Let's talk about sex.
Dec. 19th, 2006 08:05 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
truepennyETA: since ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
metafandom has apparently linked to this post sans context, let me state explicitly that I'm talking about the MISLABELING of original fiction featuring a same-sex relationship--as for example, ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
matociquala's Carnival--as slash in reviews and commentary by people who are not slash writers themselves. I'm not trying to talk about what slash writers choose to do within their fandoms and communities. Not a slasher. Don't play one on TV. I'm arguing that slash, as a term, belongs to fanfiction, and should not be applied to works that are not fanfiction. My reasons for feeling as I do, explained in the following post, stem partly from my own career as a pro writer whose work features a lot of same-sex relationships, and partly from my appreciation, as a genre theorist, of the intertextual subversion inherent in what slash does.
The subtext, as Giles says to Buffy in "Ted," is rapidly becoming text.
hth
More specifically, let's talk about slash and why it is offensive and heteronormatizing to equate it with homosexual relationships.
The subversion/containment model (proposed by Foucault and applied by a bunch of New Historicist critics in the 1980s) has buried somewhere in the unexamined assumptions of its premise the notion that somehow subversion is bad. Or nonsustainable. Conservation of energy. A society tends to conserve the status quo.
This may be descriptively true (she says, looking dourly at her own society), but prescriptively, it sucks major moose cock, because it assumes that subversion exists to be contained. Hence Natalie Zemon Davis's elaboration of Foucault with her "pressure-valve" idea. (Which, btw, I think is incredibly helpful for understanding extremely conservative societies--like I said, descriptively the idea can be very helpful.)
Slash is subversion.
(For those of you who are still wondering what on earth I'm talking about, slash is a kind of fanfiction which posits a romantic/sexual relationship between two characters who in canon have no such thing. You might also describe it as an underground movement. It's named for the labelling convention that marks it; the first slash was K/S: Kirk-slash-Spock.)
Slash says, "These two canonically romantically-uninvolved characters have a close, intense, and obviously loving relationship. Our society--as inscribed on these characters by censorship and other kinds of normatizing pressure--does not allow that relationship to be developed in a sexual way. Let's transgress the taboo."
Now, obviously, that transgression can be done mindfully or otherwise, but the key component to slash is the overt sexualization of a non-sexual, or only subtextually sexual, relationship.
That relationship is, 9 times out of 10, between two men. Because, 9 times out of 10, the most intense and interesting relationship in any given canon is--wait for it--between two men. (And that has to do with a whole bunch of other factors and influences including, you know, four or five millennia worth of patriarchy.)
Now, why am I so adamant that slash is not the same as homosexual relationships?
Because I insist that homosexual relationships ought not to be categorized as subversive.
(Okay, yes, leftist liberal commie bitch, that would be me. Please don't tell me you're surprised.)
Labelling a homosexual relationship in a work of fiction as slash is wrong for a couple of reasons. One is that it's eliding the line between a work of fiction and commentary ON that work of fiction. I think it's inherent to slash that it is subverting and deconstructing and undercutting a canon text's assumptions about sexuality and love (using "text" here in a broad and metaphorical sense, rather than the literal one of words-printed-on-a-page). Slash is a game played with canon, and part of its value is in the tension it both creates and illuminates between canon text and subtext.
The other reason that it's wrong to label homosexual relationships, whether in or out of fiction, as slash is that it is reinscribing heteronormativity on our society and our discourse. It's a syllogism. Slash is gay sex. Slash is subversive. Therefore, gay sex is subversive. The subversion/containment model is a BOX, and as long as we keep putting homosexual relationships in that box, we are reinforcing the idea that heterosexuality is the standard by which all other sexualities will and ought to be judged. The same idea that is powering the (often hysterical) attempts to define marriage in such a way that gay and lesbian people cannot have it. Because their committed monogamous relationships are being judged as subversive.
