[Poll] The Science of Slashiness

[thefourthvine]

Recently, cimness posted a graph of genius, comparing level of canon gay and quality of canon writing across several fandoms.

I, of course, immediately looked at it and thought: this calls for science. Because clearly what we need are definitive numbers for each of these values for many, many fandoms, so that they can be plotted on graphs. This will make me HAPPY. Possibly it will also make you happy - or perhaps you are just interested in increasing overall happiness in the universe! - in which case I direct you behind the cut.

ETA: lolitakun has provided us with some preliminary scientific results here. Go and behold!



A quick note on the selection of the fandoms: I picked ones I thought a lot of people would have opinions on. If I left something critical out, feel free to tell me in the comments.

A quick note on voting: When I say "slashy," I include femslash. Buffy/Faith, Gabrielle/Xena - these are pairings worth considering! Also, if you haven't seen an episode of the show, please don't vote on canon writing quality. (Ideally, you would have seen three! Or even more!) But if you think you can make a fair estimate of slashiness based on vids or YouTube pieces or transcripts, by all means, vote on that.

ETA: For quality, 1 = worse than anything you could find on fanfiction.net, even if you were funded by a grant solely for the purpose of finding the worst writing the world has ever known. 10 = genius unparalleled. For slashiness, 1 = straighter than a ruler. 10 = they could suck cocks or finger each other right there on the screen and it would only reduce the overall slashiness. Thanks for pointing out the ambiguity, lolaraincoat!

And now it's time for...SCIENCE.

[Poll #1352713]

Comments

[thefourthvine.livejournal.com]

I blame the editors losing their grip on people like Judd Winick.

Among other things. *nobly does not get into it*

This relates to an issue I have with fandom in general, which is that emotional closeness doesn't always translate into sexual attraction.

Hmmm. But the thing is, we're not talking about gayness, which can be pretty empirically determined (How many same sex kisses are there? How much same sex sex? Etc.), but slashiness, which is much more of a you-know-it-when-you-see-it thing. And a huge component of slashiness is emotional involvement, emotional closeness. When we (by which I mean I, of course) say something is slashy, that's a large part of what we're talking about, and when we write slash, we're often furthering that emotional involvement, going for the big emotional payoff - even for people like me, who are definitely of the extremely cold and prickly school of writing and reading.

So I would say that in the real world, emotional closeness doesn't always, or even often, translate into sexual attraction. But in fannish writing and fannish interpretation of the text, emotional closeness usually does translate into slashiness.

But that is entirely my opinion, of course, and this poll is asking about what you see. And clearly you have a different definition of slashiness, which is what makes fandom (and this poll) interesting.

Also, Tolkien lost several points for Tom Bombadil, something I'm glad Peter Jackson knew to forget about.

Oh dear god Tom Bombadil. You can tell I am not a real Tolkien fanatic, because I tend to break out in hives if I think about him too closely.

[amarin-rose.livejournal.com]

slashiness, which is much more of a you-know-it-when-you-see-it thing. And a huge component of slashiness is emotional involvement, emotional closeness.

That almost, but doesn't quite, sound like smarm, which is gen fluff/emotional closeness.

Also, what woman is that in your icon? Natasha Irons?

[thefourthvine.livejournal.com]

I do think smarm and slash have a lot in common - I mean, I kind of have to think that, since when I read in older fandoms I am often staring in stark disbelief at a story, going, "You think this is GEN?" These stories contain what I consider to be all the hallmarks of a sexual and romantic relationship - things that, if I saw them in canon, would mean to me that the pairing was canonical - not implied, not subtextual, not possible, but fact. (Examples, culled from actual stores in older fandoms: sharing a bed naked together, taking a shower together in a single-person shower when there is no compelling reason but, you know, a desire to shower together (so, not decontamination or anything else time-sensitive), marriage proposals, holding hands (note: modern Western cultural context), kissing.) As far as I can tell, smarm writers would just prefer no sex in their romance. I figure, if you've got the romance, you might as well have the sex. Slash and smarm are different points of view, different needs from fiction, but they can look very similar on paper.

The woman in my icon, sadly, is just a figment of an artist's imagination. She's from the Museum of Black Superheroes (http://www.blacksuperhero.com/gallery6/gal06-03superwoman.html). But wouldn't it be awesome if she were real?

[amarin-rose.livejournal.com]

She is hot, yes.

And smarm versus slash - one of the things that has always ticked me off about many gen The Sentinel stories, especially ones where Sentinels and Guides are known, is that very often there is a 'bonding' process between Sentinels and Guides, and they often involve a lot of hugging/touching, sometimes naked. And the way these 'bonding' scenes are written, it sounds like a sex scene from a Victorian romance - you know, fiery passionate clenches, eruption of climax, fade to black? Reading something like that - and I've seen something similar in other fandoms, like Stargate with Ancient tech, or Jossverse spells gone wonky - always makes me think the authors are protesting too much about their characters not having the hots for each other. *eyeroll*