What I meant to say, and I said it badly, is that the usage in practice is that slash=same-sex pairings. There are of course fans who hold that noncanonical pairings are the only ones that count, but if you look at archives and comms for, say, Velvet Goldmine and Queer As Folk, the term slash is applied both to the same-sex couples who are involved in the canon and the same-sex couples who aren't. Het is applied to all opposite-sex couples in the same manner. Neither is privileged.
That said, I agree the way the term has been snapped up and misapplied outside the community is problematic, and since I do believe to a certain degree that slash is in the eye (or intent) of the writer, then I don't feel it should be applied to a book if the author says that wasn't her intent. Those who are arguing that it might reasonably be called "slashy" are closer to the mark, I think, because "slashy" is what the consumer picks up from the source and transforms into slash. "Reads like slash" could also work. Again, though, those are terms I don't feel comfortable being applied by reviewers outside the slash community, who don't share the slash sensibility. I worry they mean the term to be dismissive, not least because it is so well-known to be an expression of "female desire."
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momijizukamori
no subject
Date: 2006-12-20 12:09 am (UTC)That said, I agree the way the term has been snapped up and misapplied outside the community is problematic, and since I do believe to a certain degree that slash is in the eye (or intent) of the writer, then I don't feel it should be applied to a book if the author says that wasn't her intent. Those who are arguing that it might reasonably be called "slashy" are closer to the mark, I think, because "slashy" is what the consumer picks up from the source and transforms into slash. "Reads like slash" could also work. Again, though, those are terms I don't feel comfortable being applied by reviewers outside the slash community, who don't share the slash sensibility. I worry they mean the term to be dismissive, not least because it is so well-known to be an expression of "female desire."