FWIW I also experience sexual attraction toward men, at least abstractly, but I can't say I've ever been interested in dudeslash in its own right -- like, I'll read it if it's an interesting premise from an author I like, and I have a few m/m ships (primarily in extremely male-character-dominated fandoms), but it's not something I go out of my way for.
It could be a factor that after I left Homestuck fandom -- which for all its notoriety also had a very large amount of f/f, including the angsts and the screwiness and the literal hatelove -- I next went to TF2 (nearly all men, so I was stanning for the Rule 63s) and then... tapered off traditional fandom interaction overall. On the other hand, I've kind of always been into rarepairs? So it's not like "I love this ship but nobody writes for it" is anything new for me, haha.
Anyway, the popular tropes on display definitely seem like they'd be influenced by the fandoms or fandom types in question, for sure. printfogey mentions anime/manga... but maybe it's animation in general??? Like, okay, hear me out -- I haven't been super plugged into SU fandom, but Pearl/Rose was angsty even before the Big Reveal, Blue/Yellow is a villainship, everything with Lapis has got to deal with her Issues, etc... I've never even watched Kim Possible, but I Hear Things about Kim/Shego being a popular f/f ship for that, and I know Evelyn/Helen from the Incredibles movie is pretty popular. (Checking the AO3 on that, the two top tags for E/H are "slow burn" and "angst", haha.)
I think the phrasing of the last a bit telling: you get a choice between bemoaning or shaming! It's really an age-old thing that isn't just about fandom, though: personal preferences have always been influenced by societal pressures, and that's where you get your debates about personal empowerment vs. class liberation. I don't think anyone has come to a satisfactory conclusion about how to deal with that (other than this kind of self-reflection as a first step, and after that things get hazy).
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Date: 2018-12-10 02:40 pm (UTC)It could be a factor that after I left Homestuck fandom -- which for all its notoriety also had a very large amount of f/f, including the angsts and the screwiness and the literal hatelove -- I next went to TF2 (nearly all men, so I was stanning for the Rule 63s) and then... tapered off traditional fandom interaction overall. On the other hand, I've kind of always been into rarepairs? So it's not like "I love this ship but nobody writes for it" is anything new for me, haha.
Anyway, the popular tropes on display definitely seem like they'd be influenced by the fandoms or fandom types in question, for sure.
I think the phrasing of the last a bit telling: you get a choice between bemoaning or shaming! It's really an age-old thing that isn't just about fandom, though: personal preferences have always been influenced by societal pressures, and that's where you get your debates about personal empowerment vs. class liberation. I don't think anyone has come to a satisfactory conclusion about how to deal with that (other than this kind of self-reflection as a first step, and after that things get hazy).