Hey, Did You Know That if Fanfiction Went Away, There Would Be No More Gays or Lesbians? What would we watch late at night on Cinemax?

I got a long email the other day. It turns out it’s from the same blogger who thinks I’m a sad little man who longs to write fanfiction.  She writes, in part:

I am a fanfiction writer, a slash fanfiction writer at that, I am not as illustrious or ambitious or zealous as some but I am glad to be one. I am as proud to be a slash fanfiction writer as I am to a lesbian and let me tell you it is very much the same feeling.

[…]At fifteen I bumped into my very first piece of fanfiction and it was like a bolt of lightening and then a few weeks later when I read my first piece of slash- its was very much like the first time I ever consider that I might be gay. It’s that monumental feeling of freedom, of knowledge; you finally know why the world seems a little off.

[…]My point is that fanfiction to you and (I’ll be presumptuous and say) I get the impression writing is too, nothing more than a hobby or a job and there’s nothing wrong with that. But you have to understand that for a lot of fans this writing helps shape who they are.

[…]Do you hate gay people Mr. Goldberg? I don’t think that you do, even if you just objected to slash fanfiction, I still would not think that. But what is the difference between what you do and a father who tells his 15 year old son it’s not okay to be gay? If there is one I can’t see it and you can hide behind all the copyright laws that you wish, but I assure you it will be no different then how the church hides behind over-zealously translated bible script.

Why is it that the people who write & publish fanfic feel that if I oppose what they are doing I must be either homophobic or have no passion for writing myself?

I love writing and am passionate about it.  I’m extremely fortunate that it’s also how I make my living and support my family, too. But believe it or not, loving to write…and making money doing it…aren’t mutually exclusive. 

But now by opposing fanfiction, I’m not just a passionless hack who writes only for the money…I am also preventing people from discovering their sexuality.

Call me crazy, but I think there are lots of ways you can discover and explore your sexuality without taking  characters you didn’t create or own, writing stories about them, and publishing them on the web without the author’s permission. It’s one thing to write fanfic for yourself to fantastize about or as a writing exercise, it’s another when you publish and/or post the stories on the web without the original authors’ consent. 

I believe it’s theoretically possible that women will still discover that they are lesbians without writing and publishing/posting stories about Buffy and Xena exploring the joys of sapphic love together…and that men might continue to discover their gay selves without writing and publishing/posting stories about Harry Potter giving Ron blowjobs…

33 thoughts on “Hey, Did You Know That if Fanfiction Went Away, There Would Be No More Gays or Lesbians? What would we watch late at night on Cinemax?”

  1. Keep opposing it Lee and you’ll get pinned for global warming, illiteracy, childhood obesity and The Jerry Springer Show as well.
    The thing I love the most about fanfiction, and I have only been introduced to this world through this blog and the various links….is that common sense is not a requirement to produce said fanfiction.
    When is an overzealous fanfic writer going to be the murderer on Monk? 🙂
    Best of luck.
    cheers
    Dave

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  2. I don’t think Lee’s crazy about boy-on-girl fanfic either, but no one’s accusing him of being heterophobic. Or does that come under the heading of being anti-sex? Do you get accused of that, Lee?
    I think people talk more about slash fiction because it’s a more obvious mischaracterization than most kinds of fan fiction; if a character has been presented as heterosexual, slash is a clear ‘Never mind what the author says, I’m doing it my way.’ Also any kind of fetish that you don’t happen to share always seems pretty weird, so it’s an easy target if you’re looking for something to make jokes about. The latter is not a particularly good reason, in my view; cheap cracks aren’t very impressive.
    On the other hand, I get the impression that Joss Whedon, for example, is perfectly happy for fan fiction writers to write whatever the heck they please, so if it helps a confused young girl get her ideas straightened out and makes her feel more comfortable with her sexuality, then hooray for human happiness. Given authorial consent, it’s nice to think that it might be useful to people trying to figure things out.

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  3. Yes, Monk will be dealing with a fanfiction writer who might just be a murderer…in MR. MONK IN OUTER SPACE, which comes out in January.

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  4. My dearest boy, I was in no way linking coming out of the closet and writing slash fanfiction in literal terms. They are alike, but one does not cause the other. I was more pointing out that people do use fanfiction as a way to sort our their personal lives at times, a friend of mine writing a long grief piece after she lost her husband.
    My being gay has nothing to do with me writing slash fanfiction and the main reason for this, my first guess would be that I write Male slash fanfiction. Not female slash fanfiction and I’ve never been near Buffy or Xena. Thanks for the ego boost though.
    Cheers

