Do futanari and genderswap have a place in femslash?
| Meta | |
|---|---|
| Title: | do futanari and genderswap have a place in femslash? |
| Creator: | tinnefoil |
| Date(s): | May 5, 2010 |
| Medium: | online |
| Fandom: | |
| Topic: | Femslash, Genderswap, Futanari |
| External Links: | do futanari and genderswap have a place in femslash? |
| Click here for related articles on Fanlore. | |
do futanari and genderswap have a place in femslash? is a meta post by tinnefoil made in the fem_thoughts commuinity.
Post
I don't quite know how to start this.There seems to be staple in sexually explict anime about so called dick-girls where girls either have penises without explanation or grow one overnight. The one I saw focused more on humiliatian and an element of self-horror as the nice girl grows one, tries to hide it and is then seduced and played with by a second girl.
It has stuck to my mind for a long time and I've been wanting to incorporate it into a fanfic (in a fanfic world where magic works so it wouldn't stick out too much on a factual basis), but I've been at a loss at what it would be categorized or whether I could even post that to a femslash community?
I have read some meta on genderswapping in boyslash but it seems to me that the motivation for that would be very different such as correcting that so many shows we like have no females or female author getting to use their own knowledge and experiences and interests when writing a slash scene of a boyslash pairing they like, while it seems a bit more troublesome to go the other way. I know that for me it's the emotional aspects that interest me, like having a dark secret you keep from your friends and then then revealing yourself, but I'm not sure how it would work for others.
Where do people stand on this? Is it a troublesome thing from a feminist pov or from a trans pov? Is it another case of any kink being ok, who cares if it shared by few? Can it be femslash in certain situations for example if there is a framing element with the girls being all girl and having a pre-existing relationship before the transformation and it eventually going away again and them going back to being all girl afterwards and it being a theme more along the lines of working around an obstacle? Is it always femslash regardless of framing as long as the characters still feel and self-identify as female? Would it be ok to post to a femslash community or would you have to post to a trans community only?
What about a full on genderswap of a character rather than just futanari?
Comments
[ torachan ]: It's still femslash if the characters ID as female. It is, however, pretty offensive from a trans perspective.
[hooloovoo]: My first instinct is to respond from a trans perspective, which may not mesh precisely with a fandom perspective. Probably this should also be prefaced by saying that I'm genderqueer and mostly identify as "not-female."Firstly, you are how you identify. So someone who identifies as female is female, regardless of their body. Therefore, two or more female identified people having sex and/or a relationship is by definition femslash. As such, it seems reasonable to me to post it to a femslash community. I do think it would be appropriate to include something about the surprise!penises or whatever in the fic summery or warnings.
I agree that it's potentially more problematic than traditional dudeslash genderswap, which isn't without problems already. Off the top of my head, I can't think of any genderswap fics that treat it as a dark secret or that feature shaming and humiliation. From a trans perspective, there are two problems with that storyline: mainly, it implies that being trans is shameful, and that gets implied often enough outside of fandom, we don't need more. In addition, it co-opts the trans narrative by turning it into a temporary thing, if that makes sense. If you want to write where the focus is how difficult it is to have a biological sex that doesn't match your gender, trans fic would make more sense. Which is not to say that you shouldn't write futanari. I'd probably read it. But there are definitely potential problems, particularly if it's a serious fic, instead of like genderswap pollen crack!fic.
I read genderswapped dudeslash because it's female bodied, male identified people, usually having sex. It's about as close to my identity as fic gets, so I'm kind of excited about its relative popularity. However I'm pretty sure that's not the main reason people write it.
Oh, and one wording thing: "all girl" isn't really the preferred phrase, given that girl is an identity, as opposed to "female bodied" which is a physical description.
I hope this doesn't sound too critical, I tend to go into like lecture mode talking about trans stuff. Thanks for posting this, I hadn't heard of futanari before and it's interesting to ponder.
[ten]: I do not find futa offensive, and I do consider it femmeslash if it's between girls. These girls happen to have dicks, but they are nonetheless girls. (Or women, though futa seems to be more popular with teenage girls. The adult futa woman tends to be a villain, which is a whole different problem in the source material.)I do have to note though that I don't remember ever running across the situation you described, where growing a dick was something to hide. All futa I read or saw was treating the topic as a delightful kink (or a tool of villainy, as mentioned above), and most characters considered their dick a source of pride, not unlike the clichee about men and penis pride.
Genderswaps are a different thing. While I don't find it a bad theme per se, I have seen only ever seen very few not-offensively executed stories, and so I stay away from it these days by default. Can it be femmeslash? If the involved characters consider themselves female, sure. But I wouldn't fault anyone for not being able to just 'forget' that these characters were/are canon-ly male and thus deciding they simply can't consider it femmeslash for themselves.