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

[ingridmatthews.livejournal.com]

I don't think the people reading this have the life experience necessary to realize just how *damaging* this line of thinking is.

The Queer Agenda model has caused more grief, injury and death in the community than can be imagined, as you and I well know. Applying it to slashfic just perpetuates this stereotype in a place where it last needs it.

The OP seems more confused than malicious, which I why I didn't rip into her. Still, it hurts me to see this myth take on a new and unwelcome life in the guise of fic meta.

Just ... ew.

[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?

[ratcreature]

That is just bizarre. I wonder what the reverse theory would be,

I mean, I started out reading gen and slash (in TS and DS), and then got "corrupted" into reading het, and these days I'll read everything, and my best queer intention to avoid the heterosexual norm are all shot to hell. Ruined I tell you. There I was as a teenager baby dyke, happily reading lesbian mystery novels with lots of gratuitous sex, valiantly avoiding all heterosexual romance stories, and then I came into online fandom, which through the intermediate step of m/m romance got me to succumb to the evil het-ickyness... And I didn't even notice any trauma, so insidious was it. *g*

[cadetdru.livejournal.com]

This. Is exactly why Buffy fandom scares the hell out of me.

[ficbyzee.livejournal.com]

Yes. Yes, I can be the first to admit it:

*stands up bravely, clears throat* My name is Zeelee, and Bill Willingham's run on ROBIN turned me into a slasher.

...

In all seriousnes, if I see Veronica/Logan compared to Spike/Buffy one more time I may have to go out and kill small defenseless animals.

[brownbetty]

Nooo, I got turned on to slash because someone was all, "come on guys, help me out, if I recruit one more I get a toaster," and I was all, "well,... maybe if you occasionally share the toast?" It's a sad and sordid tale.

The other bizarre thing in her post is I think she makes the assertion that the reason women write het is because they can fantasize about being with the male, and if they write slash they can't because they've turned him gay. [headhurty]

[cosmicastaway.livejournal.com]

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...

Because we took nothing at all from the Greeks.

I was watching ye olde Star Trek this morn too. Ah, Kirk totally had it for Spock. And his ship.

And Spock on his ship.

...

Sorry, I was lost in the mental image. We were talking about Batman here?

(Srsly, I thought your point was very well put.)

[flying-anteater.livejournal.com]

:-0 This is the gaping mouth of WTF!

I had to stop reading shortly after her Good Boy vs. Bad Boy examples, because the illogic made me choke.

I’m trying to come up with some kind of well structured argument, but all I end up with is picking up stray sentences, waving them around, and shouting, “What the hell is this?

Like this: In fact, some of these people turned into those batshit slash fans. You know the ones. The ones who say that heterosexual sex is wrong and icky, and real romance only happens with gay relationships. Yet these people claim themselves to be heterosexual women! What. The. Hell? o.O

Indeed. Has anyone met such a person? Because it’s entirely possible that I’m a cloistered slasher who just hasn’t had the right world experiences. But I doubt it.

Or: these people had been traumatized by the Spuffy ship.

Whoa. Taking fandom way to seriously.

Or any sentence with the word “convert” in it.

[maelithil.livejournal.com]

Oops. I've been a slasher since I was eight. Damn that Trojan War and its pretty men in skirts! Those pretty men who were in love with other men!

*shakes puny fist*

So, yes. If you count reading the Iliad as trauma, then I was traumatised. Maybe it was even the Achilles/Briseis that turned me off het forver! Except that it, you know, didn't.

I admire your self restraint. I was rolling my eyes so hard they were about to get lost and rattle forever inside my empty skull.

[minim_calibre]

It's the child of the mindset that gave us the comics code, to my eyes.

Damn, I forget how insane my first fandom can be outside my nice little personal comfort zone.

[chalcopyrite.livejournal.com]

I-- Just-- That-- She--

::headdesk::

I have a new, all-purpose excuse: "Spuffy made me do it. No, really."

Her whole argument makes my head hurt, but especially what she and a lot of commenters said/implied: "I associate with people like me, therefore everyone is like me"?

Hell, you know all this, and said it more articulately than I can. Just adding my confusion to the pot. ::sigh:: (And didn't Spike/Buffy turn up on the show because there was so much fan support/writing for it? Wait, that might be logical. Nevermind.)