lunabee34 | Entries tagged with meta: slash

Based on conversations I've been having with you guys after Writercon, I wonder if it might be useful to separate out the question of definitions from some of the other things we've been talking about. I'd be interested to see the range of definitions for these terms laid out clearly.

So, pretend this is Twitter. In 140 characters or less for each, Tweet me your definitions of bob, gen, gron, het, and slash (and any other words you regularly use to label your stories according to sexual or romantic content).

I want to finish my formal discussion of the con with a recap of a panel that

executrix moderated.

SLASH: GAY, QUEER, BOTH, NEITHER

Exec was the lone mod and I think she did an enviable job of directing conversational traffic flow. She stepped in with a joke, a reflection, a comment--but mostly what she did was allow the audience to speak.

This is a potentially explosive conversation. A con groups together people from all segments of fandom and society at large, and the possibility for the discussion to descend into hostilities rather than anything useful is monumental. I must say that I was impressed with the group of people attending this panel. There was passion and sincerity and seriousness but also a real effort at bridge building and communal understanding and I have to credit Exec's leadership for making that possible.

Again, this was a panel that raised more issues than it provided answers for.

One of the first things that was mentioned is the propensity of slash to elide the female characters. This is one of the things that irritates me about slash the most. Erasure of female characters does not have to be a convention of m/m slash in the same way that obliterating Angel off the face of the earth isn't necessary to make Buffy/Spike a successful ship. Demonizing, killing off, or simply neglecting to mention canon characters in order to make one's OTP more written in the stars is never cool. Never. Do the extra work and write a story with depth, with nuance, instead of taking the easy route. For many of us, the journey to that non-canonical relationship is more important than the torrid sex anyway.

Someone mentioned that the idea of slash as a genre is problematic. A sexual orientation is not a genre. I agree with this whole heartedly. Like

alixtii, I think the descriptive power of a lot of the labels we use in fandom is pretty much nil at this point, particularly since they are often working at crosspurposes--serving on the one hand as warnings and on the other as advertisements.

Does a canon queer pairing fall under the heading of slash? Or does slash only signify canon subversion? I have to admit that when I first got into fandom, the Old Skool definitions of slash were not readily apparent to newbies and so I just assumed that slash meant same-sex attraction and behavior, regardless of canonicity.

One of the audience members cited slash as a shameful fannish activity and related anecdotal evidence of women who used posted het content to a community under one name and slash content under another in order to escape censure from friends.

WHY DON'T MORE WOMEN AND MORE QUEER WOMEN ESPECIALLY WRITE FEMSLASH???????????
Talk amongst yourselves.

Several people talked about the ways in which queer people's actual lived lives are not reflected in slash stories and there didn't seem to be a consensus on this issue. Some commenters felt like slash does a real disservice by not accurately reflecting the lives of queer people; others felt that as examples of fantasy, slash stories are not beholden to versimilitude. Still others felt like there isn't a Queer Standard of Experience with which to hold fiction up to anyway.

kindkit brought up the question of creating gay communities in fic. How do you create a gay community for your character without making everyone gay or writing a whole bunch of OCs?

The most important thing that I took away from this panel was something that

callmesandy said: Write what you want, but be prepared to face the consequences. This resonates really powerfully with me. We have no censors and I am so appreciative of that. I'm glad that a wide variety of kinks and opinions get aired on the fannish stage. But by the same token, we must acknowledge that when what turns us on or makes us happy or operates as our status quo is hurtful or appropriative or misogynistic or homophobic or racist, that we can and will be called to responsiblity for what we have written by our peers. I understand that mileage on these issues varies and that true consensus is impossible. But I cannot help but applaud the activism that takes place in our microcosm of society.

I'm back from Writercon wehre I had a fantastic time. Thanks for all the well-wishes for Josh. He's doing a lot better; it's still unclear if he has any nerve damage, but he's mobile and the pain is getting more manageable. (As a side note, somebody please write the story about realistic levels of pain for wounds. Sheppard does not just go and go and go after getting shot several times. Just saying.)

I will eventually make a more personal and namedroppy post about the social aspects of Writercon, but I wanted to start with a post about some of the panels I went to before I forget them.

IS FANDOM GONNA HAVE TO CHOKE A BITHC? LANGUAGE AND GENDER IN FANFICTION
Moderator:

mosca
Panelists:

enigmaticblues, Kristina Busse,

denny_dc

This was a really good panel, and as all good weighty discussions should be, one that raised more questions for me than it answered. The panel initially proposed to talk about the language used in the source texts we fan, our own fics, and our fannish socializing and infrastructure. Unfortunately because of time constraints, the last talking point wasn't really covered. I would have loved a conversation on the implications of the language we use when we squee, when we post to comms, when we communicate outside of what our fics have to say. One of the thing things that I have noticed in my fannish interactions is a real shift toward the use of and the awareness of gender neutral pronouns, which I appreciate. Although many of us are women, I have a kneejerk negative reaction to the default assumption that fandom is a wholly feminine space because it feels very exclusionary to me. This does not mean that I do not recognize and celebrate that fandom is a place where women have created power and agency for themselves; it does mean that I am uncomfortable with the narrow definition of fandom as a community that is by, for, and about women.

