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[kattahj]

How come it's so god-damned impossible to talk about fans in mainstream media without making us sound like morons? Latest example was a link in one of the mailing lists I'm on to an article on slash. It was written by a slasher, and it was still so full of errors I just wanted to rip the writer a new one. (Which I didn't, because the last thing I

Comments

[tarchannon]

No, slash is any same/sex ficional relationship regardless of the explicitness of the relationship. And, yes, she did leave out femslash.

I dunno... I enjoyed the read, though not everything she said was 100% true, and there were some gaps (like slash fic tends to be the hobby of primarily straight women, followed by gay men, followed by other gay folks, and even a tiny number of het men). And it's quite certain that these other groups have different motovations (i.e. - I write slash because it's a beginner's way to contribute to the gay literature and to counter what is clearly the heterosexist norms of canon sources). It's not supposed to be a comprehensive piece on every detail, but more of a personal essay.

I'd love to see you write a similar piecee, katta. :D I'd bet you could get it published, and heck, I'd bet people would love to read it.

[mpoetess]

[Oops - replied to you but accidentally commented to the main post, here]

[kattahj]

I dunno... I enjoyed the read, though not everything she said was 100% true, and there were some gaps

I have read a lot worse - like the article in a feminist magazine a couple of years back that was bizarrely fixated on the seme/uke dynamics and claimed that because of this, Chandler can boink Joey but not vice versa (or if it was the other way around; since it made no sense to me either way I can't say for sure). Or the article with the title (translated) "Subtextual underground culture and homofucks" - though that one wasn't written by a fan.

I guess I was rubbed the wrong way by the "Hey, look, everyone's doing each other!" beginning and then just continued on the path of grumpiness.

I'd love to see you write a similar piecee, katta. :D I'd bet you could get it published, and heck, I'd bet people would love to read it.I've written some essays/articles on fandom, though mostly longer academic stuff. Never one about "just" slash - I guess because to me, that would be taking it backwards. I'm a writer first, then a fan, then a

[mpoetess]

like slash fic tends to be the hobby of primarily straight women, followed by gay men, followed by other gay folks, and even a tiny number of het men

Was that what the article said, or what it didn't say? I'd tweak that a little, looking at my friends list -- I'd say scads more bisexual women write/read slash than gay men do. Just because there are scads more bisexual women in fandom than there are gay men. I'd even guess (though I wouldn't bet my lunch money on it) that there might be more lesbians reading/writing slash (especially if you're counting f/f slash as the writer apparently wasn't) than there are gay men, again just because of the demographic that there are a lot more women than men in most fandoms.

[tarchannon]

I actually don't know the numbers (though I think there are enough sociology programs that have grad students studying this that there are probably some statistics out there (maybe the folks in the LJ group fanthropology would know), but I'd guess that if you remove bisexuals (both bi-curious as well as those that act on thier interests) into their own category, they'd eat into the % het women I mentioned rather than the others (I ignored bisexuals in my quicky comment - apologies). Even so, I'm sure an easy majority, if not large majority, of women involved in slash are het. I've been around various fandoms since, well, the www, and in my experience, there are fewer lesbians involved than any other group, including transgendered folks. This is certainly not scientifc, just my experience, and I'll also throw out the huge caveat that it's based on how anonymous people self-identify online rather than their actual gender.

[mpoetess]

Yeah, I wouldn't argue the basic fact that the largest group in slash (or in participatory fandom as a whole) is still het women.

[mpoetess]

Thus my soapbox against the folks who want to call 'slashy' het relationships 'slash' or even 'hetslash.' There's an argument there, in terms of "I want to indicate that this het relationship gives me the same feeling that reading slash does, because of similar factors X, Y, and Z," but I think it's not as strong as the opposing argument. Which is that using it that way dilutes the most widely-used meaning of 'slash' and makes it easier for people who are wayyy out on the edge and basically just perpetuating an error (slash=anything smutty) to remain confused, and spread the confusion.

[tarchannon]

Hmmm. Interesting. I don't come across that a lot myself. I'd definately object to people 'stretching' the definition since it's so basic. It's not 'slash' unless there is clearly defined same-sex romantic or sexual interest. Het characters in 'buddylove' that aren't having sexual relations are not having a 'slash' interaction (i.e.- Butch and Sundance, Thelma and Loise, etc.).

[mpoetess]

Oh, this is even more out on the edge than where to draw the line in samne-sex interactions between friendship fic and slash. Here they're talking about m/f relationships being 'slashy' (which term doesn't bother me) or 'hetslash' (which does, because it implies that slash is a category that can be divided out based on whether the participants are same or opposite gender, instead of a category that's defined by the fact that the participants are same-gender).

[tarchannon]

Ah, I see. So 'slash' = 'porn', and they divide 'slash' like we divide porn - into subcategroies (het, gay, lesbian, TG, etc.). How weird!