A Dramatic Dissertation on the Role of Slash in Western Civilization, or: Sodomite, or Savior?

Convention skit
Title	A Dramatic Dissertation on the Role of Slash in Western Civilization, or: Sodomite, or Savior?
Date(s)	1996
Related articles on Fanlore.

A Dramatic Dissertation on the Role of Slash in Western Civilization, or: Sodomite, or Savior? is a con skit, a creative endeavor by "Crunchy Frog Productions."

The skit was written by Sandy Hereld and performed at Escapade in 1996.

The subject of the skit is slash: its uses and tropes. The skit also includes a narrator who expounds in a satirical acafan style.

The characters are Ray Doyle and Bodie from The Professionals, David Starsky and Kenneth Hutchinson from Starsky & Hutch, Roj Blake, Kerr Avon, and Vila Restal from Blake's 7, Fox Mulder and Dana Scully from The X-Files, with a cameo at the end from T.C. McQueen and Cooper Hawkes, from Space: Above and Beyond.

The play in transcript form contains 8 pages.

A Description

In honor of all our academics, Sandy Hereld delivered a "paper," Sodomite or Savior, with some massive subtitle about polymorphic perversity that Nicole can member and I can't (but I AM older she is). As Sandy expounded on slash as a way to achieve World Peace, Talented Members of the Cast portrayed Our Heroes in vignettes that illustrated the point. Nicole and I had prominent roles as Sandy explained how Slash has the ability to end the tyranny of the diet. Yes, Nicole was Blake, expounding on the need to save the universe while Vila (brilliantly played by [Laura A]) only wanted to call him , "Daddy. Behind a sheet, Blake reveals his perfectly sculpted body - as drawn by fan artists, of course - to Vila admiring the smaller man's form when Avon (me....imagine...) arrives, highly incensed at anyone else calling Blake, "Daddy." Avon draws his "weapon" - one of majestic proportions, (Not unlike one of my rotten sentences above.) I WISH that I could adequately describe the sight: Laura is so....cute? With her loads of red curls, her cherubic face, standing with one foot lifted, looking sweetly up at Nicole and saying, "Daddy." It was downright pornographic! And Nicole has missed her calling. I am trying to find the cash to get Suzie Lovett to draw ME a perfect body.

Fannish Touchstones

The play pokes fun at acafan dryness through the verbal style of its narrator. It also is a very self-aware commentary on the tropes of slash and fanfiction, giving a nudge, nudge, wink, wink to many things fans would recognize.

Excerpts

Spock: "I am afraid that I must request your assistance in a way that is most distasteful to me, Captain."

Kirk: "Oh Spock, you don't mean..."

Spock: "I am afraid so, Jim. I am undergoing a strange biological Vulcan event called "Bryn Mawr" that happens to Vulcan males once every seventy five years during a wet spring with neap tides. I need to ask you if you will take a bath in Terrata Salata while I tap dance around you and sing an ancient Vulcan hymn. And then I must have my way with you. If you refuse me, I will become paralyzed from the neck down. And then I'll explode."

Kirk: "Now wait a minute, Spock. First you came to me with this Pon Farr business, where we had to have sex for days on end. The next was Pon Feyrer, where we had to have sex for days and I had to leave my boots on. Then you tell me you're going through Con Farr, where we had sex for days on end in front of a hundred and twelve leering women. Then Lon Farr, Yon Farr and Gon Farr, then Pon Yarr, where - stop me if you're heard this before - we had to have sex again. I won't even mention Bon Tarr and the live tribbles. This Bryn Mawr, where - and I'm only guessing we'll have to have sex for days while covered in Terrata Salata. I'm sorry, Spock - lunch is on Yeoman Rand."

Spock: "Would it make any difference if it was... hummus?"

Vila: "Oh my God, Blake, I had no idea that you had served as a model for Frank Frazetta's Conan paintings. It is amazing how you have been smuggling this perfectly sculpted, muscular, virile body around without anyone having the faintest idea! I am overwhelmed by the silk-over-steel texture of your bulging, rippling torso."

Blake: "Well, Vila, what about you? I never would have guessed that those drab, baggy clothes disguise such a spectacular physique! My, your scrappy-yet-tough demeanor is strangely appealing in a manly sort of way, for reasons I can't understand."

[snipped]

Narrator:

Isn't it wonderful! It's no longer necessary for human beings to sweat and strain to obtain that perfect body, when it can be written or drawn just the way you want it. But there are deeper lessons to be learned from Slash. It has long been symptomatic of our troubled evolution that men just can't tell each other how they feel. But slash deals so effectively with this situation: it's positively a force for good. As has been so effectively drawn by the inestimable Lezlie Shell...

Scully: "Oh yes, research. Of course. Well, Mulder, how about doing some research into how a normal human female responds to being taken out to dinner?"

Mulder: "Well, assuming the female you had in mind was you, I would go along, provided that you understand that I can't have sex with you."

Scully: "Why not?"

Mulder: "Because of the possible ethical repercussions of becoming romantically involved with a co-worker. Not to mention the possible ethical repercussions of becoming romantically involved with a woman at a Slash convention."

Scully: "Well Mulder, I think you should know... I'm actually a man, an alien being from outer space who happens to be an exact duplicate of your partner Scully. I copied her brain when I had her tied down on a table in my magic spaceship. wanna see it?"

Mulder: "Well then, lead me to your taker!"

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