Furthermore, if your objection to [canonizing male slash] is based on the larger critique that female pleasure should not be what guides depictions of male sexuality, I would remind you, dear reader, that male pleasure is and always has been the guiding principle in depictions of female sexuality, virtually since time immemorial. Stipulated, you don’t necessarily fix sexism by inverting it; but straight men who clutch their pearls over the prospect of female audiences usurping their sexual representations are issuing quite possibly the least self-aware complaint in the history of ever.

Canonizing slash probably will not fix male-gaze based depictions of women, or cause everything to ‘break even.’ However, I also just don’t have a lot of sympathy for people who think an injustice only is one when it is happening to them. Straight dudes don’t get to defend the constant, gratuitous parade of naked tits on Game of Thrones (aka straight male fanservice) and then turn around and balk at the idea of making Dean Winchester queer because, horror of horrors, female fanservice! That’s hypocrisy of the highest order, and in this particular arena, you can’t actually have it both ways.