I know I haven't been around much lately, but as someone who knows the series in questions very well, allow me to explain.

The Touhou games have an all-female cast. There are two males: one of which is a turtle used for flying and has not been seen in a decade, the other is a cloud. There is one more male in the side works in a book, and he is a shopkeeper. None of these male are powerful; in fact, the shopkeeper is noted several times as being very, very weak.

The Touhou fanbase is a little absurd. The shipping and such can go between any two characters for very little reason even if the characters have never met. However, in canon, there are NO relationships between ANY characters whatsoever. In fact, most of the ship are between character who have never met, or want each other dead. It is not a 'lesbian-safe' zone at all. However, most of the girls are either teenagers, or Youkai that are hundreds or years old and look about like teenagers.

But now we come to the OC. You see, most characters in Touhou are strong enough that they kill and eat humans, like Rumia and Mystia. The humans in Touhou are strong enough to hunt and kill Youkai for this, like Reimu and Sanae. If the OC WORKS for his power, and isn't beating any of the big name people right off the bat, it's understandable, being as in Touhou they fight using 'Spellcard Rules' which basically is a way that no one dies in these disputes, and no matter the power level, there's a slightly more leveled field.

Long story short, none of the characters have any set orientations in the games, the OC is ok as long as he's not blasting Reimu or Marisa or Yukari right off the bat, and it is NOT a 'lesbiant safe space' at all.

They weren't being nice, but you aren't required to be nice when telling someone they're wrong.

Sounds ugly. They're not going to back down; you're not going to either (at least I hope you won't), so I would just try to get past it and move on to something else. Some battles you just won't win. . .

If it helps, I do not think you are in the wrong here. Strong females are more like Athena and less like Amazons, if you get my loosely made analogy.

On the Fanmix community, someone just posted a mix about angels. I didn't see the poster's gender, but they said they'd always been fascinated by angels and "always hated seeing them portrayed as females". That I do find offensive. For one thing, aren't angels supposed to be sexless in most official depictions, and for another, why would it matter if they were portrayed as one or the other?

I agree, feminism =/= no men involved. And just 'cos there's a lot of femslash in the fandom doesn't mean everything has to be femslash.

Starting from the point that they accuse someone of being misogynist just for adding a male OC (it's not a matter if it's a Stu or not for this) to the point of "lesbian safe place" (I can't still catch the meaning of that, was ffcrant done just to have femslash?)
Anyway, from what I've read on the flamewar, it seems to me that people were discussing different points: adding a male character, trying to have no critics, and then I lost track. But I think dicussing it on the web is a bit useless, and as on the web you don't have to show your face, many people is ruder than in their normal lives.
Hope I hadn't taken out another point to discuss about :D

I like feminism... but yeah, I thought the point of it was for men and women to be equal.

I really wish people weren't so sensitive about sexuality-related issues that they feel they have to fly off the handle at things like these. I don't particularly feel like joining in this argument on lj (I'm not 18 so I can't yet anyway, and discussions with people like this give me a massive headache), but ever since 9th grade Ethnic Studies class, I've been hearing these horrifically skewed versions of feminist ideas, and I'm getting sick of it.

I believe you're in the right, if only because I agree with you that the presence of male characters does not at all detract from the quality or competence of the female characters, and I strongly disagree with the points someone said about how "most of the time when an oppressed group says that a privileged person is ...ing up, the oppressed group is correct", and "men have no place in a woman-dominated space." Clearly this person has never met a male cheerleader.

I'm a woman and I'm comfortable enough with that fact that I don't feel threatened when I work alongside men. The notion that others do, in this day and age, whether or not males are often privileged, is simply sad. I'm against this whole "men are pigs" notion that a lot of feminists nowadays entertain, and I'm annoyed that something as silly as putting a male OC in a fandom full of women would have the same effect on these commenters as throwing a bucket of ice water on a cat. These people are insisting that putting a female in a male-dominated place is alright while putting a male in a female-dominated place is demeaning and disrespectful, and in doing so they support the double standards that cause the very sexism that they all have a problem with.

... but A) I don't want to flounce and B) I want to keep using it.

