What constitutes a slash story?
Oct. 17th, 2008 11:27 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lunabee34I have a question.
A few days ago, I read the delightfully funny The Awful Truth by![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
blade_girl. The rec in which I found the story states: I rec this one with a caveat to slash fans - as a fan of both slash and gen, I must tell you this story contains apparently slashy elements, but is ultimately gen (regardless of the author's notes); and may prove unsatisfying to a slasher. That being said, I find it a plausible, positive, and touching take on the characters and their friendship.) I found this description intriguing and it was pretty much the impetus for me reading the story. The notes for the story itself state: A slash story AND a gen story at the same time. I can’t explain that without giving away the ending, so I ask you to read regardless of your preference. Both the writer of this story and at least one reader of the story (and I assume probably more) seem to think that labeling this fic as slash is problematic.
So my question is the following: what makes a slash fic?
In "The Awful Truth," John and Rodney attempt to have sex. Poorly. By the story's end, they have not had sex but they have kissed several times and rubbed each other's torsos awkwardly. Each reveals that although he had lately been wondering whether the deep and abiding McShep friendship was concealing sexual/romantic attraction, ultimately only friendship exists between them. This story is hilarious but also contains sharp character insights and very astute observations of the McShep friendship dynamic.
In my estimation, this story falls squarely in the slash camp. Even though John and Rodney don't have sex and even though they decide that they don't even WANT to have sex with each other, the fic is about them exploring the possibilities of a romantic relationship with each other. John and Rodney both legitimately believe at the fic's beginning that they might have romantic feelings for each other, feelings that they should act on. Just because when the fic closes, the two remain friends instead of lovers I can't handwave away that the majority of the fic is about them coming to terms with their feelings for each other and how they will proceed based on those feelings.
We all seem to agree that when a fic contains same sex sex, we've got slash. Elizabeth and Teyla necking in the Gate Room? Check. Slash. Sam blowing Dean in the backseat of the Impala? Check. Slash. Even when the characters having sex with each other don't like each other at all (Spike and Xander hate sex in the Basement of Doom? Check. Slash.), we still consider the story slash. When same sex characters are having sex in a story, we don't consider character emotions or motivations at all in labelling the fic. Two or more dudes doing it (for various definitions of doing it) or two or more chicks doing it (for various definitions of doing it) is slash.
When a story lacks sex, though, we run into differences of opinion. I think most of us don't believe that a story has to contain sex in order to be slash (but I might be wrong). I don't believe that. We don't think stories have to contain sex in order to be labeled het. Many excellent het love stories never expose more skin than a flash of delicately bared ankle. 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. These feelings may be unrequited or never admitted to the object of interest. They may be rebuffed. And like in "The Awful Truth," the characters may decide that they were mistaking deep friendship for something more.
So, what do you guys think? Am I way off base here?
A few days ago, I read the delightfully funny The Awful Truth by
blade_girl. The rec in which I found the story states: I rec this one with a caveat to slash fans - as a fan of both slash and gen, I must tell you this story contains apparently slashy elements, but is ultimately gen (regardless of the author's notes); and may prove unsatisfying to a slasher. That being said, I find it a plausible, positive, and touching take on the characters and their friendship.) I found this description intriguing and it was pretty much the impetus for me reading the story. The notes for the story itself state: A slash story AND a gen story at the same time. I can’t explain that without giving away the ending, so I ask you to read regardless of your preference. Both the writer of this story and at least one reader of the story (and I assume probably more) seem to think that labeling this fic as slash is problematic.So my question is the following: what makes a slash fic?
In "The Awful Truth," John and Rodney attempt to have sex. Poorly. By the story's end, they have not had sex but they have kissed several times and rubbed each other's torsos awkwardly. Each reveals that although he had lately been wondering whether the deep and abiding McShep friendship was concealing sexual/romantic attraction, ultimately only friendship exists between them. This story is hilarious but also contains sharp character insights and very astute observations of the McShep friendship dynamic.
