History of Slash Fandom

This article's focus is m/m slash. 
Also see: History of Femslash Fandom.
==Slash Down Through History==
While homosexual, bisexual, and transgender people have always existed, people in former times did not think of sexual orientation, identity, or gender the same way they do today. Labeling and definition of these things began in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Rather, sex was thought of in terms of active and passive partners.Homosexuality in ancient Greece on WikipediaK.J. Dover, Greek Homosexuality (Harvard University Press, 1978, 1989).The Invention of the Heterosexual. An interview with Hanne Blank, author of Straight, whose partner is neither fully male, nor fully female due to a chromosomal difference.
There was also less specified difference between a canon story and fanworks. In a sense, everything was fanworks. Entertainment was not really owned by anyone, but was the property of all. Stories were passed on through oral tradition, told and retold over thousands of years, with ideas being added or dropped along the way. Therefore, if you heard a story that did not say the hero/heroine had a same-sex lover, you could add that when you told the story yourself. If you did, that would be a slash fanwork.See Mary Renault's novel The Persian Boy (Pantheon 1972), the story of Alexander the Great and his (historically documented) love for Bagoas, a Persian eunuch-courtesan. Bagoas entertains Alexander with legends of the Persian king Kyros, and at one point makes up a tale of Kyros' affair with a Median boy. "I had made up every word of it, and could have done better if I had had more Greek. For all I knew, Kyros never loved a boy in all his life."
Legendary heroes in same-sex relationships date back to humanity's earliest recorded history.LGBT Themes in Mythology at Wikipedia. Same-sex desire is depicted in ancient art and poetry from all over the world, right back to the Epic of Gilgamesh.Same-Sex Desire at the British Museum. In Greek mythology and history, heroic same-sex couples are quite normal. Perhaps the best known today is Alexander the Great and Hephaistion, but there are many others. In the Bible, David formed a relationship early in life with Jonathan, the son of King Saul, who "loved him as his own soul". Some scholars think it is possible that Jesus Christ had a relationship with the disciple John, who was called "the beloved". In China, the beautiful story of the "cut sleeve" became a metaphor for romantic love between men. Homosexuality in China at Wikipedia. Japanese art and literature have a long tradition of male same-sex romances, including a tradition similar to Greek "erastês and erômenos" (man and boy). at The Comics Journal, June 10, 2010, discusses this more fully.
==Terminology==
The term "slash" to designate a homosexual relationship in fan fiction came from the use of the / -- the virgule, or forward slash, punctuation mark, inserted between names. This practice probably began somewhere around 1977. Prior to this time, the virgule had also been used to designate stories that focused on non-sexual friendships between characters (today, a & is often used for friendship).
Other terms were "homosex," "homosexers," "same sexxers," and others. 
See Slash Terminology for much more on the history of / and other important terms, how they were originally used and are still used in fandom today.
==Slash and the 1970s==
While it is possible that fans wrote and shared slash stories about Holmes and WatsonThe Sherlock Holmes canon gave rise to the first true media fandom. Holmes and Watson fanfic (the word was "pastiche" back then) has existed since their first appearance in 1887; the earliest such story -- by J.M. Barrie -- appeared in 1893. Speculation on Holmes' and Watson's relationship has run rampant from the beginning, and did not just begin with more recent adaptions of their stories. Thus, plenty of drawerfic portraying the famous pair as a gay couple likely existed decades before Gene Roddenberry was even born. Holmes and Watson may behave in ways that appeal to modern slash fans, but their intelligence, culture and refinement need to be contextualized within the values of Victorian England, where they were more likely to be seen as class traits. Bruce and DickDr. Fredric Wertham, writing about comic books' contribution to degeneracy and criminal behavior in his book Seduction of the Innocent, wrote that not only did Batman and Robin's adventures contain gay subtext but that their relationship was obviously homosexual even to child readers. He later testified about this before Congress. Cultural reviewer Will Brooker revealed in his book Batman Unmasked that gay men had told Wertham in interviews that they saw Batman as gay; he did not make it up. It's very likely that fan fiction or fan-drawn comics of this nature existed, no doubt kept extremely private, perhaps similar to Charles Crumb's work featuring child actor Bobby Driscoll. Nayland Smith and Dr. Petrie, Ilya and NapoleonConsiderable evidence points to The Man From UNCLE being the first modern media fandom, embraced by the same science fiction writers and fans who would go on to enshrine Star Trek. See Francesca Coppa, "A Brief History of Media Fandom" in Fan Fiction and Fan Communities in the Age of the Internet: New Essays, ed. by Karen Hellekson and Kristina Busse (McFarland, 2006), p. 41., James and Artemus, or Buz and Tod,A Senate probe into the role of television in juvenile delinquency focused on Route 66 because of its strong appeal to children and teenagers, questioning the appropriateness of sex and romance in the storylines. A memo from CBS network head James Aubrey, used as evidence in the hearings, specifically asked for more sex on Route 66, saying that neither protagonist had expressed the “normal wants of a young man... to get involved with a girl or even to kiss her”. it was Star Trek: The Original Series that popularized the slash subgenre. The first such story may have been The Ring of Soshern, written by Jennifer Guttridge in 1967 or 1968 and circulated only privately; the first slash published in a zine was A Fragment Out of Time by Diane Marchant in 1974. Star Trek slash stories first began to circulate in the mid-1970s, slowly picking up steam through the end of the decade with entire fanzines devoted to slash, and eventually slash conventions.