Users refuse to accept attempt at apology for causing offence. I have no idea what they expect, maybe they want me to magically read their brainwaves for the exact phrasing of the apology they want.

These are not the same things. They don't even have anything to do with one another. I know everybody here knows this. But it really, REALLY made me facepalm when I heard this came from a PARINGS discussion.

NO. NO. NO.

Sure. A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle. But how many fish do you know even care if a bicycle is in their water or not? The idea is that sure, you don't NEED men to be yourself. But Feminism and lesbianism have nothing to do with each other. If anything, These posters caring that there WAS a guy is more neurotic and against feminist principles than just being cool with it.

It makes me think they are insecure about this character. And insecurity is fear. And people really only fear things that have power over them. You know. Doubt and uncertainty about life, like bills... employment... whether or not a tiger is going to leap out and eat them. That stuff has power over the direction of a person's life. It's powerful and people fear it because not fearing it usually gets you dead.

And these so-called feminists flip out at a /man/ of all things?

By freaking out that there is a man in their little haven, they are displaying the amount of power a male has over them. They are defeating their own argument.

A het relationship is not always an oppressive androcentric dynamic. Lesbian relationships can get abusive and oppressive just as much as het ones. If neither character oppresses the other in the pairing... why the FEMINIST outcry?

What /small/ words.

Having read the thread and your post, at first glance this sounds like someone who isn't particularly self-secure with their sexuality and feels the need to lash out, honestly.

That said, all perceptions of the poster aside, I definitely do not agree that feminisim requires no men to be around. That's just... well, you already covered it, really. I agree with you. So now, I don't think you're at all in the wrong.

I think the briefest argument to support you is to do a genderflip: There are lots of fandoms mostly or entirely populated by men in which female characters are welcomed, even asked for, in a romantic sense. They aren't considered inherently evil, so why should it be so the other way around? I completely do not understand why it is that there can be a whole movement for feminisim without respecting that the other side needs to be supported too, or at least not buried under all the propoganda, because the moment "feminism" becomes synonymous with "women in charge and men subsurvient", they're undercutting their own ideals - the ideals which started cries for women's equality in the first place.

...And, now seeing the thread, I see you've already covered that. In detail. With graphs and illustrations, so to speak. And she still doesn't get it. Huh. Honestly, Laburnum, I'd say your best bet is to back out of the conversation and let her be an idiot in her own circles, because she's not going to listen. Anyone reading that thread can see perfectly well that you're being calm and rational while she's throwing a tantrum. You're in the right, even if you can't win the argument.

I've never understood the mentality that having competant men present immediately stops a story from being feminist. To be honest, that attitude strikes me as anti-feminist. Sort of "Women can only be badass when there are no men, and if men are there then the women should return to the kitchen where they belong".
The idea that to show a strong woman as having a romantic side makes her no longer strong is also rather obnoxious. If I'm reading your post correctly, that's all the OP had done in his/her fic: have a love story involving a male OC and a female canon character. Having a woman fall in love doesn't immediately take away everything that makes her, well, her.
(To be honest, it seems to me that you can't breathe on fanficrants without someone throwing a hissyfit)

I should probably read the thread in question before responding, but it's not like this sort of thing is uncommon, so:

No, you're not wrong. I don't doubt that the situation is exactly what you say it is, and that people are overreacting. I agree with you 100% that gender equality is the goal of true feminism, not female superiority to the point of erasing men from existence. That's just stupid. These people sound like misandrists to me.

And this is more or less tangential (i.e., don't quote me), but seriously, suppose someone made a similar argument about a "hetero safe space" in some other canon? Good lord, can you imagine the outcry? >.>

~Neshomeh, who also believes in treating everyone equally.

Commenter clearly is only familiar with straw feminism, and needs to do some actual research before they try and make rants.

Just out of curiosity, which game is it?

As you said, had this canon been geared towards a pro-feminist agenda, then having a male OC successfully flirt with one of the canonical females would have been problematic. The way you've described both the universe and the story, however, makes your argument acceptable.

One last question from me: was this about Touhou?