Slash vs. Gay

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Interior art from a 1993 gen zine



A good deal of the "slash vs. gay" question rests on female fans' perception of who a gay man is and what constitutes a gay identity[note 1], but also on how they depict the characters' perceptions of these things. Male characters who have same-sex relationships are usually straight in canon. Are they men who have sex with men without thinking of themselves as gay or bisexual? Or is the writer deviating from the canon source to depict a "what-if" where the characters are and perceive themselves to be gay? How does the writer handle these issues in fan fiction taking place in former times, e.g., Sherlock Holmes, when these cultural identities and perceptions were very different? How does the writer's own experience as a straight, bisexual or Lesbian woman affect her portrayals of gay male characters? How do male slash authors -- gay, straight and bi -- perceive these things?

Are Slashed Characters Gay by Definition?


From the preface of a 2006 zine, A Real Good Life:




In 1998, Lezlie Shell, wrote:

Some slash fanzines are now part of the ONE National Gay & Lesbian Archives.

The second part of the question was whether in writing two male characters in a sexual relationship meant that the characters should be read as having a gay identity -- or what a "gay identity" was assumed to be in terms of popular perceptions.[note 4][7] The follow-on question was whether slash writers had an obligation to fit slash into the real-world or literary gay experience. The common counter-argument of slash fandom ("we're not gay, we just love each other") goes back to slash fandom's earliest roots.


While the addition of science fiction elements may have enabled early slash writers to focus on the characters and interpersonal relationships, rather than having the characters examine and redefine their sexual orientation, later fandoms for shows based in the here and now, such as Starsky & Hutch and The Professionals could not. In those fandoms writers often had to make a conscious choice to either ignore the sexual orientation question or to confront the issue head-on (ex. "Shadows Over the Land", a Professionals novel in which one of the main characters discovers he has AIDS). Most fan writers chose to fall somewhere in between, briefly bringing in sexual orientation as a backdrop before moving on to the main story of the growing romantic and sexual relationship. And many simply skipped past the issue altogether feeling that it detracted from the main story.

Is Slash Appropriation?

"The K/S stories I've seen are offensive. It's a woman's idea of what gay men are like, and it's way off base. Besides, I like Kirk and Spock the way they are." - A gay male fan, quoted in David Gerrold's second edition of The World of Star Trek.

Some gay men have voiced opposition, or amusement, regarding slash writing. They say it is an inaccurate portrayal of homosexual experience written by straight women. Gay author and Star Trek co-creator David Gerrold is best known in fandom for his ridicule of K/S. There is also considerable controversy over whether writing slash means that a writer is simply open-minded and pro-gay, or is fetishizing both homosexuals and men in general.[9] Other critics say that slash may have paved the way for cultural acceptance of real homosexuality.[10]

In late 2009, a vigorous discussion arose on Livejournal concerning the tensions between original slash (original amateur stories with homosexual characters) vs gay fiction. Members questioned whether slash should be viewed as an expression of female desires by women to help one another reclaim their erotic power; by women who cannot identify with today's marginalized, hypersexualized female characters; or that it is misappropriation and misuse of the male gay experience.

One blogger summed up her stance:

A fan in 2005 wrote:
I do think there's a difference between gay lit and slash... The difference is not whether the "canonical" characters are gay. The difference is that gay lit is usually written to appeal to men, while slash is usually written to appeal to women. [12]



Writing in her blog Loving the Alien, Alison "Boom" Baumgartner observes:

I can literally describe my genesis as a slash fangirl. First, it was because the sight of it made my stomach do that good kind of flip-flop that told me I liked what I saw. Then, it was because I thought it made me progressive, and pro-gay rights. And when it became an obsession, I realized that all of it was because I was terrified of men always treating me like a sexual object, and I found refuge in slash because I couldn’t be involved.[14]

In a 2015 article for The Mary Sue, Kiri Von Stanten observed that the deafening screams emitted by fans of Welcome To Night Vale whenever Carlos appears or is mentioned in the live performances, and the fandom's heavy focus on his relationship with Cecil, while their romance is a relatively minor plot point in the canon, amounts to fetishizing gay men.

