#the way it is portrayed as a device for straight female projection actually perpetuates it

[writing-for-life]

“M/M Ships Smash The Patriarchy”—But Do They?

Little disclaimer first: I don’t have a problem with m/m fics or art, quite the opposite. I’m a bisexual woman, I can find the idea of m/f, f/f and m/m interesting and yes, sexually arousing (each for different reasons though). And I’m saying this so explicitly because the idea that women need to engage in mental gymnastics to justify m/m ships is relevant to this post.

So please don’t take this personally if you like m/m, especially not if what I write very obviously doesn’t apply to you. This also has nothing to do with shipping m/m as a queer person, because the context invariably changes in most cases. This post is exclusively about the “justification” of m/m ships as something that “smashes the patriarchy”.

With that out of the road:

I’ve seen so many posts stating that m/m ships are removing “the whiff of patriarchy from fandom”. That the same dynamics would be problematic in a m/f or f/f ship, but they’re less “harmful” in a m/m ship.

And yes, of course women have been bearing the brunt of these objectifying dynamics since the beginning of time, totally true. But here’s the thing:

a) Problematic dynamics are okay to explore (not necessarily to condone, they are two different things) in fanfiction; it’s happened for as long as fanfiction (no, fiction) exists. We could go off on a whole tangent about what’s “problematic” (or not) in fiction now, and I’m not overly keen on that term, but it’d lead too far because we’d need to talk about a lot of stuff that’s not really the topic of this post.

b) Problematic dynamics don’t magically change because you apply them to a m/m ship, especially if you’re a (straight) woman heavily projecting onto characters. If there’s an age gap, it stays an age gap. If there are power imbalances, they stay power imbalances. If there’s violence/objectification/whatever else going on IT STAYS THAT. The mental leap from, “Men in m/f relationships are often, either consciously or subconsciously through what society condones, the perpetrator in that particular dynamic,” to “that’s why it’s not a problem in m/m relationships,” honesty baffles me.

So my question is:

If you want to remove the “problematic whiff of patriarchy from fandom”, but you are ONLY and EXCLUSIVELY centering two MEN in your fics, art and what you consume, are you really doing that? Where are the protagonist WOMEN that are written or portrayed in a way that isn’t patriarchal?

Too much of a stretch?

Why bring in “the patriarchy” (or whatever other justification) instead of just saying you like the idea of two men getting it on, and that you project on at least one, if not both of them? And I know many women are honest about this, so this is obviously not aimed at them.

And I’m not writing this in a vacuum—there are endless posts about exactly this, and quite frankly:

It is actually patriarchal and misogynistic to deny women the right to just feel horny when they read about/look at two guys fucking. Without justifying it in any way, or making it about something that feels performative (“We like the m/m ship because we’re queer-positive feminists”. Please…). That, right there, is internalised misogyny:

Women don’t need to morally justify their horniness. They don’t need to justify whatever they’re into and turn it into a performative event. They’re just allowed to like it as is. The end.

Why not just like what we like while still critically engaging with the question whether some of what we read and create is potentially fetishising gay/queer men instead of calling it “feminist and queer-positive”?

Because let’s face it: Straight women who ship m/m don’t like gay men because they’re gay. They like them because they project a straight woman on a gay persona that has nothing to do with actually being gay (just like most lesbian porn never had anything to do with being created for lesbians, or f/f relationships in books written by men were always serving the male gaze, but it’s easier to holler about that, right?):

At least one of them is the guy you fancy (sometimes both of them are), and sometimes one of them is (at least partly) you. It has always worked like that and always will.

But back to the main topic of “smashing the patriarchy”: We are talking about fanfiction and fanart here. YOU create it. It’s not the adult entertainment industry making billions that throws it at you. You are the CREATORS and CONSUMERS. You get to CHOOSE. And yes, that choice can absolutely be a m/m ship if that’s what you want. Again, there’s no problem with that.

But if your main argument is that you want content without the stench of patriarchy, how about actually centering women in it, at least from time to time?

#fandom misogyny #misogyny #fandom critical #if you don’t want the stench of patriarchy in fandom maybe stop centering men all the time #m/m ships don’t make the patriarchy go away #the way it is portrayed as a device for straight female projection actually perpetuates it