Die vorliegende Studie beschäftigt sich mit einem in der zeitgenössischen amerikanischen Kultur eher als „kurios“ betrachteten Phänomen: Frauen, die über männliche homosexuelle Beziehungen lesen oder schreiben. Obwohl dieses Phänomen seit den 1970ern relativ häufig ist – populäre Genres wie Boys‘ Love Manga oder Slash Fan Fiction fallen in diese Kategorie –, werden weibliche „cross-voyeurs“ immer als „seltsam“ und „widernatürlich“ wahrgenommen, ganz im Unterschied zu ihrem Gegenstück, d.h. Männer, die lesbischen Geschlechtsverkehr als sexuell stimulierend empfinden.
Aus der Perspektive der Queer Theory, die sowohl unsere Vorstellungen von Geschlecht als auch von Sexualität als sozio-historische Konstrukte versteht, untersucht Carola Bauer in ihrer Pionierstudie die „andere“ Wahrnehmung dieser Frauen und Genres in amerikanischen, akademischen Texten von den 1970ern bis heute. Methodologisch als historische Diskursanalyse aufgebaut, konzentriert sich der erste Teil der Studie auf die akademische Wahrnehmung von Autorinnen wie Mary Renault und Marguerite Yourcenar, die sich in ihren historischen Romanen auf homosexuelle Romanzen spezialisieren – ein Kuriosum, über das in der amerikanischen Literaturwissenschaft bis heute spekuliert wird. Der zweite Teil dieser wissenschaftlichen Arbeit beschäftigt sich mit Slash Fiction, einem Genre der Fan Fiction, in dem die überwiegend weiblichen Fans ihre männlichen Lieblingscharaktere aus TV und Kino in einer homosexuellen Liebesbeziehung imaginieren. Auch dieses Genre hat in der amerikanischen Medienwissenschaft überproportionales Interesse gefunden, vor allem, weil das „normal female interest in men bonking“ als erklärungswürdig betrachtet wird. Im letzten Teil der vorliegenden Studie werden amerikanische akademische Texte über Boys‘ Love Manga, japanische Mädchencomics, die von homoerotischen Beziehungen erzählen, fokussiert.
Insgesamt versucht die Studie, wiederkehrende Muster und Schemata bei der Darstellung von „female cross-voyeurs“ in der amerikanischen Wissenschaft seit den 1970ern aufzuzeigen, um Forschungsdesiderata und problematische Tendenzen gezielt anzusprechen.
Table of Contents
1. Introduction: John Donne and “American Girl-on-girl Action” vs. the Strange Case of Female “Cross-voyeurs”
2. Theoretical Framework: Queer Theory Meets Feminism Meets Foucauldian Discourse Analysis
2.1 A “Deliberately Disruptive” Challenge to Heterosexism: Queer Theory and Its Key Concepts
2.2 Troubling Gender & Sexuality: Judith Butler “in the Interstices” of Feminist and Queer Theory
2.3 Technologies of Power/Knowledge: Using Foucauldian Discourse Analysis
3. “Cross-writing” Female Novelists under Scrutiny: Mary Renault & Co. in the U.S. Academic Discourses (1969 – Today)
3.1 Gay Male Fiction by Women – An Inventory
3.2 From Victims of “Misfortune” to “Fag Hags” and the “New Couple”: Speaking about (Heterosexual) Women and Gay Men since 1969
3.3 About the Three Ways to Conceptualize Your “Faghagging” Novelist: Interpretations of “Cross-Writing” Women and Their Works in U.S. Academia
3.3.1 The (Heterosexual) Woman as Empathic Outsider and Mediator – Mary Renault and Patricia Nell Warren in Traditional Literary Criticism around 1970
3.3.2 About “Fag Hags” on “Power Trips” and Their Fake “Ersatz Works” – Bradley & Co. in the Writings of Gay Male Intellectuals and Academics since the 1970s
3.3.3 The Feminist and the Lesbian “Factor”: Interpreting Mary Renault & Marguerite Yourcenar from a Third Point of View in the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s
3.4 Heresies, Girlfags, and “Faghagging” Novelists – A Conclusion Regarding the “Do’s and Don’ts” of the Academic Discourse(s) about Renault & Co.
