I. Introduction

In this paper I will present the history of a fan-driven creative endeavor called fan fiction. I will focus my gaze to narrow in on a sub-genre called slash fan fiction. I will move into authorship/readership, types of slash fan fiction, ideas on its function in society, and finally end with a discussion of the controversies surrounding this creation from fandom. All of this will be done in hopes of bringing a better understanding to an aspect of female sexuality.

II. A. History

The writing of fan fiction began in the science fiction community. It started as a way for science fiction fans to fulfill an emerging need in their community. Fans began to write their own stories, fan fictions, featuring characters from a favorite science fiction novel in order to fill in the lulls that occurred in between new science fiction novels being published. This also happened with the television shows that they watched. Stories not only flourished around science fiction novels and television series but around movies as well.

The writing of fan fiction has grown and changed over time. One of the more interesting developments occurred in the early 1970s and was started by several different women in various places in the United States, Australia, Germany, the United Kingdom, and Canada, all writing independently of one another (Salmon 71). This development was the creation of slash fan fiction. Slash fan fiction is a certain type of fan fiction, written mostly by women and for women. The distinguishing characteristic of this type of fan fiction is that the romantic and/or sexual pairing in the stories takes place between two characters of the same gender, usually male. The first slash fan fictions were written by female Star Trek fans in response to a discussion that was circulating among Star Trek fan circles; could Captain Kirk and Spock be lovers? The term ‘slash’ is “derived from the “/” placed between the characters’ initials to designate fan productions of a homoerotic nature,” for example Kirk/Spock, or K/S (Woledge, Decoding 235-236). These stories were first published in fanzines, or fan produced magazines, and sold at conventions. All fans, according to Coppa, did not embrace slash; slash fanzines that sold at conventions were purchased literally from a box under the table. Slash also caught on among the fans of buddy shows like Starsky and Hutch and The Professionals. Because of the new ways that television shows were being filmed, slash fans easily adopted these shows for their own uses.

“When actors are shot in sufficient close up for the viewer to read facial expressions clearly, they cannot maneuver appropriate social distances and still look at each other while they are speaking… so actors portraying friends consistently break into each other’s spheres of intimate space” (Bacon-Smith 233).

The invention of the Internet was another major catalyst in the growth of both reading and writing fan fiction. Writers were able to use this technology to cheaply and easily publish and widely distribute their work. This pushed the different slash fandoms out into the mainstream and allowed fans to set up lists, sites, and archives dedicated specifically to slash pairings and stories, allowed easy access to fans who wanted to read this fiction, and made it easy for other “non-slash” fans to avoid. Slash has officially moved out of the box and onto the screen. Today slash stories have ventured beyond the science fiction world of Star Trek and are taking place in the fantasy worlds of J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter and J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings and in the more realistic worlds of television show dramas like Scrubs and CSI: Crime Scene Investigation. Some are set in the real world and feature not the characters of a television series or movies, but instead are fan-constructed romances that take place between the actors who portray these characters. The stories featuring the actors and not the characters are known as real person slash or RPS.

B. Identifying the Readers and Writers

According to Camille Bacon-Smith’s research done in the 1980s, slash writers/readers fit into one particular profile. This profile is as white, middle-class, highly educated (hold college degrees), single, heterosexual women. Bacon-Smith’s conclusions on who writes and reads slash have been, until recently unchallenged and supported by academics that study this phenomenon. Now newer ideas concerning who writes and reads slash are being published and the slash writers and readers themselves are speaking up and changing the way they label themselves.