In my estimation, this story falls squarely in the slash camp. Even though John and Rodney don't have sex and even though they decide that they don't even WANT to have sex with each other, the fic is about them exploring the possibilities of a romantic relationship with each other. John and Rodney both legitimately believe at the fic's beginning that they might have romantic feelings for each other, feelings that they should act on. Just because when the fic closes, the two remain friends instead of lovers I can't handwave away that the majority of the fic is about them coming to terms with their feelings for each other and how they will proceed based on those feelings.
We all seem to agree that when a fic contains same sex sex, we've got slash. Elizabeth and Teyla necking in the Gate Room? Check. Slash. Sam blowing Dean in the backseat of the Impala? Check. Slash. Even when the characters having sex with each other don't like each other at all (Spike and Xander hate sex in the Basement of Doom? Check. Slash.), we still consider the story slash. When same sex characters are having sex in a story, we don't consider character emotions or motivations at all in labelling the fic. Two or more dudes doing it (for various definitions of doing it) or two or more chicks doing it (for various definitions of doing it) is slash.
When a story lacks sex, though, we run into differences of opinion. I think most of us don't believe that a story has to contain sex in order to be slash (but I might be wrong). I don't believe that. We don't think stories have to contain sex in order to be labeled het. Many excellent het love stories never expose more skin than a flash of delicately bared ankle. 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. These feelings may be unrequited or never admitted to the object of interest. They may be rebuffed. And like in "The Awful Truth," the characters may decide that they were mistaking deep friendship for something more.
So, what do you guys think? Am I way off base here?
Re: This Diamond Ring Doesn't Shine for Me Anymore
Date: 2009-08-04 03:52 am (UTC)Anyway, I'll be the first to admit that I'm not terribly observant, and I do have sort of a hard time with the concept of "fandom" being anything but a very loosely connected bunch of Venn diagrams. I'm probably the wrong person to weigh in on any question about fandom-as-a-whole. But it's just...I see these arguments about how to decide whether a story is gen, slash, het, etc, and eventually I start to feel sort of grumpy, and like, if I label it John/Ronon PG and someone gets shirty with me about how it can't be slash because there's not enough graphic penetrative sex, erm. This is where I start thinking dude, it's got the pairing and the rating, why do you care whether it's labeled slash or gen?
Argh. I sometimes believe that fandom and I are not well suited to each other.
Re: This Diamond Ring Doesn't Shine for Me Anymore
Date: 2009-08-04 12:16 pm (UTC)I got into fandom via the Buffyverse and began by reading almost exclusively Spike/Xander. Spander was (and I'm assuming still is) pretty kinky. Pairings with vampires tend to be kinky, I believe. But there was this real fetishization of penetrative sex in the fic written for that ship. An author might include other kinds of sex but always, always the story included anal sex. And dude, anal sex is awesome and I like to read and write it. But most people also have sex in other ways sometimes and blow jobs and hand jobs and etc are just as fun TO DO and read about. There was one author at the time (
For me, I think those lables aren't terribly useful because there's a real disconnect between what people who have been in fandom for a long time think a word means and what newbies often think they mean. For instance, when I got into fandom, I interpreted slash to mean--contains same-sex attraction and behavior. So Willow/Tara is slash and so is Giles/Ethan. It wasn't until that definition was firmly engrained for me that I realized that traditionally slash has not included canonical same sex pairings and that it has all these other conventions attached to it that I really don't care for.
Re: This Diamond Ring Doesn't Shine for Me Anymore
Date: 2009-08-04 12:28 pm (UTC)Re: This Diamond Ring Doesn't Shine for Me Anymore
Date: 2009-08-04 12:32 pm (UTC)I think there is a deceptively high learning curve for fandom because, not only is it this thing with a long and largely invisible history, it is also, as you say, a very disparate set of communities rather than one overarching community.
I know people have made "Everything you Need to know about Fandom" posts before but how is a newbie supposed to find them unless they are friends with someone who points them there?