Let's talk slash. What you think constitutes "slash", pros/cons, connections with homophobia, etc. My "two cents" below.

Point 1: Different readers project onto the protagonist differently

For the purposes of the below, by "slash" I mean a male viewpoint character (i.e. protagonist) who is sexually/romantically attracted to men.

I think ultimately, how you interact with slash depends on what type of reader you are. From various conversations over the years, I have gained a sense that actually, different people read in very different ways - the reading experience is not universal, in terms of what is happening in your head while you are reading.

I think this largely divides into two groups of people.

Firstly, you have the "SI Reader" . This refers to those readers who project themselves into the main character’s position to such a degree that every story they read is essentially a “self-insert” story. The subjective reading experience, for this type of reader, is that the point of view character’s actions are their own actions. If Harry kisses Tonks, what the reader is imagining (and, indeed, feeling) is themselves kissing Tonks. The protagonist is the reader's avatar in the fictional world; an extension of their own sense of self. The real world falls away entirely, and the reader is entirely immersed in the reading experience.

Secondly, you have the "Third Party Reader". This refers to those readers who maintain a greater emotional distance between themselves and the perspective character. While they are perceiving events through the viewpoint of a character, they do not merge their sense of self with that of the character. If Harry kisses Tonks, the subjective reading experience is like being a third party watching two other people kissing, a fly on the wall. The reader never forgets about themselves.

A person is not necessarily a single type of reader all the time. You can engage with different works in different ways. Personally, when I read HP fanfic, I am an SI Reader if it is Harry-centric, and a Third Party Reader for all other characters.

Once you identify that different people have different reading experiences in this way, I think the different ways people interact with slash become clearer.

For the heterosexual SI Reader, their dislike of imagining themselves engaging in homosexual acts and feelings is nothing more than a restatement of the fact that they are not homosexual. Of course heterosexual people do not enjoy imagining themselves performing homosexual acts or feeling homosexual attraction - if they did, then they would be gay.

But the Third Party Reader will have a very different experience. The sexuality of the main character bears no relation to their own sexuality, because the main character is someone else, not the reader. If the Third Party Reader does not understand that the SI Reader experiences fiction differently, they will likely perceive the SI Reader as homophobic, because it will seem like the SI Reader dislikes the mere fact that homosexual characters exist.

Ultimately, the SI Reader and Third Party Reader having this debate are talking past each other, because their basic assumptions about what it means to experience fiction are different. Once that is pointed out, reconciliation is (or should be) quite easy.

In short:

• If you are an SI Reader and attracted to men IRL, you will enjoy fics with a narrative focus on attraction towards a man, i.e. stories with a "female gaze".
  
  
• If you are an SI Reader and attracted to women IRL, you will enjoy fics with a narrative focus on attraction to a woman, i.e. stories with a "male gaze".
  
  
• If you are a Third Party Reader, you will enjoy reading any (well-written) relationship regardless of your own preferences.

Point 2: The "Slash Style"

This is a somewhat independent from the point above. There might be said to be a distinctive style of writing which is strongly associated with the slash community. It does not strictly speaking have anything to do with the main character being gay. The style can (and does) appear in Gen and Het fics. Equally, it would in principle be entirely possible to write a slash fic without using these tropes.

Nonetheless, there is a strong link between slash writers and this style of writing.

What is the "slash style"? I would say it constitutes three main elements:

1. Feminine word choice in describing male characters, in particular the male MC. If a story opens with a description of Harry which uses the word "petite" rather than "scrawny", "svelte" rather than "skinny", describes him as moving with "grace" or "elegance", there's a strong chance you're reading a "slash style" fic. That is: the male character is described using vocabulary strong associated with women.

2. Odd male-male character interactions. The slash style tends to have male characters interact in a teasing, touchy-feely, very physical way. They tend to obsess over each other, analysing each other's expressions, body language, movements, etc. The dynamic may be protective and affectionate (commonly seen in angst fics where someone is "rescuing" Harry and works through his "trauma" with him), or it may be aggressive and challenging (commonly seen in "enemies to lovers" type dynamics). Either way, there's a physical intimacy involved which reads strangely.