And that's so horribly wrong that it's eaten all my words.
metafandom has apparently linked to this post sans context, let me state explicitly that I'm talking about the MISLABELING of original fiction featuring a same-sex relationship--as for example, matociquala's Carnival--as slash in reviews and commentary by people who are not slash writers themselves. I'm not trying to talk about what slash writers choose to do within their fandoms and communities. Not a slasher. Don't play one on TV. I'm arguing that slash, as a term, belongs to fanfiction, and should not be applied to works that are not fanfiction. My reasons for feeling as I do, explained in the following post, stem partly from my own career as a pro writer whose work features a lot of same-sex relationships, and partly from my appreciation, as a genre theorist, of the intertextual subversion inherent in what slash does.The subtext, as Giles says to Buffy in "Ted," is rapidly becoming text.
hth
More specifically, let's talk about slash and why it is offensive and heteronormatizing to equate it with homosexual relationships.
The subversion/containment model (proposed by Foucault and applied by a bunch of New Historicist critics in the 1980s) has buried somewhere in the unexamined assumptions of its premise the notion that somehow subversion is bad. Or nonsustainable. Conservation of energy. A society tends to conserve the status quo.
This may be descriptively true (she says, looking dourly at her own society), but prescriptively, it sucks major moose cock, because it assumes that subversion exists to be contained. Hence Natalie Zemon Davis's elaboration of Foucault with her "pressure-valve" idea. (Which, btw, I think is incredibly helpful for understanding extremely conservative societies--like I said, descriptively the idea can be very helpful.)
Slash is subversion.
(For those of you who are still wondering what on earth I'm talking about, slash is a kind of fanfiction which posits a romantic/sexual relationship between two characters who in canon have no such thing. You might also describe it as an underground movement. It's named for the labelling convention that marks it; the first slash was K/S: Kirk-slash-Spock.)
Slash says, "These two canonically romantically-uninvolved characters have a close, intense, and obviously loving relationship. Our society--as inscribed on these characters by censorship and other kinds of normatizing pressure--does not allow that relationship to be developed in a sexual way. Let's transgress the taboo."
Now, obviously, that transgression can be done mindfully or otherwise, but the key component to slash is the overt sexualization of a non-sexual, or only subtextually sexual, relationship.
That relationship is, 9 times out of 10, between two men. Because, 9 times out of 10, the most intense and interesting relationship in any given canon is--wait for it--between two men. (And that has to do with a whole bunch of other factors and influences including, you know, four or five millennia worth of patriarchy.)
Now, why am I so adamant that slash is not the same as homosexual relationships?
Because I insist that homosexual relationships ought not to be categorized as subversive.
(Okay, yes, leftist liberal commie bitch, that would be me. Please don't tell me you're surprised.)
Labelling a homosexual relationship in a work of fiction as slash is wrong for a couple of reasons. One is that it's eliding the line between a work of fiction and commentary ON that work of fiction. I think it's inherent to slash that it is subverting and deconstructing and undercutting a canon text's assumptions about sexuality and love (using "text" here in a broad and metaphorical sense, rather than the literal one of words-printed-on-a-page). Slash is a game played with canon, and part of its value is in the tension it both creates and illuminates between canon text and subtext.
The other reason that it's wrong to label homosexual relationships, whether in or out of fiction, as slash is that it is reinscribing heteronormativity on our society and our discourse. It's a syllogism. Slash is gay sex. Slash is subversive. Therefore, gay sex is subversive. The subversion/containment model is a BOX, and as long as we keep putting homosexual relationships in that box, we are reinforcing the idea that heterosexuality is the standard by which all other sexualities will and ought to be judged. The same idea that is powering the (often hysterical) attempts to define marriage in such a way that gay and lesbian people cannot have it. Because their committed monogamous relationships are being judged as subversive.
