Strange Bedfellows (APA)/Issue 007

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cover of issue #7 is from Eroica With Love -- "The covers this issue were provided by [Barbara T], who personally hand-colored each and every one of them, a true labor of love. Many thanks, Barbara."

A fan in the next issue wrote: "I loved the delicately colored Eroica cover on the last issue. It reminds me of the nineteenth-century hand-tinted photos of Japan that are prized collector's items nowadays."

Strange Bedfellows 7 was published in November 1994 and contains about 89 pages.

There were 35 members sharing 23 subscriptions.

The OE wrote: "Note that I am now reachable by email. I don't promise a faster response to it than to a letter, though."

Mystery

Issue #8 includes several fans' comments about a long rant by M. Fae Glasgow that was supposedly in issue #7. Glasgow's trib does not, however, appear in that table of contents, nor in all copies.

It was reprinted in #9 with the title: "Two Heads reprise (should have been in #7)," as well as this note:

A reprint of our SBF trib from Issue Number Seven. (If you're one of the lucky few who got a copy before, then you can ignore it. As for the rest of you — don't even begin to ask what happened to the original copies of the trib. As Captain Sheridan of Babylon 5 has said, "It's just one more mystery among many.")

From the OE

I have bought a heavy-duty stapler, and the apa can now be put together entirely in the privacy of my own home. Thank you all for your donations. Cat, you seem to have thought that the stapler would have to be mailed from the old editor to a new one. But this is the States; we generally see each other at cons a couple times a year, if not more often. In any case, I have no plans to give up OEship. (Power! Control! Bwah-hah-hah!)

A note to those members outside the US who have me copy their apazines: with this issue the cost of copying has increased from per image

plus 5% tax, to 5₵ per image, no tax. MIT subsidized copying services for the University community; JHU doesn't.

Some Topics Discussed in "Strange Tongues"

  • a retyped article called "Cumming Along, AIDS education gets (il)licit" by Mari Georgeson, source not credited, includes a photo of two naked men washing their dildos in a automatic dishwasher
  • the differences between many American and British Blake's 7 fanfics
  • comments on Blake's 7 Avatars in Pro Books
  • comments about homosexuality in the Sime~Gen universe
  • comments about this author's Eroica/Wiseguy story in a previous issue
  • comments about Matthew Thorn's article about shojo manga, touches upon Joanna Russ and her examination of Kirk/Spock fanfiction
  • comments about "Changeling," a Japanese novel about a brother and sister who switch places
  • some thoughts on the origins on song lyrics used in fan fiction
  • about conflict and how it plays out in stories about Del Tarrant
  • about Desert Peach and its slashiness
  • comments about U2
  • comments about Lymond Chronicles
  • what is "gay" or "bi"?
  • comments on Del Tarrant portrayal in fan fiction, plus an apology
  • comments about cultural differences and fanworks in Japan and Western countries
  • comments about The X-Files

Excerpts from "Strange Tongues"

Slightly on the topic of what is and isn't slash, it's obvious that slash is written mostly about characters in behavioral and social roles (such as soldiers, explorers, detectives, leaders) which have been and to a large degree still are filled mostly by men, and here-and-now mostly by ostensibly straight men. I usually think of slash as about people in those roles, rather than about men per se (let alone straight men per se); women or nonstraight men can fill them, as real-life examples demonstrate. Slash is also about intensely committed friends (or enemies) and pairs of working partners, and I definitely don't accept that women can't fulfill that condition. Considering the effort and cooperation involved in putting out fanzines, it would be hard for slash fandom itself to exist, if they could not. As far as these things define prerequisites of traditional slash, I absolutely reject that women and nonstraight men can't be part of it.

One other condition for slash is that it has to excite the writer and, we hope, the reader, and there lies much of the debate on this topic. Some slash fans evidently have fixed on male physicality (or, rather, descriptions of it) so firmly that their definition of an erotically interesting character is exclusively male; others narrow that to a male who thinks of himself as straight even if he eventually participates actively in homosexual sex. Nevertheless, their selection of characters indicates that being male (or male and "straight") is acceptable only in combination with being heroic/partnered/emotionally complementary with partner/etc./etc. for good slash. The behavioral role is as important as the penis.

Given that typical slashable roles are based on behavior shaped by male physiology (action feats of derring-do, testosterone display, and so on) and the hierarchical psychology associated most strongly with male- dominated politics (military ranks, military or police backing for the characters' exploits, etc.), it's possible that women who excel in them to the extent of becoming heroic, and thus slashable, characters are acting "like men" rather than being what heroically larger-than-life women would naturally be. Perhaps. On the other hand, the perfect cooperation and better-than-words mutual understanding which makes many slashable pairs of characters attractive, the very thing which signals a potential or incipient slash relationship, is quintessentially female, when social behavior is typed into gender categories. I think it's a particular combination of masculine and feminine social traits that's attractive in slash; if some writers have a serious preference for specific bodily features as well, there is no reason they should not indulge their tastes in their own fantasy fiction. In the same way, I write (and look for stories with) the aspects of slash that please me most; and I'm often surprised at what those are.

Hope you've continued to watch X-Files (which I am still enjoying), though I am pissed off that all of the prospective publishers of fiction zines feel it necessary to say "no slash" in so many words on their flyers. (One also says "no Scully-Mulder romance," which makes the restriction a bit more sensible.) Just what are they afraid of, in a show where the obvious (and virtually only) friendly or other human relationship of any kind is between the male and female leads? If they're afraid slash would be badly characterized or otherwise unbelievable from the show, are they incapable of rejecting stories for those faults? I don't really want to read zines full of badly characterized or unbelievable stories that were accepted because they don't happen to be slash, and that kind of note on flyers leads me to suspect the editors have no other criteria for good or bad writing.

While the increasing contact with Japanese entertainment products will undoubtedly serve to teach fans on this side of the Big Pond something about Japan, this function is distinct from what Western imaginations make out of the Japanese source products in the way of slash.

It would be surprising to find that there's a big difference between Western fans' slash from anime and from Rat Patrol, just as it is not amazing that Japanese fan manga based on Man from UNCLE turned out a lot like Japanese fan manga based on Japanese shows. From one point of view -- a fantasy-oriented, fannish, self-centered one -- basing fanfic on anime and manga is no more than a way to produce more fanfic in genres which are already fairly familiar.

To this end, what Japanese viewers think of teenagers is totally irrelevant, and what the Western fans doing the writing think of them is important — especially if, as in slash, it has a large impact on sexual attitudes. This may be one difference from what Japanese fans would make of a show, but there are obvious areas of similarity as well (from the invention of slash itself down to the tendency to write favored characters as smaller and slimmer). It's the similarities between Japanese and Western fans' work that are incredible, in two subcultures which developed very nearly independently in two very different parent cultures.

On the other hand, U.S. fans who saw a lot of the darker, sharper British shows were changed, and parts of U.S. fandom were changed too. Western fans intent on writing one more slash story may not care how Japanese viewers would understand the show, but they are exposed to the anime and manga images. Some fans (many, to be honest) will ignore the anomalies in what they want to perceive, but some will eventually wonder for themselves why the teenagers are there, and whether they should or shouldn't be sexually active. Meanwhile the material is adding a dose of manic gaiety and a really wild color-sense to fandom's resources.

I don't mean to truly denigrate A/V, having enjoyed a good many of the stories, even though a good many more were grossly overwritten in directions I didn't really like. I should let those who do like A/V as primary define it, I suppose, having put my two cents (and three stories) in long ago. Actually, the attitude that there's some thing wrong with any pairing in B7 (or other shows) bothers me a lot more than honest fiction or wish-fulfillment fantasy on any couple in a show. Sorry for the cheap shot last time; I was being a curmudgeon. There are, of course, pairings in which the vast majority of stories seem to me to be going about it wrong -- not A/V, but I'm afraid most of what had been written about Tarrant up to a couple of years ago made him look worse than the show did, which is not my idea of enjoyable character development for someone — you're right — who's doing his poor best to be a space-opera hero if not necessarily a genteel chevalier a la Lancelot. Give him a few manners and he'd show up Avon's tricks in no time. Unfortunately Tarrant did mannerly meekness best when he was interested in sex, and Servalan (who is no gentleman) got the drop on him. I suppose this could put a guy off the drawing-room approach, but not if he's truly chivalrous.

I am often perplexed as to whether I actually like slash per se (the number of bad writers -- and fans who like them -- discourages me frequently enough), or simply like the way good slash writers write, whether they happen to get around to Topic A or not.

As you say, the power of the emotional connection is the essence; slash is just one way of getting there, and it's salutary occasionally to remember that there are other paths. At the same time, I don't see anything contradictory about emotional connections and anonymous or kinky sex. If the essential connection isn't primarily the sex at all, non-"romantic" sex can be seen as merely another kind of activity which isn't a female-style relationship but one which a lot of guys claim to like a lot -- like sitting in cold duck blinds at dawn or making the perfect U-turn in oncoming traffic, which they also claim to like a lot. The emotional spark can still be there, surely, in such a way that it transforms the untoward sexual activity into a connection in the same way that Hutch hunting down Starsky's poisoner can be, or Bodie and Doyle defusing a live bomb together can be. Or in the way, perhaps, that Kirk letting Spock fuck him solely to save Spock's life in pon farr can be erotic to the reader and affirmatory to the characters. Would it be worse or better if Kirk enjoyed it as pain? If he knew he enjoyed pain?

