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

[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.)

I agree with the earlier commenter that there is slash that celebrates homosexuality and there is slash that fetishizes or exploits it. There's also slash that is written purely to entertain, not be a reflection of a writer's values. I don't think that's the purpose of fanfic, personally; I see it overall as a form of creative expression, not as a venue for social and political statements. But of course a writer's opinions and beliefs do show, so that's when the reader's impression of slash could be significant.

Sometimes writers (it happens to professionals, too) are surprised at how readers interpret the meaning the author intended to put forth, and a reader might not "get" what the author intended. I'm not sure you can say that either view is always the correct one. Readers could misinterpret, and authors might not realize how their subconscious assumptions are revealed.