Penetrating the world of slash fiction

Ashley Fletcher, The Xaverian Weekly (St. Francis Xavier University)

ANTIGONISH (CUP) — If you ever thought the sparks between Harry Potter and his peers were more than just magic, you aren’t alone.

While browsing slash fiction, I read of the sex lives of Ninja Turtles, and Fred and Shaggy doing far more than solving mysteries. This type of writing was more popular than I had anticipated. There are more than 87,000 sexual story creations starring Harry Potter at Fanfiction.net alone. One author I found states that he enjoyed turning sweet lovable Harry into a sexual mongoose.

Slash fiction is written predominantly about romance or sexual relationships between two or more male characters from cartoons, movies or real life. Slash fiction about females is dubbed “femslash.” Slash was chosen as a label because online authors denote the pairing in the article by using a back slash, as in “male/male.” These categories all fall under fanfiction, written by fans of the shows they write about. The genre is said to have originated following the original Star Trek. Fans envisioned what would happen next season and what didn’t happen at all between Spock and Kirk.

Clare Mulcahy, a St. Francis Xavier University honours student, is writing her thesis on slash fiction and indicates that readers have a number of different responses to the genre.

“Some, not surprisingly, have some pretty hostile and homophobic reactions,” she said. “But there are others who love it.”

The love for slash fiction seems to stem from the taboo of homosexuality.

“You’re witnessing something hidden, secret. You’re the voyeur, and there’s a lot of power and pleasure in being the voyeur,” Mulcahy affirms.

When asked about the most interesting aspect of her research, Mulcahy answered, “I’m still somewhat stumped when it comes to figuring out why heterosexual women — which is how the majority of ‘slashers’ [writers] identify — would write primarily about two men getting it on.”

An article written by Rochelle Mazar in the novel The International Handbook of Virtual Learning Environments may be the answer to Mulcahy’s confusion.

Mazar writes that women don’t do it for the money, because there’s none to be had, and they don’t do it for fame, because most writers guard their real-life story and identities carefully. Mazar concludes that they do it because they love writing their stories and they love the characters that are not theirs.

Mulcahy has a theory of her own.

“Women have historically been discouraged from writing about sex, especially about same-sex sex,” she implored.

“That’s a big generalization,” she admitted. “But it’s often been true, and I think it’s thrilling for women to write about a subject that’s still pretty taboo, in a way that’s still pretty taboo,” Mulcahy said.

The taboos in slash tarnishes established media characters, portraying them in a way that was never intended. Original creators of the characters are often surprised and distressed that their characters are being depicted having gay sex.

Mulcahy suggested that authors like to think they own their characters and often get upset when they see their characters re-appropriated. She feels that gay sex makes some authors even more upset.

“When those characters start having gay sex, the issue becomes even more heated, since some of these original authors are still under the impression that there’s something unnatural or scary about queer people,” she explains.

Nevertheless, writers of slash don’t generally worry about being sued for copyright infringement. For the most part, slash fiction doesn’t involve profit. Most copyright holders have expressed that as long as slash remains non-profit, they will not ban it. Slash authors also protect themselves by writing a disclaimer.

“You’ll notice if you go to any slash sites, that each story has some kind of note saying something like ‘I don’t own these characters, I’m not profiting from this story’,” Mulcahy confirms.

Another group of artists who contort existing characters to suit their tastes are the creators of Manips. Manips are manipulated graphics or photos which usually coexist alongside slash fiction. St. Francis Xavier University cartooning-art professor Brian Segal feels that the distortion of such images should not be practiced by artists.

“The use of digital media to place people in situations that are not representative of reality, that suggest impropriety or even simply do not accurately represent them in any way are abusive practices,” Segal asserts.

“Creators quite rightly get very upset when their intellectual property is appropriated, warped and/or otherwise used without their knowledge and/or permission,” he continues.

“In fact, it is illegal to do so. But, more to the point, it is a symptom of degraded values and a sad lack of intellectual and aesthetic rigour, without which, the arts are doomed to become irrelevant, undervalued and, ultimately, dismissed,” Segal concludes.

Although they don’t profit from their creations, slash fanfiction authors and Manip editors create a plethora of scenarios and images about every pairing imaginable. While unconventional, slash seems very popular. Check it out for yourself.