Note that if Bodie and Doyle engage in both hetero- and homo-sex, they are bisexual, a term for which "gay" is sometimes used (inaccurately) as shorthand. If they are having sex with each other on any kind of regular basis for pleasure, they may think of themselves by a number of terms, including "we just love each other," but the consensus English term for their sexual behavior is not "straight." They may be heavily closeted in a weird way that makes them feel straight, in their fictional emotions which are conveyed to you the reader; as for actually fulfilling the definition of "straight," no, they do not. Not by their described actions. And if their souls are so hetero, why are they bonking? What do "straight" "gay," "bi," and so on define, if not their sexual activity when given a choice — which is exactly the case in most slash?

I see that slash readers who don't see preexisting gay character as apt for slash may be operating on the assumption that gay characters are not taboo to each other. Aha! I wonder how many gay/bi fans think that? A gay character doesn't have to learn for himself that he's capable of loving his male (her female) friend -- a point that does carry heavy weight for some readers, it seems -- but (in contemporary and many futurist settings) he/she does have every other barrier and taboo in place to obstruct that love from being expressed to or about a supposedly heterosexual friend. Even two "out" queer characters have to go through the process of deciding whether each of them likes or loves the other enough to risk intimacy, without set roles in the matter. Not all personal heroism need be so epic as to burst all boundaries of previous knowledge; the smaller-scale conquests of self and danger involved in approaching another independent personality can be satisfying and suspenseful story material as well.

I don't know if I'd agree totally about there being definitive stories in every fandom. There are brilliant early examples which succeed in setting standards of sorts (sometimes including details which become near-universal in the fandom) in nearly every fandom, but they can be superseded in time. And if different writers had worked in the fandom early, might those definitive stories have been different, in detail and maybe in larger matters, or in nearly anything less basic than the core of emotional necessity which, I agree, is why slash was invented? So that the fandom as a whole might have developed differently in some ways? Or would you say that the essential definition of slash as it can be expressed with the elements of a given show demands a particular sort of story in each fandom, and until that story is somehow found by a writer and put on paper, the fandom isn't quite "there" yet? I do see a few fandoms as candidates for the latter state, actually.

A certain amount of verisimilitude enhances the fantasy, sexual and otherwise, as any number of B/D writers have explained at various times. I just didn't see it because the characters were such pricks, which nothing can cure. Not that I mind, in the midst of a thorough-going B/D story with the right proportion of boiling hormones and spilt blood, but the proper state of Bodie and Doyle is slightly revolting, rather than artistic, charming or madly repressed about anything.

Appreciated [the] essay on music slash and musician slash. I really ought to like U2 more than I do, but have exhausted myself in the past trying to make some kind of sense out of what I knew had to be there, and failing. Much like a lot of rock: there's too much going on (and too much reaction to it) for it to mean nothing -- but I don't find it and after several years of working pretty hard at it, have agreed with myself to stop trying so I can go do something I actually like again, musically. I've just bought some Schumann and Beethoven to celebrate.

Most of the Tarrant slash stories I've seen just don't make it. In the show, Avon and Tarrant do cooperate a good deal, very much while looking as though they're opposed; but their differences are in personal style rather than philosophical base, so it's not much like the Blake/Avon opposition. While a good head-butt between alpha males has made for one or two readable Tarrant stories, it's too often just an awkward version of the more awkward A/B style of scenario, which is all wrong. I hadn't thought there was a way to do A/T really well.

On B7 fiction, must agree that many Brit-authored efforts are less, well, juicy than the U.S. production. Several large-scale stories (including Seaman's Ghost exercise in masochism for Avon and the reader) were well-constructed and admirable for a number of reasons, but I just couldn't get into them emotionally. I put it down to a difference in style: dry, dystopic SF is a British tradition. I still wonder (vaguely) how some of those stories worked out in the end. But I can't make myself read 200 pages to find out.

This has been true of some, but by no means all, of the British-tradition SF I've read. And I did get through some fanfic, such as the EPS sagas (including Machiavelli Factor and Mindfire), but in retrospect those aren't half as breath-holding suspenseful and dramatically focused as the longer stories in, say. Southern Seven's early issues. The Brit writers in general paid more attention to science and some kinds of local color, but it's so labored, to my reading mind. Do you think the difference is pacing, or what?

I haven't thought about whether the difference carries over to slash, though I wouldn't be surprised if it did, at least in B7. Suggestions, comments? I don't see this same problem in B/D work in British writers — though there are differences of tone between stuff out of Britain and elsewhere. But the British stories in B/D were often harder-edged (which the Brit B7 stories were, as well; it suits both shows' backgrounds) and didn't have the flattish feel that plagued so much of B7 in, say, the early Horizon.

Glad to see the list of B7 a/u's in published work. I recall Lillian Stewart Carl as having written one of the stories that winked like gold amid the pyrite in some thick zine or other. For some reason, probably temporary insanity, I never bought her books when I saw the paperbacks, and now can't find them. Anyone who has a line on copies of 'Ashes to Ashes' and 'Dust to Dust', please let me know. In some of the seeming Avon appearances on your list I'd argue that a darkhaired, acerbic, emotionally-lost character is more of another chip off the same archetype that Avon represents so ably, rather than a direct Avon-clone, but in either case the book may well have something I'd enjoy spending a few hours with.

According to some of Lichtenberg's commentary on the Sime/Gen books, donor/channel transfer between opposite sexes is followed by a burst of sexuality as you mention, but between same-sex donor and channel it is followed by corresponding physical repulsion, a sort of don't-touch imperative, as if static electricity were pushing them apart. This theory of magnetic-sounding physiology goes further to define the sexes as absolute opposites instead of roughly the same thing with variations; the former view seems to me dangerous as well as inaccurate, and very much at the root of exaggerated "romantic" thinking of all kinds.

The Dorian-and-Roger-as-brothers story is being elaborated and extended, with the help and at the insistence of Christine of Manacles, who sensed arcane Possibilities in it. Watch upcoming issues of Manacles publications to see its rich, strange transmogrification from a simple story of fraternal improbability and mutual irritation into... something more. Something lewd, crude and revolting, but (sorry, Nancy) not incestuous. It is hoped that rubbing Dorian and Roger together inside an oyster will produce a gleaming pearl of perversely pleasurable fiction. (Right, Christine?) And thanks (I think) to you and all those who reacted to it when I thought it was only good for a joke.

[Thanks for your] account of Matthew Thorn's paper. Don't think he's doing any worse than most mainstream commenters on shojo manga so far (and he's the only Western academic to concentrate on them for long that I know of); he's got roughly as far as Russ did about K/S, after all. I'm not sure that broad analysis can produce more specific answers for a field the size of girls' manga, any more than it really can for slash. Do you think he's likely to do some thing as lengthy and with room for detail as a book, or even do papers that pick out smaller areas instead of covering some aspect of shojo manga as a whole? Anything that's been going on for twenty years (more counting the early, male-authored phase) should be good for a few sub-categories and deeper analysis of why it's popular.

On song lyrics in fan stories, I first noticed a lot of them being used in late-80's B/D, which admittedly coincided with the tide of Miami Vice popularity, but didn't seem directly caused by it. I'd think it had more to do with MTV styles in everything being high-profile for everyone. That put Miami Vice on the screen and it also suggested that B/D fans use Moody Blues lyrics copiously in their story thinking, all at the same time.

Some Topics Discussed in "DZ -- Cat's Deviation #(7+?)"

Excerpts from "DZ -- Cat's Deviation #(7+?)"

Gor books: I find the friendship between the warriors rather slashy. I remember being rather disappointed at what the Free Amazons [1], (er, no, I think they are the panther girls, no? What are they called?) did with the captured slave girls. But the Ho-Tu and Sura love story was very sweet. A gorean man stays for years in the service of the master of the house who had had him castrated for the love of a slave girl, (in Assassin of Gor. It was cute.). I also like the training male couples of the assassins. I'm not going to let some literal minded fools spoil the Gor universe for me.

I was willing to make an effort for sport, seeing as you all seem to like that sort of thing, but baseball is the limit. Not only fans of the game have never managed to make it comprehensible to me, but by association to its older sister, cricket, it has all my ill wishes. Radio 4, the English radio that is received in Paris on long wave has abandoned the project of a rolling news service, apparently, because so many listeners protested that they couldn't receive the R4 FM programme. Probably to avenge themselves, some decider at R4 has decided to broadcast, hour after hours, day after days, the blow by blow description of the cricket test matches. I tried VERY hard to listen to it. But even an addicted listener like I had to give up or risk mental damage. So I hate cricket, croquet, and baseball. I have no idea what croquet is, but it sounds too much like cricket. I'll make an exception for Crockett, Sonny Crockett, but just barely. Indeed, as much as I like precise details in fiction, the beginning of [of the Pros ep] Knife's Edge, with its lengthy, dense, detained all-CI5 cricket match was cruel and unusual punishment.

Thank you for The Stand, the whole 8 hours of it. I'm having it bit by bit. Each new character, I wonder, all tense and impatient, will it be him?