3. Introspective, emotional focus. The slash style tends to be closely associated with angst fics; at the very least, the fics will have a much more inward focus, and often will tell the story in a "montage" type style where the narrative thread is the character's emotional development, with scenes that pass by quickly, and only snippets of dialogue and barely-described settings.

In the case of Harry, the "slash style Harry" tends to have the following characteristics:

• More anxiety, sometimes even to the point of panic attacks. This contrasts with his canonical emotional resilience and ability to think and maintain his cool under pressure.
  
  
• More behavioural eccentricities, like stiffening up when hugged. This contrasts with his canon self, who behaves pretty much like a normal, well-adjusted teenager.
  
  
• Less social ability, acting more introverted. This contrasts with his canonical ability to step up to positions of social leadership, like standing up to Malfoy when no one else does.
  
  
• More expression of internally-focused negative emotions like sadness, worry, insecurity and low self-esteem, uncertainty, lack of confidence, etc. This contrasts with his canonical externally-focused negative emotions such as anger, frustration, impatience, stubbornness.

The "slash style" is the main reason why I don't just avoid slash fics, I also generally avoid slash-adjacent fics (i.e. fics which come out of the same community of writers as slash fics, even if they might be gen or het).

 

Did you make this entire post to reiterate that you're not a Tory?

 

I avoid Slash fics wherever I can, not a big fan of romance, smut, angst, and hurt/comfort. For some reason, those tend to heavily correlate with the slash tag.

I don't dislike a bit of romance in a story if it is kept to the background and doesn't impact my reading experience to much.

So for some reason slash writers often combine everything I dislike in fiction.

I always feel that I miss good fiction because I refuse to read slash fiction, but I can't be bothered to swim trough the ocean of romance, smut, angst and hurt to find the one decent slash fic.

 

1. I don't think the Tory political platform has much to do with fanfiction.

2. I'm a member of the Lib Dems and have voted Lib Dem in every election since 2010.

3. It's an interesting discussion that DLP hasn't had in a while.

4. The above post is an accumulation of several other posts I have made in various internet locales over the last year or two.

 

Of course it does! There are literally several university classes dedicated entirely to analyzing HP as a neoconservative narrative.

But mostly I was joking.

 

I think the "slash style" is the most important reason for people disliking slash. I'm not too sold on "SI readers" but supposing they exist, I don't think they'll be turned away from a well written story just due to the character being gay. If they are, they either are a bit homophobic/too uncomfortable with homosexuality or way too much of a "SI reader". I mean, with a well written book you may recognize parts of you within the book's characters; that doesn't mean that you 100% fantasize of being exactly the same character as the protagonist.

Honestly I don't care for those 100% SI readers of fanfiction. I've not yet reached the part where I know whether the main character will be gay, but I'll not shy away from it if inspiration strikes to appease some people who just have that limited of an imagination and can't think of themselves not doing gay stuff if the main character has a gay moment.

 

A lot of guys' issues with slash may just be related to guys' overall issues with the romance genre. Fanfic has an interesting relationship with slash because it has an interesting relationship with love and sex in fiction in general.

I agree that this is related to the point of inserting oneself into a story. However, Taure and I disagree slightly. ("I agree kind of, but..." is my stance for Taure's Point 1 and Point 2).

Remember: female readers can pretty much equally enjoy a romance story from the POV of either character. In fact, romance stories often make a point to switch POVs sometimes so that the reader can see either one or both of the characters pining for/lusting after the other. Jane Austen pretty much only flicks to Darcy's POV in Pride and Prejudice so the reader can briefly see him admiring Elizabeth, for example.

Women get a lot of flak for this, because romance does appear to be an extremely self-indulgent genre. Critics assume that the female reader is imagining that she is the clever, independent, witty female character and is imagining that a handsome, rich male character is so smitten with her that it often literally alters his personality (see: Dramione).

Women are definitely guilty of this. Men are also guilty of indulging in a similar kind of fantasy, but we see it play out more often in movies than in books.

I do think, though, that slash proves that some women don't just think love stories are great because they can picture themselves at the center of them. Lots of women actually just think that pining for someone, caring about someone, wanting to save someone is an inherently good story, whether they can mentally include themselves in the story or not.

