Posted 5:36 AM by Liz

I was looking for an obscure bit of slashfic the other day and happened across another article on slash and why people read and write it. This author, Kate Mercier, writing for Alternet, didn't get much right, but it was amusing to watch her try.

I had the fortune/misfortune in high school to be half-geek/half-popular. Where I'm from, it's the popular kids who are sexy (read: "sexual," but I didn't know that then) and the geeks who are, well, gamers. That is, while the cool kids were out drinking and fighting and having sex, the geeks were taking part in role-playing games and reading Anne Rice/Hitchhikers' Guide to the Galaxy/graphic novels. Which is not to say that these "geeks" weren't also drinking and fighting and having sex, they were just doing all that stuff while engaging in a rich fantasy life, and when time permitted, academic studies. These are the people who created and populated the world of "Slash," or "/": a subculture of fan fiction, or "Fan Fic" -- stories written by fans.

As it happens, I do fall into that category of geek, but of the more or less 100 slash fans I know well enough to talk about, there are perhaps two others. All the rest are ordinary, non-geeky, good 'ol middle-class women in a wide variety of occupations and family situations. The one thing that does bind them and characterize them as a group is what the author calls a "rich fantasy life," but you don't have to be a geek to have that.

Mercier did get one thing right:

There are hundreds and hundreds of Web sites with full-to-bursting archives of stories that are often illustrated, rated, and categorized for your reading pleasure. There are well-known authors, published fanzines, conventions, newsgroups, and chat rooms. There is a story for every kink, a fable for every double entendre uttered on the real show, and several endings for every cliff hanger.

But her assertion that "this genre takes itself VERY seriously" completely ignores the fact that WE KNOW IT'S JUST FICTION. We may enjoy a two-hour discussion of why Spock abandoned his beloved Kirk after the five-year mission and went back to Vulcan to renounce every trace of emotion in his half-human psyche, but WE KNOW IT'S JUST FICTION. It's just that this particular fiction is a lot more satisfying than the real life in which some of us are trapped. Rich fantasy life, indeed.

Mercier asks the inevitable question, "Why are the overwhelming majority of slash writers women?" I'd like to know why everyone wants to know that. The obvious answer is that what they produce appeals to women! Does there have to be some deep dark reason for this? She goes on to say

Maybe it's a chance for these fans/writers to step completely out of the bounds of their "normal" heterosexual lives and into one that subverts the formula of aggressive male/passive female, recognizable in most television writing.

But many of us are not heterosexual -- there is a substantial percentage of lesbians and bi's in slash fandom, and a few gay men too. And her assertion that these stories are about gay men completely misses the fact that there is a large component of "femslash" -- stories written about two women together. The fact that more of the stories are about two men reflects the fact that (1) there are more television series featuring men in the starring roles than those featuring women (2) because there are more starring roles for men, there are more straight women than lesbians in slash fandom. If you look at the fandoms for Xena and Buffy, just to name two, you find a far higher percentage of femslash.

So, sigh, another non-slash-fan writer takes on slash, and the deep dark subject of "what it means." You know what? All it means is that everyone is different. Some people ride Harley-Davidsons. Some people play bingo on an almost religious basis. Some people are slaves to their homes. Some people like slashfic. Big deal.

Posted 6:45 AM by Liz

No, I haven't disappeared or given up blogging. Just too much work, too much family stress impacting work, too much concern with political stuff, to leave time or energy for what I really enjoy. But Tim Kaine, the Democratic gubernatorial candidate whose campaign I worked on in Virginia, won last night, whooeee! Maybe the world is slowly righting itself after all. You keep telling yourself that things cannot go on as they are, but after a while it's hard to believe yourself any more.

On to Bascon . . .

Interesting con. I presume it was patterned after the old small intimate K/S cons like Weekend in the Country, though I think the impact of that idea was diffused by the presence of so many fandoms. Unless you were involved in a lot of different fandoms, there weren't more than a couple of things to attend, and it's hard to attract many dealers for something so small. But it was a nice contrast with the crowds at cons like Shore Leave and some of the other huge ones.

There were panels for everything under the sun, but I ended up going only to the "Wild Wild West" panel and the "House M.D." panel, which was heavily attended and raised my consciousness a great deal about House! I haven't had an opportunity to see the show, and I have to confess that it doesn't sound like something I'll be tremendously interested in, but I'll make the attempt.

It was good to see Gayle F. and Caren P. again, two people from my earliest days in K/S. I hadn't realized either of them was still involved in any kind of fandom. My very first art purchase was a print of Caren's.

Con-going for me is primarily an opportunity to meet people face-to-face that I've known only by reading their stories, or more, recently, by email. So it was great fun to meet Jungle Kitty, who I had known from ASCEM, and her partner in crime (whose fan name I can't remember), and also Jonk, who wrote those wonderful post-Kirk-death Spock/McCoy stories, and the classic "Party Pooper." They have a blog at http://lookathisbutt.blogspot.com and also have a long-running podcast, which is linked to at their blog. They interviewed our very own Miss Sunbeam about her TNG episode guides, giving me some sneaky notions about doing something similar for our WWW ep guides.

The highlight of the con experience, however, was coming back into the dead dog party on Sunday just in time to hear that Sunbeam had won both Best in Craft and Best in Show for her amazing Jim/Artie collage, the image of which is on the cover of the Sin and Salvation zine. I wish all of you could have seen the original. The cover is gorgeous; the original piece of art is stunning.

Islaofhope, Sunbeam, Jhava and I spent the rest of Sunday in the city, having the best dim sum I've ever eaten and walking all over Chinatown. We drove over the Golden Gate Bridge, went down Lombard Street, and did all the tourist-y stuff. Great fun--I lived near San Fran once, but I was small and didn't remember much besides the GG bridge and the Zoo. I took zillions of pictures.

On Monday, Islaofhope and Jhava and I went to the Castro, bought books in A Different Light (gay/lesbian bookstore), ate wonderful pizza, took more pictures, bought souvenirs, took more pictures . . .

After taking Jhava to the airport, Isla drove up to the beach just north of Golden Gate Park and dragged me kicking and screaming all the way up to Cliff House and back in the pouring down rain . . . no, really, we had a great walk up the beach, watching the windsurfers, to Cliff House and Seal Rocks. There is a Camera Obscura at Cliff House, but it was closed. I took pictures of it for Sunbeam, who is interested in such things, and Isla took pictures of me standing in front of it.

We looked at the pictures of the old Sutro Baths at Cliff House (which must still have been there when I visited it in 1953 or thereabouts, but I don't remember them), had champagne in the bar, bought more books in the gift shop and then found it was raining when we went out to walk back. By the time we got back to the car, we were both soaked to the skin, but it was a wonderful refreshing walk. I can't remember the last time I had an opportunity or a motive to walk outside in the rain--it was like being a little kid again.

I'll post some pictures here when I get them all uploaded from the camera.