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  5. Eyup,
    “I think people talk more about slash fiction because it’s a more obvious mischaracterization than most kinds of fan fiction; if a character has been presented as heterosexual, slash is a clear ‘Never mind what the author says, I’m doing it my way.’ ”
    Or the fan author could simply have a more flexible definition of sexuality than you do. I, and many of the fan writers I’ve talked to, don’t necessarily think that the fact that someone has been shown in a heterosexual relationship is a clear indicator that they would never participate in a homosexual one. And it’s rare to get a clear indication of what a character’s true sexuality is, especially on tv, since there are limits to the risks most tv shows are willing to take and it’s only in the last decade that any hint of homosexuality was not a major source of controversy. The gay/not gay divide is a social construction – and there is societal bias against flexibility. The truth is, in most cases we have no idea what a character’s sexuality is – especially in cases where being open about sexuality would create conflict (eg. military characters) or the case of minor characters where we know considerably less about their backgrounds than the protagonists. It may be the common societal default to assume that all people/characters are straight until proved otherwise, that doesn’t mean it’s a correct assumption.
    As with all writing, there’s a lot of slash that either pushes the boundaries of believability or forces a 90 degree turn in continuity without bothering to explore the fact that they are presenting a different side of a character. I see such things in original writing all the time – and it pisses me off a lot more when I’ve paid for the drek. But the best writers can make you believe in the relationship.
    I don’t think that Mr. Goldberg is homophobic – he objects to all freely circulated fanfic, not just slash. However, his frequent use of various slash and kink fics as examples for ridicule indicates to me that he has no problem playing on other people’s sexual squicks to support his point (resorting to emotional discomfort rather than logic). Of course the quality of the writing isn’t the point – there are just as many bad original writers as fan writers. But that always seems to get lost in those arguments.
    That also wasn’t what the original blogger was saying – she specified that she _did_not_ think that Mr. Goldberg was a homophobe. She was drawing an analogy between homophobia creating an atmosphere of shame that forces people into the closet and the expectation that fan writers should somehow be ashamed of themselves and forgo the community aspects of fandom and keep it to themselves. Make of that what you will.
    Addendum: I should refresh the page more often – I see she has made her own clarification. Still – that analogy is what I originally took from what she wrote so I’ll leave it in.

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  6. I’m a pretty open minded fellow and I read Marilyn Vos Savant every week in Parade, so I’m versed in riddles, but for the life of me cannot figure out how coming out of the closet and writing slash fiction is in any way alike. I have a friend who finally came out to her parents recently and at no point in her discussion with me about it did she say, “The only think I can equate it to is writing Kirk/Spock slash fiction.”

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  7. Beside yourself and perhaps the occasional author’s or studio’s attorney, who reads fanfic? Other fanfic writers. It’s a closed universe that’s of no importance or consequence to anyone else.
    You only post about fanficcers because it’s an easy way to generate traffic for this blog.

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  8. Hi Lost Erizo, hope you’re well… I don’t think it’s reasonable to make assumptions my attitude to sexuality when you don’t know me. I might be straight, I might be gay, I might be a purity-before-marriage fundamentalist Christian; I might be a transgendered bisexual polyamorist. Who knows? Assume nothing. 🙂 I think we need to draw a line between attitudes towards real people and attitudes towards fiction.
    In the real world, you should never assume that you know everything about a real person’s sexuality – it’s nobody’s business but their own, for one thing – but characters are imaginary constructs composed of nothing more than the words a writer puts on a page, as presented by an actor and a director. They’re the sum of their parts, not a whole. And if the writer, actor and director are all positing that the character is straight, then it seems reasonable to assume that the character is straight until further notice. A slash writer is doing a writ-large version of what a lot of fan fiction does, which is letting the fan’s preferences take the lead.
    Of course, assuming the author doesn’t mind, who cares? It’s just deviating from canon, ie deviating from the author’s conception of their work. But it’s deviating from it more drastically to have Captain Kirk forsake the alien ladies he seems to enjoy so much and get into bed with a man than it is to have him having an exciting adventure on a strange planet and generally acting as he does on the TV show. Hence, it’s easier to point to. That’s all I was saying; I’m not trying to curtail anyone’s sexual freedom. As I said, given authorial consent, I don’t care at all what kind of fan fiction people write, and I hope it makes them happy.
    Also, at the risk of starting an argument, can I point out that it’s perfectly possible to enjoy same-sex erotica and still be homophobic, because human beings are contradictory? In the real world, it’s a safe guess that plenty of men who have a real problem with other men being gay still consume girl-on-girl porn for their own gratification. Being in favour of slash doesn’t necessarily prove that you’re in favour of gay rights. (This blogger obviously is, but it’s not a universal rule.)
    And can I say again that, given authorial consent, the use of fanfiction to help people cope with diffcult things, as described by this blogger, sounds like a good thing to me? I don’t think we should lose sight of that.

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  9. “Of course the quality of the writing isn’t the point – there are just as many bad original writers as fan writers.”
    It’s logic like this that’s the heart of the problem. Obviously these writers are making well known characters over in their own image. Judgments about that in real life notwithstanding, readers know porn when they see it.

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  10. My initial reaction was, “Bwuh?” upon reading this. Since when has being in favor of intellectual property rights been the same as condemning homosexuality? That is a leap of logic I just can’t make.
    For the record, I am gay. I was gay before I read anything by Lee, and I’ve never read or written fanfic.

