Strange Bedfellows (APA)

Strange Bedfellows was an multi-fandom slash APA that was published between 1993 and 1997. There were nineteen issues.
At its peak, it had 37 members who came from a number of countries, including the US, Canada, the UK, Scotland, France and Japan.
Some fans' contributions to the apa were written over a series of months. For example, it wasn't unusual to have a tribber write that they'd started their typing in May for a publication date of August.From the second issue: "I am actually starting this trib early (oh, I know you've heard it before, but as I type this, it is May10 — of course, I make no promises about when I'll finish it, but we'll see)." This means that the date the apa was sent (and the date on the front cover) represents a time frame that may encompass several months.
==Issue Contents==
Click on the links below to see more information about individual issues of Strange Bedfellows.
Strange Bedfellows Issues	Strange Bedfellows Issues	Strange Bedfellows Issues	Strange Bedfellows Issues	Strange Bedfellows Issues
Issue 001 	Issue 002 	Issue 003 	Issue 004 	Issue 005
Issue 006 	Issue 007 	Issue 008 	Issue 009 	Issue 010
Issue 011 	Issue 012 	Issue 013 	Issue 014 	Issue 015
Issue 016 	Issue 017 	Issue 018 	Issue 019 	
==Regarding the Covers==
In the ninth issue of the apa, the OE solicited covers and wrote: 
==The Acafan Connection==
Among its members were acafans such as Henry Jenkins, several other PhD graduate students and others in the academic culture. 
The term "conehead" and "egghead" was sometimes used to describe this element.
 
A fan in late 1994 commented on the differences in this apa and other forums: 
This apa was a direct successor to The Terra Nostra Underground.
For the individual trib titles, see Trib Titles.
==About==
Shoshanna made a distinction between being the OE of the apa, and what she wrote as her trib. From the first issue: 
==Visibility and Privacy==
From the 3rd issue in late 1993:
And from the 3rd issue, a reminder: 
From the 7th issue in late 1994, an admission that this publication was shared with people other than subscribers: 
In 1998, some of the apa's excerpts below were quoted in "Normal Female Interest in Men Bonking": Selections from The Terra Nostra Underground and Strange Bedfellows and are online .
==Trib Titles==
As per apazine custom, most fans created a title for their set of contributions.
Some of the titles carried over from Terra Nostra Underground.
Note: some fans kept a consistent title throughout, and others changed them. 
Below is an almost complete list of the tribs within the apa.
Note: initials and first names are used for most fans here. Fans who were identified in "Normal Female Interest in Men Bonking": Selections from The Terra Nostra Underground and Strange Bedfellows (from which this apa was extensively quoted) are referred to with full names.
* Agnes Tomorrow: Notes From Tomorrow (#1, #2, #3, #4, #5, #6, #8, #11, #16, #19)
* Airelle (often combined with Cat): Cat's Spawn (#3)
* Alex P: Secret Kiss (#1), Shadowy Dream (#2)
* Barbara Tennison: Strange Tongues (#1, #2, #3, #4, #6, #7, #8, #9, #10, #11, #12, #13, #14, #15, #16, #17, likely #18, #19)
* Brooke B: Something Rich and Strange: Untitled (#14), untitled (#16, #19)
* Cat Anestopoulo: Darkling Zine (varying subtitles) (#1, #2, #3, #4, #5, #6, #7, #8, #12, #13, #14, #15, #17, #19), Hide Your Men, Women, and Children! (#11)
* Christine: Lunatic Fringe (#2, #3, #4, #5), The Ghost in the Christine (#9, #10) 
* Cynthia Jenkins: Menage a Deux (#2, #3, #4, #6, #8, #11, #12)
* David B: To Be Announced (#5)
* Dawn F: Love Without Mercy (#17)
* Eileen Roy: Twinbear (#13, #14, #15, #16), untitled (#17, likely #18, #19)
