Why Males Flame Slash!
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| Title: | Why Males Flame Slash! |
| Creator: | Joel Ayau |
| Date(s): | reposted to the site on November 3, 2003, but written before that |
| Medium: | online |
| Fandom: | multifandom |
| Topic: | slash, fanfiction |
| External Links: | online here, via Wayback; WebCite |
| Click here for related articles on Fanlore. | |
Why Males Flame Slash! is an essay by Joel Ayau.
It was posted at Writers University.
Excerpts
First, my own thoughts: I have never really been able to swallow male mutual attraction between the characters of a children's novel. It doesn't help when fanfic authors rush right to the smooching without explaining anything, hoping that the reader already understands that Draco is a hunky man-magnet. I understand that fan fiction lets one do whatever s/he wants, and many writers do just that, but good fan fiction blends seemlessly from the real author's work to the faux author. So, for the love of God, take a little more time in setting up your raunchy environment, so that it at least sort of makes sense. And here's a tip from the Gay (Bi-) Male World: 12-year old boys don't go shouting their attraction to every available Harry in sight; it just doesn't work that way. Of course, it's your Universe, so maybe they live in a much more sexually-tolerant environment, or Republicans are already extinct.
On a side note, I also can't get nearly as involved in a slash fiction piece because, being a man, I like girls, and so I can't identify with Harry while he's boinkin' Ron as much as I can when he's cuddling with Hermy. Or Cho, for that matter (whom, interestingly, I've never read a fanfic about. There's a rare pairing for you.)
Basically it comes down to this: sometimes, when I get my daily installment of Cassie & Rhysenn fun, I feel like it's a bunch of girls bandying about with men like they're pieces of steaming, hot meat. While this in itself is not so bad (turnabout is fair play, after all, and men having been doing it since someone wrote the bible and made Eve the stupid one) maybe you don't think it shows in your stories. It does. Which may be fine for some women to read, because they're not trying too hard to identify with the male characters, but often, when you look at some HP fanfictions too closely, they just don't make sense, and don't ring true. And isn't that what makes a great story?