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Is Slash gay porn?When I first started reading and writing slash I realised that I just loved the whole idea of two hot men falling for each other. Sex, graphic or otherwise, was just the cream on the top; it wasn't essential for a slash story. What I was after was the emotional connection, the understanding, the care, the desire and the resolution of that damn UST- um, maybe some kind of sex was usually an essential requisite. It was also important that I knew the characters involved and that I cared about both of them. I wasn't interested in reading about any two guys, that wasn't why I was into fan fiction or slash in the first place. I was into fan fiction because I enjoyed the show and was interested in the characters. If I purely wanted to read about homosexual sex I could buy up the Gay Men's Press list and having obtained Mel Keegan's Aquamarine, on the understanding that it was based on Bodie and Doyle of The Professionals, all I can say is that since I didn't recognise the characters it didn't really ring any bells with me. Interesting story, but then I like SF, but none of the 'buzz' factor of fan fiction just a fairly regular SF story that just happened to involve two guys in a sexual relationship which, while establishing them as a couple, was certainly not the focus of the novel. I happily carried on reading and writing slash cheerfully accepting that some considered my choice of genre strange, and others downright twisted and 'wrong'. In the main I didn't really give a fig for the latter's good opinion because of their often outspoken homophobic and intolerant views. What did shake me was a statement on a slash list I belong to that implied that all slash was gay porn. Having checked up the word pornography in my trusty Longman's Modern English
dictionary, which to my shock was published in 1976 - geez that is OLD - I
discovered that the word pornography came from the Greek pornographos meaning
the writing of harlots. The definition was: Okay, now how many people want their reading matter to be described in those
terms? Not me for one, nor do I want to be accused of writing pornography if
that is the general understanding of the term. So I did a little further search
for definitions and yourDictionary.com
comes up with a description that is not a million miles from my old 1976
dictionary: However, the key word missing from this more modern definition is the
pejorative word, obscene, although lurid does mean: If I accepted the more modern definition of porn was I happy to have my reading and writing described in those terms? Well, no, not for a lot of my reading, and not really in terms of my writing. My stories were rather as I described Mel Keegan's novel Aquamarine, stories that had two male characters within a relationship, or getting towards a relationship, but the 'sexual' relationship was not the focus of the story. Nor did all of my stories have sex in them. Did I write them to sexually arouse others and myself? Difficult to be entirely objective here, but no, I don't think so. I write for the sheer pleasure of recreating the wonderful characters I see on screen in scenarios that I create and, yes I do want to get them together and in bed, but then many novels I wouldn't dream of calling pornographic have exactly the same premise, but with heterosexual pairings. So the primary purpose of my writing wasn't to sexually arouse, nor would I ever call my writing lurid. Okay, setting aside my feelings about my writing, did I think that most of the slash I read was written with the intention of causing sexual arousal? I have in all honesty to say that I have absolutely no idea! How can I know the intent of the author? Many authors write revealing story notes that can tell us something about their reasons for writing, but not all. In Stargate, as I am sure with many other fandoms, what a lot of writers write and readers want is male/male romance, and I do mean romance. They write their men deeply in love in a committed, monogamous relationship and the sex is seen as an expression of that love. I think the strong feeling was that love and pornography had absolutely nothing in common. In fact the most common reaction to asking women what do they understand pornography to be is to have it described in term of sex for sex sake with no emotional involvement between the participants what so ever. The relationship between a prostitute and client comes to mind. However, there is a type of story called a PWP - plot? what plot? - and even in a committed, loving relationship it is difficult to deny that there can be very little reason to write such stories other than to titillate and arouse! Not that I see that as a problem at all, but it does actually fulfil the second definition of pornography. Are we getting any where in answering the question? Well yes and no. Not all slash is romantic, not all slash consists of men (or women for that matter) in loving relationships. Some slash is hard, dirty, non-consensual, painful, violent and downright disturbing, but does it make it pornographic? Again, I don't know. Surely it depends on the intent of the author again. I've read a rape story that certainly didn't arouse me and I'm positive wasn't meant to. It was hard hitting, painful, emotive and finally heart breakingly sad. Why? Because it was so damn well written and explored the characters, their motives and the affect of the rape on their friends and colleagues as well as the rapist and his victim. Was it porn? certainly not by any of the definitions given above. Nearly all the mainstream pornography we see in magazines, on the web, in videos etc, is aimed at heterosexual men and comes across as emotionless, hard, dirty, provocative and seldom ever appears to occur within a secure relationship. A biased value judgement I have to admit, yet it certainly fits the definitions given above for pornography. Since the majority of slash, however, is written by heterosexual women for heterosexual women to enjoy, it is perhaps no surprise that as women we tend to judge the male orientated pornography somewhat negatively and do not want to have any connection made between our relationship orientated, caring and committed slash and male orientated hard edged porn! The compromise suggested by some is that we refer to slash as erotica. Now
