Good Slash/Bad Slash:
Writing Realistic Same Sex Relationships
Contributed by Alpha3760
As a lesbian I often find myself rolling my eyes at the way same sex relationships are portrayed by novice writers, and even some more experienced writers. Whether in the world of fanfiction or original fiction, I’ve often sat in GLBT book groups listening to other gays and lesbians bemoaning the fact that some writers just don’t get it right. A friend once, as the discussion strayed to fanfiction, dropped a copy of the book we were reading heavily on the table and shook his head sadly, “How hard is it to just write good slash?”
It seems the answer is, very.
What exactly is slash?
Slash is a term coined for the fanfiction genre of writing. Traditionally it was
limited to non-
Slash was coined in the early days of Star Trek fanfiction. There was one primary homosexual relationship explored by Trek fanfiction writers, that of Kirk/(slash) Spock. The term slash has its origin in the forward slash (/) used to separate the two men’s names. Now of days all “ships” or relationships, are written using the forward slash between names (Harry/Ginny, Buffy/Angel, Aragorn/Arwen) but the term “slash” is reserved for homosexual pairings.
Slash abounds
Slash traditionally began with the furtive and underground Star Trek fanfiction, but today has had its own coming out. Slash is everywhere. All universes of fanfiction have their slash shippers and their slash fans.
For Buffy fans it’s Angel/Spike or even Giles/Zander, as scary as that thought is. For those looking for a female slant, Buffy/Willow or Buffy/Cordelia are popular.
For Lord of the Rings slash shippers, Legolis seems to be rated highest in slash-
Perhaps the largest contingent of slash followers today belongs to the Harry Potter
fanfiction realm. The assortment of slash pairings from this collection of what are
ostensibly children’s books, have overwhelmed and overshadowed any other English
source for slash ships on the internet today. Stories fill fan pages, online blogs,
and fanfiction archives with the romantic tales of Draco Malfoy and his star crossed
Romeo, Harry Potter. Not to be out done, the older generation of characters known
as The Marauders, have fueled almost as much, if not more, slash than Harry and Draco.
The most common of these pairing include the characters of Remus Lupin, Sirius Black
and Severus Snape. While we generally find Lupin and Black as the lovers in more
vanilla slash stories, the character of Severus Snape is most often paired in volatile
relationships with Lucius Malfoy or in some sort of a May-
Writing slash
In our politically correct world we are tempted to say that there is no difference between writing slash and writing straight relationships. This does a disservice to readers and is just plain technically wrong. Just as each relationship differs, the collective nature of relationships differs from heterosexual to gay to lesbian. These pairings simply do not have the same chemistry, the same emotional and physical patterns and do not unfold in a uniform “human” way. Such statements are often rejected in this day and age, mostly out of fear of offending someone. But the truth is men and women are different. Stereotypes based on sex certainly have exceptions. For everything in life there is an exception. But brain chemistry, patterns of arousal and progression of emotional bonding are not the same in the two sexes. This leads to the logical conclusion that relationships between two men and two women will not unfold the same as a relationship between a man and a woman.
There are differences in how the relationship progress, and this very fact is often the source of grumbling, particularly among gay readers. While tossing out ideas for an upcoming GLBT Science Fiction/Fantasy convention to be held in Atlanta, GA several members of my book group suggested having a panel of straight women writers who write gay characters. The discussion followed a reading of Mercedes Lackey’s Magic’s Pawn, the first in the author’s Last Herald Mage series. The series tells the story of Vanyl an incredibly powerful Herald Mage who in addition to coming to terms with his powers must come to terms with his sexuality. To say the depiction of the budding relationship between Vanyl and Tylendel was not well received is an understatement.
Much of the criticism focused on the amount of talking and sharing of feelings done by the characters. This level of emoting would have been appropriate for two lesbian characters, but for the young gay men, was not the way the relationship would have progressed.
Science tells us that men and women form lasting bonds and are aroused differently. For most men, sexual arousal is highly visual and tactile, while for women it is highly cognitive and auditory. For anecdotal evidence just examine adult printed materials. Romance novels describing physical contact and intense passion are targeted at women. Collections of erotic prose are generally targeted at women. Pictorial materials are generally targeted at men including Playboy, Penthouse, David and others. Visual mediums for women including Playgirl and On Our Backs have never come close to the same levels of success that their male counterparts have enjoyed. It is generally tamer visuals such as Cosmopolitan’s regular feature of a shirtless man that are popular.
