thebibliosphere:

systlin:

veronica-rich:

kronette:

70thousandlightyearsfromhome:

Been reading the “Slash Controversies” section of Fanlore.  I’m a long time fan, but some of this stuff is from way before my time, even.  Mary Lou Dodge’s outrage over smut at Trek cons, for example.  

Slash was still controversial in the mid to late ‘80s, when I got really involved in fandom.  But the battles over whether it should be allowed at cons were more or less over.  There were slash-only cons by then, but fan cons in general permitted slash.  I’m told because slash fans were such a big part of fandom, they just couldn’t afford to exclude them, even if the con organizers disapproved of slash and would rather not allow it.

I remember discussing fanfic awards at a con once, with someone who was outraged that there were separate gen and slash categories.  “Slash writers shouldn’t get special treatment,” she proclaimed.  A couple of other fans explained that having separate categories was actually to protect the gen writers.  Gen stories tended to lose to slash stories, because there were so many slash fans, and “slashers read across fandoms.”  While gen fans tended to stick with their personal favorite fandom(s), slash fans often read (and voted for) slash in any fandom they found it in.

That wasn’t me.  I tend to fall deeply in love with a fandom and/or character, and read everything I can find in that fandom, gen or slash.  But I knew a lot of slash fans who fit the description.  I used to zine-shop for friends at MediaWest.  (People who couldn’t make it to the con would ask those who were going to buy zines for them, either giving them the money upfront or promising to pay them back later.)  The slash fans often asked me to buy them slash in any fandom, as long as it was new.  

And I didn’t know David Gerrold hated slash.  As recently as 2013, he reiterated his feelings about K/S.  He’s gay, so I thought he’d be a little more tolerant.  His characterizing slash fans as “fat ladies with a sexual dysfunction” seems just a tad misogynist.  

Though come to think of it, that’s not that unusual.  A lot of gay men seemed perplexed and even offended at the idea of straight women writing gay smut.  That changed, IME, in the ‘90s, when the Internet made it a lot easier for gay guys to find slash, and become a part of it.  Minotaur‘s willingness to answer slash writers’ questions about m/m sex (and his good humor about it) made him popular both online and at cons.  

He ended up writing in many fandoms, but his first was Voyager – in particular, Paris/Kim.  Though his first story was more Kim/Ayala than P/K.

Minotaur was a godsend to us, and a wonderful man.

Minotaur proved what impact you can have with positivity rather than just bitching and throwing shade all the time.

Ahh, this took me back. 

Some fandom history for y’all youngin’s out there. 

Ugh, I still remember when he died. It was like a mass grieving across the fandoms. I was only 22 and I forget exactly how I ended up on his lj but he was just so damn open and funny and willing to talk about things that were rarely talked about in a healthy and informative manner. His writing taught me a lot, both in terms of basic human anatomy but also just how to tell a damn good story.

Then four years after his passing, there I was, being relegated to the LGBT kink dept in the publishing house (because nobody wanted it, can you BELIEVE) and with the absolute authority of someone who grew up reading minotaur’s works on fandom was able to say with confidence, “that’s not how the prostate works” to a room full of senior publishers attempting to cash in on the popularity of m/m works, with no idea what they were doing.

It was hilarious, and I feel he would have gotten a good laugh out of it.