To many people, it often seems that women in the slash community have decided that "gay sex" is always sexy, that queer is always cute, and that we can take ownership of the gay male experience by writing about it and reading each other's writing.

I briefly mentioned this issue in something that got passed around Tumblr a couple times, and I received a number of private and public messages from people claiming (it’s the Internet, so who knows) to be gay men who had wanted to share unpleasant experiences from their participation in the slash community. Some personal friends echoed these complaints. Specifically, these men indicated that straight or bisexual women had repeatedly asked overly personal questions about their sex lives, treated them like adorable puppies instead of humans, and attempted to co-opt the gay male experience or even elevate allies over actual gay men.

"The worst thing," one gay friend said, "is that [women in the slash community] aren’t listening to me. You’re not listening when I tell you that you’re being hurtful."[15]

A response from Night Vale fan Vio on Reddit:

Why is it that slash fans are constantly having to answer for and made to feel shame for enjoying something that doesn't conform to the mainstream, male-dominated pop culture motifs and cliches.

Slash and fanfiction are one of the few creative outlets where it is decidedly women dominated- both in the creative side and in the audience side. We're constantly having to answer for our own stories, and defend our preferences and likes.

The fact is that we're not fetishizing gay men, we are working in a genre about fictional characters- sometimes they're gay or bi, mostly they're not within the canon. But we are enjoying a genre of fictional characters on our own terms. Sometimes it's graphic, sometimes it's mild, sometimes it's ludicrous, but it's a valid writing style and concept that is becoming ever more and more mainstreamed.

Few other genres out there receive the same level of mocking, dismissiveness, and outright contempt. It makes some people feel icky, and yet they rarely ever have to confront their own biases or attitudes on the subject. For as many gay men out there hating slash (and I do feel for them and have known a few), there are far, far, far, far more people out there who denigrate slash and fanfiction that has nothing to do with defending the perceptions and cultural agendas of gay men. And the writers/readers of it are constantly harangued online, even by people in the same genre, to defend and "Be Careful" about not feeling guilty or negative or constantly having to self reflect on why this genre exists, why it's successful, and why we're somehow "bad" for taking part in it.[16]

Citing LGBTQ Visibility as a Rationale for Canon Same-Sex Shipping





Meanwhile, gay fans are also pointing out that for all the slash fanworks out there, Star Trek itself noticeably lacked gay characters, and there are few if any gay continuing characters on other shows.

Getting gay or lesbian characters onto the screen is about adjusting the statistics and doing justice to a group of fans who have been ignored so far. Slash fiction (which is often not even written by fans who are homosexual themselves), on the other hand, is not political but chiefly a matter of taste.[20]
I'd never tell anyone what they have a right to ship or write about.

What I will say is that when those writers start going around harassing people who don't share their headcanon, it's a PROBLEM.

When someone tells me, a queer person who has been working in LGBTQ community activism (in real life) for over a DECADE, that I am a "fake queer straight girl crybaby" and a bigot because I ship a M/F pairing for a canonically heterosexual charter, it's a PROBLEM.

Ship whatever you want. Write about that ship until the cows come home, but don't be a dick about it. And don't pretend like you're doing out of some sense of justice and moral superiority when it's really about what gets you hot. And DON'T try to claim that queer people are infringing on your freedom of speech when they tell you that your fic makes them feel objectified and uncomfortable. [22]

Yaoi vs. Gay


In his landmark study of Japanese comics, Manga! Manga! (Kodansha 1983), Frederik Schodt touched briefly on female fascination with gay men, or at least men having same-sex encounters. In Japan, this style dates back to the 1970s. Sex roles in Japan are comparatively rigidly defined and standardized; Schodt spoke of "men's comics" (shonen, written and drawn by men, with a predominantly male readership[23]) and "women's comics" (shojo, written and drawn by women and with a predominantly female readership[23]) accordingly.[24] Women's stories featured female protagonists exclusively, but often had an underlying theme of bisexuality.[25]