4. Female “Cross-readers”: Talking about “Textual Poachers” and Slash Fiction in American Fan Fiction Studies since the 1980s
4.1 Snape and Harry Sitting in a Tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G: Defining the Genre of Slash Fiction
4.2 A Fateful Encounter: Feminist Theory and Media Studies Meet Slash Fiction – The Beginnings of an Academic Debate (1985-1992)
4.2.1 “Pornography by Women for Women, with Love”: The Pornography Wars, Joanna Russ, Patricia Frazer Lamb, Diana Veith, and K/S Fiction in the 1980s
4.2.2 The “Guerilla Tactics” of “Textual Poachers”: Slash Fiction Fandom Meets Media Studies – Henry Jenkins, Constance Penley, and Camille Bacon-Smith (1988-1992)
4.3 “Let’s Talk about Slash, Baby.” Characteristics of an Academic Debate (1985-Today)
4.3.1 Shrieking Teens, Divorced Housewives, and Their Mediocre Fiction: Slash Writers/Readers as the “Other” Fans in Scholarly Accounts
4.3.2 Women’s “All-too-often Purple (Gay) Prose” – Genre and Gender Essentialism in the Academic Discourse about Slash Fiction
4.3.3 Subversive/Queer Pleasures? Explaining “Normal Female Interest in Men Bonking”
4.4 A Tale of Two Academic Discourses: Slash Fiction Fans versus “Cross-writing” Novelists
5. Boys’ Love for Women, Made in Japan: Yaoi and Shounen-ai Manga in the U.S. Academic Discourse (1983-2011)
5.1 Beautiful Men and “Rotten Girls”: Boys’ Love Manga in Japan and the USA
5.2 Female “Cross-voyeurism,” an Intrinsically Japanese Phenomenon? Yaoi and Shounen-ai in U.S. Scholarly Accounts since 1983
5.2.1 Robots, Samurai, and Pokémon: North America, Japan, and (Techno-) Orientalism
5.2.2 The Threat of “Tentacle Rape” and Those Poor, Oppressed Geishas: The Portrayal of BL as a Medium of Empowerment for Japanese Women
5.2.3 Queer Japan: Conceptualizing a “Strange” Sexual Culture, or the Benefits of Exoticism
5.3 An Exciting “Import” and Its American Counterpart – Discussing Boys’ Love and Slash Fiction in the U.S. Academic Discourses
6. Conclusion: Theorizing Female “Cross-voyeurism” in U.S. Academia – A “Vicious Circle”
Thesis Objectives and Themes
This master's thesis aims to investigate how female "cross-voyeurs"—women who consume or produce media centered on male homosexuality—are conceptualized within U.S. academic and intellectual discourses. By employing Foucauldian discourse analysis and queer theory, the study seeks to deconstruct the gendered stereotypes that categorize these women's erotic interests as aberrant or purely compensatory, while also exploring the power dynamics that define these scholarly accounts.
- Representations of "cross-writing" female novelists like Mary Renault and Patricia Nell Warren.
- The evolution of academic perspectives on slash fiction and its female fan base.
- The reception and portrayal of Japanese Boys' Love (BL) manga within U.S. academia.
- The influence of feminist, queer, and postcolonial theories on the study of female "cross-voyeurism."
- Critical analysis of the "double standards" applied to male and female consumption of homosexual media.
Excerpt from the Book
1. Introduction: John Donne and “American Girl-on-girl Action” vs. the Strange Case of Female “Cross-voyeurs”
In the Friends episode “The One with the Sharks,” aired in October 2002, one of the sitcom’s main characters, Monica Geller, catches her husband, Chandler, masturbating – apparently, while watching a shark documentary. Convinced that her partner is secretly into “shark porn,” Monica tries to accept and even re-enact his “perverse” desires – only to discover with quite some relief that Chandler just changed the channel when she came into the room and that he originally was getting off on “some regular […] old fashioned, American, girl-on-girl action.” The feminist theorist Rebecca Whisnant has criticized this scene as being one of the “pop cultural references” teaching women “that men’s pornography use is inevitable and completely legitimate, and that the way to be a cool, modern, liberated woman is to not only tolerate it, but to join in” (Whisnant 16) – a harsh judgment which can be partly explained by the radical feminist, anti-pornography stance Whisnant takes in her paper “Confronting Pornography.”
