Slashtastic

[osprey_archer]

Spent the day - not studying; but instead looking over old Honors Projects in the archives, to get a sense what I need to do to make the grade.

Someone back in 2003 wrote their honors project about "Harry Potter and the Age of the Internet: Community and Conflict in the Harry Potter Fandom," about Harry Potter slash fandom. I read the first two pages and went "OMG she's so in slash fandom" - because she breezed by "Why would anyone read slash?" in about half a page. (To paraphrase: "If you ask, they'll say 'it's hot!' Do we need to pathologize that?")

Outsiders always spend ages on it because they are certain, CERTAIN there must be something pathological about it: "slashers are gay men trapped in women's bodies" or "slashers are women who are so alienated from their own bodies that they have to broadcast their desires onto men." There are doubtless members of the slash fandom who meet those descriptions, but all of fandom?

Both constructions also presuppose that slashers read nothing but slash, which is at very least an assumption that needs some research behind it. I have the impression that this is growing less true, possibly because slash is no longer seen as so weird and fringe.

Sometimes I think we'll all be much happier if we stop trying to explain sexuality and just go with it. If it was explicable, it wouldn't be so damn powerful.

Incidentally, I was totally right: she acknowledged her membership in slash fandom in the conclusion. That must have taken some guts; one of the charms of academic language is that you can write about something deeply personal without emotional exposure.

Comments

[konstantya.livejournal.com]

You know, there were a couple interesting LJ articles on slash I ran across a while ago, and I wish I had bookmarked them, but what this author was theorizing is that, the reason so many women (and particularly heterosexual women) like slash is that, well, there are men in slash. And she went on to do this whole study on het, lesbian, and gay porn, and then het, lesbian, and gay romance fiction.

I could ramble out more details if you're interested, but I didn't want to drop a big ol' block of text all at once. XD

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

Isn't that always the way with LJ articles? You want to keep them, but they disappear.

Sure, the details would be interesting.

[konstantya.livejournal.com]

Okay, I was going to paraphrase what I remembered, but then got interesting in rereading the actual stuff, so went searching for it again, haha. It's a bit less, erm, "academic" than I remembered, but here you go:

http://carenejeans.livejournal.com/79239.html

And here's the pertinent porn comment from a different post about the male gaze and ways of seeing and the way women see themselves, etc., etc. Not exactly about slash, but it's still a really good read, if you have the time: http://norah.livejournal.com/263175.html?thread=3482887#t3482887

*bookmarking these for myself before I forget again*