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  11. Dear Ey-up,
    I apologize if I insulted you or made unwarranted assumptions. None was meant. I didn’t mean to imply that you have an objection to homosexual behavior. But you do seem to have a rather rigid interpretation of what a literary character can realistically be shown to do.
    I don’t think authorial intent makes a difference one way or another – whether talking about a character’s sexuality or any other aspect of their personality. Only what is presented in print or on the stage or screen matters, and that may or may not accurately reflect what the author intended. Authors are flawed beings and the audience will have their own perspectives and interpretations. Characters are not people, but if a character is realistically presented (ie. not a caricature), it should be safe to assume that they can have just as many twists and turns in their personalities as real people.
    In your first comment you said:
    “I think people talk more about slash fiction because it’s a more obvious mischaracterization than most kinds of fan fiction; if a character has been presented as heterosexual, slash is a clear ‘Never mind what the author says, I’m doing it my way.’ ”
    Why do you make the blanket assumption that it’s a mischaracterization? How often are characters shown to be unequivocally heterosexual? The fact is that we are not shown in most cases. We may see a character in a heterosexual relationship (or relationships), but as I said above, I don’t think that’s actually a good predictor of sexuality. That is to say, it may indicate that they would be open to another heterosexual relationship, but it doesn’t necessarily indicate that they would object to a homosexual one.
    You later said:
    “And if the writer, actor and director are all positing that the character is straight, then it seems reasonable to assume that the character is straight until further notice.”
    That may be your assumption, but if it’s not actually shown in the context of the piece, I don’t think that it’s reasonable to assume that about a character any more than it is reasonable to assume that about an actual person. How many characters come out and say, unequivocally “I’m straight and I have no desire to be otherwise.” Film and literary characters rarely give anything near that kind of cut and dried reaction, or even more subtle indications, unless someone of the same sex actually makes a pass in the context of the story or when sexual orientation is the subject of the piece. That’s certainly not true of Star Trek TOS, to use the same example you did. I’m not a Trekker, so correct me if I’m wrong, but was Captain Kirk ever shown to reject an advance from a male? Or to express any opinion on homosexuality? Given the limitations of 1960’s TV, I doubt any attempt was made. But being enthusiastic about sex with women is not necessarily evidence of a lack of enthusiasm for sex with men. Without some more concrete indication of what Kirk’s opinion would be, all you can say is that he is not gay, as we usually define the term. But you have no basis for making the assumption that he is 100% heterosexual.
    I agree that people are contradictory, and literary taste is not a good predictor of behavior or prejudice. But characters, since they are usually meant to represent people, are often contradictory as well. A good writer can do a lot to convince you that a character would behave in certain ways under the right circumstances (just as a bad writer might have trouble convincing you that a character is likely to do the same thing they did last week). Whatever your objections to fanfic in general, or slash in the specific, it’s mere existence is not evidence that fan writers are twisting characters in unbelievable ways.

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  12. I had respect for your opinion, Lost Erizo, until today. These comments of yours may be the dumbest things ever said by anyone on Lee Goldberg’s blog (perhaps someone else is posting under your name today???):
    “How often are characters shown to be unequivocally heterosexual? The fact is that we are not shown in most cases. We may see a character in a heterosexual relationship (or relationships), but as I said above, I don’t think that’s actually a good predictor of sexuality.”
    “If it’s not actually shown in the context of the piece, I don’t think that it’s reasonable to assume that about a character any more than it is reasonable to assume that about an actual person. How many characters come out and say, unequivocally “I’m straight and I have no desire to be otherwise.” Film and literary characters rarely give anything near that kind of cut and dried reaction, or even more subtle indications, unless someone of the same sex actually makes a pass in the context of the story or when sexual orientation is the subject of the piece.”
    Your notion that unless a character actually states “I am straight” that it’s safe to assume he or she is bi-sexual is just lame. There’s no doubt in anyone’s mind but yours that Capt. Kirk is straight…or that Dr. Welby, James Bond, Harry Potter, Thomas Magnum, Little Joe Cartwright, Dirty Harry, Sheriff Dillon, Indiana Jones, Simon Templar, Joe Mannix, Superman, Luke Skywalker, Spenser, Adrian Monk, Jason Bourne, Columbo, Horatio Caine, Joe Friday, James T. West, Jack Reacher, are too…even if they haven’t signed notarized papers swearing to it.
    And no one but you doubts that making characters like those gay is twisting the original author’s intent. Since, as you say, fanfiction authors don’t care about the author’s intent anyway, why go to the trouble of rationalizing slash with silly arguments like this one?
    Fanfiction authors write slash because they like the sexual fantasy of two firmly established, unquestionably hetero characters succumbing to homosexual desire.

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  13. Anonymous,
    Sorry to have disappointed you. But let me point out that I did not say that I assumed all characters are bisexual unless they make a notarized statement to the contrary. What I actually said is “Film and literary characters rarely give anything near that kind of cut and dried reaction, _or_even_more_subtle_indications_.” (emphasis added) You have my apologies for using an artificially simplified and didactic example to make my point, but there seemed to be confusion as to what I was getting at.
    In most cases we simply do not know any more than what our own cultural biases lead us to assume. There are lots of characters that I would have a hard time believing in a same sex relationship. My disbelief doesn’t make it impossible though. It merely reflects a failure of imagination. I think that people (and characters) are complex and the fact that someone presents as primarily heterosexual does not mean that a good writer can’t build a story with a set of circumstances in which that character would believably engage in homosexual behavior. You seem to argue that “straight” means always and everywhere and under all circumstances. While that may be true for many, it’s not true of all people, even those who when asked would identify themselves as straight. Human sexuality is a continuum, not a three way choice. Social expectations can color how someone presents themselves in public, no matter how they behave in private.
    Until you read a piece and evaluate whether an author was successful in showing that relationship, you have no way of knowing whether a piece of slash is unbelievable or mischaracterizing. Blanket dismissal of the entire category of work as OOC without that evaluation is merely prejudice. That prejudice most likely reflects your own biases, not those of fanfic authors whose motivations for writing I would not presume to know.
    I’m not sure why you object so forcefully to my rejection of authorial intent. If an author intended something that wasn’t clear from the presentation of their work, how were we to know otherwise? Telepathy? I don’t think different rules should apply just because an author is alive and kicking and yelling in your ear. The piece should be able to stand on it’s own merits.

