore. it makes me feel physically sick when i see the fucked-up, sexist, awful insinuations about one of the only heavily featured women in the fandom.

what does it say about our community that kris' fictive infidelity is celebrated and lauded while katy's written out because she's in the way of kris and adam's kinky sex and true love? what is with this desire to write katy negatively? why can't she be awesome? is it so hard to imagine kris marrying a kick-ass woman? is it so hard to keep her kick-ass while still writing about potential feelings between kris and adam? in effect, she becomes a caricature of a woman, a plot device (if that!), while the men get all the spotlight, as usual. instead of keeping her in-character with the woman who stood by her boyfriend and supported him and encouraged him to go after his dream even when he had given up on it himself, she's often written as a vindictive, jealous, passive-aggressive bitch who only cares about her status as kris allen's wife. which is just fucking STUPID, because THAT'S NOT WHO SHE IS, and don't fucking tell me it is!

i almost wish i didn't care about any of this. it makes me tremble with anger when i see comments inferring or outright stating that katy is a bitch. do we have comments calling adam a 'fag'? fuck no! because that's a horrible, demeaning, homophobic, insulting word that we would never ascribe to someone we respect and care about. so why is 'bitch', a horrible, demeaning, sexist, insulting word, being used to describe katy, someone i respect and care about? FOR FUCK'S SAKE, we're almost exclusively women! when we call each other bitches, we only make it okay for men to call us that. you know, just for being in the way.

sometimes i suspect this attitude is induced by jealousy. katy has a lot going for her, and so people want to bring her down and make her into someone who doesn't deserve all the good in her life. FUCK THAT NOISE! why aren't we building each other up instead of putting each other down? why aren't we supporting and writing about these women? why don't we include katy in our fic as more than a piece of furniture, or a growth that needs to be removed?

fucking hell, WHY can't she join in the fun??

-

so i'm not going to be around the lovefest anymore. you can always find me right here, or by PM, and i'll still participate in challenges and post my fanfiction when i write it. and i'm sorry if you're disappointed that i'm leaving, but this is important to me and i can't just let it go. i'm not sorry if this post angered or offended you. i mean every word.

Comments

[constancedobler.livejournal.com]

I think that you're right about the misogyny--and misogyny is so ingrained in our society. Somehow, it is still acceptable to use words like "bitch," where racially or religiously-based slurs are not. It is still ok on some level to hate women, gays and overweight people (that last one's a whole other rant) and unfortunately, women are just as guilty as men about this. I think it is a competition thing for certain women (and middle school girls :) ). Why this plays out in fandom, I don't know, since the pairings are primarily slash. Maybe it is a threat to the slash--after all, I think that gay men are attractive to straight women partly because they are nonthreatening. (There's nothing more comforting--or more of a guilty pleasure-- than attention from someone you think is attractive who has no interest in you).

I am really all right with Katy just being sort of written out--the Allen's real life relationship puts a monkey wrench in the machine of those who like their slash simple--and I think that's ok--it is escapism, after all, and RPF is FICTION.

By the time I saw this, I think the most offensive of the posts must have been deleted--I saw a few screened posts--but where it crosses the line for me is when it starts speculating on the REAL motivations and actions of REAL people--especially in a fiction meme.

Relationships are hard, they're messy, and no one is perfect. I do not envy either Kris or Katy being put under the microscope in their first year of marriage. I am in the ninth year of a successful relationship, but I certainly wouldn't want to be followed around by cameras to have my photo taken and analyzed by strangers on the Internet. I am sure that anyone could find "evidence" of either myself or my beloved being, well, a *bitch* to the other. ;)

Anyway, so I hear ya, and I see it, too. Missing thoughtful fic lately, anyway. Got any good recs?

[rockinhamburger.livejournal.com]

First of all, thank you for giving me such a thoughtful, well-worded response. It really gives me hope!

I think that you're right about the misogyny--and misogyny is so ingrained in our society. Somehow, it is still acceptable to use words like "bitch," where racially or religiously-based slurs are not.

It's TOTALLY ingrained in society, but I think that's all the more reason it shouldn't be overlooked in fandom. We are mostly women. We should be helping each other, not knocking each other down.

It is still ok on some level to hate women, gays and overweight people (that last one's a whole other rant) and unfortunately, women are just as guilty as men about this.

YES, thank you, that is exactly right. The way overweight people are treated is disgusting. Women's rights and queer rights have made some strides in the last fifty years especially, but size acceptance is still practically unheard of, and I find that really disturbing. The mean-spirited, mainstream cruelty toward overweight people breaks my heart, and the worst part? Not gonna get better. Not soon, maybe not ever. Society is WAY too obsessed with being thin; it's shameful and horrible and eating disorders are climbing and starting in kids as young as FIVE YEARS OLD. This is a huge concern, and pop culture makes it so much fucking worse. But, as you said, that's a rant for another time. PM me, hon, we'll carry on this discussion for sure!

Back to the discussion at hand, I'm okay with Katy not being included in a story if it's set it an Alternative Universe. Obviously I understand that escapism you're talking about, and I certainly have read and enjoyed stories that did not have Katy in them. I don't even have a major problem with infidelity in fic AS LONG AS it's dealt with realistically. There's no such thing as a clean break when something like THAT happens, so if that's gonna be written? It better be as thoughtful and well-worded as your comment here is!

By the time I saw this, I think the most offensive of the posts must have been deleted--I saw a few screened posts--but where it crosses the line for me is when it starts speculating on the REAL motivations and actions of REAL people--especially in a fiction meme.

Well, that pisses me off even more! I brought up a valid concern (omg, I'm giving myself up; I was totally anon-ing) in re: to just that, the speculation of Katy's REAL actions in REAL life, and not only was I told to shut the fuck up, but I was called a yuppie ("I do not think that word means what you think it does..."), and now the comments were deleted. This is my exact fucking problem with the community. We don't need to address these things; let's just delete them and pretend they didn't happen. But whatever, I'm done. I really, really am.

I want to Quote For Truth absolutely everything you said about relationships in that last paragraph. Word, word, WORD.

Sure! I'll look through my recent reads tonight and send you some links :D

Thanks again, bb! You're so awesome!