Gayscape #14 The Weird, Wild World of Slash Fiction

Fan Fiction based on popular properties has been around for decades, giving lonely nerds a chance to tell stories about their favorite characters that they don’t own and didn’t create. But there is a far more interesting flip side to the fan fiction out there known as Slash Fiction. Slash Fiction, despite its name, is not fiction about Freddy Krueger or Jason Voorhees. Wikipedia describes it as “a genre of fan fiction that focuses on the depiction of romantic (and often sexual) relationships between two or more male (or less commonly, female) characters, who may not be engaged in relationships in the canon universe”. Essentially, it’s fan pornography about well established characters from tv, film and literature (usually the sci-fi/fantasy variety) who are not presented as being gay or bisexual in their actual official stories, so someone makes elaborate plots about their forbidden love affairs.

Now, you might think that the purveyors of such fiction would be people like me, gay male geeks with filthy minds and too much time on their hands. But the reality is even more strange; the majority of Slash Fiction is written by women, something like eighty to ninety percent in fact. And not just straight women, but lesbian women as well. And while one would think that the lesbian geeks who write this stuff are writing about the erotic adventures of Buffy and Faith getting it on, or Wonder Woman and Supergirl, but think again. Most of the Slash fiction by gay women is still about male on male action, with the notable exception of some Xena: Warrior Princess fiction.

Having sampled some of this literature, I must say it’s pretty clear to be mostly written by women. Lots and lots of time is spent talking about the characters’ romantic longings, and it takes way too long to get to the actual smut. If gay dudes were writing this, we’d be on page two and Superman and Batman would be fucking already, and saying much, much dirtier things to each other.

The Birth of Slash Fiction…In the Final Frontier.

In the early seventies we see the early stirrings of what we know as geek culture today. Also starting in this time was its seedy underside. When the original Star Trek went off the air in 1969, fans were left to give themselves new adventures of the crew of the Starship Enterprise. And so the first known fan fiction was created, in the form of Star Trek fanzines. In 1974, the first Kirk and Spock romantic pairing was written, “A Fragment Out Of Time” by author Diane Marchant. Kirk and Spock were not called by name in this original story, but rather referred to them as “he” and “him”. But every Trekker knew who they were really supposed to be. Diane Marchant had begun a tidal wave, and by 1978 it was clear she had created her own mini genre with her “K/S” stories, now known as Slash Fiction (the slash refers to the / in K/S) By 1987, there were 58 Kirk/Spock fanzines. And this is all way before the internet. The phenomenon of K/S was so widespread that by 1979, when Gene Roddenberry was writing his adaptation of Star Trek: The Motion Picture, he even had an internal monologue of Kirk’s dealing with all these rampant rumors of his relationship to Spock.

“I was never aware of this ‘lovers’ rumor, although I have been told that Spock encountered it several times. Apparently, he had always dismissed it with his characteristic lifting of his right eyebrow, which usually connoted some combination of surprise, disbelief, and/or annoyance. As for myself…I have always found my best gratification in that creature called woman. Also, I would not like to be thought of as being so foolish that I would select a love partner who came into sexual heat only once every seven years. ”

—Admiral Kirk, Star Trek: The Motion Picture

The Gaylaxy Far, Far Away

While Paramount and Gene Roddenberry tolerated the proliferation of K/S fiction, on the other end of the Sci Fi spectrum George Lucas was having none of it. He did his best to issue cease and dissest orders to writers of Luke Skywalker/Han Solo Slash back in the day. But today, it’s just all over the place. Just Google “Star Wars Slash Fiction,” and you’ll  find evidence of hundreds of stories of Luke and Han playing “hide the lightsaber” on the Millennium Falcon, or Obi Wan Kenobi teaching his young Padawan Anakin Skywalker a lesson in obedience (I always thought there was something kinda sexual about the word padawan anyway.) Either Lucas got tired of fighting his dirtier minded fan base on this one, or he just stopped caring. In any event, Lucas is one to talk about what’s appropriate and what isn’t. This is the same man who had siblings Luke and Leia making out after all. Eww.

Buffy The Vampire Slayer

The arrival of Buffy to the WB airwaves in 1997 began what was the second great wave in the Slash Fiction Saga. As with K/S before, the vast majority of the writers of this stuff were women, who chose to focus on the sexual awakenings of Buffy’s best platonic male friend Xander Harris with her own boyfriend Angel, or even later, Angel with Spike. And while there were several lesbian writers of Buffy Slash Fic, almost none of them were writing about Buffy’s first time with Willow, or Faith and Buffy fighting on rooftops and then fucking like bitches in heat. Joss Whedon practically handed the lesbian writers of Slash a present with a giant silver bow when he outed series regular Willow as a lesbian and gave her another Wiccan lover in the form of  girlfriend Tara. But no, it seemed most of these lesbians were still only interested in the sordid sexual details of Angel and Spike getting it on. If someone out there cares to enlighten your humble author on the proclivities of lesbian writers to write about man on man sex, please do tell me, because I find it fascinating.

Hobbit Love

The other great Slash Fic movement came with the release of Peter Jackson’s epic Lord of the Rings Trilogy. There were some slash stories dealing with Aaragorn and Boromir or Legolas, and just what they were doing in those tents while the Hobbits were on their second and third breakfasts. But those paled in comparison to the amount of Hobbit sex that was being written about by teenage girls and middle aged women — and this is where the lines between fantasy and reality get very blurry. During the years long making of the Rings films, rumors were rampant from supposed “insiders” that Elijah Wood (Frodo) and Dominic Monaghan (Merry) were having a very intense affair. Gay Hollywood Gossip forums like the infamous Data Lounge had pages and pages of “Insider Info” on these two and their love affair, and how New Line Cinema and Time Warner were furious about it and trying to keep it under wraps for fear of harming the franchise. These threads went on for YEARS. Fangirls went from writing about F/M (Frodo/Merry) fiction to just writing about E/D (Elijah/Dominic) fiction. About the actual actors. This lead to a whole new creepy form of Slash Fiction that still runs rampant; that which is about real people.

Oh, and apparently Elijah was like, really gay, but Dominic was just Bi, and after busting Elijah’s cherry on the set of Rings, he dumped his ass for the first hot chick on the set of Lost we know now as Evangaline Lily, leaving little Elijah all broken hearted and stuff. ALLEGEDLY, guys. Allegedly. Don’t wanna get sued here folks.

But anyway, that’s what I heard. But you didn’t hear it from me, k?

Hogwarts Jail Bait

Ok, here’s where things get really creepy. Well, depending on who is writing it I suppose. Considering all the kids in the Potter-verse are under aged, does this not qualify as child pornography? Even if it’s not about real people? I guess there really isn’t anything that creepy about a 15 year old girl writing about the underlying sexual tension between young Mr. Potter and Draco Malfoy, but if it’s a fortysomething year old woman? (Or man, some guys do write this stuff after all.) It’s all kinds of wrong. I suppose in some ways, the Harry Potter fanfic writes itself, what with all the wands and whatnot. Just please don’t get Dumbledore involved. I mean, I know he’s the only officially gay character in the Potter-verse, but that would just be gross.

So as long as there are unfulfilled women who are also geeks, I think there will always be Slash Fic. It’s here to stay, I’m afraid, no matter how awful it may be. I can only imagine how many teen girls and their Mothers are typing away at some Twilight Slash as I write this. In the end it, harms no one and just seems all rather pointless — but then, so do a lot of fetishy things. However, if some of these enterprising writers wish to begin producing actual pornographic films with character lookalikes, then this I heartily endorse and look forward to. Bring it on.