And that's so horribly wrong that it's eaten all my words.
no subject
Date: 2006-12-19 04:49 pm (UTC)Furthermore, after seeing discussion on both sides of this debate yesterday, I suspect there's more than a little working at cross-purposes here. An author doesn't wish her work to be labelled slash because she's stated she feels it's Othering. Fans of the work wish to label it slash because they feel it's encompassing, and the denial of the label is, once more, Othering us. "Lady authoress" on the one side, "unnatural women" on the other. None of the fans mean to insult the author or the work with the label (I can't speak for the reviewers using the label, and it's possible they're using it with an incomplete understanding what it actually means), rather it's a way of recommending the work to each other as being inclusive of their (our) viewpoint (I've hesitated to use "our," because I haven't read the work, so I don't know if I'd consider it slash).
And I'll note here that one reason it's not considered Othering by fans to label a work slash is because there's a separate fannish label for the same story type featuring an opposite-sex relationship: het.
no subject
Date: 2006-12-19 05:02 pm (UTC)By calling all same-sex relationships in fiction "slash," we're allowing an implicit assumption that all same-sex relationships are fictional, that fiction stands in the same relationship to its "canon" '(i.e., real life) that slash fanfiction stands in relationship to canon fiction. And that therefore same-sex relationships in fiction have no "canonical" validity.
I know that's not the intent of slash fans, but I'm suspicious and worried that reviewers using the word sloppily may be encouraging that kind of conflatory doublethink.
Ignore my previous comments!
Date: 2006-12-19 05:15 pm (UTC)Oooooh. I finally get what you're talking about! Yes, I agree. Joss Whedon didn't write a SLAHS relationship between Willow and Tara, he wrote a lesbian relationship. What we call it in fanfic should not, imho, have anything to do with what he did.
Re: Ignore my previous comments!
Date: 2006-12-19 05:19 pm (UTC)Re: Ignore my previous comments!
Date: 2006-12-19 06:17 pm (UTC)By calling all same-sex relationships in fiction "slash," we're allowing an implicit assumption that all same-sex relationships are fictional
I can't agree with this. I realise we can't always control doublethink, but IMHO the opposite is happening, and that the more gay relationships are being written about in canon, the more slash is "proved" as equal to any subtextual het relationship that may or may not become canon. Pairing A/B becomes just as likely as Pairing A/C to happen, and we approach the text as such.
Huh?
Date: 2006-12-22 01:06 am (UTC)Wait, wait, when did this happen and how did I miss it?
Re: Huh?
Date: 2006-12-22 02:07 am (UTC)Joss has confirmed in interviews that, yeppers, Spike means exactly what it sounds like, which is that Angel and Spike have been intimate, though we don't know exactly when it happened. (I personally think it was long ago, before the gypsy curse broke up their little vampire family.)
Re: Ignore my previous comments!
Date: 2006-12-19 06:47 pm (UTC)Does it need a more specific label? What is it being distinguished from?
Sexual behavior outside of canon is being defined here as "slash", which suits me well enough (I don't read either much at all, so I probably don't really get a vote, but I'm a categories freak).
The obvious other category is stories that take some *non-sexual* aspect of the characters wildly outside canon. One way this happens, of course, is "bad writing". Does it happen deliberately and successfully often enough to need its own label? It could be called -slash; if it's about characters with major food issues, and that's the piece you're taking wildly outside canon, then it could be food-slash. But maybe there isn't enough of it to need a label.
Re: Ignore my previous comments!
Date: 2006-12-19 07:13 pm (UTC)Heh. Yeah, we can go overboard labelling our fic, it's true. We like our categories, subcategories, genres, subgenres, pairing labels, warnings, etc. But I appreciate that the library keeps the teen angst on one bookshelf and murder mysteries on another, so I don't have to wade through one to get to the other.
Sexual behavior outside of canon is being defined here as "slash", which suits me well enough
When you're talking about source material produced in serial form, what is "outside of canon" can change from week to week. Categories need to be somewhat static, and so we have to choose the element that doesn't change (much), which is gender. A male character is most likely going to stay a male (unless we're talking genderbender) whereas who he's going to be paired off with may change from episode to episode, from Book 1 to Book 7.
When you're dealing with something as massive as fandom, you can't rely on "canonical nooky" to describe Pairing A/B -- instead you say Pairing A/B is "slash" or "het" whether or not it's canon (because it could become canon next year, or it was canon but was ret-conned, or there's controversy whether it's canon or not, etc).