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  14. I don’t think we’re actually disagreeing here, Lost Erizo, except insofar as we’re back to the fundamental disagreement as fan rights versus author rights, which we’ve been over backwards and forwards. 🙂 Which, in a way, tends to support the idea that objections to slash aren’t about homosexuality but about copyright and creativity.
    That, I think, is the difference between what Lee does and a father telling his son it’s not okay to be gay. I’d say objecting to unauthorised slash is more like saying it’s not okay to have sex in public, whether you’re gay or not. It’s not about the gender orientation, it’s about the act itself.

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  15. Eyup,
    I’m not going to debate with you about the analogy of ‘being gay : coming out :: writing fanfic : putting it on the web.’ As I said in my initial post, I think that that is the analogy that the OP was making, and that people seemed to be misreading it, but make of it what you will. Whether I find that analogy useful or not is irrelevant. I’m not interested in discussing someone’s personal feelings about or motivations for writing. Those will be as various as the people themselves.
    What I objected to, and what all of my posts in this thread were about, was your blanket statement “slash fiction… it’s a more obvious mischaracterization.” That portraying a well known character in a homosexual relationship when they had not been obviously portrayed that way in the original piece is per se making them act out of character. That is a separate issue from author’s rights and the legality of fanfiction, and it is not one we have ever discussed before (that I remember offhand). It also appears to be an issue on which we disagree strongly, unless you would like to retract that statement.
    To demonstrate what I mean, I’ll give you an example where the original author to did this in a serial format piece. That should simplify things since it removes all questions of authorial intent (since it’s the original author who did it). In the fourth season of BtVS the character of Willow suddenly became gay (not, according to her, bisexual) despite previous heterosexual attractions and sexual relationships, and no previous evidence of homosexual tendencies. Was she acting out of character? Would it be more or less so if that storyline was written by a fan, rather than the writing team at Mutant Enemy? How is that any different from someone writing slash, (since that’s how that storyline would have been described were it a piece of fanfiction)? It’s the quality of the writing and development of the storyline that makes it believable or not, not whether it has the blessing of Joss Whedon, and not whether the writer did it under license.

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  16. I think I should clarify: I’m not saying that a change of sexual habits is more believable if it’s written with the copyright holder’s consent. I’m saying that as long as the copyright holder has consented, people can write whatever the heck they want, whether it’s believable or not. That’s where the issue of consent comes in.
    Beyond that, believability is a specific issue – but making it plausible that a character would suddenly start finding their own sex attractive when they’ve shown no sign of it before is an unusually difficult writing problem. I don’t think I’m alone, for instance, in thinking that Willow suddenly identify herself as ‘gay’, having shown no sexual interest at all in women and a great deal in men, was a bit of a leap. (Check out the article Mark posted; that person agrees with me, and she’s a slash fan.) I kept watching it because the series remained entertaining, and I was pleased to see gay characters being handled respectfully in a TV show – but I didn’t think it was particularly well handled. But I had no legal/moral/ethical/whatever objection to it happening: Whedon had signed off on it.
    Would it have been more or less plausible if it had been written by a fan? It depends on the ability of the fan. Would I have cared either way? No: Whedon signed off on fan fiction as well.
    Conversely, a fan who wanted to write some kind of slash erotica about some Anne Rice characters would have a much easier time making it plausible, because there’s a lot of sexual tension between her male characters. Would I care then? Yes: Ms Rice has specifically asked people not to fic her work.
    The difference in plausibility would lie in the writing the fic was based on. My evidence is only anecdotal, but most of the people I know whose sex lives are more varied than the hetero norm say that they always had an inkling they had other tastes, whether bi, gay, fetishistic or whatever: it just took them a while to identify and act on them. (Melissa Pittman, who wrote the article I mentioned, is an example: she says she identified with masculinity from childhood.) As a character only exists in writing and performance, if the writing and performance have given no hints as to those inklings, that makes plausibility much more difficult to achieve. It would take an exceptionally skilled writer, and the majority of fan fiction writers aren’t exceptionally skilled, because most people aren’t.
    That isn’t a fan fiction issue, though; it’s a writing issue. And if you’re enjoying a story, you may not even care whether it’s plausible – like I said, I didn’t think that the Willow storyline was the series’ finest moment plausibility-wise, but I kept watching because what I really cared was that it entertained me. Similarly, if slash appeals to something in you, then you may not care whether it’s canonically likely, because it’s pleasing to you.
    But handling the transition is difficult, and takes more skill than most people, whether fans or professional writers, possess. Which I’m not overly bothered about, really, because the quality of fan fiction is not my problem. But that’s my two cents worth on the subject.