And then... Miguel Ferrer. Quite a villain, wild and brutal with a machine pistol. So sweet, speeding on the vast road, drinking beer, holding the can above his mouth, so that the beer runs down his cheeks and throat. Huuu! *sigh*. That man is not getting any more hair as he grows older. But I couldn't care less. You see him do violence and be done violence to. And at the point I reached, you see him most horribly dealt with: he is hungry, locked up; and afraid he'll never be fed again. Poor, poor darling! I will savour whatever the rest of the Stand has in store for me.

The Thing From the Grave: Tee hee! Miguel Ferrer, he can be so delightfully abusive and insulting. I can see at least two interpretation to the Thing From The Grave. I mean, who does the Thing from the Grave spend the rest of eternity with? Not Terri Hatcher!

Me, as I probably mentioned several times before, I prefer my slashees to be adulterous no-good cheats, I like them exclusively gay, or bisexual. I want a world where homosexuality is still ostracized, and the heroes have to deal with untold heaps of crap because of that, but I want that, inexplicably, anyone I like turns out to be gay or bi, including the villain who seduces or violates the heroes. I like the flavour of (cultural, physical, technical, procedural...) realism and intricate plots, yet it doesn't bother me that all of CI5 is gay, with a few token exceptions. All this is not in the name of any principle, but because that's what I find spontaneously yummy.

Kung Fu - The Next Generation. David Carradine doesn't do anything for me as an actor, and the kid is about as exciting as Kyle in "V", which means, not very. Robert Lansing, however, gives me pleasant fuzzies (mostly because I see him as part of the ever popular slash couple Control/McCall). [...] Still, although I did not succumb to the show, I saw a couple of eps, and there is a scene where Carradine, Potter and Lansing are in a heap on the floor, holding each other (in relief of surviving, of course), but the scene was really Wow Yum. And I can see slash between the two fathers, and watch the kid rework his relationship with them, eh, eh!

A real good non-slash emotional connection is the one in DS9 between Benjamin Sisco and his son Jake. In my mind it is perfect. It still does not mean that I don't want to read a slash version, but that's because I'd enjoy the exercise, and not because I consider it better than what they already have. The only father/son slash I remember reading was Henry/Indiana Jones [2].

To me, Vas/Dex stories are 100% Slash, although I have no idea where the suckers come from. They're not a major fandom, but the stories are circulated, and I'm not aware of any source material justifying their existence.

Comedy Slash. There is a difference to be made between people wanting to write sitcom slash and those wanting to read it. To me, the show "The Odd Couple" is pure slash, and I watch it as such. I would not get a sexual jolt out of the description of sexual activity of the two male leads, as I fancy neither, but I'd get emotional warmth from it. It would require someone being actually able to write comedy and comic situations in the context of the show itself.

Even more in that vein, there is "Perfect Strangers", which is even more so, and I'd love to be able to write Larry and Balky in bed together, and I KNOW I'm not the only one. After the episode where Balky claimed to have experience male bondage during a poker game ("no, no" Larry said, "that wasn't male bondage, that was male bonding.") I can see Balky wanting to know what male bondage is, and Larry, candidly, and without a shred of experience, trying to demonstrate. [...] But I'm not able to do that, so I keep hoping someone else will.

Maybe the identification process with a pure comedy character is different, because they have to be made real first. You don't identify the same way with them, otherwise the cruelty and embarrassment of the "comic" situations would make you cringe. (Trying to overcome that could explain the heartfelt "AWWWWW's that have found their way into the laugh tracks, (they tell us when to feel emotion, humour, but they never provide the "Yechhhh..." sound that calls for the barf bag. Just a matter of time, I'm sure.)

Keeping up with the series is the hardest part of the work. So I gave COBRA and X-FILES a chance. In Cobra I liked the German Stasi woman Miranda in the episode I saw, but that's all. I liked X-FILES but did not find it exciting, nor the male/female relationship especially remarkable.

[...]

I look with suspicion on the new trend that seems to tolerate X-FILES and HETERO slash-like stories (to cast aspersions on the The Beauty and the Beast fandom among others). Positive real personality-ratio for female characters cannot have the revolutionary slash destroying effect you suggest since, as you pointed out, Emma Peel already existed. Laura Holt is no one-line slouch either. There are worthy females for those determined to find them. Maybe there is another force at work here. [L] has described the saturation effect. Is the same saturation effect that allegedly thrust kind, warm, puppy-like hearted spear-carrier Murphy into the limelight, driving sincere slash fan to stray into politically dubious territories?

I see no problem with Quantum Leap slash. The relationship is non-tactile in fact, but not in essence. Sam tells Al not to go through things, so that he can forget that he's a hologram, and then, when both have forgotten, watch them abort movements to touch each other. They also try to use physical nearness to overcome the tactile distance: in "Pool Hall Blues", when Sam and Al are bending over the cue, they're so close... *sigh*.

Some Topics Discussed in "Ghost Speaker"

  • the We're Not Gay, We Just Love Each Other conversation and categorizing fiction
  • while not a fan of Quantum Leap slash due to the fact the characters can't physically touch each other and because they are both portrayed as heterosexual characters, this fan is quite aware of how much Sam/Al slash is available
  • original fiction, like fan fiction, can also be terrible
  • fans sometimes use ageism to dismiss Leonard McCoy and George Cowley as sexual and/or attractive

Excerpts from "Ghost Speaker"

I agree, misogyny is a far more blatant and a more subtle problem in slash stories - and is one reason why I avoid reading O. Yardley. [...] I can't see why she can't — or at least never does - create strong, intelligent, and likeable female characters (the only possible exceptions are Doyle's mother and aunt in "Bear Necessity")...

The "whiff of discomfort" that you mention, the incomprehension, is the second and milder kind of homophobia. I don't see how someone could be a slash fan and be a genuine homophobe. But, what I wish you would recognise is that in appearance, the effects caused by the first and the second kind of homophobe are often hard to distinguish. Sometimes the only way you can tell that the second kind of homophobe is not the genuine dyed-in-the-wool hater is when she changes over time. But in the beginning, it is hard for me to tell myself that someone who apparently can't bear the thought of her heroes being gay - because, "everyone knows" what gays are like, and Bodie and Doyle aren't like that - is only ignorant, not hateful. (The early Jane of Australia stories, in particular "Two-Up". Yuck.

... for "everybody's bisexual in this universe", I like this best for future or sf or other alternate universes (B7, ST, some alt-Pros), though I prefer to state it as; "bisexuality is assumed the norm in this universe" (just as heterosexuality is assumed the norm in this universe). In this way you can Just have people being attracted to people, which is partly why I started writing science-fiction in the first place, so that I wouldn't have to bother with all the stuff about coming out and oppression, prejudice, etc; I could just write gay people who just happened to be gay. Oddly enough, by the time I started writing Profs fiction (about six years after I started writing science-fiction) the complexities of writing about gay and straight rather appealed to me than otherwise.

There is also some ageism involved for some fans with McCoy and Cowley; it was stated quite openly in Be Gentle With Us, but just as I thought we were going to get a good barney going, the letterzine shut down.

I had no trouble at all writing McCoy as a sexual being (and the fact that McCoy definitely didn't want to be seen as a sexual being and had to be dragged into Spock's bed by the scruff of his neck just added to the joy of writing it) but I had a lot of trouble with myself when writing Cowley as a sexual being. Observant readers will have noticed that every time a sex scene happened in "Lest These Dark Days" Cowley shoved me out of the room, locked the bedroom door, and wouldn't let me back in the story until he and Bodie were drinking coffee in the kitchen the next morning. This wasn't because of Cowley's age, though — or not directly

[...]

I've got better at working it out, but Cowley has never yet let me in the room when he was getting fucked.

I think I agree with [H], that there is no point in creating a hierarchy of slash stories and if I appeared to be trying to do that last time with references to "straight slash", I didn't mean it. I was in a snit, and I'm sorry, OK?) or working out an exclusive definition. Inclusive definitions make for much more fun; although I tend not to like stories in which two straight men fall into bed, fall in love, and fuck like bunnies in any order), and the writer, God, the two men, and George Cowley (also in any order) still say these two guys are straight, they're just two guys in love, that doesn't make them gay; well anyway I have always had a broad minded and basically tolerant approach to slash - anything that's well written I'll read; anything that I haven't read yet I'll read; anything that feeds my fantasies I'll seek out and read and re-read till it's falling to pieces whether it's well written or not, and if it's not I'll re-write it... and I only lose this broad minded and engulfing approach when I lose my temper, which happens when I scent the delicately unpleasant whiff of homophobia in the air, but this is a different argument and should not be allowed to get in the way of appreciation of the Good, the Bad, the Indifferent, and the FuckingAwfulButWhatTheHellThey'reFucklng slash stories that we all know and love, even if we all appear to know and love them in different directions, that's what IDIC's all about, innit?

So anyway: I will not get involved with any further arguments about the difference between core slash and cor! slash (except to say if Sarah Thompson's definition were ever to be accepted as universal, which is fortunately unlikely since fandom never accepts anyone's definitions as universal, not even Henry's or Barbara's, I would rather be found in the cor! slash division (B-3 of Sarah's definition) with writers like M. Fae Glasgow, than in the core slash division with writers like London Bates), no matter what the temptation to get in a snit and make snide remarks nested inside very long sentences like this one or the one above. Honest.