Some men may disagree whether this kind of connection between characters is enough to make up a complete story. Some women may also disagree. Hell, even I might disagree.

Now we're getting into another debate that often comes up in fanfiction: Does Trope X inherently suck, or is Trope X written by amateur writers who are not always good at crafting a story?

Like Taure, I also often find myself closing tabs of slash stories because I feel like I have to squint to find the plot 50,000 words in. This includes slash fics that are largely considered to be well-written, and even slash fics that are based on movie plots and therefore should be a lot more structured. I believe Taure just today left a scathing review on a femslash fic that is based on You've Got Mail, but I'm personally thinking of Turn, a famous drarry story.

The author of "Turn" is an excellent writer, but man. Nothing at all seems to happen. I also eventually lost interest in The Second String, a Harry/Gideon Prewett story written by a man, several chapters in before Harry even met Gideon.

Another drarry fic, What We Pretend We Can't See, is well-written and has some really interesting ideas about the way wizarding homes have some level of sentience (like many wizarding objects) and how that affects the way their owners live in them and expand them. However, when this author seemingly lost interest in their carefully crafted mystery and world-building, they also lost me. The story might've eventually gotten interesting again, but as long as it was only about Harry and Draco falling for each other, I eventually just lost interest. After a while, it felt like the story had zero stakes.

"What We Pretend We Can't See" also definitely displayed the characteristics that Taure identified above —
introspective, emotional focus; more anxiety, sometimes even to the point of panic attacks (Draco's the one with the panic attacks); more expression of internally-focused negative emotions like sadness, worry, insecurity and low self-esteem (both Draco and Harry display these in this fic).

I agree that these are, basically, defining characteristics of slash fiction. I could've sworn that I've literally come across academic journal articles that explore why slash fiction often involves such heightened emotions, but some googling today didn't turn up anything. Anecdotally, I've heard lots of fanfic authors say that they use fanfic as therapy, as a way to work through difficult emotions, and that style of writing is definitely going to lead to lots of "plot? what plot?" kind of writing that lots of people on AO3 seem to not only like but intentionally seek out. Angst and hurt/comfort fic might even be more SI-esque than the romance.

I disagree that Harry rarely experiences sadness, worry, anxiety or lack of confidence (I would argue this was the tone throughout a majority of the Horcrux hunt). But it is true that Harry doesn't dwell on it, while the characters in slash fiction spend an immense amount of time unpacking these emotions.

I personally think that great stories can come out of these intense emotions, if done right. Pot, Kettle, Black follows a Sirius Black who is constantly suppressing his anxieties while working for the Order, and it ticks several emotional slash boxes while still being very strong writing, IMO. They're Hiding Inside Me is a great story about what might happen if an underage Sirius were Imperiused by his family, but a long, whispered heart-to-heart between Sirius and Lupin in the middle of the night that ends in a kiss has always kept me from attempting to recc it on DLP. This author of these two stories also wrote Blackpool, which did very well on the review board a few years ago. Blackpool features an introspective Regulus who often experiences panic attacks (though I don't think he ever calls them that), but there's no slash element because there's no love story.

The last thing I'll mention is that Taure's theory of "SI reader" doesn't address the issue that guys (particularly teenage boys) worry that any fleeting understanding of why someone might be sexually attracted to a man automatically makes them a 6 on the Kinsey scale. It also doesn't address the issue that lots of boys (not all, of course) tend to think that stories written from the point of view of a girl just aren't for them — an assumption that I suspect carries over into slash fiction too.

Essentially, I feel like there's a bit of a nature/nurture argument to be made here about whether a person literally can't read a gay POV because they're an "SI reader" or because guys don't have to put themselves in the minds of people attracted to guys as often as a girl who is reading a book or watching a movie/TV show finds herself seeing a story from the POV of a person attracted to a girl.

@dudeler mentioned that he "can't be bothered to swim through the ocean ... to find the one decent slash fic," but tbh that's my experience for pretty much every genre of fanfic, not just slash. In my personal experience, the point of sifting through fanfic is to take a look at the amateur writing out there and find the few amateurs who are actually good.

