You have blond hair, he has brown hair. You always have blond hair, he always has brown hair. You dye your hair brown, but suddenly his hair is blond, and you feel as though maybe you are him, and he is you, and you have blond hair again, and he has brown hair.
His gaze is impossibly fond, his eyes are impossibly blue, he pulls you impossibly closer, your heart beats impossibly fast, the bulge in his pants is impossibly hard, he should maybe get that checked out.
You don’t remember ever working out and yet you look down and see you have a six pack. When you next see yourself in the mirror you have an eight pack. When he takes of your shirt you have ten, twelve abs. You’re scared to look again in case there are more.
His eyes change colour depending on his moods. At first you thought it was a trick of the light, but now you’re not so sure. They switch between blue, green and grey. Once you thought you saw a flicker of red. You make sure to kiss with your eyes closed now.
You’re white, and so is he. Sometimes he’s your enemy, but you still love him, don’t you? Of course, it makes sense. You’re not sure what you like about him, exactly, but there must be something, right? There’s this intangible thing between you, isn’t there? You feel like you may have more chemistry with your non-white friend, but that can’t be right.
You don’t remember taking your clothes off but you’re naked now. Well, all you remember is toeing out of your shoes. You always toe out of them, although you don’t quite know what that means.
Your pronouns mix into a blur and you no longer know where you end and he begins… You reach out your hand to his hand on his arm… your arm… his… You are sitting and he straddles you but is facing away… There are hands everywhere…
So here’s a thing. Probably tmi, idek.
In my reading for last week’s conference I came across an article (can’t quite remember the citation right now) that described writing slash as a queer act in and of itself: women (usually) writing erotic fiction in order to get other women (usually) off.
And I realized that maybe that’s exactly what it is for me. I miss having romantic and sexual interactions with women. I love my husband, but christ, I miss loving women. When I write and post slash for a largely female audience, I’m having sexual interactions (of a sort) with women in a way that doesn’t count as cheating. Women are still a part of my sexual life, in a way.
Sorry, I hope this isn’t creepy. It feels like an important realization for me.
Reblogging to add:
1. This isn’t all that writing is for me, but I think it’s a pretty big impetus for my slash writing.
2. I always have had a fairly brain-focused sexual life, so this actually makes a lot of sense. Huh.Thank you, doctornerdington!!! It’s not creepy at all, to me. This is something I’ve always felt so alone with and to see you express the same sort of thoughts is so comforting. I too love my husband dearly, but BUT I long for women. To be with a woman again. It’s something so deeply visceral it makes my heart ache when I let myself think about it. I hadn’t thought of my slash writing in this sense, but maybe subconsciously, that’s what I’m trying to do, or how it feels.
Bless you for having the courage to put this out there. <3
I’ve thought of this but didn’t know how to put it into words. Yes and yes.
I often wonder why I am obsessed with the sex lives of two male fictional characters enough to write about their activities….I suppose on some level it is about the ‘female’ aspect of it…..my favorite part of all of this is the friendship aspect of it all. The encouragement other female artists are given and just the all around loveliness I have encountered. Also the fact that we can be silly dirty minded people and get to escape our sometimes painful realities and still can have meaningful conversations such as this. Thank you!
I read in some article – of course we never remember citations, do we doctornerdington – that gay erotica written by women has nothing at all to do with the sex lives of men. It has to do with considering what sex could look like between partners who have no inbuilt power differential, who have grown up expecting to be free and self-determining agents of their own pleasure, who think nothing of asking for what they want and expecting to be a complete and active partner in sexual congress. In other words, men. Even writing lesbian erotica does not fulfill these criteria. It is nothing at all to do with the particular body parts involved, and everything to with how partners treat each other when they automatically consider that the person they’re having sex with is as much a person as they are.
And that’s HOT.
This ^
Yes. I think there’s a lot to be said for this. A LOT.
OK, since I tend to be citation gal:
doctornerdington’s essay is more than likely
Lackner, Eden, Barbara Lucas, and Robin Anne Reid. (2006) ‘Cunning Linguists: The Bisexual Erotics of Words/Silence/Flesh’, K. Hellekson and K. Busse (eds) Fan Fiction and Fan Communities in
the Age of the Internet, 207–24. Jefferson, NC: McFarland.hubblegleeflower’s essay is probably
Lamb, P.F. and Veith D. (1986) ‘Romantic myth, transcendence, and Star Trek zines’, D. Palumbo (ed) Erotic Universe: Sexuality and Fantastic Literature, 236–55, Westport, CT: Greenwood Press.
And just for good measure, here’s an essay that expands upon the idea of slash as queer female space that was kinda floating around fannish meta spaces in the early to mid 2000s
Lothian, A., Busse, K. and Reid, R.A. (2007) ‘Yearning void and infinite potential: Online slash fandom as queer female space’, ELN 45(2): 103–111.
Send me an ask if you want a copy of any of them.
Also, here is an earlier instances post that addresses the imaginary and the real life queer spaces in slash fandom:
hesychasm’s post: http://hesychasm.livejournal.com/74060.html
cathexys for the win!!!! Thanks so much! Yes, that was it! And more goodies to check out, too.
I like the slash, and I think I like it because I feel there are so many people who are under-represented—or not represented at all—in mainstream Hollywood entertainment. I really enjoy the fan fiction that embraces character and themes that showcase those people—their love, their desires, their passions. I think that’s really cool—and I hope the show as it continues embraces that more, because that’s an opportunity to tell stories that other people might not be familiar with. I mean, there’s slash of me and Ichabod… that’s like, ‘What?!’ and then I read it and it was really well-written. I get it—it’s another way to go but it’s no less valid than what we’re doing and it’s certainly interesting, so I really get a kick out of that. To read fan fiction and to see fan art and to watch other people’s artistry paint different colors on top of what we’re doing… how can you be mad at that? That’s just completely awesome!
Benedict Cumberbatch and Orlando Jones Have Expressed Varying Levels of Comfort With Slash
Orlando Jones, you sweet prince.
(via themarysue)
Sherlock Slashfic Drinking Game Rules
version 1.0
Because slash is even better when you’re drunk. Let me know how this goes if you try it…
(rules below the cut)
Slash was the only genre of literature I had ever found that followed the characters into bed and back out of it; that investigated and demonstrated how the people they were outside of bed were connected to the people they were in bed; that modeled how to be with someone in everyday life, go to bed with them, and then wake up next to them and continue everyday life with them. In slash, ‘everyday life’ wasn’t differentiated from ‘sex life.’ Who people were outside of bed and during the day critically, obviously, demonstrably influenced how they behaved in bed with each other, and vice versa …. The two parts of life weren’t disjunct; indeed, they were crucially connected, mutually influential, even indivisible. In fact, that indivisibility was often the whole point.
Blogger Shoshanna, quoted in “Sherlock as Cyborg: Bridging Mind and Body,” in Sherlock and Transmedia Fandom, eds. Stein and Busse (McFarland, 2012). (via daxsymbiont)