Why I Dislike Straight!Harry Fics

[danajsparks.livejournal.com]

In my opinion, Harry is a character who can be written convincingly as gay, straight, or bisexual. I've noticed, however, that I tend to dislike fan fiction that features Harry in a heterosexual pairing. For a long time, I believed that this was simply because I just generally prefer to read slash romance stories. But after reading several Severus/Hermione fics that I thought were absolutely wonderful, I decided to take a closer look at my distaste for straight!Harry fics.*

I realized that my aversion to these stories has less to do with Harry being in a het pairing and more to do with how these stories tend to treat certain other important characters. More specifically, I really dislike how Ron, Draco, and Severus are treated in many of these stories.

Ron is usually quickly discarded as a friend because he is too much of a whiny, jealous prat and too slavishly devoted to Dumbledore. "Ron bashing" is often even specified in the summaries of these stories. Draco is often flattened into a totally irredeemable wannabe death eater. His harassment of Harry is generally far more vicious than anything he ever does in the books. Severus is regularly turned into a verifiably dreadful teacher (there are records proving low test scores, extreme Slytherin bias, high injury rates, etc.) who is usually either still secretly loyal to Voldemort or unquestioningly obedient to an evil!Dumbledore. Regardless of his current allegiances, he deserves to die.

Certainly not all straight!Harry authors (mis)treat Ron, Draco, and Severus in these ways, and there is certainly character bashing in other types of HP fics. Nevertheless, I do not think I'm completely imagining a correlation between straight!Harry and such negative characterizations of these three men.

So why is the character bashing of Ron, Draco, and Severus so especially predominant in straight!Harry fics? It could be simply because the authors of such stories have been influenced by each other's writing. But the fact that the three characters are so often reviled in the same stories that emphasize Harry being in a heterosexual relationship(s) leads me to speculate that it might have something to do with attitudes about male sexuality.

Ron, Draco, and Severus are all rather submissive men. And many people are uncomfortable with the idea of a submissive man because they associate submissiveness with femininity. Severus and Draco are, additionally, both very sensitive men, and sensitivity is another character trait that is strongly associated with femininity. And, of course, feminine equals WEAK, and weakness in men is BAD.

Interestingly, Harry also has some "feminine" traits. He is definitely less sensitive than Severus or Draco, but he sometimes comes across as very submissive in canon. So, really, it isn't all that surprising that the same authors who so despise Ron, Draco, and Severus also make a great deal of effort to make Harry more "manly." For instance, canon Harry is pretty inept when it comes to dating girls, but straight!Harry easily gets himself a girlfriend--sometimes two or more girlfriends---proving his sexual prowess. Straight!Harry becomes independent!Harry, rejecting most offers of aid and mentorship from the adults in his life, because, after all, it's good for men to be self-reliant. Straight!Harry also becomes powerful!Harry, because men should be strong and powerful. In these stories, Dumbledore is often portrayed as manipulative or evil, not so much because of his callousness towards others in general, but because of how he treats Harry in particular; Dumbledore has been manipulating Harry all his life because Harry threatens his position as top dog in the wizarding world. In other words, Harry isn't naturally so submissive. No, if Dumbledore would just stop interfering, then Harry would become the most dominant wizard of all!


As a side note: Many straight!Harry fics also have a fair amount of Molly Weasley bashing, perhaps because those who are uncomfortable with submissive men are also uncomfortable with dominant women.


*To be clear, I'm referring mainly to fics where Harry's relationship with a girl (or sometimes multiple girls) is a major part of the story, not stories where Harry happens to get a girlfriend along the way.

Comments

[danajsparks.livejournal.com]

----I've always been rather uncomfortable with the idea that people associate "submissiveness" with "femininity", because that's kind-of like saying that feminine people are somehow weak or helpless...

Agreed, though being submissive is not the same thing as being weak or helpless; it's more a relational style.

[sweettalkeress.livejournal.com]

I suppose that's true. Though I'm currently working on a fanfic which features two powerful men: one more masculine and one more feminine, where the feminine man is in some respects the more aggressive and dominant of the two.

[danajsparks.livejournal.com]

That sounds cool! To clarify, I agree that we need to stop associating submissiveness with femininity. What I'm also trying to get at, though, is that the opposite of someone who is "dominant" is not necessarily someone who is "weak." Unfortunately, English-speaking culture places so much value in control and dominance that it's hard to even find words to describe other ways that one can have power in a relationship that don't have negative connotations attached to them. It's sort of like the difference between having power through force and having power through influence. For example, a parent can force her children to do their chores by shouting and hitting them until they're done, or a parent can influence her children to do their chores by promising them an allowance or threatening to take away their video games.