 

It's funny watching the endless discussions on this, especially on the subreddit where the male readers are swearing on a stack of hp books that they're not homophobic as if that will ever stop anyone from calling them that. I don't read stories about characters who were rewritten for wish-fulfillment purposes so I don't read bashing fics and I don't read slash fics; both of these terms are signed confessions that someone is completely out of character. It's no better than writing Draco as something other than a blood purist cowardly bully. That's literally all there is that I need to explain.

 

I'm mostly an SI reader, if going by Taure's post, which will explain a large part of why I avoid slash, and prefer femslash to reading a straight female mc. But, more than that, the biggest reason I dislike HP slash is because 90 to 95% of it features either Draco or Snape. Both are magical nazis and one is a child-abusing dickbag on top of that. Also, slash stories tend to be much more heavily angst-ridden and I don't like angst stories, which ties into Taure's second point.

I absolutely don't care that the mc is different from the canon-Harry, though. Fuck canon.

 

There is an alternate universe wherein JKR wrote Harry as attracted to men, and Harry Potter and Ron Weasley slowly fell deeply in love during their time at Hogwarts. In this story, Draco Malfoy is a spoiled, pureblood witch with white-blonde hair, portrayed in the movies by an actress who for no discernible reason wears black turtlenecks to school.

Every day, Silirt — the wokest of them all — writes Ron/Harry fanfiction and scorns those who wonder what Harry's life would've been like if, instead, Harry had fallen in love with this beautiful arch rival of his. And Silirt gets to call those writers homophobic instead.

Alas, earwax.

 

I find myself agreeing with Taure basically entirely. I'm also, for the vast majority of the time, an 'SI reader'. Much to my embarrassment, I once almost referred to myself as Harry after being absorbed into a particularly compelling story.

I'm frankly incapable of reading slash fanfiction, specifically once the homosexual undertones become overtones, but I don't think that's due to any 'worry' on my part that imagining a man could possibly be attracted to another man would make me gay. I am perfectly comfortable with the concept, but when the boundaries of identity get blurred in my reading, it takes me out of it to imagine "myself" being attracted to them. Seeing as I was even at one point not entirely heterosexual, I think Taure's idea of reader types is more compelling.

As for the slash style, I do think that is the largest reason for my avoidance. I can read stories which don't completely grasp me into self-insertion mode, but when they're written like a 14 year old girl's imagination of how men think and perceive the world and each other, it doesn't matter what the pairing or content is, it's unreadable for me.

 

Just wanted to add a side-note about Taure's point 1 -- I think this explains why some people are really turned off by first-person narratives. First-person forces the reader out of SI-mode and instead makes them listen to a particular person telling them the story. It pokes holes in immersion. Second-person is worse in that it assumes you're an SI-style reader, but then seems to hold you as the reader accountable for the bad choices of the viewpoint character. Nothing worse than telling a reader they're in control and then making them take stupid actions.

 

As a heavy SI reader I feel like I need to point out a distinction that - at least for me - exists here. It's not that a character has to be exactly the same as me in their every choice, but rather just close enough that suspension of disbelief can do the rest.
Take Naruto's canon personality, for example. For those not familiar with him, he's brash, loud, and (for most of the original series) filled with unfounded arrogance. It's not that the character can't be or isn't written well like that, but I'm an introvert who despises making claims I don't think I can back up...which is Naruto's favorite past time. In the end, I couldn't connect with the character and had to drop the series fairly early on because of it.
But I've also read a lot of Naruto fanfiction, and some of those fics are among my all-time favorites. So, why did they work for me when the actual series didn't? Most of it's down to changes to the protagonists personality.
I'll use Dr. Snakes MD's Hurricane Suite as an example. Naruto in that story is vastly different to his cannon self: more humble, more competent, and with all around less obnoxious screaming. Obviously, he's not the exact same person as me. I'm not an orphan, nor am I child soldier. But when I unconsciously imagine myself in his shoes, his choices are similar enough to the ones I would make that I can nod along happily and accept it.
It's only major actions that I know I would never do that constitute the line for me. The male character I'm reading about having romantic or sexual feelings for another man is one of those things in the same way that Naruto's unsupportable challenges were. It's not that I take issue with the concepts or with the people that practice them, but rather that I know I myself would and will never be one of those people. It snaps me out of my immersion, and given that immersion is one of my top priorities while reading fiction, it often proves a hurdle I can't get past in my enjoyment of a story, ending with me dropping it.

