The Slash Not Written For a Gay Audience

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Title:	The Slash Not Written For a Gay Audience
Creator:	Kirby Crow
Date(s):	2000
Medium:	online
Fandom:	slash
Topic:
External Links:	online here
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The Slash Not Written For a Gay Audience is an essay arguing that most slash fanfiction is not written with a gay male audience in mind. It's a contribution to the long-running Slash vs. Gay debate.

It was cited in Jae's essay Young, Female, Single…? A Study of Demographics and Writing-/Reading-Habits of Fanfiction Writers and Readers.

Reactions/Reviews

• "You have, I think, summed up succinctly the rambling 'debate' about slash and gayness that's been floating around for the last couple of weeks, and you've said, better than I could, all I've thought about it. Thank you."
• "As a slasher or het writer I am more interested in the emotional aspects of any couple on mot merely the sexual acts. Is that not gay enough? Then the advocates of the idea that slash is not gay are themselves forwarding the stereotypical concept of homophobics that all gay men really want is sex. I just don't believe that's a fact."
• "I must say that rants such as this one (and there've been quite a lot around of these) make me feel highly uncomfortable most of the time and while I find myself agreeing with some of the points made later on, I think I do not quite understand why anyone would think there's a difference between (straight) women reading slash and gay men doing the same. Why should gay men in general be only interested in stories that feature "gay issues" and have the characters "act gay", whatever "acting gay" means anyway?"
• "Those in the non-realistic slash camp typically respond that they aren’t interested in realism, that they write and read slash that doesn’t sound like genuine men having real life sex because they are writing sexual fantasies, and their preferred fantasy is one that objectifies men’s bodies while imposing a female construct on the sex. A well-written example of that argument is Kirby Crow’s The Slash Not Written for a Gay Audience. As she says, “In Slash fiction, female writers are generally not writing about gay men, even if they're writing about two men in bed together. They are appropriating men's bodies to explore an idealized sexual fantasy that bears little - if any - resemblance to reality or "real" gay relationships. Hence the term fiction.” I think this essay is very clear and succinct in its arguments, and they are sentiments I see a lot."