Femslash - Fanlore

Femslash

Synonyms: Femmeslash, Alt, Altfic, Yuri, Saffic, f/f slash, girlslash
See also: Slash, Yaoi
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Contents

Terminology

Femslash is derived from 'female slash', and is the most common term for slash between female characters. (In August 2008, there were about 223,000 hits for femslash and about 100,000 hits for femmeslash in Google.)

Femmeslash is an alternate spelling that some people prefer for its visual appeal. Others dislike it because it brings up Butch/Femme connotations; they perceive the term as reinforcing those stereotypes.

Alt or Altfic, short for 'alternative fiction', originated in the Xenaverse where it is the preferred term for Xena/Gabrielle fiction. When some XWP bards started writing Janeway/Seven, Willow/Tara and other f/f fiction, the term followed these authors to Star Trek: Voyager and BtVS fandom where it coexisted with other terminology such as femslash and femmeslash. In 2000 one of the oldest multifandom f/f sites, The Pink Rabbit Consortium, moved its archive to altfic.com. For a variety of reasons alt didn't catch on and femslash became the dominant term for f/f fiction.

Saffic, a portmanteauish pun on "sapphic fiction", is used by a few fans. According to the userinfo of the LiveJournal community Saffic, saffic includes:

Femmeslash (or yuri and shoujo-ai) and erotica[...], as [well as] gen stories that focus on other strong female bonds such as friendship, sister, rival and mother-daughter relationships.[1]

F/F Slash is used by some fans to indicate the continuity between f/f and m/m slash.

Girlslash is used by some fans. Usually it is accompanied by the m/m equivalent boyslash in an attempt to denormalize the assumption that all slash is m/m.

Some fans use words or phrases associated with the mainstream lesbian community. For instance, the Harry Potter fansite Sapphic-HP, like the term "saffic," references the association of the Greek poet Sappho with contemporary lesbian relationships and culture.

Terminology Controversy

Some fans object to the way the term "femslash" seems to suggest that m/m slash is the norm and slash involving women is the exception. A few alternatives are in common usage:

  • The term "slash" is used equally for m/m and f/f fic, with "f/f" or "m/m" appended where more specificity is needed.
  • "Slash" is rarely or never used generically; instead, fans refer to "boyslash" and "girlslash" or "femslash" and "maleslash" or some other combination of alternate terms.

Fans may argue for the general application of these usages, but they remain in the minority. In common fannish discourse (for instance, on the Fanlore wiki), "slash" is used to refer primarily to the male/male version.

Why is f/f slash less common than m/m slash?

Some fans have wondered about this for twenty years or more; others think it is no great mystery and focusing on the question enforces a hierarchy where f/f is seen as less. Theories about the perceived lack of femslash include:

  • Even now, there aren't a lot of shows with two interesting female characters who have a buddy or enemy dynamic, and they were even rarer in the '80s and '90s.
  • Straight women aren't as turned on by the mechanics of f/f, so there is a smaller audience.
  • F/f is more common than m/m slashers think, but as there is not much overlap between the m/m and f/f communities, the only parts of f/f fandom that m/m fandom sees are those where the female pairings are minor compared to the main m/m pairing. M/m slashers rarely participate in fandoms that are primarily f/f.
  • Femslash is usually written by and for queer female authors, which means there are different identity politics involved; f/f slashers are more likely to already have a like-minded community outside the fannish context (and therefore less likely to seek out m/m-dominated slash fandom?)
  • Others?

Archives

Recommendation Communities

Multifandom posting and general communities

Ficathons and exchanges

Other communities

References

  1. ↑ [1], accessed 2008-09-30. Written by KannaOphelia.
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