“Why Isn’t There More F/F?”

How Radical Feminism Has Made Shipping That Much Harder For Women

“Sexual freedom was never a part of modern feminism, never celebrated as such at Feminist Headquarters.” - Nancy Friday, My Secret Garden

In January 1998, Nancy Friday wrote an introduction to her 1973 book, My Secret Garden which was, simply put, a collection of some of the most lurid sexual fantasies that women sent her or told her in private interviews—the things that made them curl their toes every time they thought of them. In this introduction, Friday writes that there was one thing that the “Matriarchal Feminists” were unwilling to even hold a discussion upon and that was the concept of competition among women. She writes: “No man can cut me the way a woman can. Feminism’s refusal to address issues of competition leaves us eternally vulnerable to the dangerous power that women hold over one another.” She explains that among women, the radical feminists sought to dismantle competition among women which, then, leaves women without the tension required to win—that is, orgasm! There is a demand among the radicals that no woman be any more sexual than any other. That no woman compete and win over any other woman. That no woman indulge herself lest she make feminism look bad.

The control that radical feminists have over women within their ranks is enormous and it truly does not look much different from the very thing that women sought to shed when they sought to shed the Patriarchy. Though sexual liberation and women’s liberation were fought alongside each other, the radical feminists were not exactly ecstatic to share the movement if it meant accepting sex workers and sluts. Nancy Friday learned this the hard way, getting snubbed by women’s magazines for daring to talk about such a taboo topic as women’s sexual fantasies. Women, as it turns out, are some of the most brutal critics of other women, seeking always to temper the way they move through their lives so as to create an equal space for all women. But equal is not equitable.

Radical feminist spaces make a lot of room for lesbians. Logically, this makes sense because the more lesbians, the less women compete for the attention of men. Anti-man feminists are the way they are because without men, women would theoretically have less reason to compete—an erroneous assumption but part of the logic all the same. Women who are attracted to men are considered to be unfortunate and those who actively seek male attention are often considered traitors. Bisexual women are sometimes considered to be tainted by their proximity to men and the types of behaviors they might have adopted to remain attractive to them while also dating or married to women. Whatever la raison du jour, women are often derided for their fantasies by Matriarchal Feminists should those fantasies have roots in what they perceive as misogyny even if those fantasies are lesbian in nature.

So what does all of this have to do with complaints that there is less FemSlash in fandom spaces? Because the predominant demographic that creates content in these spaces are women and women are policing them. We seek community in each other, but sexual liberation is not inherently a part of feminist or lesbian spaces. It’s extremely common to find lesbian spaces to be gatekept, rejecting women who are at all attracted to men even just a small bit and it is even more common to find that those who exist in those spaces have an eagle eye out for anything that could be determined to be misogynistic so that they might rise up to perform anger on the behalf of the women who could be victimized. This includes fiction and fanfiction, naturally, as women who are allegedly feminist aren’t supposed to be having fantasies that would jeopardize their liberation from men.

What does this look like? Well, it is entirely subjective. Some radical feminists consider all Penis-In-Vagina (PIV) intercourse to be rape and thus when one writes a female Alpha in an Omegaverse story partaking in and enjoying penetrative sex, such a fantasy is a crime against feminism. If a woman allows a man to have any amount of control at all in a sexual scenario even if the man is an Omega, such a fantasy is a crime against feminism. Women crying out, begging for release: a crime against feminism. Women’s bodies and fantasies are so policed in fandom via hate comments and questionable reader reactions, it is really no wonder that a whole lot of women simply write about men instead—after all, it’s safer to project onto men because men are a more stable demographic to write about in taboo scenarios! After all, we don’t get accused of misandry for our fantasies of them, do we?

It is honestly a bit of a shame that there are so many women who would love to write FemSlash but are frankly afraid to do so for the type of abuse they might have to face when it comes to the audience reactions to those types of stories. There is also the case of sexual fantasies often being easier to stomach for women if we’re looking through a window rather than a mirror: the projection of our darkest desires upon a character who does not have the same social baggage as we do often allows for a more free approach to guiltless orgasm. Whatever a woman’s reasoning for her sexual fantasies, one should really never have to apologize for their sexual attraction—especially not a completely normal attraction to men, who, shockingly, aren’t actually the source of all women’s problems and certainly aren’t to blame for the lack of FemSlash in fandom.

My advice for those who want more F/F stories on Ao3 and other fan sites? Super easy one: Sit your ass down and write it. If you can’t write it, go through your bookmarks and make sure you’ve commented positively on every chapter of every lesbian story you loved. Women don’t want to create for communities that are waiting to point out every problematic issue in our sexual fantasies, they want to create for supportive, vocal, and encouraging communities that value expression, art, and winning as we all must win to find sexual catharsis: that is liberation. So either get good, or get nice, and stop treating other women as your enemy. Let the sluts write, goddamnit.