Guest post by TMG

When GV Nett asked me to write a commentary on my pic of favourite femslash I’ve read this week, I thought mmmm, so many to choose from!  This week I’ve read some original pieces, Rissole and Isles, SVU, ER, Devil Wears Prada, AU stories. Hell I have even read stories about shows I’ve never even seen.  I’m quickly running out of things to read!

Well for me this week nothing in particular has stood out but thinking back on my favourite stories of all time, they all have one thing in common.  Angst….Plain old unadulterated longing for someone you never in your wildest dreams thought would, or could reciprocate that feeling.  

Back in the late 90s when I first came across Xena femslash on the net, I read my first angst story.  So why is angst my favourite genre?  Well I guess I like a good story line that can explore the depth of a character and show their vulnerabilities.  Also, I just love a good old lurve story, and the ultimate of the good old love story brings me to my hidden little secret.  My all time favourites are……well ahhemm, I like lesbian fairy tales.  The kind where princess meets knight (who’s also a princess), who is a girl lovin hero that can cut through a swath of bad guys and save the day.  And in the process, can also save the damsel and ride into the sunset (aka – take her to the royal chambers and shag the living daylights out of her).    So why the fairy tale?  Gawd knows I have asked myself that enough times. 

Fairy tales historically stem from a moral tale, a story to teach us something like don’t go walking in the forest in your favourite red cape and talk to big bad wolves.  Then there is the damsel in distress who’s just so inept that she needs the prince to come in and save the day. My inner feminist screams out not to succumb to the damsel in distress dogma.  So why do I love them so? 

You know the lesbian fairy tale usually doesn’t quite fit that paradigm.  The princess is often, annoyingly stubborn, quite verbose, and can ride her own horse off into the sunset.  While our knight on the other hand, can be impatient, intolerant, romantically inept, but sexually she’s more than an adept in the keeping the ladies pleased.  She’s usually got a gay male side kick or a straight lad from childhood who is in awe of her prowess with the “sword” and would lay down his life for the non sexual love of his life until somewhere in the story where our princess and Sappho-knight come together as one when he becomes but a forgotten part of the story line. 

So there you have it.  I love the lesfairy tale, maybe it’s the escapism, the return to a day where life was simpler, where one had to fight for the things they believed in, where a girl met another girl and against all odds, they fought, the hero gets patched up by the princess, they miraculously have children (there’s usually some mage in the mix there) and they live happily ever after.  Sounds just like a typical modern day lesbian u-haul to me….so the fairy tale is but an ageless way of telling our stories and I love it.

TMG