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[dis_mount]

I have a question for all of you lovely people (those of you who are slashers, at any rate, which is most of you). How and when did you first get interested in slash? A whole day completely devoid of human contact has made me curious about things not entirely my business.

I think I've been a slasher all my life, even before I new what

Comments

[suzycat]

Well, from adolescent-hood I would create lengthy fic-like fantasies in bed of an evening, and in their earliest incarnations they involved a Sue (me, natch) - but I would "inhabit" all the different characters, as it were. When I wasn't much older I started sometimes making up stories in which the men were lovers. I always had a two guys, one girl thing going on, but the guys were invariably the main focus.

Flash forward a lot of years to my return to university in the latter 90s and reading Henry Jenkins' Textual Poachers for a paper. Suffice it to say the copy falls open at the chapter "Welcome to Bisexuality, Captain Kirk" because I read it so many times. That was the first time I realised that other women are like me - and they write it down!

Shortly after that I got into Smallville fandom and got to know about slash from the inside out, as it were.

[suzycat]

Also here via metafandom, btw)

[dis_mount]

Oh, that fic thing in your head? I did that too -- a lot. It was fun for a while, but then it just became boring. For some reason I was never the "Sue" -- there was always a "she," and then, after a while a "he," and then suddenly two "he"s...

Allow me to demonstrate my naivete by asking "What's Jenkins' Textual Poachers"? That sound like a very interesting article...

Ah, yes, Smallville. Incredibly slashy. Good times.

Thanks for sharing! *kisses*

[suzycat]

Henry Jenkins is an academic who is also a fan, whose (?1991) book Textual Poachers had a radical effect on media studies. Routledge is the publisher - it's likely to be in your local library.

You can check out his cool co-authored, or really edited, article on why women like slash here:

http://web.mit.edu/cms/People/henry3/bonking.html

[kayjayuu]

Well, from adolescent-hood I would create lengthy fic-like fantasies in bed of an evening, and in their earliest incarnations they involved a Sue (me, natch) - but I would "inhabit" all the different characters, as it were.

Here via metafandom.

OMG, I seem to recall something maybe written by you many many moons ago that either alluded to or focused on this fact... it struck me because that's exactly what I used to do and I didn't feel alone and weird in the world anymore. Do you recall anything you may have written?

Now I have an urge to post some meta exploring this... Hm.

[suzycat]

I don't remember offhand, but I may have. I don't think it's so very uncommon! Several years ago I was talking to a woman I knew who revealed that at about 12, she used to make up elaborate fantasies about a man in a book, in which she was his servant and aide. And that she still did sometimes 20-odd years later. I was deeply impressed that there was another one!

[dis_mount]

I don't think that person was me... but then again, my memory sucks, so perhaps it was. Or are you talking to suzycat? I'm so very confused... *hides under desk*

Yes, yes, post meta! Post, I say!

[dis_mount]

Ah, you *were* talking to suzycat. It's all clear to me now...