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  17. Eyup,
    “Would it have been more or less plausible if it had been written by a fan? It depends on the ability of the fan.”
    If you accept that that is true, would you please stop making blanket statements about the plausibility of an entire category of writing? It would certainly cut down on the volume of this blog.
    “most of the people I know whose sex lives are more varied than the hetero norm say that they always had an inkling they had other tastes, whether bi, gay, fetishistic or whatever: it just took them a while to identify and act on them.”
    In most media, we don’t have any access to a character’s innermost thoughts. We only have their actions and what they say aloud. So they could very well have an “inkling” as you put it, and we as the audience would have no way of knowing that unless they acted on it in the context of the piece. Having them acknowledge and explore that “inkling” later on is is only implausible if you assume that people are always completely open about their feelings and/or that human sexuality is static. Those may be common societal assumptions, but they’re based on little or no evidence.
    “As a character only exists in writing and performance, if the writing and performance have given no hints as to those inklings, that makes plausibility much more difficult to achieve.”
    Only if we have access to their innermost thoughts (which in some written literature we do, so fair enough) or the character not only admits to those thoughts (even to themself) but is in the habit of sharing them out loud with the audience, which is relatively rare. How many characters in an action/adventure show (just an example – pick a different genre if you want) are accustomed to blurting out to their buddies “I have this secret desire that, once I tell you about it, will make you completely reconsider how I present myself to the world and possibly make me a target of harassment.” It sounds silly when I put it that way, doesn’t it? I can think of one TV show that actually did this (Homicide:LotS springs to mind) but few others have been willing to take those kinds of risks until very recently. Your assumption that we always, or even the majority of the time, know the complete background and inner workings of a character’s psyche from what is portrayed on screen simply doesn’t hold up. It’s very common, especially in serial formats, for us to learn new things about a character’s personality months or years into the serial. Even things that fundamentally change the way we think about that character – for example, that they have estranged siblings, or were once married.
    “But handling the transition is difficult, and takes more skill than most people, whether fans or professional writers, possess. Which I’m not overly bothered about, really, because the quality of fan fiction is not my problem.”
    This is precisely the point I’ve been making – the transition depends on the quality of the writing, not the fact that it is slash or fanfiction. I’ve read slash that did a much better job than Mutant Enemy did, and with much more unlikely characters than Willow. I’ve also read “original” fiction (not often professionally published stuff, but even there occasionally) that was far more poorly written and had much more implausible plot and character twists than most slash.
    Your original arguments (and some by other people in the thread) seemed to be working from the assumption that all slash involves otherwise straight characters abruptly becoming suddenly and totally gay – that slash writers never explore character development, midlife crises, the social implications of bisexuality, painful secrets, the masks people show the world… and only someone who hasn’t read much slash would think that. Frankly, making any kind of blanket statement about slash is a bit like putting D. H. Lawrence in the same bag as the latest barely legible post on alt.sex.stories. It’s all erotic literature, right?
    You say you’re not concerned with the quality of fanfiction. Yet you brought up quality when you said that slash fanfiction was an obvious mischaracterization, which makes me question why you did that? My first thought was that you didn’t think an uniformed audience would call you on it (since I doubt many people here in the anti-fanfiction crowd have ever actually read any decent slash) and so it made an easy, though baseless, hit – playing on people’s discomfort with homoerotica. I’d prefer to think that it was either a combination of thoughtlessness and a misunderstanding of the nature of slash, or a fundamental disagreement on the nature and flexibility of human sexuality, since in my experience you don’t habitually make those type of cheap hits in the middle of an argument. So I have tried to direct my arguments at those issues. But it’s hard to know what to believe when rather than sticking to the argument you keep going back to issues of legality or authorial consent, which are frankly irrelevant to the point.

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  18. Fan fiction (and, by extension, slash fiction) have their merits, I suppose. If there’s feedback involved beyond that of gratifying desires, you can actually learn whether or not you can write at all. The folks at Star Trek learned this, and the fanfic pool is where a decent amount of their “Strange New Worlds” anthology authors come out of.
    That said, I think encountering a Michael / K.I.T.T. slash-fic was the biggest “bwuh” moment of my life. The tailpipe? Honestly? Wouldn’t that burn?