In the earliest days of Star Trek fandom (1966-1972 or so), there were few if any relationship stories in the sense of characters exploring their feelings about each other. Most fan fiction was devoted to creating the equivalent of episodes or scenes of the show, including straight-ahead adventure tales, psychological dramas, or murder mysteries. Some were submitted to the Star Trek creators for consideration as fourth season episodes should another network pick up the show after cancellation. Judy Burns' "And Who Will Guide the Blind" and Jacqueline Lichtenberg's "Remote Control", were two such episodes.Anthropologist Burns had previously written "The Tholian Web" with absolutely no writing experience other than a screenwriting class, simply to create a Star Trek story for money to go to Africa. According to Joan Verba in Boldly Writing, Burns never actually submitted her treatment for "And Who Will Guide The Blind" but would have done, had there been a fourth season. Longer narratives included what-ifs like Alternate Universe 4, expansions on alien cultures like Kraith or Nu Ormenel, and glimpses into the Mirror Universe, like the award-winning Federation and Empire. Relationships -- romantic and otherwise -- were extremely important, but not at the expense of other story elements. Stories had to be about something; twenty pages of Kirk musing about Spock's feelings toward him would not have been well received by most early fans.This doesn't mean there weren't any such introspective tales, but they were usually extremely short, like Jane Peyton's "Cave-In". There certainly were poems and brief stories about Spock's relationship to himself, reconciling his human and Vulcan natures, and about Christine Chapel, Leila Kalomi and Zarabeth; there were also poems about James Kirk's friends and paramours.
Much of the very earliest fan fiction did not involve sexual relationships or romantic involvement. Fans of that era had never even heard the word "pairing". When characters did become romantically involved, it was always heterosexual, as in the Star Trek television series. Original female characters were as likely to appear as canon characters; this is before 1973 and the beginning of the Mary Sue hysteria.
Relationship stories seemed to come in with a second wave of Star Trek fans who were less interested in science fiction or space exploration than they were in the characters and their relationships. According to Joan Verba in her history of Trek fan fiction, Boldly Writing, both slash stories and "perfect" Mary Sue type characters were produced by newcomer amateur authors who had become attracted to the series. Having little or no background in science fiction, they saw Star Trek primarily as a "buddy" show about three guys exploring the galaxy together. Verba says these writers perceived a necessity to isolate the characters away from the Enterprise, the Federation, and any and all characters or storylines that would have been essential to a regular series episode but were a mere "distraction" to relationship fans.
These, not the very earliest fan writers, were the ones whose writing focused on emotions and relationships between the characters rather than on plot. In the second edition of The World of Star Trek, David Gerrold talks about how this even happened within canon as the TV series progressed and then the films were made; in the beginning, the show was about the Enterprise and space exploration, with James Kirk heading a diverse crew of specialists; but fan devotion to the characters and their actors, especially to Spock, caused the mission of the Enterprise to be diminished in favor of stories about Kirk and Spock and their teamwork and friendship."As STAR TREK progressed, the role grew in importance until finally STAR TREK was no longer the adventures of Captain Kirk and the crew of the Enterprise, but Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock of the U.S.S. Enterprise. The relationships of the rest of the crew, and even the starship itself were downplayed in favor of the relationship between Kirk and Spock. It was only because the relationship between the two was so interesting that the change was justified... [In the third season] The relationships between the characters sometimes solidified to the point where occasionally they could not break out of a set pattern of responses. The result was that relationships began to dictate the shape of some of the stories. Conflicts would be distorted so as to create specific but tangential scenes for individual characters. One character in particular -- Spock... Although the character was almost always kept in dramatic proportion to the overall story, he began to play pivotal parts in too many episodes -- at the expense of other characters in the series... [Kirk and Spock] were a good team. But far too many of the stories used Spock when any other character might have functioned just as well. The overuse of Mr. Spock enlarged him out of all proportion to everything else on the Enterprise." David Gerrold, The World of Star Trek, Second Edition (Bluejay, 1984).