* Henry Jenkins: Confessions of a Male Slash Fan (#1, #2, #3, #4, #6, #8, #10)
* Isoline: Vice Files (#1, #2, #3, #4, #6, #8, #11), Piles of Snow Turn Into Piles of Paper! (#12), Babylon 5 Security Transmissions (#15)
* Jane Carnall: Ghost Speaker (#1, #2, #3, #4, #5, #6, #7, #8, #9, #10, #12, #14, #15, #16, #17, likely 18, #19)
* Jean D: Yamibutoh (#1, #2, #3, #4, #5, #6, #7, #8, #9, #10, #11, #12, #14, #15, #16), Kiken na Futari (#19)
* Jean H: Mardi Gras Favors (#1, #3, #4, #5, #6, #8, #11, #13, #14, #15, #16, #17, likely #18, #19)
* Jeanne J: The Magic May Return (#13, #14, #15, #16, #17, likely #18, #19)
* Jenn H: Paradoxical Ramblings (#1, #2, #3, #8, #10)
* Jilly R: Wide-Eyed and Breathless (#15, #16)
* Kath S: Sukebei (with Veronica P: #1, #2, #3, #4), Goodbye and Good Luck (#7)
* Katharina K: untitled (#10)
* Kathy Resch: Slash is Everywhere (#3, #7)
* Kim Bannister: untitled (#1), Desert Blooms (#2, #3, #4, #6, #7, #8, #11, #12, #13, #14, #15) 
* Laura A: Notes of a Neophyte (#4, #7), Lazing on a Sunday Afternoon (#8), Thoughts of Love and Thoughts of Power (#13), Thoughts of Love... Power... Lust (#15) 
* Leigh M: With Friends Like These, Who Needs Enemas (#4, #6, #7, #8, #9, #10, #11, #12, #14, #15, #16, #17, likely #18, #19) 
* Lezlie Shell: WHIPS: Women of Houston in Pornography (with Katherine S: #1, #4, #5), WHIPS: Mary Sueing... (#2), WHIPS: Why I'm Reading Kung Fu Genzines (#6), WHIPS: Evolution in Action (#10) 
* Linn O'B: Musings from the Last Possible Minute (#5)
* Lynn C: Hello to SBF (#7), From the Bottom of a Dark Barrel (#8)
* M Fae Glasgow:, Nancy B: Two Heads Are Better Than One (#1, #2, #3, #4, #6, #8, #9, #10, #12, #14, #15)
* Meg G: untitled (#1, #2, #3, #4, #6, #8, #13, #16) 
* Morgan: Another Mad Cult (#2), A Different Eye (#3), Bad Girls Go Everywhere (#4), De Nada (#5), Delusions of Gender (#6, #8)
* Nancy B: Beheaded and Lobotomized (#13)
* Nicole V: Works Well Under Pressure (#3), I put the "fun into "dysfunctional" (#8), Works Well Under Pressure (Nicole V: #3)
* Nina Boal: Lavender Lilies (#1, #2, #3, #4, #6, #7, #8, #11, #12, #14, #16)
* Nola Frame-Gray: Wonderlust (Nola F-G: #11, #12)
* Pat Nussman: Something Rich and Strange: Tales from the Obsessed (#14, #16, #17)
* Sandy Hereld/Alyx and Nicole V: T-shirt Slogans Are Intellectual Discourse (#1, #2, #3, #5, #8)
* Sarah Katherine: Writing from the Margins (#1, #2)
* Sarah T: Phoning From the Margins (#4), When Correctly Viewed (#4, #5, #6, #7, #8, #9, #10, #11, #12, #13, #14)
* Shoshanna: For the World is Hollow and I Fell Off the Edge (#1, #2, #3, #4, #5, #6, #7, #8, #10, #11, #12, #14, #15, #17)
* Skuld: Weirdness on a Swan's Wing (#1, #2, #5, #7, #10, #14)
* Susan/Sue C: Untitled (#2), It's Not So Much the Apocalypse (#4), I'll Give You Three Seconds (#6), By This Time, My Lungs Were Aching For Air (#5), The Lure of the Clambake (#8), Push the Button, Frank (#10)
* Teresa Hehir: To Be Announced (#1, #2, #3, #4, #5, #6, #7, #8, #9, #10, #11, #12, #13, #14, #15, #16) 
* Thomas: WHIPS: Iconoclastica (#2), WHIPS: W.H.I.P.S. Redux (#5), WHIPS: Under Water Reflections (#6), Coming Up for Air (#10)
==Similar Contemporary APAs and Online Venues==
The British APA Late for Breakfast was a print contemporary. 
There was also a lot of cross-pollination with Virgule-L, the first slash mailing list. Virgule-L was never referred by this title in the apa, but instead called "the email list" and "the slash list." In the second issue of Strange Bedfellows, Sandy Herrold called it "The virtual apa — i.e. the slash mailing list," and she noted it had 29 members (the same number of fans who were members of the print apazine.)