What a subversive idea; that those opposed to slash, to destroy it, must write actual equality for women into their scripts. I wonder how we could suggest this to those who have indicated they find slash distasteful? After all, whether it worked or not. It would be very nice to have TV with women treated as human beings ... But I wonder if you're right?

Writers who write within complex, already established rules, having less originality in their ideas; well, what makes you think that original ideas run in parallel with good writing? Too many appalling writers think that the whole point is to Get An Idea, and extra points if it's an idea no one has ever written into a story before. Pointing out that possibly the reason why no one's ever written a story about Doyle going gerbilllng is because it's just not a good idea is like trying to explain pizza to a Horta.

Some Topics Discussed in "Weirdness on a Swan's Song"

  • Fannish Drift and following/watching an actor from one show from another
  • choosing to write in a fandom that is closer to one's own culture

Excerpts from "Weirdness on a Swan's Song"

I started writing slash with a couple of MUNCLE stories. However, I soon switched to The Professionals. Partly because I found the universe more attractive and partly because it was so much easier writing in a culture I knew better. Seventies Britain I know - I might make mistakes with exact chronology but the feel is right. Sixties New York I only know through the series and it was inevitable that there would be glaring mistakes...glaring to those of you who grew up in that culture rather than those of us who gleaned what we could from comics and TV. '

It was fascinating listening to [C] complain that he didn't look like Macklin, didn't sound like Macklin...wasn't anything like Macklin. Funny really as both characters were played by lain McCulloch. Yet I could understand it. Most slash fans could, I guess. You see a character in a series, and become enamored of either the series or the character or both. Next you watch everything you can about that character, then you start writing about them. Before you know it you know more than anyone else about that character (as you see them) especially if they are minor characters. So when you see that actor playing another part you can go one of two ways... either you can assimilate the attributes of the new character into your view of him or you can sit there bewailing the differences and knowing it isn't the same person...after a while they don't even look the same.

Some Topics Discussed in "Yamibutoh"

  • much about Japanese culture
  • a comment on a warning in the last issue about loaning items or money to another fan
  • having David Bowie as her first "slash" idol, being impressed by a singer's image rather than the lyrics
  • comments about "professional "June' comics (pronounced "Junay)" and the line between professional and amateur Japanese slash
  • Comicate, descriptions
  • the popularity of cross dressing in Japan

Excerpts from "Yamibutoh"

I have no idea who the person your refer to is, but complaints/warnings like this - even if totally justified - should be sent by private letter and not go into an APA. They can escalate/it makes it hard to loan the zine to friends.

Some Topics Discussed in "Slash is Everywhere"

Excerpts from "Slash is Everywhere"

As for X FILES, I do enjoy the unscripted sexual tension between the characters, and I also enjoy the way a sexual relationship is not part of the plot. And I hate the fact Scully will be out of the series for most of the second year - we'll see what the other partner is like, but I'm definitely hoping he's only a very temporary replacement. Gillian Anderson is one of my favorite actresses right now.

I like DS9 on the whole much better than I ever liked TNG - these are people I can believe in, not cardboard figures who never gained any dimension, even after 7 years worth of episodes.

Have you read "Lovers" #3? It's a DVS novella, " Discoveries" - classic Trek, as she calls them "non K/S human/Vulcan slash", set in the same universe as that story you enjoyed [in No Holds Barred #5]. (The one about the screwed-up Human and Vulcan with development problems.) The novella is excellent - I highly recommend it. DVS wrote 4-5 stories set in that universe, some of which featured the employees of a particular Vulcan company, and they almost always feature a Human and Vulcan male (once she had a Vulcan female and Human male, for variety). She always does fascinating things in her work - power themes, culture conflicts, etc.

Some Topics Discussed in "Desert Blooms"

  • Music RPF
  • U2 slash and a shared verse that this fan is writing with another fan
  • comments/review of the book "My Dearest Holmes" by Rohase Piercy published by Gay Men's Press
  • comments about Robert Plant and Jimmy Page in MTV's "Unledded" - "They both looked happy and healthy. [...] This fandom could exist on the hair alone!"
  • the history of song lyrics in fan fiction
  • slash, generalizations about women, and wanting/not wanting anonymous sex
  • what one writes about in fan fiction isn't what the author believes/is is real life
  • Babylon 5, its complexities, how it is a show that benefits from having a VCR

Excerpts from "Desert Blooms"

I agree with you wholeheartedly about the continuing [Babylon 5] storyline, the clues along the way and the ripple effect of actions. This is a series absolutely made [for taping! With each viewing more and more details come together and a dawning understanding that there's a heck of a lot more going on than meets the casual eye. I think B5 is one of the most detailed, intelligent SF shows around and if fans are willing to be spoon-fed the bland pap of some shows rather than taking the plunge with engaging, adult characters and situations, then they deserve what they get. I'm not saying B5 is perfect. They've had a few clunkers in there. But for overall consistency of quality and intelligence, B5 wins hands down. And so for B5 slash? Yes, please yes! So what if there's a 'no zines' policy? Since when has something like that ever stopped fen from producing good, juicy stories? That's what we're about after all.

I don't identify with the characters I write about, nor do I wish to be them and live their lives. I'd be scared silly if I did. And if I thought that each writer was what she wrote, I'd be even more afraid! I don't for one minute believe that M. Fae, for example, is a manipulative, sadistic, controlling person even though she can write that kind of character with her hands tied behind her back.

The additions of fetish aspects and anonymous sex certainly don't displease everyone. Many of us like it, many of us enjoy the variety these aspects add, and many of us like the tension, the thrill and the danger that can be found in fetishes and anonymous sex. I like to pepper my reading with SM, bondage and other alternative sexual experiences. While I can appreciate and enjoy stories based on the strong bond between the characters, a steady of diet of tender sex all tied up with red roses and commitment would run me out of fandom in a hurry. Variety is, after all, the what makes life and slash interesting. The point is, we write what we want to read. And the enormous variety of slash stories shows that we want to read an enormous variety of tastes and fantasies. Slash is considered a fantasy literature for women and it needs to be left wide open. You seem to want to close the doors except the one that opens into your particular fantasy.

That's an interesting theory about the use of popular music to frame a story as originating with early MV eps. I don't know if that fannish notion predates MV or not - I wasn't reading slash then and I've noticed the use of lyrics mostly in Pro's, most of which was undated circuit stuff. But I do recall how different and energizing MV was in the first season or two. It quickly changed the face and sound of action TV and by using rock songs brought a real immediacy to the show. However, in general, I don't think it translates so well to paper. Far the most part it comes across as bad poetry sines most lyrics lose much of their punch when stripped of the music.

Okay. I'll get right to the point. I'm obsessed. Completely, absolutely and wholeheartedly obsessed. I want rock and roll slash. It's the best of all possible worlds - sex and music. What more is there, besides chocolate? I want to read about my favorite rock stars bonking each other with relish (or any other condiments of their choice). I want to listen to earth shattering music while I read about earth shattering sex. I've done a complete turnaround on so-called "reality slash". It used to make me twitchy. Now it makes me want more. As long as it's people I want to see slashed, ie: the rock stars of choice - Bono, the Edge, Trent Reznor (of Nine Inch Nails, for anyone who's been able to avoid the post-Woodstock II-media-hype-blitz-mudslide) then I'm willing to sweep all my so-called scruples under the carpet and let them get to it. I admit I was uncomfortable with Collins/Shaw slash, Tris & Alex made me squirmy but I have seen the light and I want to slash specific artists. I want to make them do all sorts of sweaty, nasty things they would never do in real life. Or would they? One can speculate. One has speculated, endlessly, with M. Fae, about various permutations, combinations and triangulations. We have done some of the most inexplicable, unprintable (except in slash) things to these public figures and I want more. M. Fae and I have been creating a U2 fandom (or as my charmingly musically ignorant sister so nicely calls it, the Sonny/Cher universe. One shudders) mostly by telephone and e-mail. It's been a sort of merging of the creative process of slash and phone sex. We have discussed the fandom from just about every angle (sexual, that is) and come up with enough stories and sex scenes to keep a slash fan writhing in ecstasy for months, yet we haven't written a word of it yet (except for some e-mail snippets). The fandom has begun as an oral, pun intended, tradition and it's been an interesting process to take the idea from an interpretation of an album all the way to a fully developed fandom replete with first times, cross-overs, cross-dressing and even a few au's (sorry, no leprechaun stories). And these boys BURN! There's is not a tale of sweetness and blow jobs by the fire. The universe has run the gamut from first, hesitant touches, to fist fucking to bondage to hardcore SM. It includes drag, heroin addiction, group sex, rubber corsets, cock and bail torture, tit clamps and public sex. We put our boys through their paces! Have I got you all hooked?

Some Topics Discussed in "Notes of a Neophyte"

  • difficulties of being a PhD grad student
  • compartmentalizing friendships and relationships

Some Topics Discussed in "With Friends Like These..."

Excerpts from "With Friends Like These..."