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  19. ‘would you please stop making blanket statements about the plausibility of an entire category of writing?’
    I’m not making blanket statements. As you’ll see from my later qualification, I was playing the odds by reckoning that statistics are against it happening. That doesn’t prove that it’s impossible, but I personally consider it unlikely. There’s no need to get snippy.
    ‘So they could very well have an “inkling” as you put it, and we as the audience would have no way of knowing that unless they acted on it in the context of the piece.’
    That’s what I’m talking about. Characters aren’t real people; they only exist when they’re written. If there’s been no inkling indicated in anything they’ve done previously, then it hasn’t happened anywhere, because they don’t have inner lives, just outer ones from which their inner lives can be postulated. If a real person suddenly changes their sexual habits, it might be surprising, but you can’t call it implausible, because it’s actually happening. If it happens in a piece of fiction, then in the absence of the ‘but it’s really happening’ proof, the surprise makes you see the hand of the author. It feels forced.
    If you’ll read what I actually said, you’ll see that I wasn’t particularly attacking slash. I was simply speculating as to why so many people who attack fan fiction on find it a particularly easy target. That’s considering their motives, not necessarily weighing in with them.
    (This is also the reason why I mentioned author consent: I wanted to emphasise that my only issue with slash is the same as with any fan fiction, which is consent. I’m trying to draw a line between speculating as to why people attack slash so much, and implying that I have a problem with slash in particular, which I don’t. If you look on the ‘Am I Satan’ thread, you’ll see me defending mpreg. Discussing slash leaves you vulnerable to people putting homophobic words in your mouth, and I didn’t want that to happen.)
    If the issue is why it’s an easy target, you’re up against two problems that have nothing to do with homophobia. One is that, while exceptional writing might get around the plausibility, people attacking slash are looking at it as a whole, so the average quality is going to be low. That’s why I said it’s an obvious mischaracterization: in the hands of the average writer, it will be. More than most genres of fic, in slash only exceptional writing can make it anything but a mischaracterization, and I was talking about the genre as a whole, because that’s what people who attack it perceive.
    The other is that in the real world, stastistically speaking, most fully adult people who have begun life having only heterosexual sex don’t subsequently start sleeping with their own gender. Sometimes it happens, but not with most people. But it happens with everyone in slash, because slash is written about just about every male character in fan fiction. It creates an odd sort of world where every man’s sexuality follows a similar, yet statistically rare, path of development. Again, from the outside, that looks very odd, which makes it an easier target.
    Homophobia may also play a part in some people’s minds, but I think it’s inaccurate and ad hominem to assume that’s the only reason. These are possible alternative reasons why people might consider slash to be an easier target than, say, genfic. If anyone can think of others, I’d like to hear suggestions.
    I wish you’d lay off speculating whether my motives are unpleasant, sexually naive or just ignorant. It’s needlessly aggressive. Can’t we just stick to discussing each other’s arguments and leave each other’s personal defects alone?

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  20. “How many characters in an action/adventure show (just an example – pick a different genre if you want) are accustomed to blurting out to their buddies “I have this secret desire that, once I tell you about it, will make you completely reconsider how I present myself to the world and possibly make me a target of harassment.” It sounds silly when I put it that way, doesn’t it? I can think of one TV show that actually did this (Homicide:LotS springs to mind) but few others have been willing to take those kinds of risks until very recently.”
    And that they did this and do it at all is due to fanfic and slash I claim. Because fanfic/slash is slowly seeping into the mainstream and writers/producers become more and more aware of it. So some of them react and try to accommodate fans’ interests and incorporate fanfic/slash storylines/characterisations into their productions. And I happen to think that this is a good thing.

