Has Slash Made the World Better for Gay Men?

Editor’s Note: This is the first in a two-part series on slash fandoms.

The Stonewall Inn Riots began on June 28, 1969 – an act of civil disobedience by some of our community’s more marginalized members that is widely believed to have sparked the modern GLBT rights movement.

But what if a similarly important moment in gay equality actually came a year earlier, in 1968, when a UK woman, Jennifer Guttridge, wrote what is considered by many to be the world’s first piece of slash fiction, “Ring of Shoshern,” about a relationship between Star Trek’s Kirk and Spock?

No, wait! Hear me out.

“Slashfic” are any fan-created stories, art, video, and even role-play based on fictional characters (and sometimes real people). Slashfic gets its name from “Kirk-slash-Spock,” the genre’s first and still most famous pairing – and most of it involves same-sex relationships.

Back in the 1960s, the birth of slashfic coincided with the rise of Star Trek’s massive “Trekkie” movement – the first of the modern fandoms. But for many years after, fandoms were dominated by straight men.

It wasn’t until the early 1990s – and the rise of the internet – that women were able assert their influence into the various fandoms. But when they did, their interest often had a surprisingly homoerotic flavor.

Within a decade, what had started out as slashfic soon segued in a greater “slash” movement that openly celebrated male-male love in popular culture, in websites, blogs, and message boards.

The movement has expanded exponentially ever since, quickly encompassing new technologies. Slash may not have directly built YouTube and its fourteen billion uploaded videos, but it surely didn’t hurt.

A popular recent slash ficition subject

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Popular slash couples currently include Harry Potter’s Harry and Ron, and Merlin’s Merlin and Arthur, Torchwood's Jack and Ianto, and Brothers & Sisters’ Kevin and Scotty. (Some purists claim that, by definition, anything “slash” can’t be about actual gay characters, but such limitations are becoming increasingly passé – precisely because the movement has become so popular.)

“I’m a self-professed fangirl, and I would’ve been like that even without the internet,” says 24-year-old Cristina Moreno. “But now there’s a name for it. If I like a show or an artist, I want to talk about it with people. It’s a lot easier on the internet. I remember watching Queer as Folk, alone, because I didn’t know anyone else who watched the show. Then one day I found the Showtime message boards, and I realized there was a whole community out there who were watching the show and talking about it. I’d found my place.”

Now much of modern entertainment openly caters to their slash fans with cheeky in-jokes and not-at-all-subtle references. Supernatural’s Sam and Dean Winchester characters, having discovered fictional counterparts to their “real” in-show characters, and even recently came across references to “Wincest,” the slash sub-genre where the brother-characters have a romantic relationship with each other.

A visual example of the somewhat disturbing "Wincest" phenomenon

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And it’s not just for gay and bi men that more and more video games are including “gay” content options – increasingly explicit content options at that.

Why are so many women so drawn to gay male themes in the first place?

When AfterElton.com surveyed our female readers on their interest in same-sex pairings, the explanations varied. Some cited the non-threatening nature of gay men to women. Others talk of the perceived lack of power struggles and the appealing absence of traditional gender roles.

Plenty of people simply said, “Two men together are hot.”

But many women are interested. “There are so many female fandoms,” Moreno says. “It’s primarily a female space. It’s very rare to find guys who are heavily involved in [slash] fandom.”

And in the end it doesn’t really matter why they’re interested, just that they are. Our survey also found that interest in these relationships tended to skew very young – something that makes the exploding slash phenomenon a good predictor of future trends.

Next Page! "Queer as Folk changed my life!"