I haven’t told any of my friends or family this yet, but something strange happened to me last week. It came about during an unusually lively Thursday involving ambulance trips and a fair amount of pain related whimpering. (Fear not, regular readers, I’m fine. You’re not about to be abandoned in the barren wastelands of Reluctant Geek-less Saturdays).
The high point of the day was the shiny cylinder of delicious nitrous oxide that I was lucky enough to suck my way through, and aside from the giggling and wittering and tumbling through space it induced, there was one other rather surprising effect. In the midst of this drama and chaos I was comforted by a vision. An important vision. A vision that was telling me the time had come to share one of the most closely guarded and secretive corners of geekdom with the world.
As reality faded to grey around me, I found myself surrounded by every sci-fi crush I’ve ever had. (At least all of the male ones!) In the corner of the room, the Tenth and Eleventh doctors exchanged friendly banter about TARDIS size, while next to them the vampiric forms of Spike and Angel engaged in a bit of shirtless wrestling. On the other side of the room, Captain Jack Harkness and Captain Jack Sparrow admired each other’s coats and indulged in intense and charged conversation that necessitated some manly touching and long lingering looks. I could go on, but I suspect you’re starting to get the gist...
Far from merely being the product of my feverish and over-active imagination, all of this fits rather neatly into the genre of
Slash Fiction, an interest that quietly occupies its own little corner of the internet, bothering no-one aside from the occasional religious fundamentalist who wanders over there by mistake. (And Sam and Dean Winchester from
Supernatural). It’s a universe driven by fan interests in which primarily male, primarily straight, pre-existing fictional characters are written into complex, intense relationships with each other. So far, so subversive.
I hate to generalise, but if at this point you are shaking your head in baffled (if fascinated) disbelief, then the chances are you’re male. If on the other hand, this is all striking some secret and hitherto repressed chord, then you’re likely to be a woman and for the most part so are the writers of slash fic, to an overwhelming extent. We’re often told that whilst girl on girl action is pretty much everyone’s cup of tea, only gay men really want to see two men together, but when it comes to slash, this just ain’t necessarily so.
What makes it so transgressively compelling then? If there is safety in numbers, then it makes sense that Slash Fiction writers can often be found in little communities all of their own. The lovely, talented and eccentrically named Aelfric’s Cat belongs to one such community and offers some insight into the magnetic allure of slash.
“The idea of an overarching, transcendent love which surpasses all worldly difficulties, social objections, and yet still burns brightly is a huge draw,” she argues. “That two men have such intense, desperate desire for each other that they are willing to brave the prescriptions of a hetero-normative society, past enmity, strict upbringing, and biological restrictions is a truly beautiful concept.”
See, this is the thing. Easy as it might be to characterise Slash Fiction as the internet equivalent of a rowdy Hen Party in which women play at a kind of tit-for-tat objectification, it really comes down to something a bit more complex. Nobody, least of all me, is denying the appeal of the physical here (see earlier comments re: shirtless wrestling) but the real attraction of Slash lies in its willingness to tread where the mainstream generally won’t. There is still something thrillingly illicit about taking the bastions of conventional masculinity that populate our most influential cultural narratives, and putting them into taboo situations with all of that glorious masculinity intact. After all, the most interesting relationships are very often the forbidden ones.
Perhaps it’s unsurprising then, that fantasy and science fiction are far and away the most frequently slashed up genres, given that their entire game plan involves exploring previously uncharted territory. In fact, we have Star Trek to thank for the earliest incarnation of this specific branch of fan appreciation, with
Kirk/Spock stories first emerging in the seventies. I suppose in the end, space may be the final physical frontier, but the cultural and emotional ones we create for ourselves are universes in their own right. And anyway, slash is fun!
This week, Kate is attempting to stay out of trouble...