I thought your comments on h-c were intended as a general analysis of the appeal of the genre, rather than just your personal reactions. As a personal reaction, they were extremely interesting, but they don’t quite fit as a general analysis. I doubt 'romantic sadists' constitute even a significant minority of h-c fans. H-c stories linger as lovingly on the comfort scenes as on the hurt, if not more. A h-c story is like a good meal. Comfort without the hurt first is like skipping dinner and just eating dessert: too sweet and insubstantial. But not reading the comfort part of the story is like not eating dessert: you're missing the climax of the meal. Any analysis of the general appeal of h-c must take into account the comfort as well as the hurt. I suspect that a body of fiction created by and for romantic sadists would be very different from that which exists for h-c fans. Anyway, romantic sadism doesn’t seem particularly fannish to me. That is, it’s an extremely common scenario in mundane fiction. (Though I’ve always thought the point was to torment the hero in order to show how noble and manly he is, not simply to enjoy his suffering!)

You’re right about the homophobia of Lichtenberg’s S/G universe, though it wasn’t made that explicit until the second book, Unto Zeor, Forever! JL’s weird irrationality on this and other subjects became very off-putting for me, and I’ve drifted from the fandom. However, she welcomes others to write in her universe, including those who wanted to write about same-sex transfer that doesn’t 'end in the heartbreak of static,' in the words of Linda Frankel. There’s even been some B7 slash crossovers.

I like the idea of 'degrees of slash.' We do tend to impose black and white categories on a shades-of-grey universe. Where I disagree is your privileging of the media aspects of slash. I consider 'non-media' slash (Regis/Dani, Cassius/Brutus, Paul/Ringo, Agassi/Becker, or even female/female) to be much truer to the slash ideal than hetero media stuff like A Companion for My Death. And slash in which the characters are gay or bi all along works better for me than the 'I'm only gay with you, Blake' variety. (It's more realistic, and, in the case of strictly gay characters, perhaps it’s safer, too. I like the idea that these men couldn’t possibly be seriously interested in me.)

I consider Tarrant pretty mature for his age. It's Avon who ought to he more grown up than he is. Like any true Byronic hero, Avon is the eternal adolescent. He reminds me of a line from Harry Chapin's 'W-O-L-D': 'Feeling all of forty-five, going on fifteen.'

Vila/Tarrant (of the consensual variety) is one of my favorite pairings. I remember a con panel on angst during which Shoshanna said that she thought Vila’s keenest suffering was due to his being the only social being on a ship, full of antisocial introverts. (Or something along those lines; I’m paraphrasing.) Yes, but...there’s Tarrant. He seemed as fond of people as Vila. Tarrant, though his mind knows better, has a fundamentally loving, trusting heart. (Which is probably why some fans see him as being unintelligent. Well, they’re wrong. It may be unwise to be so trusting, but it's not stupid.)

I could see Tarrant and Vila getting together for no other reason than they’re the only two on the ship who wouldn’t rather be following solitary pursuits, such as working on computers or guns, reading bookscreens, etc. And rape stories aside, V/T is a more equal relationship than A/V.

One thing I’m not wild about with A/V is that Avon holds all the cards: he’s older, smarter, stronger, better educated, better looking, etc. All Vila brings to the relationship is his devotion to Avon. It’s different with V/T. Yes, Tarrant is a dominant alpha male type — but he’s also a decade younger than Vila, which tends to even things out.

If "All Alone' [3] is that Tarrant-rapes-Vila story, well, it’s not quite what I had in mind. In fact, I wouldn’t mind if that scenario never darkened my mailbox again. Sigh. Why do so many people see Tarrant as a rapist? Tarrant treated Vila with more respect than any of them. He saw Vila as an adult, while the others saw him as a child. Tarrant never insulted Vila as cruelly and casually as Avon, Dayna, and even Cally did. My vote for "B7 character most likely to be a rapist" goes to Avon. It’s clear from the way he kisses Servalan, Pella, and the 'Sarcophagus' alien into submission that he expresses his aggression sexually. Just once I’d like to see a story where it’s Avon who rapes Vila and Tarrant who’s the rescuer. I also think A/T is a more equal relationship than A/B, Despite Avon's perpetual snarling defiance, Blake is unequivocally the dominant partner in most A/B stories. Things are less one-sided with A/T. Avon dominates...but not 100% of the time. And I think Avon respects Tarrant more than any of the others ~ for his potential, if for no other reason.

Perhaps what Sandy meant was that she'd like to see more 'internal' rather than 'external' discussion? This apa has something of a reputation for 'eggheadedness,' because, compared to other fora, there is a lot more analysis-from-the-outside, and correspondingly less discussion of the characters and situations as if they were real. I don't mind the emphasis on external analysis (if I did I wouldn't have joined), but it is sort of different.

"The infamous 'Of Mice and Men' struck me as being a thinly disguised mundane porn novel, written by someone who didn't really like or understand slash, but as [K S] pointed out, as unfannish as it was, it still had a hell of a lot more plot and emotion than your average gay porn!"

Yes, I can understand your point about the pitfalls of writing a romance involving a character you don’t understand or don’t like. It didn’t readily occur to me because I put just as much thought and effort into my videos as I do into my stories, if not more. But now that you mention it, other fannish videomakers have said that they find videomaking easy — something they do when they’re too tired to write. What I find hardest to do with characters I’m not wild about is illustrate them. Several people have commented that in my art Blake is not as attractive as the other characters, and they’re right.. I don’t find him particularly attractive, physically or psychologically, and I’m afraid it shows in my illos. (Also, I rarely watch the 1st & 2nd series, so I’m not as familiar with the pre-'Star One' characters as I am with the later ones.)

Yes, a penis is that important. As I may have said before, the emotional distance that nominally male characters provide is a key part of the fantasy for most (female) fans. In the words of Edi Bjorklund, [in the 1988 essay, Thinking About Slash/Thinking About Women ]'Are there any zine editors ~ or readers, for that matter ~ who would be seriously interested in...the formative experiences of the first Jewish woman admiral in Starfleet? That's what I thought.'

I'm a horror fan, so I love X-Files, but I'm desperately hoping that Scully and Mulder don't become romantically entangled. Just once I'd like to see a man and woman work together and have a great relationship, but not feel they must hop in the sack with each other. (Perverse, aren't I? I want to see hetero relationships that don't involve sex and same-sex relationships that do! I guess it's freedom from gender stereotypes that I yearn for.)

I'm not a fan of QL, but I understand that there's quite a bit of slash in that fandom. A friend of mine described with great relish an episode in which Al is revealed to be surprisingly homophobic. This, she claimed, proved that he was repressing his own homosexuality (and feelings for Sam!). Fans are quite resourceful; I've no doubt many a fan writer has solved the flesh/hologram problem. (Or maybe we should just pair Al with Rimmer...)

Some Topics Discussed in "Hello to SBF"

  • this fan's fannish journey
  • AUs, vids and vidding
  • camera work as a creator and disrupter
  • MUDS

Excerpts from "Hello to SBF"

I was lost in the Underworld of Grad School after that (see, it's mythic) with no real media contact for too many years. But ironically, I have the academic writings about slash to thank for my discovery of the fan community. After reading Enterprising Women (I heard about it over a New Year's Eve spent with someone from a lit department), I sent out a feeler or two on some Usenet groups like the startrek and uk.tv ones asking about fanzines... and met a few fans. The slashlist on the net was a great help with reviews of good zines and indoctrination into Pros. My name is [L], I am a slash slut, and I have some of you to thank for it. I was a Blake's 7 fan when I hit slash zines (A/B), and then I got seduced into Pros (no B/C!!), and then I saw Wiseguy and fell for Sonny, and then someone lent me Eroica, and it's all very economically crippling now. I have written a bit of Wiseguy ([M B] is my pen name) and Pros and Blake's 7; but unfortunately I have this dissertation to do this year so I can't write much now.

Fan discussion-wise, I'm a fan of the idea of AUs, even if not the actual execution of a lot of them. I like the mental exercise that removing a character from his setting provides, and I like the chance to play in different genres as a reader and as a writer. In parallel, I've been thinking a lot about vids and their relationship to MTV videos and film recently. The role of context in serious songvids seems to be open to debate among fans: some depart from the context and create an entirely new story just using the visual images (you Seattle folks know what I mean) while others insist severely on faithfulness to original context. I find it clever when clips are used out of context, but the emotional effect is very different. For me, it feels more like a construction of a new universe than a comment on the old one. I disagree with most of the academic writing on MTV videos (they seem to think there isn't much narrative going on), but I may be overly influenced by my interests in fan vids now. I've discovered it's possible to watch an MTV vid with fannish interpretation (I highly recommend REM's "Losing My Religion" as a slash vid!). Context obviously plays small role in MTV... but at least the REM one felt slashy to me.

I've been noticing camera work more recently. Everyone knows that phenomenon of watching a movie that a beloved actor has a bit role in, and watching for that actor's role, even when the camera doesn't give him the time of day. Rachid (Shaw's character in The Golden Voyage of Sinbad) is my favorite example: he's there a lot in the background, but he's not the main event for the camera man. He is for the Pros fan, though. The power of the camera as a discourse controller was brought home to me when I saw a paper at a conference on the Bush-Clinton debates, and the presenter pointed out that the camera was creating a conversation that wasn't there between the men: by switching back and forth from insult to insulted, the reaction or non-reaction of the insulted was an event in some sense. If it had been off-camera, it wouldn't have "happened." Watching a background figure as a main character is a major rewrite of the camera's story, requiring enormous mental gymnastics. Likewise, ignoring the camera's intended story is almost impossible. We can fill in missing bits, but how can we ignore what's there? Well, why can't we? Is the question of the role of context in vids related to what we find easy to ignore? If anyone has any comments on camera gaze and context or recommendations for slashy MTV videos I would love to hear them. You guys who are making vids out of real concert and MTV footage have anything to say about how that works for you?

