Truth in Advertising

Lately, I've noticed something that seems to be appearing with regularity in my slash fandoms. I'm not sure if this is a fad or just the way of things now that slash has become more 'mainstream'. One thing I know for sure, I don't like it. I'll never like it. Sadly, it doesn't matter how I feel about it, I seem to be outnumbered.

What I'm talking about here is a shift away from strictly m/m pairings and a move into mixed m/f/m relationships and labeling them as slash. Oh, I can hear you thinking... it's not that bad! There's not that many of them, and hey, lots of people like mixed sex multiple partnerships.

Okay -- I'll try to be fair -- mixed/multiple partnerships are a lot of fun for a great many fan fiction readers and writers. It's even a red hot turn on button for a lot of folks. I have no problem with that. How could I? After all, fan fiction is all about wish fulfillment.  It's writing and reading stories about what you'd like to see in your fandom.

The problem for me arises, when I keep seeing these mixed partnerships on slash lists and private author pages, labeled as slash.

The roots of the term are clear. Slash came from the original Star Trek series, as a nomenclature for the Kirk/Spock pairing: slash being the virgule between the two names. Slash later came to mean any m/m pairing. Also, there's debate about whether it is correct to use with canon pairings (i.e. Keller/Beecher from Oz), since the K/S origins came out of a non canon, subtextual relationship.

Now I'm finding the term is being expanded to mean a lot of other things. A story with almost any sort of m/m inference gets the label. A story which is primarily a m/f pairing with another man tossed into the mix is common (i.e. Mulder/Scully + Skinner or Krycek).

I can't go there. I am a 'slash only' sort of fan writer/reader. I find a great enjoyment from reading and writing m/m. For a great many years, I thought being a woman and getting off on the whole idea of m/m made me a freak of nature. Slash was a revelation to me. It's a community and an idea that I've found a home in.

It's enormously frustrating for me to find a story in an archive or on author page, labeled slash only to discover it's Duncan/Amanda/Methos or Mulder/Scully/Krycek. Even worse is when a series of stories that's been m/m suddenly turns into m/f/m. Sorry, but to me that isn't slash. Slash means that the stories focus on a m/m or f/f couple. Or sometimes even a m/m/m or f/f/f trio. But same sex is the key. Otherwise, it's some sort of bisexual partnership, which is fine, if that's what floats your boat.

I've been told that for most people, if a story has almost any element of m/m it's slash. Oops! Sorry, but that's grasping at straws. That's what we do when we watch regular media and are forced to dig for homoerotic subtext. I don't want to have to search for the subtext in my slash reading.

Personally, I don't care what the arguments are. If it's a mixed sex trio call it a trio, call it a quad, call it "Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice"; I don't care. Just don't call it slash.