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  21. Eyup,
    I said:
    ‘would you please stop making blanket statements about the plausibility of an entire category of writing?’
    And you responded;
    “I’m not making blanket statements. As you’ll see from my later qualification, I was playing the odds by reckoning that statistics are against it happening. That doesn’t prove that it’s impossible, but I personally consider it unlikely. There’s no need to get snippy.”
    Yes, actually, you did. You said that it was a mischaracterization. Not that they were under the mistaken impression that it was. Not that you personally thought that it often was. Not even that the majority was (which I don’t think is necessarily true). Merely a bald statement that it was a mischaracterization. Your subsequent arguments on this point have all explained why you think that’s a true and justifiable generalization, but have not actually retracted or qualified the original statement. I don’t think those justifications hold up to scrutiny, which is why I keep posting responses. I’m not being snippy – I actually, honestly, sincerely, am asking you to please stop making blanket generalizations about a large and diverse category of fiction. I obviously can’t stop you, but I can request it and I can continue to call you on it when you don’t.
    ‘So they could very well have an “inkling” as you put it, and we as the audience would have no way of knowing that unless they acted on it in the context of the piece.’
    “That’s what I’m talking about. Characters aren’t real people; they only exist when they’re written. If there’s been no inkling indicated in anything they’ve done previously, then it hasn’t happened anywhere, because they don’t have inner lives, just outer ones from which their inner lives can be postulated.”
    This is a difference without distinction. Of course they have inner lives – in the imaginations of both the author and the audience. In other words, they can be just as complex as real people. Otherwise they are simply cardboard cut-outs with no depth and who wants to read about that? Characters in stories develop over time, reveal new layers, react to events. They answer the question ‘What if?’ What else is a story? You say their inner lives can only be postulated from their previous actions – but what is a piece of fanfiction if not a fan’s postulation about what a character would do under a particular set of circumstances?
    “If a real person suddenly changes their sexual habits, it might be surprising, but you can’t call it implausible, because it’s actually happening. If it happens in a piece of fiction, then in the absence of the ‘but it’s really happening’ proof, the surprise makes you see the hand of the author. It feels forced.”
    How is an actual person revealing a long hidden part of himself different from a fictional character revealing a long hidden part of himself? You seem to be postulating that things that happen in real life can’t happen in fiction. You’re saying that it is implausible that a character would be true to life. I’m sorry, but I think that’s ridiculous.
    “If the issue is why it’s an easy target, you’re up against two problems that have nothing to do with homophobia. One is that, while exceptional writing might get around the plausibility, people attacking slash are looking at it as a whole, so the average quality is going to be low. ”
    If you look at original fiction as a whole, the average quality is going to be low. Your statements reinforcing the misapprehension that fanfiction is somehow unique in that respect aren’t helping anyone to come to terms with that fact. In fact you appear to be apologizing for those who would lump it all together. I strongly disagree with that and I see no reason to hold back my objection and allow your statements to confirm other people’s prejudices.
    “That’s why I said it’s an obvious mischaracterization: in the hands of the average writer, it will be.”
    In the hands of the average writer, a heterosexual relationship may be implausible. In the hands of the average writer, going out to lunch may seem implausible. The average writer writes crud. Writing well is difficult. That’s not unique to fanfiction, and certainly not to slash. Singling it out is hardly fair.
    “More than most genres of fic, in slash only exceptional writing can make it anything but a mischaracterization, and I was talking about the genre as a whole, because that’s what people who attack it perceive.”
    Slash isn’t a genre. It’s a content warning. Calling slash a genre is like calling violence a genre. Would you say that “The Laramee Project” and “La Cage aux Folles” are in the same genre? After all, don’t they both feature gay people? While I’m sure both films would be appropriate at a queer film festival, that doesn’t actually make them the same kind of story. “Slash” isn’t a unified writing classification because it describes many types of stories in many different genres. I realize that I have probably been lazy enough in the past to use the term genre to describe it myself, but I wasn’t correct to do so, and to misuse it here can only confuse the issue.
    “The other is that in the real world, statistically speaking, most fully adult people who have begun life having only heterosexual sex don’t subsequently start sleeping with their own gender. Sometimes it happens, but not with most people.”
    The more I think about it the more that seems to me to be a disingenuous argument. Most murders are the result of petty crime and domestic violence with simple motivations. That didn’t stop Agatha Christie from writing 66 different complex plots while single-handedly increasing the murder rate of the English countryside. How many murder mysteries are realistic in that respect? There may be a million slash stories out there, but probability only applies in the context of any one story. Saying otherwise is like believing that because you tossed a coin and got heads, you are bound to get tails the next time. But every time you toss a coin there’s a 50/50 chance, no matter what happened before.
    “But it happens with everyone in slash, because slash is written about just about every male character in fan fiction. It creates an odd sort of world where every man’s sexuality follows a similar, yet statistically rare, path of development.”
    Of course it seems that way, because the category is defined by the fact that it involves homosexual relationships (well, these days it does – it used to refer to any fic featuring a relationship, gay or straight) in fanfiction, and there are very few obviously homosexual or bisexual characters in the source material (depending on the fandom). You’re making a circular argument. It’s like saying that, statistically, movies that are rated R for violence feature more physical assaults than the average film. You’re criticizing the frequency of homosexual relationships in the sample when the presence of a homosexual relationship was your original criteria for defining that sample.
    If you actually separated fanfiction into real genres (comedy, romance, mysteries, etc.) you’d find that the division between gen, het and slash is pretty even overall (exception – gen and romance are pretty much mutually exclusive categories). That’s based on my own experience, but also on informal studies that fans have done using the frequency of stories in each category that are posted to large comms. That still may be more homoerotica than you’ll find in professionally published fiction, but not in original fiction overall if you include amateur works. That could very well be partially _because_ there is so little homoerotica or even non-romantic literature with queer characters available in popular literature and media. When people perceive a lack they will often try to fill it themselves.
    And just so we don’t get too far off track, you’re also forgetting that there are still lots of characters in fiction that we simply _do_not_know_ enough about to determine what their sexual orientation is, one way or another. That’s sometimes true even of the main protagonists, especially if the personal lives of the characters are not the focus of the original source (police procedurals come to mind). I presume that, legalities aside, you have no objection to writing slash with that type of character? Because I don’t see how that can possibly be described as a mischaracterization unless you insist that a character be asexual until proven otherwise in “canon,” and I can see no justification for that. Sex, along with food and shelter, is one of the most basic human needs. I find asexuality far less likely than homosexuality.
    “Homophobia may also play a part in some people’s minds, but I think it’s inaccurate and ad hominem to assume that’s the only reason. ”
    I don’t assume it’s the only reason. I think it is a major one, and your statements seem aimed at dismissing that as a concern. Even if homophobia isn’t the motivation of the person making the remark, they are often using other’s homophobia to score points. If people are making cheap shots at something in a way that plays on other people’s fears, I don’t find that particularly admirable or acceptable. It doesn’t change my opinion if it was done out of homophobia, malice, thoughtlessness or just ignorance. If someone’s judgment is the result a sincere and heartfelt disagreement, fine, but that doesn’t mean it’s ok for them to express that disagreement in a way that plays on the worst aspects of human fears and prejudices in order to drum up support for their position. If they don’t realize that that is in fact what they are doing, that’s just ignorant and thoughtless. It’s similar in my mind to politicians that engage in fear mongering. I no more feel obligated to let it pass than I would let my Uncle get away with telling a racist joke at the dinner table, no matter how funny everyone thinks it is. If he doesn’t know by now that that is unacceptable, it’s about time that he damn well learned. Defending fanfiction may not as important as confronting racism in the grand scheme of things, but it’s something I feel strongly about, at leaststrongly enough to speak up here. Probably futile, but there you go.
    “I wish you’d lay off speculating whether my motives are unpleasant, sexually naive or just ignorant. It’s needlessly aggressive. Can’t we just stick to discussing each other’s arguments and leave each other’s personal defects alone?”
    This isn’t personal. I didn’t tell you my reasoning as a personal attack on you – I did it so you would better understand why I was focusing on the specific arguments that I was and why I didn’t think your arguments about authorial intent were relevant. I wanted you to know exactly what I was getting at so you would get a better idea of where I was disagreeing with you. We’d already gone back and forth over the same ground multiple times without you actually addressing the question at hand and I assumed that was because of misunderstanding rather than malice. I was trying to give you the benefit of the doubt. Sorry.

