I'm wondering if this idea of female desire is key to something here. I've been reading the Lois Bujold list for some time and have seen some expression of fan disappointment with her latest novel, The Sharing Knife: The Beguilement, which is the first part of a two-part series. The novel belongs squarely in the SF genre because of its setting. However it has at its heart a romance between a man and a woman. This is what is upsetting a number of the fans, mostly men. They seem to be bothered that a favorite writer has turned out a "kissing book", to quote "The Princess Bride".

Are those who are so repelled by slash not being disgusted because the women who write it are being gratified by homoeroticism but because they're being gratified at all? Maybe I'm taking the idea a bit too far, but Puritanism's not dead, you know!