Why would I sabotage the best thing that I have

[kat_lair]

Recently narration_girl  (aka claudia_writes ’ dissertation journal) posted quotes and questions about m/m Slash. Below is an attempt to articulately my thoughts on the subject, originally posted as a reply to her entry, and now re-posted here mainly for personal record-keeping.

Starting slash:

Interestingly, I don't remember what the first m/m slash fic I read was. I probably encountered the term in the XF fandom, but like you I didn't actively search for it as I was all about Mulder/Scully those days. I have actual read some slash in XF, (both m/m and f/f in fact) though almost 99% for the porn.

So, it's interesting but I don't actually remember making a conscious leap to the slash genre, which is funny because despite starting as a Het reader I now read almost exclusively m/m slash (there are some fandoms/pairings/writers that are exceptions). First slash fics I read were probably Sentinel, Due South, and various RPS (bands and musicians mostly - note that this was before fanfiction.net purged RPS). I am very multifandom, and while I have favourite pairings in every fandom I don't often have an OTP so that doesn't really come into the picture for me. Some of my favourite pairings contradict other (e.g. in SGA I mainly slash McKay/Beckett and McKay/Zelenka though I read a lot of various other pairings as well, some of which include the mentioned characters).



Why Slash?

It's difficult to untangle one's motivations for reading and writing m/m slash (and you might want to clarify it's m/m slash you mean when talking about slash, especially in your dissertation - yes f/f slash if often differentiated as femmeslash, but I know some f/f fic writers and readers are slightly peeved about being categorised in and out willy nilly).

We read sex into TV shows where characters have supposedly platonic, but yet intimate relationship. - yes, I agree with this to a degree. I have always been fascinated by the "we're just close friends/work partners/team mates" type of relationship, including when it has been between a woman and a man (e.g. my utter love for Mulder/Scully). But, with a m/f couple even if sexual/romantic feelings are not acknowledged, their potential is. Despite any unconventional settings they might exist (FBI agents partnered together, team mates exploring alien planets), a woman and a man being close to each other is inherently accepted and even expected, because a m/f couple fits neatly into the heteronormative world view the society still largely holds. If and when the "we're just friends" excuse falls through, no one is that surprised, not even the couple themselves (just think of When Harry Met Sally).

So I think for me the fascination of slash becomes from suddenly having the freedom to see that potential for sexual/romantic relationships anywhere and everywhere between any people. It both echoes and reinforces (and is quite likely somewhat responsible for) my personal world view of people primarily as persons, and only secondarily as belonging to a certain gender/sexual preferences. I firmly believe that sexuality is a fluid concept, not a dichotomous one, or even a list of categories (hetero-, homo-, bi-, trans-, a- blah blah blah all people)

It's liberating and exhilarating and just full of possibilities and stories that want to be told. Reading/writing slash is also maybe a bit daring, a way to stick it to the PTB and society and say "Look, I'm making this my own. You can't tell me how to interpret this show and these characters." It's a thrill too. There's definitely a sense of doing something slightly "naughty" and subversive, of being a member of some sort of "secret society" almost, even though intellectually I know that's not true anymore and slash (or maybe we should say homosexuality - and more on those differences later) has definitely filtered through to the main stream media.

Slash and female sexuality

There was a point which I really, really disagreed with in your notes and it was this: The romance/caring/love are secondary in slash stories. which implies that the person sees m/m slash to be primarily about sex, porn, erotica, however you want to call it.

Of course it is about those things about too, because, to put it bluntly: reading/seeing two men get it on turns me on. You may remember the Fic DVD commentaries I did (here and here) for a fic of mine that was very much written for the purpose of "turning on the readers" and concentrated mostly in the main characters having sex, plain and simply. I spoke a bit about writing porn and being a female writer writing m/m porn then, but I wanted to just reiterate a couple of points I made (straight quotes from my original posts):

1. "... we should look at what is the main motivation behind writing PWP/erotica fanfic in general. Developing writing skills in a particular genre may well be a part of it, but at its core it’s something women write to turn on other women (both fanfic writers and readers being predominantly female). And that right there is as fascinating and forbidden as the porn itself, if not more so."
2. "For a female writer/reader m/m sex is almost inherently voyeuristic; it doesn’t come with an inbuilt reference point in quite the same way as het or f/f sex do. I think that sense of difference, of otherness, is a large part of the appeal of m/m slash."

If you look at the comments on the two posts, somewhere there moth2fic makes a really interesting comparison between a fascination with sci-fi/fantasy and fascination with slash genre and m/m sex. It's something I find that resonates with me quite closely.

To go back to the quote: for me caring/love/romance are the key to a good slash story. Porn has it's time and place and can be immensely enjoyable, but it's not why I read slash. I'm looking for relationship development, exploration of character and motives, humour, romance, angst, and yes, preferably some hot sex at the end of it all :) But really, all the stuff that comes before the sex and after it, is what makes a sex scene work for me.




Gay vs. Slash

I feel that is somewhat an artificial line, and an impossible to maintain. What if the characters are straight in canon, but the writer makes them gay in the fic (the "secretly gay!" cliche, very popular e.g. in SGA and other fandoms with military settings). Or they are "gay only for each other"? What if one is gay/bi in canon, but the other one isn't (or at least we don't think they are... Just think about the complications of Jack/Ianto from Torchwood... who's going to attempt categorising Jack as anything). And of course the charater may be gay in canon, but still be one of those "we're just friends" couples that many find irresistible (e.g. Stuart and Vince from QAF-UK) and love to "slash".

I guess my deep dislike of attempts to categorise people into neat boxes is very much reflected in my dislike of trying to do so here (I also agonise over trying to categorise my own writing occasionally). Why the preoccupation with definitions?

Admittedly I haven't read much of the so-called gay literature. A few books only, and even some of those were written by women (which apparently don't count??) so I find it hard to make any comparisons between the genres. What I've heard though (but this is from women, not gay men) is that slash fic often surpasses traditional gay literature both in quality and content, providing the above mentioned romance, humour, angst, and sex scenes that are actually erotic, whereas many of the books marketed for gay man tend to be the "Tab A, Slot B" variety. But, again, this is all hearsay, and I haven't read nearly enough to make such comparison myself.

You should all go check out the original entry in question and take part in the discussion there, as it is bound to get very interesting and narration_girl  would love to get more opinions.