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  22. “The other is that in the real world, stastistically speaking, most fully adult people who have begun life having only heterosexual sex don’t subsequently start sleeping with their own gender.”
    As a biologist myself I’d have to agree. Those who are homosexual are born that way no matter what religious nuts say. There are usually telltale signs of this that you won’t find in Capt. Kirk as written originally. Or Spock!
    The painful fact is these writers just want to do it so they do. There really isn’t more to it than that. Those who don’t think it’s tacky are just hooked on it like any other habit. That’s obvious too.

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  23. In my last comment I wrote:
    “The more I think about it the more that seems to me to be a disingenuous argument. ” in reference to probabilities.
    Which of course is not what I meant to say at all – I simply meant unsupportable, not disingenuous. I really should be more careful when I edit – sorry ’bout that.

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  24. “Child Harry Potter characters doing the nasty in full novels.”
    Take it from someone who’s read all of the stories at the shoesforindustry site (as opposed to someone who’s clearly made no effort to even read one of them) *none* of them include under age characters.
    And most of them never mention sex… in the only sex scene I can remember in any of the stories, the (very grown-up) characters are interrupted by the arrival of unexpected and uninvited visitors.

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  25. I’m a writer of fan fiction and yes, I write slash and have been doing so since 1998 within two “fandoms”. I’d like to tackle two of what appears to be the prime issues here:
    1) Slash fan fiction, and
    2) Fan fiction in general.
    1. Slash: In one of the fandoms in which I write, the producers and creators are well aware of the fiction (slash included) written and not only approve but continually joke about it. Even the actors joke about the slash aspects – in a good way. In the other fandom, the producers/writers are also aware and have even tipped their hat to the segment of fans who prefer certain ‘male/male pairings’ in a recent episode.
    But for all that acceptance, it has become increasingly clear that *men* – STRAIGHT men – will never get it. Not in a million years (Heck, even gay writers/producers don’t get it!). They will never understand that the majority of slash fan fiction writers are *straight* women. They’ll never understand why we enjoy seeing two characters in a tv show – two male characters – become more than friends (and it almost *always* starts with a strong friendship).
    For some reason, men can’t connect the same dots that make their own hearts go pitter-patter at the thought of two beautiful women mud wrestling or perhaps rolling around naked in the sheets while they make exotic love to each other with the many straight women get the exact same pitter-pat at the thought of two men rolling round naked in the sheets and making love.
    The producers of Queer As Folks (American *and* British versions) were stunned to discover that a huge part of their core audience were not only women, but STRAIGHT women.
    The producers of a cult favorite from the late nineties, after attending a special ‘con’ they put together for the fans of the show – the fans who conducted a major campaign to save the show (and helped succeed for one one more season) were equally shocked to find themselves facing a room full of over 300 WOMEN when they expected their target audience; 18-49 year old men.
    Now, all of that said, I don’t know if I can justify fan fiction – of any kind – but I can prove that it helps a show rather than hinders it. I know that the online community has been led to a tv show *because* of reading fan fiction on the net – and not the other way around! I understand an author’s dislike of having their characters ‘changed’ but I also know that most television shows have a multitude of writers, each bringing their own “Starsky” or “William T Kirk” or “Xena” to the series. I know that the writers in tv shows have bent their characters in twenty million directions in order to get them to do something required in a certain episode – something that to that point, NO ONE would have believed the character would do. And I know that most tv writers will completely ignore whatever the ‘bible’ is for the show, ignore continuity and basic characterization of their ‘beloved’ creations in order to make a story work (which it never does).
    Fan fiction writers don’t take away from the show – they often give and are far more involved in maintaining ‘canon’ that the real writers of the show often appear to be! (slash not withstanding *grin*) Fanfiction authors, for the most part, keep faith with the original characters and yes, they keep beloved characters alive long after a show ends and, during the shows run, they give other readers what the ‘real’ writers failed to give at the conclusion of any given episode: Resolution.
    They enrich and deepen most shows and the beloved characters (and yes, I’m well aware that there are really stinky fan fiction writers out there but guess what? There are really stinky professional tv writers out there too! LOL!).
    In conclusion, may I suggest that knowing there are people out there who love your characters so much, that have a need for a creative outlet, that they take them on, help them live beyond the show, could be a good thing? They don’t affect an author’s profits, they don’t interfere with the author’s abilities – they just add to the overall enjoyment of a favorite show. This is a good thing.
    Just some thoughts from an idiot straight woman who loves slash and fan fiction in general.
    Sincerely,
    Judith

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  26. “The producers of Queer As Folks (American *and* British versions) were stunned to discover that a huge part of their core audience were not only women, but STRAIGHT women.”
    Stunned and repulsed. Yes, they were. I think it’s a big reason they ended the show the way they did in America. One of the writers was quite vocal about how disappointed he was that their gay soap opera netted them their least-desired demographic.
    Of course, if slash fanfic leads to more people voting for gay rights, I see it as benefitting society. Otherwise, it doesn’t.
    As for the idiotic statement that there are as many bad writers in the professional world as the fanfic world: how can anyone dignify that with a reply, other than shocked laughter?
    No, there aren’t. And every example of fanfiction that anyone cites is proof.

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