Slash fans had an uphill battle for acceptance, or to be simply left alone, in early fandom. One of MANY examples of anti-slash commentary about Kirk/Spock fanworks was in late 1979 commentary in a zine which, ironically, emphasized IDIC: 
Another example of the roiling turmoil of discussions about slash was the 1976-77 controversy generated by Winston A. Howlett's comments about one of the earliest slash zines. See Open Letter by Winston A. Howlett Regarding His Review of "Alternative: Epilog to Orion".
In 1984, Carol Frisbie, the editor of the 1978 K/S zine, Thrust, responded to the negative, and often aggressive, comments and actions of early anti-slash fans: 
===One Fan's Write-Up: K.S. Langley ===
According to Klangley56,
==Slash and the 1980s==
By the 1980s, more fandoms, including Starsky and Hutch, The Professionals and Dirty Harry had arrived on the slash scene. As more m/m pairs were slashed, fans started to conceptualize slash as a genre unto itself rather than individual phenomena unique to particular characters. 
From comments by Judith Gran: 
In 1982, a tentative step towards viewing slash as a genre was seen in one fan's review of the gen Starsky and Hutch zine L.A. Vespers: 
In 2009, Klangley56 wrote,
Many of the same fans who were active in S/H and K/S fandom in the UK also enjoyed these home-grown alternatives, although there was a view in some quarters that these were 'low copies' of superior American originals. Relative TV production values and budgets fuelled this argument. Nevertheless slash fiction emerged for both at a very early stage, with the first known Bodie/Doyle slash stories, "Power Play", "Death Game" and "Deal" being written by Sue S., one of the authors of Forever Autumn. A dated copy of "Power Play" is known to exist in the hands of one of the fandom's archivists. Klangley56 adds,
Despite the underground quality, even as early as 1984, some fans must have felt enough "slash weary" for a zine ed to run this advertisement for a proposed zine called "Warriors/Lovers":
Another proposed zine in 1986 was called "No Frills":
===1980's Case Study: Creators' Views on Slash: Chilling Effects in Robin of Sherwood Fandom===
:See also: TPTB's Involvement with Fandom, Homoerotic Subtext and TPTB
Fandoms with little or no opportunity for slash don't produce a lot of slash. That's no surprise. But at least one 1980s fandom with a lot of slash potential, Robin of Sherwood, practiced a sort of self-censorship. It openly discouraged slash, citing the direct wishes of the actors and/or producers. These requests seem to have been enough to keep the slash element small and quiet — a surprising phenomenon to modern fans. Today, creators would be far less likely to single out slash, and the changes in fanfiction distribution, from print zines to the internet, would make fandom self-policing far more difficult.
See much more at Robin of Sherwood Fandom and Slash Fanworks.
==Slash and the 1990s==
In the 1990s, some anti-slash fans were still very vocal. From the 1996 essay by Nanci Casad: GARBAGE LIKE THAT HAS NO PLACE IN FANDOM, which calls slash, "PERVERTED STORIES": 
But slash was gaining visibility and acceptance, despite those who disliked it.
In 1998, a fan, Zoe Rayne wrote: 
===Slash and the Arrival of the Internet===
The arrival of the Internet profoundly impacted slash fandom and fan fiction. But first some context:
With the arrival of the Internet, more and more fans began turning to the electronic format to communicate and share fanfiction. Usenet was felt to be too public for slash fans who rarely found acceptance even among the fan communities and early online inhabitants. Members only mailing lists sprung up with FTP fanfic archives. Eventually however more and more slash fans began posting their fic and discussions on websites and public forums. But given the relatively global reach of the Internet, some slash fans were left with an illusion of privacy:
Early on, many fans were aware that their online participation, particularly in some forums, mailing lists and USENET was public, visible and quotable:
With the increased use of the World Wide Web, by 1995 some slash fans felt exposed and worried that even the mention of slash or slash fan fiction on websites was dangerous - both to the individual fans who created the websites or who were mentioned on the website as well as for slash fandom in general. They worried about persecution and outing and felt that fandom was jumping recklessly into the use of a technology without regard to it consequences. There were calls for more discussion, for getting permission from the community before creating websites that mentioned slash or posting your own fan fiction, and the need for a fandom wide consensus before using the World Wide Web. On one mailing list newsletter, there were requests that fans not mention author or publisher names when reviewing zines, even in private one-to-one e-mail. Letter to the editor, Black Bean Soup, Volume 2, Issue #39, Part 1, dated 27 October 1996 (1995). The fact that many of these discussions were taking place via the new medium (mailing lists) was an irony that was rarely mentioned. And like most new technologies, the practicality and advantages of the New quickly overran the debate.