* many of participants in Strange Bedfellows were also members of Virgule-L, though some apa tribbers were adamant in their avoidance of things having to do with computers
* many of the same topics were discussed in both venues, though Strange Bedfellows had more of an emphasis on academic discussion; fans in both paces for instance, discussed The Wave Theory of Slash when it was distributed to both places simultaneously
* male members were allowed to be members of Strange Bedfellow while they were disallowed at Virgule-L"
* the apa had a limited membership and there was always a waiting list
* the mailing list had a strict referral policy for members: you had to know someone
* fans' full and legal names, as well as addresses, were used in both spaces
==Initial Join-Up==
Initial membership eligibility in the apa was a bit fierce. Members of the then-recently ceased The Terra Nostra Underground had first dibs. Some fans partnered up with another fan for a "co-subscribing," and at the time of the first issue, there was a waiting list.
From the first issue: 
==Some Vocabulary: "re yr ct"==
The fans in "Strange Bedfellows" used a version of "RYCT" or "re yr ct" (re your comment to) that was commonly used in older, science fiction fanzines. Fans in Strange Bedfellows used versions of this, along with tweaks: "reyrct" = "re yr ct." Less commonly, "reherct" and "yrct."
The term is used in relation to member's previous comments, and a way to keep track of "threaded comments" in previous issues. It was the nature of apas to have been published two/three months or more previously, and communications could get tricky!
Some "Strange Bedfellows" examples of use: M. Fae: reyrct Tre, re biblical stuff and reyrct Barbara reherct me: I loved 'reading intimacy between peers as itself erotic.' Yes! reyrct me on philosophy.
==Regarding Referring to this APA with Initials: First, a "stirring, vibrant, muscular" Request for "SBF"==
In the first issue of the apa, two fans (M. Fae and Nancy B) requested that the title of this publication not be "SB," but "SBF": 
Some comments from subsequent issues:
==Other Letterzines/Apas With Much Blake's 7 Content==
* Pressure Point (1987-1989)
* The Terra Nostra Underground (apa, 1989-1993)
* Liberation Letters (1991-?)
* The Neutral Arbiter (1991-1993, with a single 1994 outlier)
* Rallying Call (apa, early 1991 to at least 1998)
* Horizon Letterzine (1992-1998)
* Dandruff Droppings (apa, 1992-?)
* Battle Stations! (apa, 1994-not much longer)
* Strange Bedfellows (apa, May 1993-November 1997)
* The Way Forward (apa, 1995-ongoing)
* AltaZine (1996-1997)
Also see: List of Letterzines.
==The End of the Line: The Cessation of This APA==
By late 1996 and early 1997, many fans' tribs were getting shorter. Fans were opening their tribs with apologies for missing previous deadlines and for how short their replies are. 
The central mailer, Shoshanna, addressed this apathy in the 17th issue:
A fan's trib, in that same issue (The Magic May Return) contained this scold for her fellow tribbers:
===Some Reasons for the End===
This trib ceased due to a variety of reasons.
The rise and availability of the internet gave fans many more platforms to discuss and share fandom. Fans were able to correspond via mailing lists created for specialized interests, such as Mulder/Krycek Mailing List, or fanfiction and slash in general at FanFicWrtrs and Virgule-L. Other fans felt uncomfortable, some antagonistic, about online activities and expanded opportunities.
Some of the "heavy-hitter" fans ceased contributing and dropped out. The controversy regarding strong statements by several fans about why slash? and what is slash? between November 1994-May 1995 was likely part of this wane. See Strange Bedfellows (APA)/Issue 007, Strange Bedfellows (APA)/Issue 008, Strange Bedfellows (APA)/Issue 009.
Long-time fans may have felt "talked out" and felt they had rehashed the same topics over and over again, and didn't have the time or patience for the newer fans and the "reinventing of the wheel."
The number of television, movies, and books to discuss had expanded; fans' interest was spread too thin. No longer were fans able to keep the conversation condensed around a few shared fandoms.
And finally, the central mailer grew weary after eight years (beginning with Terra Nostra Underground: Fall 1989 and ending with "Strange Bedfellows" in Fall 1997) of doing the task of keeping the apa moving along.
==Some Content==
This is just SOME of the topics discussed or included in this apa.