Whereas it is certainly true that women’s sexual needs and desires are not given much thought in this episode of Friends, it is not for this, but for another topic connected with sexuality and gender that this moment of U.S. broadcasting has been selected to serve as the introduction for my master’s thesis: What I find particularly interesting in this scene is the naturalization of straight men watching “lesbian” porn. By contrasting the viewing of “girl-on-girl action” with the ridiculously obscene erotic fascination with murderous fishes, the U.S. sitcom advertises this particular pornographic subgenre not only as normal and “regular.” Chandler, in his function as the “sarcastic joker” of the series (Charney 599), even declares “lesbian” pornography to be at the heart of an “old fashioned” American culture of male erotica. And without question, this kind of male “cross-voyeurism” – a term which will be defined in this thesis as referring to men or women consuming/producing “homosexual” media texts about the opposite sex – has actually become one of the unquestioned clichés within U.S. popular and academic culture.
Summary of Chapters
1. Introduction: John Donne and “American Girl-on-girl Action” vs. the Strange Case of Female “Cross-voyeurs”: This chapter introduces the thesis topic by contrasting the normalization of male voyeurism towards women with the pathologization of female "cross-voyeurism."
2. Theoretical Framework: Queer Theory Meets Feminism Meets Foucauldian Discourse Analysis: This section establishes the theoretical foundation, combining Foucault's methodology with queer theory and feminist critiques to analyze power relations in academic discourse.
3. “Cross-writing” Female Novelists under Scrutiny: Mary Renault & Co. in the U.S. Academic Discourses (1969 – Today): This chapter examines the reception of female novelists writing about gay male relationships, highlighting how academic interpretations often rely on gendered essentialism.
4. Female “Cross-readers”: Talking about “Textual Poachers” and Slash Fiction in American Fan Fiction Studies since the 1980s: This part analyzes the academic treatment of slash fiction, focusing on the tension between feminist interpretations of the genre and its actual consumption by female fans.
5. Boys’ Love for Women, Made in Japan: Yaoi and Shounen-ai Manga in the U.S. Academic Discourse (1983-2011): This chapter investigates how Japanese Boys' Love manga is interpreted in U.S. scholarship, frequently through an Orientalist lens that reinforces Western preconceptions.
6. Conclusion: Theorizing Female “Cross-voyeurism” in U.S. Academia – A “Vicious Circle”: The conclusion synthesizes the findings, arguing that academic discourses remain trapped in essentialist binaries that need to be challenged to better understand female agency in sexual media consumption.
Keywords
cross-voyeurism, slash fiction, boys' love, queer theory, foucauldian discourse analysis, faghag, cross-writing, media fandom, gender performativity, orientalism, textual poachers, sexuality, feminist theory, heteronormativity, yaoi
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the core focus of this master’s thesis?
The thesis explores how U.S. academic and intellectual discourses construct and interpret female "cross-voyeurs"—women who consume or produce media about gay men—across three different fields: historical novels, fan fiction, and Japanese manga.
What are the primary thematic areas covered?
The work examines the intersections of gender, sexuality, and power in literature and media studies, focusing specifically on stereotypes regarding female interest in gay male culture and the academic tendency to "pathologize" this interest.
What is the central research question?
The thesis asks why female consumption and production of homosexual media are consistently treated as "abnormal" or "othered" in academic writing, and how conventional gender stereotypes shape these scholarly conceptualizations.
Which scientific methods does the author utilize?
The author primarily employs Foucauldian discourse analysis, which allows for a critical examination of how power and knowledge produce "truths" about gender, combined with queer theory and feminist analysis to deconstruct these power structures.
What does the main part of the thesis address?
The main part is divided into three sections: it analyzes female novelists writing about gay men, explores the history of slash fiction in fan studies, and evaluates the reception of Japanese Boys' Love (BL) manga in the West.
Which keywords characterize this academic work?
Key terms include "cross-voyeurism," "slash fiction," "boys' love," "queer theory," "faghag," "textual poachers," "orientalism," and "gender performativity."
How does the author define the term "cross-voyeurism"?
The author defines it as the act of men or women consuming or producing media texts about the opposite sex that feature homosexual characters, a practice the thesis argues is subject to gendered double standards.
Why does the thesis compare Western slash fiction with Japanese Boys’ Love manga?
The comparison is made to highlight the "Orientalist" bias in Western academia, which often treats Boys' Love as an "exotic" or "intrinsically Japanese" phenomenon, while ignoring the structural similarities it shares with the Western slash fiction tradition.
- Citation du texte
- Carola Katharina Bauer (Auteur), 2011, Naughty Girls and Gay Male Romance/Porn: Slash Fiction, Boys’ Love Manga, and Other Works by Female “Cross-Voyeurs” in the U.S. Academic Discourses, Munich, GRIN Verlag, https://www.grin.com/document/193151
