My favorite bit of the whole “women who stan male characters and ship m/m are misogynistic, homophobic, lesbophobic and besides, examine why you-” charade was when people went “but if you look at the AMONG US tag on AO3, you’ll SEE that it’s ALMOST EXCLUSIVELY M/M” as a gotcha, like. Among us? Seriously, amogus? Using amogus as a point? Campaigning for f/f amogus is the hill you want to die on? Amogus? And people took it seriously? People were like “oh god they ARE right, there really is more m/m amogus porn than f/f. This really puts things into perspective. This proves women in fandom are the most hateful bigoted pieces of shit imaginable”? Like… Come on people. Amogus.
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When people compare numbers of m/m and f/f ships in fandom to complain about what “women” are writing, it always escapes them that, if they want to insist all problematic fic is written by women, well, most women are attracted to men. Comparatively few women are, like, monosexual lesbians. “Average Woman Thinks Men Are Hot, Writes About It,” is just… not the headline they seem to think it is.
Frankly, I’d have a lot more patience for people howling about a lack of f/f if they genuinely treated f/f how m/m is treated in fandom.
What I mean is that plenty of people aren’t necessarily that into BL vibes but do like m/m content and will happily sift through new sources of m/m for the smaller portion they enjoy even if a lot is not to their taste. If you talk to dudes who had to deal with the fucking wasteland that was queer media in the 80s, a lot of them are grateful for how things are now even if finding The Good Shit (from their perspective) takes some work and lots of BL-y things are offputting and feel like they’re Not For Them.
Similarly, I have enjoyed plenty of f/f media by dudes, including a bunch of horny Ranma fanfic back in the day. (And I don’t just mean Ranma-chan fanfic with all the complexity that entails. I mean… like… all the horny Shampoo fanboys writing her with whatever other chick.) Granted, many a cis dude-written story makes me think “That’s not how the clitoris works”, or the narrative focus just isn’t what I like, but man if there aren’t a lot of men who like to write about women.
I can certainly understand the complaint of “I want to find friends who are just like me who write good fic that is just what I like”. Lots of people have felt that. But…
It just makes me shake my head when people look at big picture stats but then care too much about creator demographic. Not only is the demand often for f/f by women, but it’s often for f/f by cis women who only or primarily write f/f or only or primarily center women in their art. One imagines that the amount of f/f by cis lesbians on AO3 is probably higher than the amount of m/m by cis gay guys, but of course, these aren’t the numbers people are actually comparing (and they’re unknowable anyway).
The people I respect are the ones who just want more of their blorbos. Sure, they might check out a fic and backbutton because the anatomy fail and “she boobed boobily” are just too dire, but what they care about is that another author loves the same blorbos and wants to write about them. It might take some hunting to find the men who are actually good at writing women or the man-heavy writing communities that aren’t culturally shitty, but they do exist. Like… I don’t think “Just read things by men all the time” is the answer to “There isn’t enough woman-centric stuff” by a long shot, but it’s part of the answer just as “A lot of women think men are hot, genius” is part of why there’s so much m/m on AO3.
The call for authentic voices is fine, but I wish people would stop conflating it with the call for mass content.
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