* Due South, Forever Knight, Babylon 5, Blake's 7, Starsky & Hutch, The Professionals, Star Trek: TNG, Star Trek: TOS, Star Trek: DS9, Star Trek: Voyager, From Eroica with Love, Wiseguy, The Crying Game, Tris/Alex, Led Zeppelin, Vas & Dex, Quantum Leap, Kung Fu: The Legend Continues, Moonlighting, Picket Fences
* music videos, vidding
* by Jane Carnall, originally written as a loc for His Beloved Pet by Ruth Gifford and Atara Stein: adapted as an apazine article for "Strange Bedfellows"
* actor slash, Music RPF
* copyright, fair use, including some discussion regarding George Lucas and the Star Wars letters
* opinions about Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and representation
* discussion about Forever Knight and f/f fiction, vampires 
* slash in general, and its appeal and definitions
* fandom and profit, specifically the differences between profit from fanart and fanfic
* Wiseguy, appeal, slash in, trading VCR tapes of
* AIDS, ramifications of, slash as fantasy, safe sex, realism regarding fictional explicit sex
* gay rights, the US military
* blonde men portrayed as more passive, "girly"
* everyone seems to hate US Vice President Dan Quayle; one fan states that envisioning him naked is the least of his evils, another fan is a Rush Limbaugh fan
* a 6-page essay about the Pros fic, Heat-Trace, by Shoshanna titled Angst and emotional dynamics in slash, as exemplified in Helen Raven's "Heat Trace"
* "Living on Tulsa Time," a Tris/Alex fic by Pamela Rose, some photocopies of members of the band Led Zeppelin
* reprints of many newspaper and magazine articles, including Star Trek erotica gets some hot, others bothered and Out of the closet and into the UNIVERSE
* slash as its own fandom
* explanation of the circuit
* manga and slash, much about fandom in Japan
* what is slash, why slash
* guys at slash cons
* an early mention of mpreg
* discussion of many, many zines 
* replacing one actor with another while reading Alias Smith and Jones fic
* the phrase in fic "birds are okay" and what it signifies
* a reviews of many books, including "Madonnarama: Essays on Sex and Popular Culture" and "The Madonna Connection" and "Making Things Perfectly Queer: Interpreting Mass Culture"
* getting past one's opinions on an actor's attractiveness
* agenda fic
* MUCH MUCH discussion of The Wave Theory of Slash
* Textual Poachers being taught in classrooms, zines ordered as class materials, visibility
* the differences between Textual Poachers and Enterprising Women 
* the myths of Gene Roddenberry and liberalism
* discussion of how the writer's own needs and desires shapes the finished story, discusses Penthouse letters, slash, "Male readers thus draw on their own personal histories to flesh out the character background just as slash readers draw on program history"
* hurt/comfort and hitting too close to home
* fanworks emphasizing personality, etc. over mechanics, in contrast to mundane writers 
 
* curiosity about the differences between American and Japanese slash zines
* many comments, some quite personal regarding two male fans not in this apa, about males and slash writing
* the image of the fan as a misfit, journalists maligning people who like things too much
* fans and fandom's new visibility, this fan uses the phrase "coming out" as a fan
* fandom as a way of exploring the subjectivity of experience, writing as argument, interpreting the universe, slash as more true to the original canon universe
* what is "female writing"?
* lack of female characters in slash, problematic queer characters 
* fanart, art references, and plagiarism
* the story series Wind and Tree Song by Keiko Takemiya
* much about figure skating, opera
* much about the trope We're Not Gay, We Just Love Each Other
* swipes at academic interest in fandom, fans being anti-acafan, acafans and their influence on fandom
* slash or gay fiction when creating original characters?
* is "heterotica" slash?
* X-Files and is Mulder/Scully a slash pairing, can male/female fic be slash?
* it took years for fans in this apa to become interested in Krycek/Mulder and/or Mulder/Skinner fiction
* what is a "man" and what is a "woman"—sex and gender
* a mention of the British apa "The Women's Periodical"
* a Jesus/Matthew story by Jane Carnall done as a Dorothy Sayers pastiche
* a film called An Actor's Revenge, made in Japan in 1963, directed by Kon Ichikawa
* a mini-essay called "For the 'Little Doyle' School"—it described the kinds of foppish Ray Doyle stories this fan had seen: The Cinderella, The Spoilt PlayDoyle, The Independent-Minded Free Spirit, The Successful Model/Artist/Actor, The Equally Successful C15 Agent, The Waif, The Doyle-Who-Has-Lost-the-Love-of-his-Life, The Disillusioned Doyle, The Scatterbrain
* Saint Seiya: the groups that do gold saint stories, and the groups that do bronze saint stories
* Noam Chomksy
* an illusion to the Pros fic Rough Ride which had been printed in the 1992 zine It's Greek to Me
* the ridiculousness of epithets
* zine piracy and the recent open letters circulating, specifically Open Letter to Fandom by Alexis Fegan Black Regarding Zine Pirating
* personal responsibility
* fan power and The "Mr. Little" Commercial, Quantum Leap
* AIDS and our society, changing definitions of "victim"
* rape and partner rape in fanfiction
* changing social attitudes towards women and sexual freedom
* an update on the Mad Max novel by Leslie Fish called Outrider
* Escapade, MediaWest*Con
* Jane of Australia's fic Game for Two Players
* feedback and crit as inherently selfish
* mention of a horrified dad
* Escapade, the Pros panel
* updates about the newly formed slash mailing list, referred to as "the slash apa" or "the slashlist," it has 29 members
* four fandoms (Starsky & Hutch, Star Trek: TOS, Blake's 7, and Pros) and commentary on who and the characters in them trust each other and the other characters they interact with
* "feminization" of male characters in slash
* why are some slash fans so attracted to "B-minus shows"?
