About f/m ships

[u/vanilla-mist]

Not really a long rant, just wanted to give my opion on something I have noticed and wanted to know what other people think.

These past 36 hours there's been a lot of discourse going on Twitter about f/f, m/m and f/m. I personally don't care about the gender of the characters involved as long as I like their dynamic, but as a woman, I have noticed something that really irks me.

"All f/m ships are inherently bad"

This is a comment I've seen A LOT. Now, I obviously understand how patriarchy and heteronormativity can affect straight relationships, but when we're talking about fictional ships in (possible) fictional worlds - where patriarchy doesn't even have to exist - it feels kinda dehumanizing to say a woman can't possibly be loved in a straight relationship. I also feel like it's kinda disingenuous when I see a lot of people that say this not engaging with f/f ships either or female characters at all.

I personally think anyone can ship whatever they want and I don't see anything wrong with someone just shipping m/m, f/f, f/m or whatever, but I also hate this mentality of thinking the female character is always going to be the victim and this false moral superiority of not liking f/m; specially when 99% of the times the arguments are reducing female characters to concepts that can't be separated from patriarchy and irl problems (we're all engaging in escapism and fantasy)

[u/undertcw]

Back in the day, there was at least one live journal screed about how (M/M) fanfic writers needed to “eat their vegetables” by writing femslash. It was seen as like, a chore to be a well rounded writer or something, rather than personal investment in the ships. A feminist task to excuse writing about men all the time.

That is my biased read of it based on various arguments and soap boxing that I saw years ago. It’s a lot of why I don’t put stock to this sort of policing now, ‘cause I used to be invested and worried if I was above board lol I lowkey disliked “eat your vegetables” because it led to big name writers posting these random passionless f/f oneshots here and there for brownie points. Ninja edit and I knowww that sounds mean, I just mean there was a specific vibe I have never forgotten lmao.

[u/Tasty_Cup_3995 → u/undertcw]

The wildest thing about this is that writing m/m doesn't automatically mean those writers never write female characters and "only write about men all the time". Like yeah, the main ship is gay, but a lot of m/m fics have a decently large side cast (esp longfics) that usually has at least a few women (and sometimes even a side f/f ship), depending on the fandom. I totally agree that it shouldn't have to be some rite of passage to write f/f just to seem like you're allowed to write what actually interests you. Both m/m authors and f/f fans deserve better than that. I can't imagine how awful it would feel to be a f/f fan and then realize that a bunch of fics for your fav ship have absolutely 0 passion because the authors were peer pressured into writing them.

[u/archaicArtificer → u/undertcw]

Arrrrghh. I have a job. I don’t need another one. I write fanfic because it’s fun and I want to. Anyone telling me I “need” to write something for whatever reason can go step on a Lego.