My Love Affair with the F/F Romance · 9:46pm Nov 1st, 2012
I have always had a strong romantic fascination with lesbian relationships. Being biologically male, the general interpretation for this is sexual fantasy... superimposing myself into a situation of multiple females. In actuality, I am not only pansexual but rather iffy on the whole concept of gender in the first place. I don't like the strict mappings of behavior that society expects of me, or anybody else. Although I do appreciate the beauty of two women being together in any capacity, I feel the same about any other couple too. But something draws me to female romances, which sounds paradoxical considering that I don't strongly differentiate the sexes.
I've come to realize there are two sides to this.
One is that I find it easier to write and role-play female characters. I have never fully empathized with other men, so when I write one they have a tendency to try to just be exact clones of me. This may be because I have always been surrounded by girls and women, but it was always because I didn't feel at home around the 'dudes'. It got better in college, when they started to chill out on the macho routine that so put me off, but by then I was used to being amidst women.
Second, a woman/woman relationship is a direct attack on the patriarchy I so despise. We live in a world where a woman can wear jeans, but a man can't wear a dress. Where girl can be spider man for Halloween, but a little boy cannot be a fairy princess. It's actually all a kind of reverse sexist attack on women, because it underscores society's general representation of the female sex: the thing which men go and acquire. Well, if two women have a relationship, it is a big middle finger to that entire system. It represents the pure romance of two people falling in love for one another, and not for the comfort level of the culture they live in. And it is the supposed sex objects doing it, for themselves. It is humanizing.
I do like a good male/male romance and will write one at some point, but I seem to gravitate towards lesbian themes and I have several lesbian characters I have invented over the years. This is my best self-analysis as to why.
That...hit unexpectedly close to home. I've never been a "macho" guy myself, and I totally understand what you mean about getting along more easily with females, and being fascinated by female-female romances. Now that i think about it, it's probably one of the subconscious reasons I enjoy the show and the fanfics so much.
Also, I never thought about the jeans vs. dresses thing, but that's an excellent point.
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Thank you :) There are a lot of aspects to this issue. I wish a woman/girl/female/whatever_is_politically_correct would comment on this. Anyway, one thing to note is that a lot of women read male/male romances passionately and for reasons that touch their heart, not just for sexual reasons (note: i am not opposed to human sexuality, its just not all there is.) But when a man says "i am happy to see two girls in love" the assumption is that its a maturbatory fantasy. It can also be a romantic fantasy, love against all odds and against the world, against gender norms, against the idea that women are just things for men to try to claim... stuff like that. I think that needs to be mentioned more often.
P.S. Spelling/grammar issues are because i snuck this in while i was at work. Deal with me.