PDQ Slash Meta
Here's how I feel about slash: all good literature and stories are really just romances. Some just have porn, and others don't.
When I get fannish about something, it's always for a romance between two characters. Two characters will be set up in a story with these elements: their love for each other, their problems with each other, the UST. Then there's my engagement with these two characters: my desires that they come through for each other, that they end up happily ever after, that they have lots and lots of sex. A good story will give the set up all kinds of conflict, all kinds of tension, so that my engagement, my response is to desire that all that conflict and tension be resolved. I express those desires through fandom: my daydreams, fic, and fannish discussions revolve around either replicating that conflict and tension, or resolving it. (A good description of the kind of "desires" I'm talking about, is when you're shouting at the screen: "Kiss already!" Now, after that, you may go write a fic in which they do kiss, and it's such a relief. Or you may go write a fic in which everything thing gets so fucked up beyond belief that they never kiss at all, but both are an expression of the "Kiss already!" desire.)
In a good story, platonic relationships will have the exact same elements, except for the sex element. A truly compelling literary friendship will have two characters set up to love each other, to have problems with each other, to have conflict and tension, except without the UST. And a viewer/reader/experiencers engagement with a good set up like that will be the same: (s)he will desire that the friends come through for each other, that they resolve their issues. And let's take it one step farther, and mention the fanfic interest in incest. In a good story, relationships between members of a family will have the exact same elements, except for the sex elements.
This is where slash comes from, imo. It's about a reader/viewer engaging the set up by desiring that sexual element, because the set up for a platonic relationship are so similar to the set up for a sexual relationship, and produce many of the same forms of engagement, same desires. Does this similarity hold for relationships irl? I don't know, but for me, it doesn't bear comparison, because our rl relationships are not specific set ups meant to engage readers/viewers. But in a good story, the set up and engagement is the same between a well developed platonic relationship and a well developed sexual relationship, the only exception being the sexual element, from what I can tell.
It's not that slashers don't believe in platonic relationships, can't respect them, or think they're lesser, weaker, or unimportant as compared to sexual relationships. No matter how the slasher really feels, slash itself is not about sexualizing everything, or asserting that the only true expression of a relationship can be sex. It's about how a reader/viewer engages a particular set up; in fic, adding the sexual element is adding another dimension to the conflict that has been set up, and another dimension to the reader/viewers engagement. It might not engage you. It engages me, 'cause I like to read about sex.
And what have I learned, from all this?--Write my gen like smut, and write my smut like gen. Smut that is only interested in the sexual element, without the rest of the set up of conflict that deals with love and issues etc, might get you off, but it does not a good story make. Likewise, gen that approaches the relationship between characters as if they were all romances, is what really sets up a good relationship in your story: after all, that's how we get the slash we do: Angel and Spike's story in AtS; Harry and Ron, Harry and Snape, Sirius and Lupin; Sam and Frodo. It's what Kirk and Spock is all about. /meta for the day.
When I get fannish about something, it's always for a romance between two characters. Two characters will be set up in a story with these elements: their love for each other, their problems with each other, the UST. Then there's my engagement with these two characters: my desires that they come through for each other, that they end up happily ever after, that they have lots and lots of sex. A good story will give the set up all kinds of conflict, all kinds of tension, so that my engagement, my response is to desire that all that conflict and tension be resolved. I express those desires through fandom: my daydreams, fic, and fannish discussions revolve around either replicating that conflict and tension, or resolving it. (A good description of the kind of "desires" I'm talking about, is when you're shouting at the screen: "Kiss already!" Now, after that, you may go write a fic in which they do kiss, and it's such a relief. Or you may go write a fic in which everything thing gets so fucked up beyond belief that they never kiss at all, but both are an expression of the "Kiss already!" desire.)
In a good story, platonic relationships will have the exact same elements, except for the sex element. A truly compelling literary friendship will have two characters set up to love each other, to have problems with each other, to have conflict and tension, except without the UST. And a viewer/reader/experiencers engagement with a good set up like that will be the same: (s)he will desire that the friends come through for each other, that they resolve their issues. And let's take it one step farther, and mention the fanfic interest in incest. In a good story, relationships between members of a family will have the exact same elements, except for the sex elements.
This is where slash comes from, imo. It's about a reader/viewer engaging the set up by desiring that sexual element, because the set up for a platonic relationship are so similar to the set up for a sexual relationship, and produce many of the same forms of engagement, same desires. Does this similarity hold for relationships irl? I don't know, but for me, it doesn't bear comparison, because our rl relationships are not specific set ups meant to engage readers/viewers. But in a good story, the set up and engagement is the same between a well developed platonic relationship and a well developed sexual relationship, the only exception being the sexual element, from what I can tell.
It's not that slashers don't believe in platonic relationships, can't respect them, or think they're lesser, weaker, or unimportant as compared to sexual relationships. No matter how the slasher really feels, slash itself is not about sexualizing everything, or asserting that the only true expression of a relationship can be sex. It's about how a reader/viewer engages a particular set up; in fic, adding the sexual element is adding another dimension to the conflict that has been set up, and another dimension to the reader/viewers engagement. It might not engage you. It engages me, 'cause I like to read about sex.
And what have I learned, from all this?--Write my gen like smut, and write my smut like gen. Smut that is only interested in the sexual element, without the rest of the set up of conflict that deals with love and issues etc, might get you off, but it does not a good story make. Likewise, gen that approaches the relationship between characters as if they were all romances, is what really sets up a good relationship in your story: after all, that's how we get the slash we do: Angel and Spike's story in AtS; Harry and Ron, Harry and Snape, Sirius and Lupin; Sam and Frodo. It's what Kirk and Spock is all about. /meta for the day.