oh, what the heck. I stayed quiet about the fanhandling kerfuffle...

[buggery]

For some reason or another, they would read a slash fic or two. They wouldn't like it. But, either because a friend of theirs wrote it or an author they liked did, they'd keep reading it. And, eventually, they'd learn to like it. They would begin reading solely slash. They would eventually become almost anti-shippers of Spuffy (and any other het pairings) and would be 'converted' entirely to slash. It wasn't their original taste, but they acquired it over time, and came to prefer it over what they'd originally enjoyed. The same was true for writers; almost everyone I read who stopped writing Spuffy didn't go for another het pairing, but went straight to slash.

Ladies, gentlemen, and other denizens of my friends list, meet kantayra and her theory of How Spuffy Traumatized Fandom and Made Fans Gay For Slash.

Lucy was admirably diplomatic: "You seem to have constructed a very elaborate theory here that is hinged on one very simple thing: you don't get slash."

I went a different route: "Congratulations. You have rooted out yet another sub-plot of The Homosexual Agenda. And soon enough we will RECRUIT YOU TOO." And then I appended a "/sarcasm" tag to the end of my comment, and frankly I'm worried that the post's author still may not get it, given the track record displayed just in this post. (Said post goes on and on and on, BTW, without making much if any more sense.)

It almost disturbs me more that so many of the comments are along the lines of "ZOMG you're so analytical I never thought of that" than that anybody would concoct a theory like this to begin with.

Did WAR GAMES turn anybody into a slasher? How about IDENTITY CRISIS, with its message of heterosexual relationships equalling doom? Or maybe it happened back during BRUCE WAYNE: MURDERER?

But wait, slash has been around for a long time. How did the first slashers get traumatised into it? Maybe it was seeing Kirk lose his space-babe-of-the-week week after week...

Comments

[cereta.livejournal.com]

I have a cartoon in my office of two people at a cocktail party, and one is saying to the other, "I was reading somewhere that people are stupid."

It's interesting, because I'm supposed to do a big presentation on media fandom at my school this fall (for other faculty, not students; I'm so not ready to go there yet), and of course I'll have to discuss slash. And one of the things I keep coming back to are all the elaborate explanations for Why We Do That Freaky Shit. And really, I think slashers en masse have kind of hit a wall with it. We like it, and why does there need to be more of an explanation?

[buggery.livejournal.com]

I have a cartoon in my office of two people at a cocktail party, and one is saying to the other, "I was reading somewhere that people are stupid."

It's funny because it's true.

Honestly, I have a hard time understanding why people would write het fanfiction -- not an occasional m/f story in a mixed oeuvre, especially in a fandom like DC comics where so many of us wear all three hats and well, but a dedication to turning out a steady stream of hetfic that's all variants on the same couple or handful of couples. The idea of writing gen fanfic exclusively makes more sense to me, personally.

But you don't see me posting theories that cast aspersions on why other fans write or read mainly or exclusively het-pairing stories. I just figure it's one of those difference-of-opinion things like how some people prefer monogamy or think hot fudge tastes good on ice cream.

So are you going to address the theories of What Makes Those People Write That for your presentation, or focus on other things?

[cereta.livejournal.com]

So are you going to address the theories of What Makes Those People Write That for your presentation, or focus on other things?

As currently planned, it's basically an hour of "here's what media fandom is" and an hour of "here's the kind of academic stuff that gets written on it/topics that are/can be explored." I think I'll probably mention the theories, but also bring up that fandom itself is kind of in a "'cause we like it" phase. Actually, one thing I really want to address is the difference between the scholar-fan and the outside scholar, and how so much outside scholarship is still kind of in the "what's up with that?" phase, while scholar-fans are getting into really interesting, meaty stuff.

[buggery.livejournal.com]

Cool. It's true, we fen-in-the-know have such interesting meta and analyses and discussions, so often, on so many aspects of what we do; and then when there's an occasional article by some outsider about any aspect of slash, it seems like they almost invariably get hung up on the 'how curious, let's examine how this phenomenon might have come to be' rather than looking at what we're doing now.

I hope you'll post about the presentation when the time comes. Mmm, academia.

[coneyislandbaby]

Honestly, I have a hard time understanding why people would write het fanfiction -- not an occasional m/f story in a mixed oeuvre, especially in a fandom like DC comics where so many of us wear all three hats and well, but a dedication to turning out a steady stream of hetfic that's all variants on the same couple or handful of couples. The idea of writing gen fanfic exclusively makes more sense to me, personally.

I found this interesting. Of course I'm on my way out of town for a night. But anyway.

I'd like to find this out, find out why the het shippers ship their pairings of choice, if it is a case of "wanting the characters like them" as is sometimes cited for slash, or if it's the couples that *do* ping for them are het for whatever reason, again much as many slashers have cited, or if it's simply that it's about the erotic aspect and for them it's het sex that does it, or if it's just that their OTPs are het. Not to mention if it is different for them if they write canon pairings or UST pairings or "never met but why *not*?" pairings.

*ponders* I think I'm looking for het meta and I don't think there is much of it out there beyond the ship_manifesto type posts and occasional links on things like metafandom Which is interesting, because even though there is sometimes more reason to explain - even if only for oneself - why we like slash pairings, one would think there was more out there for het fic.

I'm afraid I can't help - I do everything once, twice if I like it, as far as writing goes.

[buggery.livejournal.com]

I've thought about it a little more -- and I do mean a *little* -- and actually I guess it does make sense. Because if hetsex is what pings for you, what pushes your buttons, why should you be stuck with Harlequin romances or Penthouse Forum as your only alternatives?

[coneyislandbaby]

That's a good point. And also, when you think about it, if it's the *pairing* that pings, even if it's canon, you're not going to find what you want in official sources 99% of the time. Canon tends to screw up het more than slash in that respect - slash isn't likely to be botched onscreen like het can be.