Beware. Rant ahead.
You know, a big problem with the community I write in is this thing where I run across generalities where there might be a discussion going on and someone says "A lot of M/M authors..." or "M/M authors usually...." or "Yes, but M/M authors tend to..."
Really? REALLY?!?!?!
So some other author who isn't me, but happens to write in the same genre I do, gets to make a generalization that encompasses me, and probably gives people a pre-formed impression of me, and I don't get a say? Hell NO.
Now I'm not saying these generalizations are all bad, or that they are all harmful in any way. Hell, some of them are down right complimentary, but you know what? People should still not speak for me. By starting out a sentence with "M/M writers..." you are speaking for me. Don't, unless you ask me if I agree with the statement. And if you aren't prepared to go ask every M/M writer if they agree with your statement, you probably shouldn't be making it.
*huff*
Now before anyone gets all up in arms, believe me, I know the m/m community isn't the only place where this happens. It happens at my day job, as well. Hell, it happens in my own damn family, and we are supposedly such a tight knit bunch. So tight we can talk to one another on each other's behalf, base decisions and opinions on what each other thinks, apparently, without ever having even been made aware there was a conversation going on 500 miles away. So yes, I know it happens all the time and everywhere.
It just...what is it my British friend Emmy says? It just gets on my tits!
Anyone else have this issue, or is t just me? Am I being over-sensitive again?
7 comments:
Generalizations can definitely be frustrating. That said, I've been guilty of them myself, though I do try to preface them by saying, "I'm generalizing and this isn't true of all ___, but I've noticed X". Probably shouldn't even do that, though...
The really ironic part, Karenna, is that what actually set me off was something someone said weeks ago on a Facebook post, I think about "most m/m writers" that was really very innocuous only that it didn't pertain to me, and it just....got my goat lol! It shouldn't have, because it wasn't anything that really mattered, and as Daddy has always told me, you have to pick the hill you want to die on, and that wasn't it. Guess it just caught me on the wrong day.
I write het romance, and what chaps my butt is when I'm told I write porn, or asked if I write "real" fiction.
Why yes, yes I do write real fiction. Of the romance genre. And you're probably reading that "porn" you ridicule but aren't admitting it to anyone, for fear your nearest and dearest will think you're a shallow, uneducated and/or needy woman whose needs aren't being met by your significant other.
I think you touched a nerve, Jaime! LOL
So...if you're not writing "real" fiction, Val, you're writing what? "pretend" fiction?
People...I'm in a bad mood. I should probably stop there lol!
Jaime, I hope I wasn't the one who said that! But yeah, sometimes things are phrased so they just plain rub people the wrong way.
Isn't "real fiction" an oxymoron? Fiction by definition is made up...
It's like all of the stereotypes, Jaime. It's like saying all blondes are dumb, anyone who reads or writers horror is a serial killer, all romance writers are pervs with the express goal of robbing children of their innocence, that romance readers live in LaLaLand, that any woman craving chocolate must be PMSing, etc.
The problem with lumping everyone together with such statements is that not one person shares the exact same beliefs with any other person alive. We may share some, but not all.
So, yeah, don't speak for me.
Most MM writers are women. True!
Most MM writers - er - I'm stuck now.
Since I've been 'guilty' of upsetting someone with an off the cuff comment that was meant to be funny and not taken that way - are Brits the only ones that DO irony and sarcasm? - I try to be careful what I say! Suspect I don't always succeed.
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