In real life, I spend almost all my time in virtual worlds... my dissertation is about conversation in MUDs, which are networked chat spaces organized around the metaphor of physical geography. I've been doing ethnography in a MUD for the last 10 months now and I am just getting started writing up an analysis. I'm frequently stunned by how similar the MUD world is to the fan community. But I'll try not to bore people with this unless someone wants to hear more about the fannish MUDs where people roleplay characters from Star Trek or other science fiction/fantasy settings.

Some Topics Discussed in "Lavender Lilies"

  • this fan has a new computer and is now surfing the internet
  • comparing personal definitions of slash to The Wave Theory
  • discussion about the trope We're Not Gay We Just Love Each Other
  • comments regarding a story the author wrote, Shadows Over the Land
  • the differences between writing m/m slash and f/f slash, overcoming barriers of intimacy and heroism
  • is The X-Files breaking down barriers between slash and het erotic fan fiction?
  • gender and being online
  • a lengthy description of a Venn diagram
  • the appeal of unequal power relationships in fiction
  • comments on trans people, the movie The Crying Game

Excerpts from "Lavender Lilies"

On power relationships and tastes in fan reading: I've found that I am intrigued by stories featuring an unequal power relationship - I do get an - erotic kick out of some sorts of slave, prisoner, etc stories. Some of these are S/M fantasies for me. ARABIAN NIGHTS (as an example) isn't an S/M fantasy by a long shot. Yet the relationship is unequal for a large part of the novel, and this fascinates me. It is erotic, but is more than that. It creates a sort of tension I like to explore, a barrier to the relationship which must be confronted. Will the relationship work out, will Bodie and Doyle break up? Or will B & D eventually find a more equal relationship. Will the power balance switch? .Or will it essentially remain in its unequal state, as it does in HEAT TRACE? Yeah, it's just one of my kinks.

I am one of the "hoi poloi” who has reached the Internet through American Online. I don't have the luxury of being a graduate student or of working for a company which allows me Internet access. I do agree, however, that people who enter any sort of conversation, whether in person or through the Internet, should take time to learn the customs. It's matter of simple courtesy. I read a TIME Magazine article which stated that a few of the corporate and university Internet folk were arbitrarily flaming anyone whose e-mail address contained die stigmatizing "aol.com" part I don't know if this is true or not. I have met nothing but courtesy and good fellowship, and I try and give back the same. I've also heard through some of [H's] comments that the Internet tends to be male-dominated and unfriendly to women. Again, I have not experienced this at all, whether in my psychology e-mail group or the various sports-oriented groups I belong to. Women and men get treated equally. If I ever found that they didn't in a particular mailing list, I would most likely unsubscribe from that list But so far, I haven't found it so.

I've been having fun surfing the Internet. Because the school I go to doesn't have Internet access for students, I joined American Online, one of the commercial services. AOL gives me Internet access to mailing lists, newsgroups, downloads, etc. It also allows for such things as letter- composition, and print-and-read so that a lot of the activity involved in Internet can be done off-line. AOL has its own discussion groups and message boards on such topics as "gay characters on Deep Space 9" plus zillions of other SF, computer, religious (any sort) or political boards, also several on sports (baseball, football, etc.). And I have joined some Internet mailing lists, particularly an academic-oriented one on various psychological aspects of "learned helplessness," plus a bunch of literate, gentle, lovely baseball fans ("baseball-chat"). I just e-mailed a figure skating list and am awaiting their reply.

One reason my past tribs have been filled so much with baseball and [figure] skating is that these are the "real people" I like to slash together. I don't know if I am alone in this sort of fantasizing or if there are others with this kink. When I see ballplayers leaping up and hugging each other, or else I see them comfort each other when times get rough, my slash-lights start blinking full speed ahead! Perhaps it's partly because I used to read baseball novels when I was growing up.

I wonder if X-FILES as a show might be breaking down some of the distinctions between slash and heteroerotic stories. The two characters, a man and a woman (rather than two men) treat each other as partners in the show, not as lovers. They are equal, which is probably one of the actors which makes it attractive to some fans (this is one of the factors which makes it attractive to me).

As for overcoming barriers of intimacy: One of the reasons for the "they're not gay, they are heterosexuals who love each other" premise is to give the characters a barrier, an obstacle to the intimacy both may desire (which is fee "kicker" for many of us readers). If they are "straight," then how can they love one another in a sexual, romantic way? How they finally come to this point is the climax of the story. Some people think dial if the characters are "really gay,” then the compelling barrier is removed, or else made less formidable. This is not my particular view. I don't think that this view is necessarily homophobic. It's just unrealistic. Of course, who said slash had to be realistic? But my kinks run in a different direction; I want them to be queer. For me, a similar scenario would be two characters who think they are not gay or bisexual. They confront the external and internal prejudices which would lead them to this conclusion. They overcome these prejudices and accept the love they hold for each other, plus the societal implications of their realized love. Or else, one or both of the characters is attempting to suppress the fact that s/he is gay. True love overcomes this barrier. Perhaps one or both character will suffer the societal consequence of clinging to this true love (getting fired for being gay, or for being a "security risk"). Will True Love survive this great test?

I've seen in a couple of mailing comments that female/female stories don't fit the essential definition of slash because female characters, unlike male characters, don't have societal barriers to intimacy to overcome. I disagree with this assessment Yes, women can hug each other in this society, and they can express affection for each other more easily than men can. But women face the barrier of transforming an affectional relationship to one which includes erotic attraction. Women characters often have to face the barrier of societal and internalized sexism, which tells them feat women are not worthy objects of attraction. In order to be a truly worthy and heroic person, says this sort of message, fee person must be a man. No woman can be heroic, says fee message. So women characters would have to accomplish two different tasks: to become heroic in their own right Then to break fee barriers to erotic intimacy, which of course can include societal prejudices against homoeroticism (something fee men have to face as well). I, as a writer of F/F slash, get a "double kick" when I finally get fee two women together. They arrive at, and relish the heroism they possess in their own right Then they overcome fee erotic/emotional barriers which strive to block their love. Wife M/M slash, fee process is slightly different when I write it Usually they are already established as heroic. In some ways, this heroism is a barrier for me -- I have to "de-heroize" them a bit, knock them down a peg or two. Then I can get them together in each other's arms, and. At that point, whether M/M or F/F, I can engage in my one-handed writings!!

I don't like the idea of the One True Definition [of slash]. We are free to take whatever definition we want Remember Lezlie's "wave theory?" How an individual slash fan defines slash can be dependent on the factors involved with "waves." But this defining can depend on a myriad amount of other factors. This variety is one of the wonders of slash. Last issue, [S T] discussed the idea of slash being a series of Venn diagrams. For those who might not know what these are, I will use my new computer's graphic capabilities to illustrate in Venn diagrams (Venn diagrams are concentric or non-concentric ellipses or circles to show the interrelationship, or lack thereof of various sets of ideas or objects), at the center. I will show what most slash fans have accepted as part of their definitions of slash: homoerotic stories, dealing with emotional relationships that are based on aired television programs which show two men in a close partner relationship which is not overly romantic. Overlapping this set ("set" is a mathematical term, but it means whatever elements are inside a particular circle) is another set which shows the two main characters in an alternate setting, or in a plot which contradicts the aired canon; these would be AU stories. This circle cuts through the other one, but is not entirely concentric, because in some fans' minds, AU stories are "original universe” and don't fit their definition of slash. Another circle would include stories featuring two female characters rather than two male characters (again, some people would include this set, while some others would exclude it). Yet another circle would include the "plot? what plot?" stories (such as those in FRISKY BUSINESS or SCIENCE FRICTION) which center on sex rather than on an emotional relationship; some would call theses stories "slash" while others would call them "gay porn." Related to this last set is another which defines a work as slash if it is done by a member of the "slash community" (regardless of its literary form or merit) and as not being slash if it is done by those perceived to be outsiders (such as the SCIENCE FRICTION editors as opposed to the FRISKY BUSINESS editors). There is probably another set where the story's protagonists are ambivalent in sex and/or gender, such as Fergus/Dil stories (is Dil a "man" or a "woman?" Is the story "slash" or "heteroerotic?") or else any involving Dax or Odo (is the "real" Odo a man or a woman? Does Odo's race of shape changers have genders in the way we know them?) I've even seen where some people would define a story such as Avon/Servalan as "slash" or else "slashlike" even though the two characters are clearly of opposite genders.