 

Are you unable to read from a woman's POV, if she's attracted to a man?

 

In those cases I usually end up identifying with the main love interest in romantic scenes, rather than with the protagonist. I honestly don't know why, just that that's the sort of mode I fall into while reading.

 

The question of SI vs Third Person readers is particularly interesting to me. It has a role not only in why some people choose not to read slash, but also in why others choose to read it over other possibilities.

Something which I have seen brought up more than a few times on r/Fanfiction when the topic of 'why slash' is raised is the idea that heterosexual relationships come with too much baggage. It is claimed that standard male/female romances tend to come with a set of tropes closely connected to issues of sexism and patriarchy (to borrow the verbiage used by one such person) and I can definitely see where they're coming from.

Baggage, however, is a possession of the reader, not something inherent in the story.

The issue, as I presented it to them, is that slash fic also plays heavily into negative tropes of homosexuality. They specifically gave an example of how age differences in M/F relationships perpetuate negative ideas of power imbalances in male/female relationships and I pointed out that age gaps in homosexual relationships have some fairly weighty negative connotations of their own.

Their reply to that was telling. They accepted that it was true that M/M relationships had plenty of negative connotations going for them, but said, simply, that they are drawn to M/M because it offers them distance.

In this case it seems that a M/F relationship would cause them to identify more closely with the female character in the relationship, which makes any negative associations much more closely felt by the reader, and so they elect to instead read and write M/M stories so that they can adopt the Third Person reader persona, and look past the 'issues'.

I think a lot of this comes down to trust; trust of the author. Fanfic is an inherently low-trust area of writing. We will not hesitate to avoid a fic containing a singular element which we have seen handled poorly in the past simply because we do not trust the author to do it better. Just as that person I talked to did not trust others (or indeed themselves) to approach M/F relationships in a way which could bring them enjoyment, I do not really trust others (or indeed myself) to approach M/M relationships. I do not doubt they can be done well, nor do I doubt I could enjoy them. I simply do not trust fanfic authors with the task of creating such a story.

The question I ask myself is this: If Terry Pratchett had written a story with a homosexual male protagonist (arguments about Good Omens notwithstanding), would I read it? The answer is yes, in a heartbeat.

 

Whelp this got way too long, better hide it.

Spoiler

I agree pretty much completely with Fitz (and second all the Divine Comedian recs, let’s add Age of Lies to the list, it’s a masterpiece). A couple of disclaimers: I write slash as well as het and gen, I read very little fanfic and I’ve read maybe ten Harry centric fics, so I’m coming at it from that perspective.


Most fanfic is shit and I will close the tab during the first paragraph well over 99% of the time. However, a lot of the stories I like have slash in them, which might be explained with a) I read marauders era, or b) I think I’m right in saying that the stories I enjoy are written by older writers or c) I tend to like a bit of angst in my fics. Or d) I just think two men kissing is so bloody sexy.


I recognize all of Taure’s points as things that make me close the tab, although in my head they’re not exclusive to slash but coupled with (1) the style of younger writers just setting out, (2) writing for a specific readership with specific expectations or (3) I associate the points brought up with gen z in general. I also agree writing for catharsis belongs here.


The meme about men writing women and bad women’s anatomy is something you can flip on its head, if slash is mostly written by girls and women then bad men’s anatomy is to be expected. Different readers might have different pain thresholds for how much of either one they’ll endure, maybe you’ll notice that this is definitely not how two lads would act together but you won’t notice it when it’s two girlfriends who are acting off. Most writers who struggle with this grow out of it as they go on to have relationships that aren’t confined to the pages of a word document, but with a constant influx of new young writers, this phenomenon isn’t going anywhere. Some of it’s likely cultural as well.


