How to be a cultural imperialist

[fpb]

I am tempted to open this note with a protestation, but that would be to concede that the idiot I am about to describe (though not to name - it would love the attention I am not going to give it) has some remote claim on anything resembling fact or truth. Now, then.

I like the idea of serenades, although in today's world it would be quite impractical to sing up to your beloved's window. Nonetheless, the image works for me at a very deep level. Some of my favourite pieces of music - such as for instance Schubert's Staendchen and De Curtis' Tu ca nun chiagne - are serenades, and I have used them both in fics (http://www.fanfiction.net/secure/story/story_preview.php?storyid=1912039&chapter=1 , and http://fpb.livejournal.com/413735.html) and in an essay (http://fpb.livejournal.com/384498.html) as a central moment of the encounter of man and woman. It may reflect my own lack of success with the opposite sex, that both fics have less-than-happy endings; but anyone who reads anything but a straight (heterosexual) context there is simply not reading what is on the page.

Which is why, of course, the only review I got on the second fic was from some mindless thinks-with-the-crotch who described it as "the gayest thing I ever read."

I felt this was both dishonest - cultural imperialism of the lowest kind, trying to annexate to their own obsessions something that had no more to do with it than Robert Browning's poems to Elizabeth Barrett - and personally offensive, trying to distort my own experience as I had interpreted it in my fics. After a brief exchange, I deleted and banned the poster. Think of it what you like, but I do not want my own experience mangled in the service of someone's sexual obsessions.

Comments

[stigandnasty919.livejournal.com]

I've noticed that the word Gay is undergoing another change of meaning. Certainly among kids it does not always mean homosexual, but rather 'wet' or 'soppy'.

Not having seen the posts could that be what was meant?

[mentalguy.livejournal.com]

I think you might be giving the poster in question a little too much credit. I have seen the phrase "the gayest thing I ever..." used many times, and never by genuine sexual obsessives (at least not in the ordinary sense). Invariably, the writers are punks and trolls, seeking principally to provoke a strong reaction.

You are certainly right about attention per se, but your public response may still be giving it more satisfaction than it deserves.