See Akiko Hori's translated essay in a 2013 issue of TWC.[28]

In 2001, fan blogger Tom Hardings and his friend Buki Skylark of Realmangamoon hosted fanwriter Irk's raunchy Mystery Science Theater 3000 parody of "The Top Ten Things I Love About Yaoi", a well-known screed by fanwriter Jeanne Johnson on the yaoi site[note 5]. Using characters from the longrunning franchise Slayers, Irk took Jeanne to task for her enervating preoccupation with making yaoi out of every male friendship or acquaintance in anime, manga and games;




FIRIA: *CLONG* "Jerk." -_-

TX signs: "DEADLY PUN!"




XELLOSS: "Progress and COCKS!"


FIRIA: "In the ASS!"[29]

Further Reading/Meta


  1. The idea of a homosexual identity, let alone outsiders' perceptions of said identity, didn't arise in western culture until the early 20th century. See J. Bryan Lowder, "What Was Gay?" Slate, May 12, 2015.
  2. See also Jane Ward's book Not Gay: Sex Between Straight White Men (NYU Press, July 2015) detailed interview here..
  4. For example, some very early slash stories had James Kirk behaving like a stereotypical flaming queen. William Shatner's well-known habit of camping it up for laughs, e.g., while filming "Turnabout Intruder" (described in Star Trek Lives!, may have played into this.


  1. Porluciernagus, Why Is There So Much Slash Fic?: Some Analysis of the AO3 Census on Ladygeekgirl, November 12, 2013.
  2. Cintra Wilson, W4M4M?. Out, August 17, 2010.
  7. See also Clyde Engle's "15 Stereotypes That Limit Our Perceptions Of Gay Men", Elite Daily 2015-12-01.
  8. (Legacy, vol 1, pg 142).
  9. Boom, The Downside of Slash Fangirling. In her blog Loving the Alien, November 2012.
  10. Brent Hartinger, Has Slash Made The World Better For Gay Men? In The Backlot, blog devoted to gay portrayals in film and TV, August 11, 2010.
  12. from Jean Lorrah, June 2005 at Rimon Farris Memorial Library - Articles - 'Slash' Fiction - In Search of a Definition from simegen-L, Archived version
  14. Alison "Boom" Baumgartner, "The Downside of Slash (Or When Slash Isn’t Sexy… It’s Sexist)". In Loving the Alien, August 28, 2013.
  15. On the Fetishization of Gay Men by Women in the Slash Community. The Mary Sue, January 17, 2015.
  16. Vio, comment in Reddit discussion of Von Stanten's article, January 18, 2015.
  17. Regarding Chad Kennedy at The Fandom Debunker, October 23, 2013.
  20. Bernd Schneider, Homosexuality in Star Trek. Ex Astris Scientia, January 26, 2016.
  21. Gay male fan "Sparky", writing in his blog Spark in Darkness, Slash Goggles, Fanservice and No Actual Inclusion, Saturday, 21 July 2012.
  22. SheCanBeHeroes, comment to On The Fetishisation Of Gay Men By Women In The Slash Community by Kiri von Santen, The Mary Sue, 2015-01-17, comment posted 2015-01-19.
  23. 23.0 23.1 Note that this does not match the current accepted definition.
  24. Shonen manga and Shojo manga at Wikipedia.
  25. Frederik Schodt, Manga! Manga!: The World of Japanese Comics (Kodansha, 1983). In the chapter on shoujo (girls' stories) he cites Osamu Tezuka's Ribon no Kishi (Princess Knight) and Oscar Francois de Jarjayes from Riyoko Ikeda's The Rose of Versailles among others.
  26. Schodt, p. 100-102, 137.
  27. Schodt, p. 137.
  29. Tom Hardings and Buki Skylark, The Top Ten Things I Love About Yaoi MST, by Irk. WebCite