Related to both young and new authors: (sub)conscious copying. When you’re starting out you’re usually trying to emulate the style of an author you admire, it will lead to some word choices or character arcs or portrayals becoming overused and over time becoming the norm. I don’t think this is exclusive to slash writers and I think it’s to be expected in all genres. Makes it easier to know which stories to avoid, as you say, I’d avoid the tropey ones in any genre, slash included.


The second point: some slash is written specifically for other slashers. Live and let live, there is a market for it and everyone’s allowed their porn, for slashers be that of the explicit, sweaty sticky rimming hairy arseholes variety or the emotional domestic fluff variety. We all need to get off or at the very least feel a little fuzzy inside.


Gen z: I’m finding as I grow old and wrinkly that the discussions I have with the new generation in RL and online will always lead to exploring mental health, abusive behaviour, past trauma, or lamenting the lack of representation for x in x. It’s by no means a bad thing, but it can get repetitive and feel out of place in HP, and it is very prevalent in fanfic by and for gen z, slash very much included. I’m too out of date and too cynical and have the wrong sense of humour for it, but I also applaud it, even if it does make me close the tab straight after.


Lastly, loads of art is created to deal with whatever their creator is going through, sometimes personal events and sometimes what’s happening in the world. It’s easy to put darkness on a page so that you can be light and fluffy in your day-to-day life. If this is what a fanfic author is doing, then judging them for not having the mc stay in character or whatever is a bit silly, and again, you might not be the intended audience, in fact there might not be any intended audience at all, this could be a work purely for the writer of it, maybe published with the hope of helping someone else going through similar things. Or a fic might start off as an exercise in dealing with depression, say, and then turn into a full-blown story with a cool plot and worldbuilding as the author finds a new track, but that story would still retain some of the features of a venting of emotions journal.


For Taure’s point 1, I agree with those and I propose a third one to cover the type of reader I’ve become, which is the ‘fellow author reader’. I rarely get immersed in fanfic stories anymore, when I read it I look at how characters are portrayed, if I agree with that portrayal I will read on and I’ll get impressed with other author’s interesting plot and the language they use and I try to see if I can collect the clues to the twists and turns in the story and I check at what point I know how it’ll end.


Tl;dr: I’m not the intended audience, maybe you aren’t either?


Addendum after reading Steelbadgers post: As for why I’ve enjoyed slash fics in the past and why I occasionally write them; the character I wanted to see explored was Sirius, that’s how I got into fanfiction. When he is paired with someone it’s usually with Lupin, so by default I’ve read a lot of that, and although I find him a bit boring I can absolutely see how you can write them as a pair without changing their canon selves, and if the plot’s good as well then I’m happy. It’s usually not, but there’s a gold nugget at about the same rate you find everything else. Anyway, there’s the potential for endless conflict in their relationship within canon, they’re well-established characters but loads left to explore, they have lots of fraught history and their story can be set to the backdrop of the first war, which I think is criminally underexplored. This said I’m perfectly happy to read/write about Sirius with other characters, too, especially ones that aren’t fleshed out in canon, or alone doing his own thing. It’s mostly a question of what’s popular, as well as if you prefer reading/writing about characters that are fleshed out in canon or not.


Slash porn: we get off on what we get off on, we’re all wired the way we are, never judge anyone for that. Porn bleeding into how we see people generally is always bad and very common, again, most prevalent but in no way exclusive to young people of all genders. Keep the fetishizing of people contained to your one-on-one time with your hand or 15-inch bad dragon.

 

I'm very much one of those SI readers you mention.

Reading is a form of escapism for me. I escape into these worlds through the eyes of the protagonist.

There's a kind of level of credulity that, if strained too far, completely pulls me out. So it doesn't need to be 1-1, but an idiot (often played for laughs) is a trait that would make me drop a book instantly, for example.

Likewise for less egregious examples. Like a female or gay protag.

Black or Asian (or any other nationalities) doesn't bother me at all though unless the entire premise of that character is based on the colour of their skin.

My mood can also affect how much of a hard line I'll take on non desirable characteristics too.

/shrug

 

What about femslash? Are there similarly issues of most femslash being by-men-for-men, as slash sometimes seems to be largely by-women-for-women?

 

If you're asking me, that would fall under the category of femMC...lol