Slash – fan fiction’s sexiest sub-culture

Featured image by ‘Pond’ at Destiny Interrupted.

If you’ve ever wondered if there’s more to the Dynamic Duo than a platonic and oddly bat-themed crime-busting friendship, there’s a growing internet-based sub-culture that could be just right for you, in the form of slash fiction. Let’s face it, if you’re a gay comic book fan it’s unlikely that you’ve never noticed a few parallels between real life and the worlds of Gotham and Metropolis. The relationship between gay culture and superheroes has been well-documented; for one, it doesn’t take much to read into the homoerotic undertones between the Caped Crusader and the Boy Wonder. It would be easy to picture Bruce Wayne as the quintessential Daddy to Robin’s twink.

But there is a second, more serious theory that suggests a symmetry between the double life of superheroes and the journey to a gay person’s coming out. This is best illustrated in Marvel Comics’ X Men, in which mutants, whose powers manifest at puberty, have to live in world full of persecution, hatred and fear of their kind. Superpowers might not be the same thing as same-sex feelings, but you see the point. In fact, the parallels are endless, which actually makes it something of disappointment to discover that X Men creators Stan Lee and Jack Kirby weren’t actively trying to make a commentary on the bigotry of society at the time.

In terms of actual representation, however, the gay community remains notably underserved in the world of comics. The first openly gay superhero, Northstar, was only introduced by Marvel in 1992, and, while things are improving, there remains a lack of gay characters in mainstream comics today.

Thank heavens, then, for slash fiction, which takes the relationship between gay culture and superheroes to a whole different level. Like any genre of fan fiction, slash allows fanatics to connect with source material in a way previously unparalleled, thanks in part to the internet. ‘Lots of slash fiction writers stumble across it on the internet,’ explains Karen Hellekson, co-editor of Fan Fiction and Fan Communities in the Age of the Internet. ‘Others start their own communities from scratch with like-minded fans or friends.’

Slash fiction posits a romantic relationship between two characters of the same sex. It is called slash because of the way pairings are articulated among fans: a slash between two character names in the summary of a story means a romantic pairing, whereas a comma simply means these are the main characters. While the term was originally restricted to stories with male characters, it is now often used to refer to any fan story containing a pairing between same-sex characters; though many fans distinguish the female-focused variety as a separate genre, affectionately calling it fem- or femmeslash.

Star Trek's Captain Kirk and Spock are common slash subjects.

Although not restricted to comic book characters, pairings of this nature are a common model for slash. According to Hellekson, the most common pairing is Kirk/Spock (Star Trek), but the combinations are endless. Current favourites include The Doctor/Captain Jack (Doctor Who) and a resurgence in Sherlock/Watson slash thanks in part to Benedict Cumberbatch’s and Martin Freeman’s modernisation of the characters in last year’s hit BBC series.

‘In theory, interesting slash pairings just ought to work but the reality is that most people only read in their preferred pairing,’ notes Hellekson. ‘I could write all the Sherlock/Moriarty slash I wanted, but everyone will want Sherlock/Watson because that is the fandom’s “One True Pairing.” What makes successful slash fiction is a pairing that people won’t automatically reject when they read it.’

So then, sticking with my X Men theme, I just got through reading a particular explicit Wolverine/Gambit piece of slash fiction. I’m pretty familiar with these characters, having been a X Men fanboy nearly all my life: I religiously watched the mid-90s cartoon series, continue to collect the comics, and have seen all the X-movies more times than I can remember.

As such, what I’ve just read shouldn’t make sense to me: there isn’t a chance in hell that Wolverine would go gay. But, instead of being an oddity, it works. In fact, it’s hot. And, if anything, my pre-existing knowledge of the characters only seems to improve the quality of the story, allowing the writer to skip the set-up and background and just get on with the story. Maybe I just got lucky with this particular writer.

Hellekson disagrees. ‘It’s a truism in fandom that slash writers are the best writers because they have to make you believe something that you’re probably not seeing on screen’ she says. ‘Slash writers have to make you believe that two people, often presented as straight, and who sometimes barely interact, are in a romantic relationship.’

It’s a fair point, particularly when you consider who writes slash fiction. While the genre clearly gets serious literary points from us gays, authors of slash tend to be straight women writing for other heterosexual females. Hellekson notes how fan fiction is generally written for members of a closed community, often densely referencing other pieces of fan fiction, current events and so forth. ‘It is often hard to separate a fic from its context,’ she adds. ‘Typically, though, this is a woman’s fantasy. Slash fiction is much more about the emotional closeness between two equals than anything else.’

Slash fiction is actually much broader than just being about playing out a sexual fantasy between favourite characters. It’s not just erotica. In fact, a lot of slash isn’t sexually explicit at all, and a large portion of it is overtly domesticated. ‘Sometimes the pairing will adopt a child, or one of them, even if male, will, through magic or science, get pregnant,’ notes Hellekson.

There’s nothing wrong with that. Gay characters should be represented in all shapes and sizes – even if that does include Arnold-Schwarzenegger-in-Junior-style pregnancies. Perhaps that’s just par for the course when talking about content that has been handed over to the mercy of the fans.

‘Everyone likes to pathologise the kooky fan!’ jokes Hellekson. ‘Slash requires a certain level of open-mindedness, so the people who write it are usually pretty down with same-sex love. For some people who stumble upon it accidentally, it can be a revelation. Sometimes it’s a sexual-fantasy-type revelation – “Oh, that’s kind of hot. What does that say about me?” – and sometimes it’s a text-based revelation – “Oh, sublimated sexual tension explains everything about those two characters!” I’ve experienced both.’

Artist Mark Chamberlain sparked DC Comics' fury with this and other Batman-themed slash art.

The second of these revelations is particularly interesting when thinking about comic book characters specifically and the rather dark past superheroes have had with regard to gay representation. In 1954, Frederic Wetham’s Seduction of the Innocent references the ‘secret homosexual relations’ between Batman and Robin, and suggests that Wonder Woman’s superhuman strength had nothing to do with Amazonian powers, but was – clearly – because Diana Prince had to be a lesbian. I dread to think what Wetham made of her Lasso of Truth.

While these assertions can almost be laughed off today, in the 1950s they had a significant impact on comic culture, with the US government actually launching an inquiry into the way comics were presenting these characters to American youth. At the time the comics industry rebuffed these concerns, but it’s worth noting that it was almost another 40 years until Marvel introduced Northstar.

Like any medium, mainstream comics have to face up to their responsibility of representing characters who are as diverse and individual as the world’s they populate. This has to include gay heroes. After all, no one at the big comics studios are suggesting that being gay prevents characters from having powers – so why aren’t there more gay superheroes?

Ultimately, fiction in any form works because writers are more than just storytellers: they open up readers’ minds to entire new worlds, previously unimagined landscapes or situations, and unforgettable characters. This applies both to fan fiction and the source material on which fan fic is based. The concern is that comics’ audiences seem two steps ahead of the industry when it comes to open-mindedness and diversity.

Of course, we’re not suggesting comics should suddenly start sexing themselves up; nor do fans need to see Spiderman inexplicably getting down and dirty with Doctor Strange, but it does seem the comics industry has some catching up to do.

The question is, while it does, can slash fiction fill the void? Maybe. Just maybe.

Karen Hellekson’s Fan Fiction and Fan Communities in the Age of the Internet is available to buy from Amazon.
To get started in the world of slash try Whispered Words.