Poll

[ifyouweremine]

I’ve been having something of a debate over the meaning and impact of slash with someone, and it made me curious. Just to know how other people feel on the matter, I’d like to have a quick poll-to prevent the possibility of bias, I won’t mention who is arguing what point. ^__

Comments

[floweringjudas]

I think that slash is a bit of a mixed bag when it comes to exploiting/celebrating homosexuality - I've seen it go both ways. I think most people who write slash (at least, in the book/movie fandoms I gravitate towards) write it with an eye more toward the relationship than JUST toward the sex, but I've also been a little disappointed with one of my fandoms about completely ignoring a rather large aspect of one character just to make him have Teh Ghey Secks with another male character. Would that count as exploitation?

I dunno. Anyway, those're my thoughts.

[starrysummer]

I think there's slash which celebrates homosexuality and slash which fetishizes or exploits it. The vast, vast majority of slash in my opinion doesn't do much one way or the other. Sometimes I feel like it's not really about homosexuality, since so much slash (hell plenty of my on, in fact) exists in a world where coming to grips with homosexuality isn't the same weighty issue as it is in actuality.

I don't consider slash a kink or a turn-off. To me, it just is. It's slash because there's two guys getting it on, or two girls, or three guys or whatever. There may be other things involved that are kinks, but slash is just a way of categorizing who's getting it on. Though oddly enough, bisexuality is a kink for me in fic, yet slash is just kink of a description.

[caitirin]

I don't really think that slash really exploits or celebrates homosexuality.

Slash, in general isn't... well realistic. It's fantastical. Now this isn't ALWAYS true, some people write slash that is very realistic. But it isn't the general rule.

It's a predominantly female fantasy. Two guys getting together.

I love it. But I don't think that slash fan fiction makes any great statements about 'homosexuality'. It may help to promote tolerance as more and more people get 'into' it though.

I don't think it does anything bad to the idea of homosexuality, but I don't see it really 'celebrating' or 'exploiting' it.

I would view it more as an exploration of it.

[raveninthewind]

Your question about slash celebrating homosexuality vs. exploiting it has to aspects: authorial intent and what a reader might feel after reading it. (Plus, there's that argument I've seen by non-slashers that posits that slash written by straights may exploitative in itself, although I don't agree

[raveninthewind]

As for slash being a kink--that depends on how you define "kink". I define it as something I like in particular, not for some intellectual reason, but for a visceral reaction.

I think slash is a kink for me, solely on the grounds that it's not seen as normative for straight women to be attracted or turned on by two men having sex/being in love/being in a nonplatonic relaionship. I guess I see it as unusual preference but not abnormal. I don't think of slash as "kinky" per se--the fact is that any sort of erotica or porn is a matter of personal taste, and so is the very choice to read it.

[bludiamond]

I was going to write a post on what I meant when I clicked on slash being a kink. I was trying to decide how to explain it, but you already nailed it. Thanks you. ^_~