Back to the panel: Who gets to use sexist language? Can women, in real life interactions and in fic, reclaim sexist language much in the same way that minorities and queer people have reclaimed words used to hurt them? And in mad props to

alixtii for the best question asked at a panel I attended: at one point would language stop being reclamation or an accurate representation of the way a certain character acts or thinks and become mere perpetuation of the problem?

Nina talked about genderfuck stories and said some really interesting things about them.
1. They don't reflect trans reality and aren't really intended to, although that is changing.
2. If a woman is writing, they are often a form of venting about aspects of our lives that we don't like.
3. She read a quote for which I did not catch attribution and couldn't write fast enough to get all down, but essentially, the idea was that womanhood is a thing to be performed, a masquerade, and one of the draws of genderfuck is to transfer desire and expectation onto the male body (the "unmarked body"). Maybe one of y'all can link me to the actual quote used?
4. Nina also discussed the homophobia, misogyny, and heteronormativity that are often part and parcel of slash, particularly Old Skool Slash.

There was also a brief mention of We're Not Gay, and I just want to take a moment to reiterate how much I hate that trope. LOL I know it's an old stand-by for slash, but I just hate it. I think if you experience same-sex attraction and sexual activity then you are at least bisexual and possibly gay. I get that the trope is supposed to make the OTP special--what could be more special than changing one's sexual orientation, right? It's supposed to prove that they are so inevitable and magical that nothing can stand in the way of their epic LOVE, but mostly it seems to me to be a way to get two guys to have sex without acknowledging homosexuality at all. Although I have read it before and enjoyed, that enjoyment is usually despite the WNG trope rather than because of it.

denny_dc started her portion of the panel with a list of insulting terms, some of which I already knew like using "gay" as a perjorative. I had not realized that dreadlocks actually is a term originally used by colonizers of Caribbean peoples to describe their hair (dreadful locks).

ENOUGH KISSING, GET ON WITH THE MAIMING! GEN-FIC
Moderator:

redeem147
Panelists: Debra Doyle (who I actually think was not there),

general_jinjur,

bastardsnow

This panel really made me want to read House of Leaves as SPN. Like really, really, really, really bad. Really bad.

There was a discussion of bob and gron and porny gen and I brought up queerly_gen on Dreamwidth (which only Jinjur seemed to have heard of) and essentially I thought the entire discussion was hampered by a lack of consensus about what gen really means and what its conventions are.

One of the panelists used the phrase "slash minus one" to describe stories that have slashy elements but seem very light on them or don't include sex and I think Dasha's "Salt of the Earth" was cited as an example. I think this story falls neatly into slash according to my personal definition (full discussion in comments). I also have never heard the phrase "slash minus one" and was tempted to ask during the discussion if anyone would ever use "het minus one" as a descriptor. My feeling is no. I suspect that were a story to contain a Buffy and a Spike who pined for each other and yet never consummated their relationship, that story would be called het.

IF YOU BUILD IT, THEY WILL COME: HOW THE INTERNET BUILDS COMMUNITIES AROUND FANFIC
Moderator:

scarlettgirl
Panelists: Kristina Busse,

shaddyr,

kalichan, and

versaphile

scarlettgirl was an excellent moderator. I mean, really really good. There was a plan and a structure and I was impressed with the way this panel worked in terms of each panelist's contribution building on the one that came before.

shaddyr started out with an excellent discussion of pre-internet fandom,

versaphile told us all about the vagaries of archiving (and OMG, y'all, the amount of work that goes into making fandom an accessible place for us all is astonishing),

kalichan talked about reccing, the lovely mod discussed newsletters and what goes into maintaining a successful one (again with all the work!), and Nina finished with a discussion of OTW and how it is addressing a lot of the issues brought up in the other panelists' talks.

I've got one more panel to discuss but I think I'm calling it quits for the night. Sister-in-law is here and SHE IS AWESOME! I just introduced her to SPN and I think there's more of that on the plate for tonight. She's being too heavily influenced by Josh's opinion that Sam has cro-magnon forehead. Off to remedy that!

I have a question.

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?

( SPOILERS for The Awful Truth )

After the last post I made about the lack of femslash discussion in

sga_talk, I was inspired to look a little more closely at my own writing to see how often I write het, femslash, m/m slash and gen.

( A Breakdown by Fandom )

It's quite possible I added wrong in SGA and SPN as those are the biggest categories of fic for me, but these numbers should be close enough for government work. That means of roughly 140 total pieces, I have written roughly 57 gen pieces, 49 male/male slash, 25 het, and 9 femslash.

*muses*

It's gratifying to see that I write even more gen than I assumed (and so much gen that is from the POV of women), but I really thought I had written more pieces of femslash than that. Must rememdy soon.