I've found that if I'm reading more slash and enjoying it less, the solution for me (other than leaving the fandom) is to begin writing what I want to read. I wrote SHADOWS OVER THE LAND because I got tired of reading "we're not gay, we're heterosexual men who love each other." I have no problem with others who like this scenario. But it wasn't what wanted. I wanted my characters to be Queer. I wasn't getting enough of it. After grumbling a bit, I wrote my own slash, the sort I wanted to read. While writing it, I also found other Queer slash (where be characters are clearly gay or bisexual) and I read it vociferously. But I also was looking for other things in slash that I wasn't quite finding about the particular nature o fa relationship I wanted to study. I wanted a certain sort of plotting of the sort I wasn't finding enough of. Many writers are not quite satisfied with what they are reading, which figures as a strong motivation to write. The same sort of process happened with F/F stories. I wasn't seeing nearly enough of them, especially the sort where the women become heroic, then break through the barrier to erotic intimacy and accept their own beauty as women. So I began writing these sorts of stories. So, in my humble (?) opinion, if the slash you are reading is not to your liking, then start writing your own.

Re fans' reactions to NEVER LET ME DOWN: I remember when I first published SHADOWS OVER THE LAND. I wondered about fannish reactions to it. I was happy to get the LOCS where people told me how much they enjoyed it. But I did hear about some feedback which said that it was "too "political." I didn't worry about less than positive comments, I realized that it was a matter of tastes. I also got a few comments stating that SHADOWS was too sentimental. I l-o-o-ve sentimental slush, but I know that other people don't always like it; or perhaps believe that it didn't fit in SHADOWS. I had enough positive feedback on SHADOWS to see that it was successful for at least part of the fannish community.

Some Topics Discussed in "When Correctly Viewed"

  • this fan's trib is shorter than usual as she has lost her free access to a photocopier, and going online to talk about slash subjects has taken her energy and interest away from this print apa
  • comments on the apazine, Terra Nostra Underground
  • acafans
  • comments about From Eroica with Love
  • hypertext and electronic fiction
  • comments about books by Tepper, LeGuin, Heinlein, C.S. Lewis
  • n Music RPF

Excerpts from "When Correctly Viewed"

This is probably going to be shorter than my previous apazines, for several reasons: (1) I have to pay for my own photocopying these days; (2) I have already shot my mouth off at considerable length on slash-related topics in the past few apas; and (3) I'm now getting my fannish fix on a more or less daily basis on two Internet mailing lists (B7 and slash), not to mention fannish e-mail correspondence that has now overtaken my snail mail correspondence in volume.

Many thanks for your help in getting set up on the B7 list, which I have been enjoying enormously. You mentioned the interference of mailing comment format with Internet format. I find that nowadays I'm getting the opposite problem, namely Internet format interfering with all other forms of writing. I keep wanting to quote other people's remarks, directly and at considerable length, using those sideways carets or French quotation marks or whatever they are. But personally, I really would prefer short summaries, just enough to give the context of the reply, to all those long quotes. It's especially annoying for me because I get both of the lists in digest form, so that often I read the same text over and over as various people quote it and then reply. I can see, though, why someone getting the messages one at a time, mixed in with other e-mail, would appreciate the memory-refreshing quotes.

musician slash, I used to say that I had no interest in real-people slash, because what I was thinking of was stories about actors as opposed to the far more exciting media characters. But then I recalled, with the help of all the new stimuli provided by [J], my old musings about Japanese rock stars, which were very definitely about their "real" personae. I take refuge in an idea that [B] suggested a while ago: that the public persona of a rock star is in fact a kind of fictional character. It sounds as if I should definitely start taking more of an interest in current popular music. Already I know more about it than I ever did before, thanks to fannish music videos. Now I recognize quite a lot of the songs I hear everywhere on Muzak, only I get visions of B7 characters when I hear them.

...a lovely drawing by Kath that was on the cover of the adult section of the Tarrant apa (and I will, I understand, be in her forthcoming zine). It shows the handsome pilot crying (or at least looking very distressed) on an anonymous male shoulder. The beauty of this idea is that it could potentially illustrate more than one story, according to the taste of the viewer. I'm told that it is an illustration for a story in which the partner is Vila, but there is nothing in the picture itself to counter the assumption that the other party is Avon (my pick) or even Blake (for those who aren't unduly disturbed by double sets of curls).

I've been reading a lot lately about Hypertext and electronic fiction, although I have yet to sample any of the actual products. I find it very amusing that many of the features being touted as innovative (the possibility of multiple viewpoints, etc.) are old hat in fan fiction. Perhaps it is cynical of me, but I suspect that an e-fiction, even if I liked it, would not give me anything much different than a particularly good zine.

It is so true that Eroica is different from other manga. That's precisely why I like it so much. For one thing, it's one of the very few featuring definitely adult male characters. Your comment that Japanese fans tend to identify heavily with one of the existing characters rather than introducing Mary Sues supports a notion I have long harbored about Eroica. I think that Dorian is the Mary Sue character. He's everything a Japanese teenage girl would like to be; rich, gorgeous, fabulously dressed, blond, and male. His problems attracting Klaus's attention (or at least, attracting it in a positive way) are a comical exaggeration of the kinds of problems that young girls (and older ones too, I blush to admit) are typically obsessed with, namely attracting attention of a positive nature from men.

Actually I find all this discussion of academics vs. fans kind of puzzling, because one of the first things I noticed about media fandom when I finally really got into it two years ago (after hovering on the fringes for ages) was that the typical fannish mindset is very similar to the basic mindset of academics. I'm talking about the ability to take a really passionate interest in an obscure subject, to study it backwards and forwards, read everything available (or consume information in other forms), and to develop and express one's own ideas on the beloved subject. I always thought that the capability for devotion to abstract knowledge was what made us academics weird and different from other people, so I was very happy to find that in fact that attitude or ability or whatever is quite widespread. Since getting into fandom I feel much more optimistic than I used to about the intellectual and artistic level of the general population. There is all kinds of talent where you might not expect it.

Aside to others: those of you who belonged to TNU, the predecessor of this apa, may remember a really stunning display of the kind of prejudice I'm talking about, which appeared in one of the later issues of the apa. Years ago I used to try to fight that kind of ignorance, but after a while I gave up. Some people are hopeless cases.

...in heterosexual fan smut, there seems to be less interest in relationships that were consummated within the context of the show (e.g. Avon/Anna) than in ones that weren't (e.g. Avon/Cally). The latter category is perhaps closer to slash because of the additional element of imagination, of moving away from the canon.

...that real on-screen equality for women might eliminate slash as nothing else could? I think it's a definite possibility, but not one that we need to worry about seriously for some time to come (rueful smile). On the other hand, when I discussed this idea with a friend, she was of the opinion that although better female characters and a better attitude toward women generally would eliminate much of the implicitly misogynistic buddy-pair stuff that is the breeding ground of slash, still there would always be certain male couples who just happened to have that magic chemistry. K/S, for example, was inevitable, she thought. Actually, this reminds me a bit of [J's] ideas about magic couples, though her particular magic couples are often not the same ones that other people notice. I agree that what's needed for "real" slash with female characters is to elevate the women to heroic status. A big part of what makes slash what it is for me is the fact that the men are not ordinary guys but heroes, in a setting that is romantic in the broad sense.

Some Topics Discussed in "For the World is Hollow and I Fell Off the Edge"

Excerpts from "For the World is Hollow and I Fell Off the Edge"

I have gained Internet and email access. Don't worry, I won't be one of those people who spend all their time on the nets and the slashlist and shamefully neglect the apa (not that I would ever mention any names:-)). In fact, I will be spending as little time on the nets as I can manage, due to school pressure. Email is welcome, but it may not get answered any faster than snailmail will, and that is running about two weeks behind right now.

By the way, does anyone else think that Janette [in Forever Knight] absolutely oozes lesbian sexuality? She's practically coming on to most of the female guest stars she meets, and the show wasn't shying away from the erotic aspect of bloodsucking when she wanted to chow down on the writer. Yum. (Janette/Natalie, anyone?) (I'd love to see Janette meet the new precinct's captain...)

Point of clarification: I most certainly did not recommend The X-Files. I said that while it had held my interest reasonably well, I was disturbed both by its (distasteful, to me) support for the idea that "the paranormal" and associated phenomena are real, and by its implicit sexism — and also by the way that friends of mine didn't pick up on the latter, although I don't think I said that part. I have watched a few episodes of the new season — I would like to have the time to watch more — and it is still holding my interest, but it still bugs me.

On XF slash, I'm not sure I'm following your argument here. If we define slash as same-sex canon characters, then yeah, it's awfully hard to have XF slash since, as you say, the only two continuing characters are different sexes. Although one could always try pairing Mulder with Deep Throat, or whatever that heavy-breather on the phone's name is. Or are you asking why there has been no attempt (at least, I've heard of none, but I'm kind of out of the loop just now) to try XF slash, whether via crossover, or Mulder/original character, or Mulder/one-shot guest star, or whatever? (Or Scully in any of the above, of course, but where slash is hard, lesbian slash is probably harder.) In other words, are you asking, not why it's difficult (if it is), but why no one seems inclined even to try? I think you are. I would hate to think that female equality, which I'm all for, would eliminate male/male slash, which I'm also in favor of.