The recent book, Cyberspaces of Their Own: Female Fandoms Online, published in 2005 and written by Rhiannon Bury, speaks out against this traditional view of the producers and consumers of this genre. Bury finds that those who have analyzed slash in the past, “presumed a heterosexual female reader and writer. Shoshanna Green, Cynthia Jenkins and Henry Jenkins were the first to recognize that ‘lesbian and bisexual women have always participated alongside straight women.’ Boyd indicates that 52 percent of the respondents to her study identified as bisexual, lesbian or gay” (Bury 81). Bury herself refers to her own study subjects who self-identified as heterosexual (seven subjects) and bisexual (six subjects), but she states that “most refused such fixed classifications” (Bury 81). Another area in which Bury finds fault in Bacon-Smith’s conclusions is in the conclusion that the women are single. At least two of Bury’s respondents identified themselves as being part of a couple. One makes reference to a husband who does not understand his wife’s desire to read and write slash fan fiction and the other admits that her female life partner actually introduced her to the genre. While a majority of participants in the slash fan community might be both straight and single that does not mean that the queer and coupled members should be overlooked. Seeing the production and consumption of slash as an expression of all women’s sexuality is important in making an analysis.

C. Two Major Types of Slash Narratives

Two types of slash fan fictions dominate the genre. These two types are the “first-time” stories and the “hurt/comfort” stories. “First-time” stories highlight the first sexual encounter that occurs between the main pairing in the story. These stories follow a formula that showcase three distinct features. The first of these features is that the sexual encounter is the first homosexual encounter for both, or at the very least one of the characters. This feature provides the women readers and writers with two important elements of sexual fantasy. The two elements revolve around the ability of the woman to identify as the characters and/or as the objects of the characters’ sexual desires. This “first-time” story feature gives women the opportunity to identify as a male by taking on the point of view of one of the characters, but at the same time they are able to still maintain a position of being an object of sexual desire for these men who are normally heterosexual and therefore remain available to women.

The second feature of the “first-time” narrative is the journey these men take in recognizing and admitting their emotional needs, especially their feelings towards each other. This element is appealing to women as it provides them with “ideal” men who openly deal with their feelings. This is a desire of women that is expressed in the romance narrative (Cicioni 160-161).

The third and final feature that signifies a “first-time” story is that the sexual encounter is always preceded by the existing friendship/partnership. This element provides women with a sexual encounter that moves beyond sex for sex sake and enters into a deeper intimacy between the partners (Cicioni 160-161). The following excerpts from a Star Wars slash fan fiction by the fan authors Mama Deb & Saraid and titled “Rival the Stars” features a pairing between the characters Qui-Gon Jinn and Obi-Wan Kenobi and showcases the three features of a “first-time” fiction that are discussed above.

At first, Obi-Wan rejects Qui-Gon's love:
"'I love you,['] Qui-Gon repeated. The he lowered his head and brushed
his cold lips over Obi-Wan's mouth, and the younger man pulled back,
bumping his head against the rock, speechless."

But after a while Obi-Wan realizes that he's attracted to Qui-Gon:

"The first kiss was sweetness embodied, which slid quickly into aching hunger."

"Roughly-but-gently [Obi-Wan] was manhandled to the big bed, which was dressed with fluffy blankets and linens in several shades of green and
blue, softly streaked color and thick comfort.

Once he had Obi-Wan flat on his back he lowered himself over the
younger man, on his elbows to prevent squashing him, and they resumed
kissing.

After several minutes Obi-Wan was gasping, but enjoying the
lightheaded feeling, and the weight of his Master above him, and the
hot rod of flesh that was pressing so suggestively into his belly.

'Clothes,' He said firmly when they broke to breathe, and Qui-Gon
seemed to agree, using both of his hands and the Force to strip
himself while Obi-Wan did the same. Then they were naked, their bare
skin pressed together, and he moaned helplessly, hands traveling
eagerly, wantonly, wanting to touch and feel all of Qui-Gon, thrilled
and excited by what he found.

Their cocks pressed together when his Master shifted higher to hold
his head for plundering, and he bucked up, wanting more, hands
scrabbling over broad, muscular shoulders."

The second major type of slash fiction that is written is known as “hurt/comfort” stories. These stories, according to Cicioni, provide women with a female sexual fantasy of the “eroticisation of nurturance.” This type of story hinges on intimacy growing through the nurturing of one partner by the other. Typically in these stories one of the characters endures illness, rape, major wounds, mental trauma, or etc and then has these physical and emotional wounds nursed by the other male. The typical hurt/comfort story can be seen in the following selected text from Kaitlyn Carson’s Harry Potter slash, “Field of Green.”

At the beginning of the fic:

“He [Harry] walks over to the bed and he lets out a horrified gasp when he recognizes the painfully thin figure that’s shackled there, unconscious but still breathing.

Malfoy?

‘Remus,’ Harry calls out, finally snapping back to his senses and finding his voice. ‘Remus, there’s a prisoner in here!’”

Later, as these selected quotes illustrate, Harry finds ways to comfort and help Draco heal:

“‘You'll be fine’, he says softy to the pale boy on the bed. ‘Just fine.’”

Later:

“He almost jumps up from his chair when he suddenly senses a hand on his knee. It belongs to Potter, who’s sitting next to him.

Draco wonders what the prat’s up to this time, and why he’s even touching him, but he grabs and squeezes Potter’s hand anyway.

Right now, he's grateful for any reassurance he can get.”

D. Slash as Romance or Porn

The romance novel and traditional porn have been studied to see which aspects of female sexuality and desire they are capable of addressing. The goal of the romance novel is the creation of intimacy, closeness, and connection between the two characters, in essence the achievement of true love. Pornography’s goal is focused on the achievement of sexual release or gratification through the depiction of sexual acts. Given these definitions it seems that the romance novel and pornography each strive to keep separate the desire of women for both love and sex. In the past, slash has been interpreted as being either a romance narrative or as porn written by women for women. Newer essays claim slash has the unique ability to exist in an area that sits comfortably between the genres of romance and porn. Driscoll elaborates on this, stating that “Porn and romance are not so separable in fan fiction… all fan fiction is implicitly both (90).

Driscoll, in her essay “One True Pairing: The Romance of Pornography and the Pornography of Romance,” breaks slash fan fiction sex scenes down into two categories that speak to the romantic and porn aspects of slash. The first category that she separates the sex scenes into is what she calls “plot sex.” Plot sex follows the traditional narrative of romance and is a result of an ever-building intimacy and closeness between the paired characters. This sexual encounter between the characters is a result of the plot’s development, the relationship’s development, and centers on romantic themes.

The second kind of slash sex that Driscoll identifies, she coins as “porn sex.” These sex scenes are not written to further the plot but merely function as sex for the sake of sex. “Plot sex” and “porn sex” are not exclusive of each other. Driscoll notes that most slash fan fictions will contain both kinds of sex in a single chapter, scene, or story (Driscoll 85-86). Even categories of slash fiction, like PWP (“Plot? What Plot? Or Porn Without Plot) cannot be viewed merely as porn. These stories which focus on a single or several strictly sexual encounters without any plot leading up to the sex act are still tied to ideals of the romance. The author will often in a PWP story include a line or two that makes reference to an established relationship between the two men or that suggests the intimacy that they share. These few lines thus play a role in seeing that porn and romance and therefore love and sex remain connected for slash producers and slash audiences. Even if the author does not include these romance-referencing sentences in the “porn sex” sequences of a PWP, the story still cannot be strictly classified as porn. Slash fan fiction is necessarily situated within a certain framework. Slash fictions establish for the readers a context of intimacy and closeness of the paired characters. Fans who regularly read slash enter into reading new slash stories with a preconceived notion as to what the exact relationship is between the paired male characters. This notion of the romantic relationship remains in the readers thoughts as they surf through and read fan fictions that are supposedly strictly sexual vignettes. The very nature of fandom and especially that of slash fandom makes the separation of sex and porn a nearly impossible task.

E. Slash Controversy- Oppressive or Subversive

Slash has been met with tough criticisms from both the feminist and queer perspectives. Feminist critiques of slash writings center around the claim that by necessity slash is a misogynist form of fan creativity since slash fan fiction finds its inspiration in movies, television series, and books that center around casts of characters that are almost entirely male. After finding inspiration from these sources, slash writers then proceed to craft their own stories that typically have few if any female characters.

There is another way of looking at this particular fan writing that positions it as a very real act of feminist resistance. In order to see the writing of slash as a feminist act, one must be willing not to dwell on the sex of the characters. Slash is an act of feminism because it can “depict a love between equals that does not fall prey to notions of hierarchical gender roles and that explores both the male and female sides of the characters” (Busse 17). Slash writers create a world that resists typical gender roles and gives the reader a glimpse of what true equality looks like. I would also like to argue that slash writing is feminist because it provides women with an outlet to express facets of their heterosexuality that are usually kept hidden or that are discouraged. The sex scenes featured in slash stories are very detailed and appreciative of male genitalia as well as bodily fluids like sweat and semen. These slash stories therefore allow women to express and experience feelings that are outside of the “feminine norm [that finds] bodily odors and fluids ‘icky’”(Bury 87).

Slash fan fiction also serves as a tool of feminism since it places the bodies of men into the hands of women. The women authors, in crafting these stories, are placed in a position of power over men. The authors have total control over the words used by men, the physical movements of men, the sexuality of men, the desires of men, and the reproductive capacities of men in these stories. They can cause men to become aroused and then use this arousal first and foremost for their own [the author’s] pleasure and not for the pleasure of men. This act of controlling those in power is a very strong statement to the feminist implications of slash fan fiction.

Another criticism of slash wages that despite the same-sex relationships that the stories boast, the practice of writing slash is quite homophobic. The main characters featured in slash writings come from show canons where they are heterosexuals. Slash writers in turn keep the straight sexuality of the characters in their fan stories and instead imply that they are two men who happened to fall in love. This seems at face value to be a very homophobic practice in that it seems to strongly reject homosexuality as a valid identity for the characters.

According to Woledge, however, there are three reasons slash writers reject the gay label, none of which points toward homophobia. The first reason that slash writers reject characterizing their stories and the characters as gay is to distance itself from existing gay fiction. This distance is necessary since the goals of gay fiction and the goals of slash fan fiction are not the same. Slash writers feel that, “existing self-consciously gay fiction does not represent intimacy at all; instead, it denies intimacy through its depiction of casual gay sex” (Woledge 102-103). The second reason is because slash writers want to, “liberate sexual love from homosexual love” (Woledge 102-103). This means that the authors feel that by keeping their characters from being labeled gay they can escape the confines of modern stereotypes and that way their stories can have more than one meaning for the audience. And lastly, slash writers reject homosexual as a label in order to make it clear to the audience that while the stories may contain affection and closeness between men, they are not stories about the modern homosexual. Woledge concludes, “It is not homophobic so much as homoindifferent”(Woledge 102-103).

Even though Woledge does not wager this argument against slash being referred to as homophobic, I find that there is an additional reason that slash is actually a queer practice. It has been established that women write the majority of these stories and then consume the majority as well. This brings to light an obvious queer connection. Women are writing these stories for their own sexual pleasure but also for the purpose of titillating other women. Since women are writing these stories to sexually gratify other individuals of the same sex it seems natural to view slash writing as anything but homophobic. The act of reading and writing the stories is actually a very queer friendly activity.

III. Conclusion

Slash fan fiction is a thriving online community that allows women to more fully explore their own sexualities. Slash also gives women the opportunity to express otherwise inexpressible desires. It hands control over to the oppressed group. Slash also operates in a framework that allows it to function as an act of queering straight society. Heterosexual women are writing stories to sexually gratify other women and they are

making heterosexual males perform acts of same-sex love. They are also using slash to explore the realms of intimacy, love, and sex in a way that is not possible using the usual homosexual and heterosexual binaries that are usually used in this exploration. Slash goes beyond the straight girl/queer sex pairing.