For future reference.

[randomling]

“When I try to explain slash to non-fans, I often reference that moment in Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan where Spock is dying and Kirk stands there, a wall of glass separating the two longtime buddies. Both of them are reaching out towards each other, their hands pressed hard against the glass, trying to establish physical contact. They both have so much they want to say and so little time to say it. Spock calls Kirk his friend, the fullest expression of their feelings anywhere in the series. Almost everyone who watches that scene feels the passion the two men share, the hunger for something more than what they are allowed. And, I tell my nonfan listeners, slash is what happens when you take away the glass. The glass, for me, is often more social than physical; the glass represents those aspects of traditional masculinity which prevent emotional expressiveness or physical intimacy between men, which block the possibility of true male friendship. Slash is what happens when you take away those barriers and imagine what a new kind of male friendship might look like. One of the most exciting things about slash is that it teaches us how to recognize the signs of emotional caring beneath all the masks by which traditional male culture seeks to repress or hide those feelings.” — Henry Jenkins, “Confessions of a Male Slash Fan,” SBF 1, May 1993

Comments

[italiceyeball]

I kind of get what you're getting at. But... And I'm no expert on anything, least of all writing subcultures... it seems to me, from my limited exposure to the genre, that it leans more heavily on sexuality than many (most?) other forms of storytelling.

[kaberett]

Yep, queer lives tend to be portrayed as All About The Sex pretty generally -- see every conversation, ever, in which it's suggested that discussing queer sexualities automatically requires detailed discussion of ways to have sex, so we can't possibly have books about Emma & Alice & their offspring Sam in the schools because will no-one think of the children.

Pretty much every fairytale I know is about sex. Pretty well every Shakespeare play is about sex. Pretty much any TV series you care to name, that's about telling a story, will have Compulsory Heterosexuality bolted on. Wanting stories about queer people doesn't mean we want stories about sex, but wanting stories about sex isn't wrong, and it's not somehow more prevalent, just because the people involved happen to share a gender.

[italiceyeball]

The vast majority of the (admittedly small sample) slashfic I've read has had plots that are predicated on sexual relationships, whether those relationships are explicitly narrated or not. To me, this seems like a genre defining trait, much like how a mystery novel invariably involves some kind of mystery, a western bases many scenes in the west with, y'know, cowboys and gunfights and horses, etc. for whatever genre we pick.

Now, sex is huge. Its effects pervade(heh) every aspect of the psyche. I can agree that in any work you care to name we can find sexuality, often blatant and obvious, sometimes buried and symbolic. However, it certainly doesn't define every genre. Otherwise every genre would be a flavor of some sexuality, and while I could play devil's advocate for that position(...) I think I'd find myself reaching a bit.

Take your average bodice ripper, for instance. Fabio on the cover, lots of sighing and coy looks. That's a book defined by the sexuality it portrays. Now look at, I dunno, "The Road" by Cormac McCarthy. Is there sexuality in there, somewhere? Sure. Is the book defined by that sexuality? No.

Wanting stories about queer people doesn't mean we want stories about sex, but wanting stories about sex isn't wrong, and it's not somehow more prevalent, just because the people involved happen to share a gender.

Not sure where that came from, but yeah, agreed.