Nothing to see here, move along

Reposting by request a comment I made nearly four (!!!) years ago in switchknife's journal:

At a guess, the reason the article saying slash=egalitarian relationships reads as such total bullshit to you is because it's not, whether it explicitly says so or not, talking about the type of slash you read and write.

I think slash originated (well, not *originated*, because it *originated* thousands of years ago, but in the sense of the continuous fandom culture that's getting academic attention) with things like Kirk/Spock and Starsky/Hutch and those guys from The Professionals - that is, partners and friends who work together in an essentially egalitarian way and then wind up shagging. Call it buddyslash. That's a tradition carried on by my present fandom (due South) and several others: Sentinel, Sports Night, popslash, etc.

Then there's the fight-fight-shag model: enemyslash.

And then there's also the teacher/student or master/servant or cop/prisoner or what have you dynamic, which you could probably call powerslash. I think the three deserve to be recognized at least as distinct subgenres within slash, if not wholly different animals. I think that if you vastly prefer one of these, you're likely to be a slasher for different reasons than people who vastly prefer a different one. And I think that for purposes of explaining it to people who don't slash at all, academics tend to be looking at buddyslash unless they say otherwise.

But that's just my unresearched anecdotal opinion, and I've only been awake for an hour, so your mileage will of course vary.

And I would just like to say that, four years on a) I do know Bodie and Doyle's names now, yes, and b) do you suppose bandom would fall into some fourth category of makingittoogoddamneasyslash? they'reaskingforitlookatthewaythey'redressedslash?

Anyway, this is apropos of nothing for 99.98% of you, but if you have something to say about it, feel free. :)