Reply to Girls who “ship” two guys being together

Forum Index » Tweens and Teens

Reply to "Girls who “ship” two guys being together"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Fandom nerd here! (Cracks knuckles)

The term “slash” began with Kirk/Spock fanfiction in the 70s, mostly written by women, and generally refers to male/male romantic relationships (notice the /). So it’s not at all new. The communities just moved from snail mail fan magazines to Usenet newsgroups to AOL to online fan forums to LiveJournal to Tumblr.

“Shipping” originated from “relationship” in the X-files fan community in the mid-90s and can refer to either hetero or same sex relationships. “Canon” relationships are actually featured on the show or in the books, but fans often “ship” characters that are not canonically together. Until recently, male/male relationships were very rarely canon. Now that gay relationships are more common on TV and in books, there are more canon gay ships. Popular non-canon M/M ships include Harry/Draco from Harry Potter and Stiles/Derek from Teen Wolf.

RPF (real person fiction) is written about real people— often the actors that play characters, boy band members, or athletes. For example, when Glee was at its height, there was a ton of fic about Chris Colfer, who played Kurt, and Darren Criss, who played Blaine. (Both were involved with long term partners, and Darren Criss is straight, but that doesn’t matter.) Pete/Patrick from Fall Out Boy is another popular pairing (also both straight in real life). Hockey RPF is also a big thing, pairing famous players romantically. People are often split in whether RPF is icky. It is a BIG no-no to send RPF to the person being written about, but people sometimes do it.

There’s also plenty of original male/male fiction bring published, often by women. There are all different genres, just like in straight romance fiction, and that includes YA.

There’s a lot of discourse on why slash appeals to so many straight women and teen girls. One theory is that it allows romance and fantasy without having to compare oneself to an idealized female that one can’t measure up to. (There’s also discussion of whether it’s appropriation/fetishization of LGBT identities/relationships.)

I’ve been reading fan fiction since I was 13ish, and slash fan fiction for ten years or so. I am a late-30s straight woman in a perfectly normal marriage. :) [/quote]

FASCINATING! Thank you for the explanation. [/quote]

Not pp, but there’s a decent YA book, Fangirl, that is set around a the teen girl author of a fanfic like this. You might enjoy it![/quote]

DD and I have enjoyed RR’s series about that M/M couple. [/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics