Why Slash

Related terms:	Women and Slash
See also:	My Thoughts on Yaoi, In Defense of Fanfiction
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Like the proverbial salmon swimming upstream, there often comes a time in every meta fan's life when they feel compelled to return to the Ultimate Question: but why slash?

Fans sometimes refer to this perennial wondering as "why slash" or "the why slash debate" and answers are as varied as fen.

The longer one is in fandom, the shorter one's response to this question becomes, often shrinking from vast multipost entries to the pithy and incomplete/inaccurate: "Because two men = hot".

The persistence of the "why slash?" debate, while no equivalent existential soul-searching exists for "why het?" (rather than specific ship manifestos for favorite pairings), reflects the idea that being a slasher is a question of identity and self-definition for some slash readers, rather than just a reading and/or pairing preference in a fandom.

So, good luck! As a fan in 1995 wrote:

Heh. Right. In 20-odd years of writing and reading and *active* discussion (the question was raised on more than one occasion, in fact, as to whether there was a correllation between the drive to analyse into the ground and the drive to read/write slash), there has been nothing even approaching consensus amongst the members of the 'slash community'. If you manage to achieve it here, I can only conclude that you're ignoring some major issues!

Also see Timeline of Slash Meta.

Example Meta Essays

1990

• Why Slash? (1990 essay) by [C A]

1997

• What's all this, then? by The Divine Adoratrice (1997)

1998

• Zoe Rayne's Slash Theory (1998)

1999

• Why I Write Slash by Kass (1999)
• Understanding Slash Challenge with 39 responses. (May 1999)

2001

• Women and Slash - Why, why, why? by Julad (2001)

2002

• Goes to Motive by Betty Plotnick (2002)
• Slash and Hurt/Comfort by Jessica Ruth (2002)

2003

• Some Thoughts on Femslash by Kadorienne (January 2003)
• What *is* slash? (2003 essay by Flamingo) (April 2003)
• enlarging the borders of imagination by fabularasa (May 2003)
• Why disliking slash is not homophobic by Aja (May 2003)
• Why I Write Slash (essay by Ivy Blossom) (August 2003)
• An Open Letter to the Anti-Slash People by The Brat Queen (September 2003)
• The Cost of the Erection: Slash and Gayness by by Executrix (September 2003)
• The Erotic versus the Realistic: Sex in Slash Fiction by Morgan )0( (September 2003)
• What is Slash? by The Brat Queen (November 2003)

2004

• The Fanfic Symposium: Why do I Like Slash? Plain Answers from a Het Woman by Dark Twin. (2004)

2005

• The Joy of Slash: Why do women want it? by Melissa Pittman (2005)
• Okay, fandom question here!; archive link, by lunabee (2005)

2010

• Girls who are boys who like boys to be girls... by FayJay (2010)

2011

• sex, and slash sex scenes by Shoshanna. Essay on the writer's initial discovery of and views on slash as the (sole) genre that integrates people's lives in the bedroom with their lives outside it. (April 2011)

Other Examples

• Category:Perspectives on Fans
• Category:Slash Meta
• Timeline of Slash Meta
• Writing ‘Slash’ Fan Fiction: Power, Desire and Eye-Candy in a Never Ending Romance