You and gingerhaole and khiroptera are fucking disgusting. Please do something with your time other than exploiting gay men. Fetishistic yaoi fujoshi shit is no longer welcome here.

Aw, thank you for comparing me to such great artists, it’s an honor! :D

But ok, let’s think about your message. Actually, let’s make an example out of you, for the sake of this fandom and others.

A bit of History and background, first. 

Slash fanfic and art, as we know them, became a thing in the 1970s, with the Star Trek Original Series. The fandom, mostly women, sold printed copies of zines in a very secret way, because women having interests of a sexual nature was pretty taboo. Still is. 

The terms yaoi and fujoshi are japanese and do not apply to this occidental approach, or this specific British show. (I mean, you singled out three Good Omens fan artists). Japanese creators and fans of m/m pairings have their own History that are parallel to slash, but are not to be confused. 

Anyway, all this to say that m/m pairings have been a part of art and literature for 50 years now.

Why slash?

People have thought a lot about the question, and the most probable cause of the phenomenon is mathematics, and the fact that male characters outnumber female characters several times, and that is all over media. 

If the cast of your show, book or game has 10 characters, 7 are male and 3 females, the m/m pairings are going to greatly outnumber straight pairings and f/f pairings.

Now, male characters are given more time, dialogue and backstories. They tend to talk more between themselves, which creates interesting relationships. Female characters barely pass the Bechdel test, and don’t have the possibility to create interesting bonds between themselves - or with men - if they’re always relegated to the romantic or sexual interest. From a storytelling point of view, male characters end up more interesting just because the media we consume treats them better.

There is another thing that comes to mind about m/m pairings: the absence of misogyny. In a world where women (and people misgendered as women, including Non-Binary people) are constantly seen as lesser, reading romance of the straight variety can always bring back a gender imbalance that is not present when both partners in a romance are male. A romance on equal footing can be better escapism. 

Is slash “exploiting” gay men?

I mean, disregarding the fact that anon up there chose to call two genderless characters “gay men” (which is backed by one of the Good Omens authors). And also disregarding the fact that the three artists you blame, myself included, do not hesitate in drawing the characters as female presenting, non-binary, or any other gender presentation–

Which gay men are you talking about? Because fictional characters do not exist. You can’t exploit things that don’t exist. They’re ideas. Are you talking about their actors? Or the authors? Because they all said it was okay if we imagine the characters in love. 

Real men, gay or bi or any of them over the lgbt+ spectrum, are not harmed by the stories and art we tell. What harms them is real homophobia. If someone likes slash and treats gay men badly, that’s a problem, yes, and we need to address it. What I’ve seen from fandoms so far is that people are pretty good at regulating these attitudes. But liking slash and being homophobic are not related. 

Drag queens

Let’s also not forget that gay culture has included a lot of what is traditionally feminine. No one complains about drag queens using the elements of what is, to us, the pressure of appearing feminine. Because we know that some of them can be misogynistic, but others can elevate it to an art form. We know how to make the difference. 

Aren’t you better than straight men that watch lesbian porn?

I’m going to be honest, I don’t care if men watch lesbian porn. Let them. What I care about is if men treat women and non-binary people in a fair and decent way. I know many excellent straight men that watch lesbian porn, and they treat people with respect.

People are not the media they consume. 

There’s also something pretty specific about fandom: They don’t objectify characters, they elevate them. Pornography reduces actors to bodies, empty vessels that are there for our enjoyment. Fanfiction and fanart build on stories, develop personalities, they make the characters more real than they were in the source media. That’s the opposite of objectification. 

The female and queer gaze

Now, let’s talk about sex (baby). The message above, like anyone who wants to shame m/m fandoms, reduces it to sex, and pornography. Note that the three artists mentioned, myself included, have tons of non-sexual art and fanfics to our names. But that’s not what they focus on. They focus on sex, because sex is bad. But okay, let’s talk about artists and writers who make sexy content.

As mentioned above, in the Star Trek printed magazine part, the female and queer, gaze is considered taboo, and still is today. Women can’t want. They can’t produce pornography for themselves. They can’t masturbate. It’s baaaad. Same for lgbt+ people. The only acceptable approach to sexuality is the mainstream straight male gaze.

People will protect men that don’t exist if it means shaming real women for what they want, and creating the things they want.

Shaming creators

Let’s say that anon really thinks defending hypothetical men is a worthy cause. Let’s see what they did with it: they wrote an anonymous, hateful message, to a single person on tumblr.

It won’t surprise anyone that I’m a woman. That I’m queer. That I’m brown.

And what if it changed my mind, huh? What if I decided to never more draw or write m/m characters ever again? It wouldn’t change the fact that it’s still a massive literary and art current. Is anon going to contact each creator individually, or did they just want to use any reason to send anonymous hate in the inbox of a defenceless person on the web?

There is a movement of puritanical thought disguised as leftist rhetoric which can be summarised as “sex is bad, woman making sex things is bad”, and people aim it generally towards women both cis and trans, non-binary people, people of color, people in the lgbt+ spectrum, neurodivergent people, etc. 

People will find something they disapprove of and attack small creators instead of bigger organisations, because being hateful is more important than making real change. 

Fandom is made of real people

Also… what do they do about the gay men who write slash? The bi men? The trans straight women? The non-binary people? Are these people exploiting gay men, too? 

Fandom, and m/m fandom because you pretty much can’t have one without the other, is mostly filled with women, non-binary people, BIPOC, neurodivergeant people, and everyone on the lgbt+ spectrum. They’re independent creators that are all easy to reach through their inboxes. They’re all people that suffer hate an discrimination. They’re people that are easy to harass.

This is why I’m making an example out of this anonymous message. I could have deleted it. Forgotten it, went on with my day. 

But there are too many creators out there who get the same kind of vitriol and don’t have the words or the experience to answer back. But I do. I’ve been reading slash fic since 1998, on my parent’s computer, in the common room.

Slash fic taught me about romance. About men. About respectful relationships. About queerness. About accepting my own queerness. About trans and non-binary people. About accepting my body. About sexuality, my own, and others. About kinks, finding what I like and what I don’t. It helped me be confident in bed, and my partners have been pretty happy with what I learned from fic. It taught me how to write my own stories. It taught me English. 

They will say we’re exploiting when we’re actually building temples. 

–

I’m off to draw men kissing men.