erotica is defined as: Retuning to the question, is slash gay porn? let us just look at it very simply as does slash = porn? I think it has to be admitted that the word porn has very negative connotations and it must also be agreed that in taking the more modern definition that much slash is not pornographic. However, using the same definition, some slash is pornographic, although we can make this more palatable by deciding to use the term erotica. What this essay never really set out to answer, because I'm not the right person for the job, is the question 'Is slash any kind of gay anything?'. I think this is something that has probably been hotly disputed by the homosexual community and the slash community. I'd be interested to know, so anyone who feels they can answer me please do so and I'll pop your reply at the end of this. 01.09.03 And a great reply from David Elder/Beverly Hills Interesting discussion re. is Slash porn, erotica, neither? Please feel free to post my thoughts on this. Speaking as a gay man who has written and read both slash and gay porn I thought it might be interesting to consider this question. First up I need to make some qualifying statements of my beliefs on this topic. 1. What any individual finds a turn on will always be subjective. One person may be sexually stimulated by sexy banter in a mainstream Hollywood movie and completely left cold or repulsed by a graphic porn video, another will be turned on looking at photos or videos and be completely unmoved by a written description of sex. 2. Incorporating this notion of subjectivity it can still be stated that it's generally, if not individually, true that men and women will be turned on by different things. 3. A piece of writing can fulfil criteria to fit into more than one of these categories. 4. Most straight porn and all gay porn is designed to appeal to men not women. 5. My definition of erotica is a piece of art crafted to put one in the mood without attempting to take you all the way there. In thinking about this I have to ask myself some questions about intent in writing and reading slash and porn. Writing slash for me is a creative challenge to construct an interesting story with a plausible romantic relationship between two characters of the same gender without otherwise breaking out of the established cannon of the TV series, movie or book that it's based on. Romantic relationship here may or may not include the characters having sex. When I first started reading then writing slash stories I had not knowingly ever encountered other male writers. I knew there were a few out there but I very much assumed that most readers and writers of slash were female. So when I started writing slash it was with a female reader in mind. This did have an affect on how I wrote about sex. While some of the stories I read surprised me with their graphic 'hard core' descriptions of s/m b/d encounters between characters by and large most other descriptions fell into either being unrealistic 'Cartlandish' same sex "codpiece rippers" or technical descriptions with more in common with a "How to program your VCR" manual. Of course, luckily I then discovered some wonderful writers whose descriptions of sex between their characters were inventive, earthy or beautiful and added immeasurably to the pleasure of reading the story. But here is where the crucial difference between gay porn and slash comes in. No matter how well written a slash story is I read it for the pleasure of reading a story. I read/view gay porn to masturbate and get off, either alone or with somebody else. It's as simple as that. When I've been paid to write porn for gay magazines the primary intent is to write a story that the maximum number of readers will want to masturbate to and get off on. It has to meet those criteria rather than a number of literary standards necessary for a successful slash story. In gay porn the language I would use, the amount of background story to the sex, the fantasy elements involved, the use of 1st, 2nd or 3rd person will vary a lot to what I use when writing slash. When I write sex in a slash story I find it liberating not to be targeting the narrative towards getting the reader off, necessarily. Of course as I said earlier I think men and women generally have a different approach to sex in general and porn in particular. I think this probably applies to gay men and straight women as well even though their objects of desire may be the same. I've found even most slash PWPs different from gay porn in this respect. It doesn't surprise me when I read female slash writers stating that they find the porn stories at nifty.com a turnoff, they're using slash criteria for porn stories. In a similar way my gay friends don't understand slash and find the sex in slash stories unsatisfying. They're using porn criteria to assess stories written for a completely different purpose. This is just my take on what is a very complex area
that could keep armies of 'ologists tapping away for years. 16.09.03 A link to an interesting article Erotic by nature at Salon.com
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