lunabee34

I think that when a story deals with at least one character's romantic and/or sexual feelings for another character of the same sex, we've got a slash story.

Hmmm. I was with you until this. I would call the story you cite slash, but not, for example, Dasha's Salt of the Earth, despite the fact that McKay's in love with Sheppard. I think for me, it's the focus of the story - "The Awful Truth" is all about the potential of romance, and Salt of the Earth is not.

And the labeling problems - I think they don't stem from the absence of sex (there's plenty of G-rated slash out there), but from the conflation of slash (or het) with shipper fic/OTP fic.