Hoyay and Femslash

[soleft]

My recent belated discover of the Olivia Benson character on L&O SVU has led me to a fascinating online community of forums and fan fiction and a bunch of new words and phrases.

I was able to find out the definition of Hoyay - Homoeroticsm, Yay! but the other word I keep coming upon, Femslash escapes me.

I find the phrase disturbing because Fem and slash are just two words that together conjure up a lot of bad horror movies. But I don't think they mean slash in that sense.

Anyone know the etymology of the phrase femslash

[Betty88]

1. the slash..

The slash is a way of listing the pairs of lovers in a story. Xena/Gab, Janeway/Seven, Buffy/Willow. So femslash is girl/girl action.

Yes I freely admit to reading this trash and loving it...

[soleft]

2. Thanks for using for first post to answer my question!

[Withywindle]

3. Yup, she's right

...and "slash" usually refers to same-gender pairings, whether male or female. Stories with heterosexual pairings are usually called "het." Some say this convention dates back to the early 70s and print Star Trek original-series fanzines.

Wonderful little subculture and hobby it is.

[Boomer]

4. It all started with Kirk/Spock

They were the original slash couple and entire forests died for the hundreds of fanzines that described their homoerotic relationship. I remember strolling through the dealer's room of Star Trek conventions as far back as the 70s and seeing titles like "Spock in Chains" and "First Night, Volume 12".

The slash couples fandom spread to other shows -- like Starsky & Hutch, the Professionals, Blake 7 -- but the dynamics of the fanfic authorship remained constant: females writing about two men. Sometimes even ATG (any two guys).

Femslash didn't get a solid hold until much, much later. Xena/Gab and Janeway/7 were the first really popular slash couplings, and they coincided with the burgeoning internet to forge new territory -- online slash stories, rather than the printed fanzines that had been the medium up until then.

X/G homoerotic fanfic is also referred to as "Alt", which came from the "alternative" interpretation of their relationship as being sexual as opposed to being just really, really good friends. And a variation of that fandom is the "Uber" movement: Uber-Xena and uber-Gab characters are located in other times and places than Ancient Greek, with the relationship of dark/light remaining constant.

All of which may well be more than you wanted to know...