THE WORLD ACCORDING TO EUPHONIUS

WHAT IS THIS THING CALLED SLASH?

INTRODUCTION: The Herc/Iolaus Scrolls
(If you've read this already, please feel free to skip ahead.)

Then there was the time when Hercules came back to the campsite proudly carrying the huge fish he had caught for supper only to find his partner avidly reading a rather beat-up-looking scroll, with a number of others piled up next to him.

"Iolaus, what are you doing? You were supposed to be making the fire," Herc said somewhat grumpily.

"What does it look like I'm doing?" came the distracted reply. "I'm reading."

Squatting down beside his friend, the demi-god laid aside the fish and picked up one of the rolls of parchment. "Where'd you get these?"

"A used scroll dealer in that town we just left." Iolaus glanced up briefly with a decidedly snotty look on his face. "She said they were stories about our adventures, and I'm in every one."

"Oh," Hercules replied, clearly not impressed. He began scouting around the clearing for firewood as his companion picked up another of the scrolls and continued reading.

The fire was beginning to catch when Iolaus finally looked up and announced, "This is ridiculous. We never did all this stuff."

Herc shrugged. "That's what happens when you're a legend. People make up stories about you."

"I suppose." The blonde warrior opened another one and glanced at it idly. Then he did a double take and started reading in earnest. His eyes went wide as he shook his head in disbelief, then held the offending scroll out to his friend.

"Just look at this one!" he exclaimed. "Why, I've never screwed this many women in one night in my entire life."

Hercules smiled and gave a cursory glance at the parchment. "Never?" he asked gently.

Iolaus kind of shrugged, then grinned. "Well – even if I did, it wasn't quite this spectacular," he finally admitted. Setting the scroll aside, he picked up another. "Wonder what sort of nonsense they've written in this one?" he mused.

Hercules chuckled and leaned closer to the fire, wishing his companion would get over his current bout of foolishness quickly so they could get on with supper.

"Oh now, just look at this!" Iolaus announced, an expression of horror crossing his face. "I've been totally trashed and you just spent half a year nursing me back to health!"

Finally overcome by curiosity, the big man took the scroll and perused a couple of paragraphs himself. "Yuck!" he finally concluded. "Gross."

"Yeah," Iolaus agreed emphatically.

This time it was Hercules who pulled another scroll from the pile. "Let me read one of those. I want to see what kind of lies the bards are spreading about us."

It wasn't long before a blush crept over the handsome face. "Uh – Iolaus, you're really not gonna believe this one."

Iolaus looked over the other man's shoulder, wondering what could have gotten such a reaction from his partner. His eyes went really wide this time.

"We've certainly never done that!" he protested.

Fascinated, they continued reading. Iolaus was the first to offer a comment on the salacious story spread open before them.

"Uh -- Herc, we seem to be having a lot of fun here, don't we?"

"Yeah."

The demi-god looked up from the parchment and into his friend's face, barely a hands-breadth away. Their eyes met, and both men grinned simultaneously.

"Maybe we ought to try it?"

"No time like the present, huh?"



Okay, most of you probably know what this story is about, but my article is for those readers who haven't yet encountered slash fanfic.

Slashfic didn't get the name because we enjoy slicing our favorite characters to pieces (although some writers do a fair amount of that also). It started way back in the early days of STAR TREK fandom, when some of the writers began to wonder if there might be something more going on between Kirk and Spock than merely friendship, and wrote stories in which the two men become lovers. As a sort of shorthand, these were termed Kirk/Spock, or K/S, stories. And there's where the slash comes in. It's a shorthand way to let readers know just which characters are involved in the action.

So were does that get us? It gets us to the point of saying that slash is basically fanfic containing sexual activity, or sometimes just the desire for sexual activity, between two, or more, characters of the same sex. That's simple enough, right? Well, not exactly. These stories aren't simply pornography, but can cover the entire range of possibilities from G (no sex or violence) to NC17 (sex in dripping detail and/or extreme violence), with nice little items like NC (non-consensual sex) and D (death of a main character) in between.



