Slash

Not just about Freddy anymore

Denise Morris
The Xaverian Weekly

ANTIGONISH, N.S. (CUP) — With the recent resurgence of the question of gay marriage, it’s rare to find someone without an opinion. In our society it is one of the most hotly-debated issues around.

Well, hundreds, thousands, maybe even millions of people around the world belong to a special kind of society where gay marriage has been a reality for years, where you’ll find more homosexual love stories than not. What is this place? The online fanfiction writing community or, more specifically, the people known as “slashers.”

First a quick recap: fanfiction is the genre of stories, poetry or even songs written by fans of a television show, movie or novel, using characters and situations from that text. They call themselves authors, authoresses, fanficcers, ficcers and sometimes slashers, depending on the genre. A whole different language has arisen to describe fanfiction, but one particularly interesting term is “slash.”

Slash is not just a horror genre any more. The term comes from the punctuation in declaring a pairing, such as Greg/Warrick (CSI) or Malcolm/Trip (Star Trek: Enterprise). It stands for any homosexual pairing, but is usually taken to mean male homosexuality. Stories about lesbians are usually billed as “femslash.” Non-slash pairings are usually referred to as “het,” short for heterosexual. Fanfiction for Japanese shows or comics uses different terms: “yaoi” or “shonen-ai” (literally “boy-love”) for slash, and “yuri” or “shojo-ai” for femslash.

Every individual fandom, or fan base for a certain show or novel, usually has standard pairings for both slash and het, and a way of denoting who is involved. It could use their names, initials or, in at least one instance, their associated numbers. Every pairing that can be imagined — from practically every work of fiction, whether or not it is plausible within the plot or context — has a slash story somewhere.

The reason for slash’s prevalence in the fanfiction community is unclear. When discussing why homosexuality plays a large role in Japanese comics, author Frank Schodt stated, “yaoi relationships . . . allow young girls to experience love without feeling pressure or feeling like a victim.”

Some of the attraction may be in making characters behave a little differently and exploring their psyche. The notorious playboy could really have relationship issues, which, to the slasher, would obviously be resolved by being stranded/trapped/imprisoned with a buttoned-up supersoldier with wild sex to follow.

While some slash is pure fluff, and some is pure smut, a lot of slash deals with issues facing homosexual couples: coming out of the closet, finding a significant other, even dealing with reconciling religious beliefs with one’s homosexuality (such as A Matter of Theology by Tsuk-ishima Kauri). Slash and yaoi are almost universally appealing, placing fictional characters in homosexual situations to allow teenagers, especially girls, to vicariously explore their own sexuality.

Whatever the cause, slash is a symbol of hope for gay rights activists. Along with sites such as GodHatesFags.com, there are the huge archives on sites such as Coffeeslash or the Warp 5 Complex, as well as thousands of personal sites. Here is a huge community of people who not only accept and encourage homosexuality, but see it as a normal part of life. A declaration of coming out would either be met with a shrug and “point being?” or with an enthusiastic hug and demands for every detail of one’s love life.

While slash is admittedly complete fiction, the picture it paints of homosexual life and love has the potential to be a powerful pro-gay force. People are sometimes afraid to come forward and tell their own stories, so slashers tell their stories for them. And good, entertaining stories they are, too.