When it comes to Writing People Who are Not White, I do even more poorly than with femslash. One of my Spander fics is an ensemble fic and Gunn is featured there. I have written one fic from Inara's POV and one Inara/Kaylee drabble. In SGA, Ronon appears fairly regularly in my writing and there's a drabble from Miko's POV. Teyla is featured in two fics and Bates is featured in two fics as well. In SPN, I have a Gordon-centric drabble and Agent Henricksen features prominently in one of the Sam-centric gen pieces. *boggles* That's pretty pitiful, actually. So yes, resolve on that front as well.

Stay tuned....Coming up soon, Whispers! Why SGA is made of Gigantic Fail.

So,

executrix posted the HANDOUT for the panel on the personal politics of slash that she and

beanside moderated, and after I got over my, "OMG OMG OMG

beanside! Who makes Jeffrey Dean Morgan do it with Chad Michael Murray! (It's the three names; they belong together)," I was all, "Oooooh, intriguing questions."

The one that caught my eye immediately was the following:

3. M/m slash and f/f slash: more similar than different, or more different than similar?

And BTW, I love how all of these questions are essentially unanswerable except in a very personal, subjective way.

So here's my personal and very subjective answer.

More different than similar. For me.

( Nekkid girls under the cut! )

Okay, so here's the thing. I have this kink, this massive massive kink, for non-con in fic. I love it when Kolya captures John and Rodney and subjects them to unspeakable sexual torture (that they both are made to enjoy to their great shame) after which they find comfort in one another's arms. Or when Angelus kidnaps Xander and ties him up and gives him orgasm bites every five minutes and by fic's end, Xander absolutely loves being his pet.

I know where this love comes from. My sexuality was shaped in large part by all the reading I did as a kid. I'd sneak my mom's romance novels and read them under the covers and so as an eight year old, I believed that some day a handsome but ruthless man would kidnap me and force me to have sex with him and while I'd initially resist, the sexing would prove to be so awesome that my "pleasure would crest" at least three times before his did and then we'd have babies and perhaps save a cattle ranch from corrupt coal miners. Now this is nothing I'd like to experience in real life or that I'd wish on anyone else, but it remains a powerfully erotic fantasy for me.

So, here's my question. Non-con seems fairly common in the slash fiction of the fandoms I've been involved in. So, I'm wondering, how frequently does it appear in het fanfic? The reason I ask is that I've just finished attacking Wraithbait; after I read the fic that interested me in the slash section I turned to the het and on a whim set the search engine to non-con. I only got about five hits for all the pairings listed combined. That made me wonder if non-con occurs with the same frequency in het fic and if it seems to be working toward the same purposes as it does in slash fic.

Granted, there's tons of fic out there I haven't read, but most of the non-con I read seems to function in a couple ways in slash fic.

1. To put together two characters that perhaps wouldn't normally get together. Ex--Jayne is overtaken by a lust drug and forces Mal to sleep with him. Or an Ancient piece of technology compels John to take advantage of Rodney. Then, the characters either get together or we are left with a big lovely angsty mess.

2. To make vulnerable a character so that a sexual relationship with someone they wouldn't have considered before is possible. Ex--Rodney and Radek get captured by the Genii and after undergoing abuse at their hands, turn to each other for hope.

3. Then there's the fic that focuses only on the non-con situation, where the goal is not to bring two characters together but to showcase one character's slow unhinging, how his character unravels under extreme duress.

So, how does it work in het fic? Also, if you've got non-con het recs, lay 'em on me.

I am relatively new to the fanfic community (woohoo 5 months!!!!) so I'm sure this question has been asked/answered/debated ad nauseum before now. But, I recently got the go-ahead from my department chair to write my dissertation on fanfic (with a neat Victorian tie-in for added marketability), and I find myself starting to become significantly more interested in the more academic qualities of fandom than just the utter hotness of Spander that you lovelies post all the time.

So here's my query/observation. It didn't take me long to notice that almost all the male/male slash writers I've met, of any fandom actually, are women. In fact, I've met one lone male ::waves to

chocgood84:: in almost half a year. Of course, this doesn't mean that a million men aren't writing m/m slash as we speak, and I'm just unawares. But in my, albeit, limited experience, it seems to me that women have the corner on the writing of the slashy goodness.

Why? I want to know why you think women predominantly write/read m/m slash. What do women find so compelling/erotic/interesting/any other adjectives you can think of about fic that describes two men falling in love, getting it on, impregnating each other, what have you.

I've got some rudimentary ideas on the subject, but they're just that: rudimentary.

( Why I at least write/read slash and a little extrapolation )

So, chime in; if you think you know somebody that might be interested in this discussion, send 'em over.

Ripped from the latest issue of Spin's column "The Spin 20":

"McLaughlin GroupSlash Fiction--You know it exists somewhere on the Internet."

RFLMAO

Go PBS!