There are definitely a lot of flaws in our system, but for the most part it works and is sufficient for our needs. And as
One way this happens, of course, is "bad writing". Does it happen deliberately and successfully often enough to need its own label?
This label already exists, believe it or not! It's called badfic. There's unintentional badfic, which can be cringe-inducing or a guilty pleasure, and intentional badfic, which when done well can be fantastic.
Re: Ignore my previous comments!
Date: 2006-12-19 07:21 pm (UTC)However, if "slash" just means "homosexual", why was a new term needed? I think anybody who compares a bunch of slash to a bunch of literature really about gays, will see that they are very different -- and that difference is why the term "slash" had to be invented. The whole point was sexualizing relationships that could not, in canon, be sexual.
Somehow I'm not actually surprised that "badfic" (the term) was invented.
Re: Ignore my previous comments!
Date: 2006-12-19 08:18 pm (UTC)Right, and at the time these relationships would've been between characters of the same gender. I agree with you that the term "slash" had to be coined because it's not the same thing as gay literature.
I guess all I'm saying is, this may have been the definition of "slash" then, but the usage has shifted to serve other needs, especially now that we can't be absolutely sure whether a particular relationship with ("slashy") subtext will become canon or not. I don't think any of us could've predicted Willow would be canonically gay when Buffy first premiered, for example.
Re: Ignore my previous comments!
Date: 2006-12-19 07:19 pm (UTC)And now I'll stop spamming True Penny's journal.
no subject
Date: 2006-12-19 11:53 pm (UTC)I do get your concern, though, and I do feel the reviewers should be called on their usage. While there are a number of definitions at work in the fannish community, there are some baselines, and I'm not sure the reviewers are using the term with awareness of that fact. I don't want to read the reviews and spoil myself for the book, so I've probably participated in this discussion about as far as I can. Thank you for tolerating me.
no subject
Date: 2006-12-22 10:22 am (UTC)By calling all same-sex relationships in fiction "slash," we're allowing an implicit assumption that all same-sex relationships are fictional,
You are aware that all same-sex relationships in fiction are fictional, right?
I think it's useful to use fandom labels specifically to describe fandom, but a lot of non-fannish fiction is still intertextual in a way that resembles fanfic: Brokeback Mountain is intertextual to the cowboy genre, DEBS to the spy genre, But I'm a Cheerleader to the cheerleader stereotype, and to use a het example, The Time-Traveler's Wife to superheroes and/or scifi. They're even subverting the "text" in the way you argue in your original post. (Which, as I've stated elsewhere, slash definitely doesn't have to do.) I wouldn't necessarily use "slash" about these stories (though I did use "het" right there), but I don't think it's inherently offensive any more than calling an original character a "Mary Sue" is offensive. (Well, it kind of is to the author. Still.)
Once a work of fiction is written, it will be compared to other works of fictions, and seen in a fictional context. Even if you write a roman a clef, it will only be "real" to you; to everyone else it will be fiction. To assume that slash is such a different creature from other gay-centric fiction that no comparison can be made strikes me as rather strange.
no subject
Date: 2006-12-22 05:37 pm (UTC)Also, while I realize that you disagree with me passionately, and I don't deny your right to do so, kindly refrain from patronizing me.
no subject
Date: 2006-12-22 06:31 pm (UTC)Yes, but they're overlapping, in the sense that in both cases, "canon" assumes something besides real life. I do think "Brokeback Mountain is slashing the cowboy myth" is a perfectly valid statement if used in a context where people know what slash means. (It's not even all that different from what non-fannish reviewers are saying, using different words.)
Also, while I realize that you disagree with me passionately, and I don't deny your right to do so, kindly refrain from patronizing me.
You're right, I was unnecessarily snarky. There used to be a time when I could participate in online discussions without taking things to heart, but somehow it seems I can't, lately. I'm sorry.
OTOH, even back then I was a bit of a bitch, so maybe the difference is just that now I sometimes feel guilty about it.