Writers need to keep this in mind when constructing scenes of slash activity. Male slash should be written with the focus on the visual and tactile stimulators of desire while female slash should focus on the cognitive process being experienced by the participants, the running narrative inside the character so to speak. Now this is not to suggest that gay men are not cognitive nor that they become aroused at the sight of any male body. Just as a heterosexual does not find every potential sexual partner appealing, neither do gays and lesbians. Simply it means that the mental examining of what is happening and emotionally driven dialogue should be handled with a great deal of thought, care and deliberation.
Bluntly put, the guys are not going to sit down before hand, nor likely afterwards, and have an in depth discussion of their feelings and what they mean. As a friend once explained to me that for most men he knew, the first experiences (not necessarily full sex) had been with friends/buddies or guys their age in an exploration type of setting. There was almost no talking, as if they were afraid that if they spoke it would somehow make it really happening. This pattern does not necessarily change for initial encounters with a new adult partner. Most men share their “feelings” only in situations where they feel extraordinarily safe to do so, and some not even then.
In addition, many female slash writers make the mistake of trying to “feminize” their male characters, making the erroneous assumption that gay men are somehow emotionally equivalent to women. Conversely there is often an assumption of lesbian characters fitting exclusively into butch or femme roles. Rarely is this the case. Most lesbians are much more fluid and though they may identify with one identity or the other, they carry traits of both that shift and flow with the dynamics of the relationship.
Further many heterosexual slash writers make the mistake of assuming that the roles of male/female must translate into all relationships. The stone butch/ultra femme and top/bottom emphasis in pairings is often an expression of this. While there is some element of truth in the dynamic, there is not always a clear cut division. One partner may be the dominant (read butch or top) in one setting and the submissive (read femme or bottom) in others. The insistence upon such roles is an extension of the misogynistic prejudices that filled the world for most of human existence. The idea of sexual relationships as an expression of male/female or power oriented roles is not new. The mistaken notion of Greek and Roman acceptance of homosexuality is tied to the fact that these relationships were not looked upon negatively because they were generally about a lesser, a slave, a younger male taking a female’s role. The nobleman, the socially dominant male, would have been ridiculed and seriously damaged in society had he assumed a submissive role.
It is also advisable for those unfamiliar with the mechanics of same sex intimacy to avoid graphic physical descriptions of said intimacy. On one occasion I remember laughing with friends as we tried to figure out how the, “technical” aspects of an encounter could possibly have worked. Nothing produces hoots of laughter faster than reading an unbelievable interlude. Not even contortionism could have explained it.
Finally, one recent study showed that males are much more tied into their sexual orientation for arousal than are women. Erotic scenes including combinations of male/male, female/male, and female/female were shown to study participants. Non subjective indicators of arousal (pulse rate, respiration, pupil dilation, erection and lubrication) all indicated that male participants were aroused primarily within their orientation. Female participants showed a fairly equal pattern of arousal across all combinations crossing the barriers of their sexual orientation.
What does this mean to a slash writer? It means that while you may be able to construct a believable story in which a strictly heterosexually identified woman becomes aroused in a femmeslash setting, the male equivalent is not going to flow so easily into what the reader can accept. This is not to say a character cannot be constructed who is experiencing his first encounter, but that there should be some indication of previous homosexual thoughts and drives.
What does it all mean?
Again, there are always exceptions to any generalization.
But in short it means that a writer needs to know their audience and purpose, the two key elements for any writer to stay focused on. If a story is being written for a heterosexual audience, a slash relationship to titillate and tantalize heterosexuals, then realism may need to be skewed. If the purpose is to show a realistic and believable homosexual relationship, then there are things the writer must keep in mind about the dynamics of such relationships.
Can a writer write outside their own sexuality? Of course they can. And truth be told it is much easier for the GLBT writer to do than the converse. The media, friends and even their pasts are often filled with sources of realistic relationships between men and women. The road is much harder for those who are straight to write GLBT fiction. The images in the media are often distorted by residual homophobia or an over zealous political correctness that waters down and homogenizes gay and lesbian relationships into “human” relationships out of fear of offending someone.
Relationships are different from person to person and from group to group. It is time to understand, celebrate and accurately portray those differences.
References:
While the following websites were accessed while investigating this article, a great deal of the statements made come from logging a number hours sitting in GLTB book group discussions listening to criticism of the portrayal of gay relationships in science fiction/fantasy mainstream works as well as in fanfiction. This is not meant to be an absolute statement of fact that reflects every person’s views, but simply a sharing of the consensus as expressed to me.
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=slash Urban Dictionary.com
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slash_fiction
http://www.lyricalmagic.com/fanficFAQ.html#gay
http://www.disinfo.com/archive/pages/dossier/id444/pg1/
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2003-
http://www.joe-
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=7332486&dopt=Abstract
http://www.psych.northwestern.edu/psych/people/faculty/bailey/responsetimes.htm
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