QL slash, on the other hand I have seen a lot of people (including myself) using just that "untouchableness" and that characterization of the leads as what you call "convincingly hetero" as evidence for the ease of slash between them! To take the second point first, Sam isn't really characterized as heterosexual, so much as he is characterized as heterosexually gallant. I think he could easily be bi at least. And as for Al, well, methinks the cocksman doth protest too much, y'know? I spent a while with some friends once agreeing that Al has given up on looking for love with women; he sleeps with them because it's fun and easy and it doesn't mean much, but it's pretty clear that Beth, his first wife, has never ever been replaced or even approximated, and that women simply can't do it. But someone totally unlike her, who therefore wouldn't be constantly being compared...like, say, a man? like Sam? Al's endless pussy-chasing doesn't in any way mean that he isn't or couldn't be in love with Sam, simply because the things he is looking for in women are not at all the sort of things he would look for from a real lover. As for the first point, their mutual incorporeality, it could easily serve the same purpose that physical separation, or torturing one in front of the other, or the like does in more traditional slash: it heightens the tension and the pathos. '"Oh, God, Sam...' Al couldn't bear to watch, but he couldn't look away. If only he could hold his friend, his would-be lover, wrap him in his arms and cushion him against the [agony/ecstasy/whatever]." For the cathartic moment when they finally come together (pun not intended but not bad either!), you either bring Sam home, or combine exhibitionistic masturbation with holographic interpenetration as they seem to move through each other.

While I understand your point about slashed characters having no other option, I think that part of the appeal of slash is often that they have lots of other options, most of them much less trouble, and are nonetheless willing to go for that special one. Surely the disposable girlfriends are possible options? Not to mention the other members of Starfleet/CI5/the Rebellion/etc. The major counterexample I can think of is a large tradition in MUNCLE slash in which Illya comes to Napoleon at the end of his rope. In "Turquoise Mine Affair"/City of Byzantium, it's explicit that Illya will die, more or less of physical and psychic despair, unless Napoleon jolts him out of it with love and sex; the setup in Perestroika is much the same thing, although more metaphorical. And as you say, some of the grittier cop/spy settings isolate the partners from all other emotional contact. But against that put stories like the a/u historical in which Bodie-clone and Doyle-clone come from vastly separated places and classes to find each other. God knows they must have met other people along the way

Re Kira/Kira, Melissa Scott, a lesbian sf author with a number of books out including a forthcoming Trek book, who is also a fan, watched that episode on tape with me and [J], and chortled herself silly, because now they've put queer sexuality on screen, and it's canon, and people like Melissa can try to argue their way into writing it into the books! And personally, I was sure squirming on the seat at those scenes. Hubba hubba.

Re MediaWest, the yearly gag of the [theme of the] progress reports and so on, which this past year was cartoons, is not and to my knowledge hasn't ever been a theme, strictly speaking. It's not a special focus of the con; it is nothing more than a different way each year to decorate the PRs. This past year was no different from any others in that way; you're criticizing the con for not doing something it never had any intention of doing.

Some Topics Discussed in "To Be Announced"

Excerpts from "To Be Announced"

I like DS9 much much more than ST:TNG. I found the people in TNG boring, but DS9 has so much warmth to it.

I have only found 'no rules' relationships within fandom. I always felt isolated and very aware of the 'rules' even within my own family.

The 'myth' over here [in the UK] is that a TV show or a film that is to be shown in America has to explain every little detail! Some of the films that show over here then get a video release sometimes come in two forms - the British version and the American versions. 'Legend' had so many references to the clocks in the clockmakers house in the American version that were cut out for the British version that there were articles about it in several magazines - the general idea on this was that the British audience only needed telling once that time had stopped but that it needed hammering into the American audience.

Most of the complaints about Babylon 5 have been 'wooden acting', I haven't seen anything about 'no plot' or 'too much plot'.

Favourite Hurt/Comfort: what a question, its like asking 'what is your favourite story.' It depends on what I have just read. I've just reread a lot of the B/D that I have lying around the place. To me h/c does not come from physical hurt caused by one partner on the other. There is a story (I've forgotten the name) wherein Doyle has both arms out of action (on in a cast and one in a sling I think) he struggles along for a few days but is just so thankful/grateful/relieved when Bodie comes back from an assignment to 'care' for him until the arms are better - I think this is a slash story but I cannot really remember, its the reactions of Bodie and Doyle to Doyle being hurt in such a way as to make everything so impossible that I remember. Yes, I do enjoy the 'hurt so bad he should be dead but is alive, well and fit 2 hours later' ones, but my favourites tend to be 'head cold, 'measles' 'broken leg' - everyday things that could happen to each and every one of us.

Some Topics Discussed in "Unknown Unsecrets Unspoken"

As the intelligent and discerning among you will have noticed, this apazine was actually written by three people, all members of the apa, and not by [L A], who is not. Each paragraph was written by a different person, and a suitable prize will be awarded to the first person drawn out of a hat who (a) can say who wrote it b) can match paragraph to pornographer (c) can fit into the hat.

[...]

As neither of the other two are here to stop her, she intends to send this to the OE Just like this. The other two are not to be held responsible for anything their crazed other third does in moments of high stress and low comedy.

This paragraph is written by somebody else, who always lies on Sundays.

Excerpts from "Unknown Unsecrets Unspoken"

Once upon a time, in a city far, far away.... Three amateur pornographers met to eat, drink, tease cats, and write. The cats having been teased, the cream whipped, and the tart eaten, they sat down at the keyboard and began to do what enthusiastic amateurs do. They leave the keyboard under the pretense of feeding the cats. Leaving me all free and without any supervision to talk about Miguel Ferrer.

Almost forgot who I was for a moment. Which pseudonym I'm supposed to be using that is. My co-conspirators are behind me playing with the VCR...well what else do slash fans do when the word processor is occupied. Trouble is we're not all that sure what we want to write about...

Oh, that reminds me [M F G]...you did promise [C] a Guy of Gisboume/Robert de Rainault story. So far this evening we have done all the things [J] has mentioned and also drooled over pictures from [C]'s favourite fandoms. Not a bad way to spend a Monday evening...if only we could find that elusive subject for these pages...

Perhaps we should write about what happens in that alternate universe to our own, where slash characters write slash about slash fans? I bet Roj Blake writes hurt/comfort slash, and Vila Restal writes goopy romances, and Kerr Avon writes hurt/hurt. Illya and Napoleon collaborate a lot; Illya does the plots. Napoleon - does the sex-scenes. Who do they write about? Us, of course. There's a story Aramis wrote about Kari d'Herblay and [S] that I would love to read... but I can't read it unless I get into their universe, which exists between the dots, the fli[c]kers on the screen.

Today I went on a splurge of buying Original Version videos: Robocop, Champions, Red Dwarf, Hopkirk Deceased, couple of movies where Miguel Ferrer had a small role, couple of very cheap tapes where Dolph Lundgren has the main role: Movies I already knew. Dark Angel is the sort of slash I like. Where trust is a liability. I yielded and bought my own copy of Rules of Acquisition. And a a whole bunch of filk tapes and audio tape (like Neuromancer which I had already read). What this has got to do with anything? Well, the Robocop tape I use to show [S] and [J] all the good bits about Miguel Ferrer, or rather Jack Morton. He's a creep who should be slashed with Alan B'stard. Or Arnold Rimmer, since Alan B'Stard is just like Rimmer, only more aggressive, and a right-wing member of Parliament. [J's] news has rather spoilt my enjoyment of Red Dwarf, though.

[J] and [C] have decided that I am fictional...the sad thing is that I believe them...It is, in fact, something I have thought before...I just wish I had someone nicer writing my stories...Perhaps one of my own soppy slash characters. Hmmm... So I'm fictional. Is this why I don't always contribute to SBF? Nah... If I was one of [J]'s characters she'd never let me miss a deadline...Actually she once produced six different fictional contributions by six fictional characters for another apa we both belong to. A lot of people thought they were genuine and got quite upset when they found out. They have given up on fictional me and gone back to watching Miguel Ferrer getting snuffed - God I do love the evenings I spend with slash fans!

My thesis is that everyone's fictional, and that we have our stories written by the characters we write about. So I am being written by Avon, Vila, Spock, McCoy, Bodie, Cowley, and the Three Murphies.... not to mention all the people from my own stories... I wonder what their story conferences are like? I wish I could hear what they're planning for me.

I like flicking back and forth between realities. I have a plan to write a story about a slash convention where the attendees are Avon, Vila, Cally, Servalan, Bodie, Cowley, Doyle, Carter, Aramis, Spock, McCoy, and Doctors Who IV, V, and VII. They write slash in various series, but their favourite, and the one they've all gathered to discuss, is Strange Bedfellows (it used to be called Terra Nostra Underground but the TV company who produces it changed the name when the actor playing the OE had a body transplant).

Why should fictional characters write about real people? Can you imagine writing about someone spending hours doing nothing better than watching you, and hooting, squealing, wheezing and doing various other creative organic noises at you? And then, discussing your finer and lesser finer points. Delighting to speculate on the exact topology of your private parts, and then imagining rather disconcerting things to be done to them by your colleagues at work. Though I can certainly imagine fictional characters writing stories where they dip screen writers in either a vat full of Robocop food or a giant beer flavoured milkshake. BUT THAT IS NOT WHAT I JOINED SLASHDOM FOR! Please, talk about slash! Even if it involves Bodie! Please! Somebody be reasonable!

References

  1. ^ The Free Amazons are from Darkover books, not Gor books.
  2. ^ This fan is NOT referring to Indiana Jones and the Last Taboo UNLESS the story was circulated privately before being printed in the zine Dyad in 2000 and 2001.
  3. ^ "All Alone" is a story by Jane Carnall in The Unique Touch #3.
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