We're Not Gay; We Just Love Each Other - Fanlore

We're Not Gay; We Just Love Each Other stories are those in which two straight, same-sex characters end up together, but do not see their sexual relationship with each other as having implications for their sexual orientation. The characters continue to identify as straight and describe their love for each other as a unique circumstance that transcends sexual orientation. Sometimes the term is more broadly used for all stories where the two characters start the story self-identified as straight, whether they allow their new relationship to influence that self-identification or not. (The term is not generally used for stories in which any character explicitly identifies as bisexual.)

Historically

Virtually all stories in the first few years of slash contained this lack of dealing with orientation.

Joanna Russ, in Another Addict Raves About K/S said, "K/S provides the female reader with a love affair in which both parties are fully worthy human beings who feel, think, and do sex in ways intelligible to women -- this leaves room for reading K/S as "Lesbian" as well as "heterosexual." .... The one thing K/S is *not* about is male homosexuality."

Gradually, these types of stories came under substantial criticism (both for being unrealistic, and for being borderline homophobic) and are now much less common. However, there are slashfans who miss those stories and feel that asking slash to be realistic in this way has made it less fun for them; from this perspective, slash isn't about real-life sexual orientation or lifestyle, it's a genre of romance. Straightness is merely a romantic obstacle to be overcome, and overcoming it makes the romance more potent. As Lezlie Shell said so memorably, "Why is it our duty to accurately reflect the gay male experience? Is it the duty of gay male writers to accurately portray the lives of spinster librarians?" ^[1]

References

1. ↑ [Fans, Bloggers, and Gamers, Henry Jenkins, pg. 79]