* loving "guilty pleasure" fic, bad fic you love
* trying to confirm a rumour of slash fanworks being given to Dean Stockwell (Quantum Leap) and/or Gareth Thomas (Blake's 7)
* misogyny in slash fic, "creeping heterophobia"
* personally knowing too many fans cuts down on the amount of LOCS this fan sends
* a rec for the Tris/Alex zine For All the Gods Departed
* thankful to find out that Ray Newton is female
* Sandy's Tuckerization in Lois McMaster Bujold's novels
* slash, pairings in Miami Vice
* comments, responding to other discussion, about how vampires would deal with blood, HIV, and AIDS
* aired canon as only a take-off point
* slash as a way to discuss and think about sexuality
* that scene in The Wrath of Khan with Spock and Kirk and the all of glass as a metaphor for slash
* slash and visibility 
* a fan's love for email and computer communication: "I won't stop [talking it up] till everyone I know is converted to the Way of the Net."
* dislike of Avon/Vila stories due to poor power dynamics, style and quality of fiction
* much discussion of the often unpopular character, Del Tarrant
* liking violence in slash, but hating violence towards women
* irritating characterization of females in slash stories
* says that the first panel they were ever on was called "Yes, but would you date them?"
* Gareth Thomas and a rumor regarding violating the fourth wall and a slash zine
* labels and zines, the taboo of male/male sex
* A Matter Of Willful Copyright Infringement, Chelsea Quinn Yarbro
* Sime/Gen and Jacqueline Lichtenberg's restrictions
* getting the opinions of characters confused with one's own regarding behavior
* the 1993 press article about OktoberTrek and slash: Star Trek erotica gets some hot, others bothered, controversies at the recent OktoberTrek regarding snoopy journalists 
* the zine Science Friction
* Picket Fences and an episode that hinted at/discussed f/f relationships
* changes in mainstream television shows: their hesitant but persistent portrayals of some gay and lesbian characters
* The Bullshitters 
* comments on the controversial Pros fic Consequences
* The anti-slash statements in some Robin of Sherwood zines
* the zine Never Let Me Down and internalized homophobia
* the analysis of Heat-Trace in the previous essay Angst and emotional dynamics in slash, as exemplified in Helen Raven's "Heat Trace"
* unified field theory of slash
* "erotic correctness"
* h/c, sadomasochistic relationship, sadism in fic
* Tris/Alex, Living on Tulsa Time
* what is butch/fem, slash, male/female in fic? 
* "heterophobia" and lack of f/f fic
* a reprint of this fan's trib to Short Circuit #4
* slash and visibility
* happy endings and matching the tone of the canon source
* posting someone else's fic on the Internet without their permission
* includes the phrase "normal female interest in men bonking"
* a long scathing review of the Simon and Simon zine My Brother's Love
* a very short dismissive review of the Blake's 7 zine The Big B7 Zine
* pronouns: not a problem after all! 
* much about Mary Sue, The Mary Sueing of Hurt/Comfort, an essay by [L S]: "hurt/comfort in a nutshell -- changing dynamics"
* comments on Heat-Trace and the essay Angst and emotional dynamics in slash, as exemplified in Helen Raven's "Heat Trace"
* slash is "not for gay men"
* slash's emotional intensity and presence
* comments on the fics Lest These Dark Days, This Classical Dilemma
* optimism and frustration with Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and f/f possibilities
* no bottoming for Bodie
==References==
Category:Multimedia Slash Zines
Category:APA
Category:1993 Zines
Category:1990s Zines