WHY IS THIS THING CALLED SLASH?

Now, why in the heck would anyone want to write this sort of thing? Would you like the most scholarly answer, the most feminist answer, or the most honest answer? The most honest answer? So why did I just know you were going to say that? Okay, here it is: we read and write slashfic because it turns us on. After all, if it turned you off, would you have anything to do with it? Of course not. I rest my case.

And the feminist answer? That has several possibilities. Slashfic often portrays an intimate relationship between two equals, something that is extremely difficult to achieve in our sexist society. So what if they're usually both men? It's the sort of relationship to which many a feminist would aspire, if only such a thing were possible.

I'm reminded of the line in the very first HERCULES movie, where the Amazon Queen asks Herc if he could love a woman as he loves Iolaus. That is indeed a very good question. Not "as much as" he loves Iolaus, but "as" he loves him: as a brother, as an equal, as the one he can trust to guard his back, and vice versa.

As P.F. Lamb and Dr. D.L. Veith concluded in their fairly well-known examination of slash fic, The Romantic Myth and Transcendence: A Feminist Interpretation of the Kirk/Spock Bond, "Theirs is a perfect relationship, between two equals, who are loved for who they are, encouraged to express all that we humanly value, and supported both morally and concretely through the challenges and adventures of their shared lives."

To carry this concept further, even within the sexual act itself there is the possibility of total equality, since anything done by one partner to the other is potentially doable by that one also. Either can be on top, or on the bottom.

Very nice thought, right? Equality is good. We like this.

Or do we? I'd be less than honest if I didn't mention the darker side of slashfic. The shoe is on the other foot here: women writers can make men into objects of lust and desire, essentially forcing them to do whatever they would like to see done to those gorgeous bodies. And sometimes what the writers want to see done is not very nice at all.

Along with the beautiful love stories and the equal relationships, there are many tales of brutal rape, torture, and severe angst. Perhaps in the future, I'll deal more with this aspect of slashfic, but for now, it's enough to note that it exists.

But how about the most scholarly answer? Well, about the best I can do is to say that slashfic, like most fanfic in general, just might represent the sort of plots and tales that women, and perhaps a growing number of men, would choose to watch, if only they could find such things in the mainstream world of entertainment. Fandom now encompasses so many people that it is quite literally a sub-culture of its own, with slash fandom as one of its many divisions. What impact, if any, this will have on the rest of society remains to be seen, but the Internet has taken the entire fan world on a quantum leap forward, in terms of visibility and potential for public awareness. Like the imaginations of our writers, the possibilities are truly endless.


WHO WRITES THIS STUFF ANYWAY?

As far as I know, mostly straight women, and a very few gay or bi men. There may well be some straight men out there also, but I've never run across their stories.

That's been the stock answer, up until recently, when XENA, with its notorious lesbian subtext, attracted a number of gay women into its fandom. To the best of my knowledge, the vast majority of writers are fairly ordinary folks, often happily married, with children, etcetera, etcetera. We just happen to have a little more graphically perverted imaginations than the usual run of fans, and the guts to write it down.


SO WHAT DOES ALL THIS HAVE TO DO WITH OUR GOLDEN HUNTER?

Oh, you'd be surprised at the wide assortment of people who do our Golden Hunter. J

That wasn't quite what you meant? Sorry.

You thought Iolaus was determinedly heterosexual? Pretty girl in every village, devoted husband of poor dear Anya, fearless lover of such incomparable women as Niobe and Nebula, seduced by the indomitable Xena, and even casting longing eyes on sweet little Gabrielle in her early days? How can we get around all that evidence of his impeccably straight manhood?

Don't worry, we devious slash writers have our ways. Read some more slash stories and you'll find out what I mean.

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