Still, not all fans felt the Internet and the World Web Web posed dangers to fandom. In 1995, one fan argued:
In 1996, Sandy Herrold posted the results of a survey of the members of Virgule-L the largest (then) slash mailing list. In 1997, Sandy Herrold outlined some of the conflicts between online or net fans and the fans who had entered slash fandom primarily through conventions and print zines: Internet Fans Controversy Du Jour (Sandy Herrold). In the commentary she outlines the rapid shifts taking place in fannish perceptions of the Internet - and one another - between 1993 and 1997.
Many fans who first discovered slash via the internet not only didn't enter fandom in traditional ways, but remained totally unaware of the conflicts described by Herrold. The combination of the more secretive nature of invitation-only mailing lists and the complete freeforall and lack of mentoring elsewhere led to an environment where the older culture was often invisible to newbies. Early X-Files fandom had a particularly large number of such fans.
In 1998, a Pros fan wrote an article called "Slash and the Internet: Good or Bad?" and described her mixed feelings: 
By November 28, 1996 slash became a defined term on Yahoo's website index with links to web pages discussing slash. Among the items linked to:
*The Generic Slash Defense Letter by Susan Beth
*Pass the Crisco, Spock - an essay about Slash.
* Satyricon au go-go - Jenn Riddler's website for her slash fan fiction
* Slash Fiction Index
* Slash Summary by Kathryn Andersen (1997) reference link; also posted 
*What is Slash? by Nicholas (a later version of this arcticle may be archived here)
*Index - Slash - information about slash fan fiction and television shows (later called Slash Fan Fiction on the Net)
== Slash Comes Into Its Own==
The first slash fandoms all had gen fandoms growing alongside them (Trek, S&H, B7), and many fans read all of the fanfic available for their shows. But at some point, fans started to describe themselves as K/S fans (instead of Trekkers/Trekkies), and later as slash fans, rather than media fans, or rather than fans of specific shows. Eventually slash fans start to put on cons that were not just slash-tolerant like MediaWestCon, or slash-friendly like ZebraCon, but full slash cons such as IDICon, Escapade, and others. On Virgule-L, to help someone figure out if she was a Highlander fan or a slash fan, a poster came up with this question: "would you rather 1) read a HL gen story, or 2) read a slash story in a fandom you know nothing about". A lot of us answered '2'. 
In October 1997, Sandy Herrold posted to Slashpoint a list of all the other public, active slash (or at least strongly slash-friendly) mailing lists she'd found Sandy compiled a similar list on Virgule-L in December 1996 and came up with a few additional private slash lists:
:Slashpoint, Big Dicks, Tight Bums, DueSlash, TerrSit, Channel L (The Man From UNCLE), Slashpoint (General), Space-City (Blake's 7), Acafen, Slash-sis, CI5, ... Veniceplace, (private chat rooms), (slash conversation on IRC), slashQL list, Space-L, the JMDG-L...Do you belong to other slash lists? Which ones? sent to Virgule-L by Sandy Herrold, dated December 11, 1996, accessed November 1, 2010. 
This wasn't a complete list; it left out existing private lists like Virgule-L, and she ended the post by asking for clarification on several lists she was unsure about (which brought the number to 28), as well as the request for people to send her more names. But even so, it covered not only general slash lists and vidding, but also specific, fairly well-known lists for Highlander, Sentinel, Due South, Forever Knight, X-Files, Wiseguy, Space: Above and Beyond, The Professionals, Man From U.N.C.L.E., Blake's 7, Starsky & Hutch, Star Trek, and Star Trek: Voyager. Just two years earlier, slash was far enough in the closet that slash fans in Due South fandom had been unwilling to out themselves as slash fans on the sole DS mailing list.
A few months later, at Escapade 1998, Constance Penley described herself as "a slash fan, and a fan of slash fandom," saying that "…except for some radical sex workers, slash fandom is the only place I know where women of all ages and sizes can come together and be validated for their lust".
==Meta/Further Reading==
* A Brief History of Slash (2013)
==References==
Category:Slash Fandom