How did you become a slasher?

[matilda36]

I have been a slasher most of my life. Reading subtexts  everywhere, even John Wayne films ( he and Dean Martin were so doing it in Rio Bravo).Only this was before Internet and there was very little available in small time Italy. 

So I followed the breadcrumbs left by The Only Gay in my town, PierVittorio Tondelli, in his books and started to devour every single bit of Gay and Lesbian Art and Culture i could put my hands on. William Burroughs and Christopher Isherwood were early treasures, as were Robert Mapplethorpe, Keith Haring and KD Lang. I still dance to Jimmy Sommerville when I need a boast .

Derek Jarman made me fall in love with Sean Bean in Caravaggio. Beautiful Thing and The Priest are still two of my favourite films.4I remember coming out from a showing of Priscilla dancing and laughing amongst a gaggle of shocked catholic friends.

By the time I moved to London and the heaven of an Englit with Women's Studies degree I was ready for more. The most influencial texts were those of Joan Nestle ( my copy of A Restricted Country is one of my most precious possession) , Judith Butler, Pat Califia, Eve Koslwsky Sedgwick , Joseph Bristow. 

These texts still shape my worldview. Up to this day they remind me that being a woman reading gay male porn is more than a kink. Because writing and reading gay porn is fun, being gay not always is.  I listened to this program today 

 http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio2/musicclub/doc_aidsgeneration.shtml  

Listening to it made me want to stop and think for a moment of the reality behind the stories Slash tells. 

 Let's celebrate the bravery of living.

Tell me how you became a slasher.

Comments

[misstemperance.livejournal.com]

I always enjoy question like this!

One of the most influential moments of my childhood was the reading list for the summer before my first year of a-levels (16 for those of you not familiar with the English education system!) on it were two books that I instantly fell in love with "Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe" by Fannie Flagg and "The Color Purple" by Alice Walker. That summer and those books can be counted as the single most significant period of my life to date (and I say that ten years on!) they changed the way I looked at the world and helped shape my personality, my spirituality and my sexuality.

Following that summer a few of my friends and I formed a loose circle of support for a mutual friend who had come out to a less than favourable reaction from his family. It allowed us to get together and admit in safety that while Mr Dicaprio was quite cute Kate Winslet was really why we were watching 'Titanic' again, or that "Soldier, Soldier" was only thinly veiled and the pink really is the only colour to paint a bus when driving across Australia (really, really, really love that film!)

Slash fiction I came to quite late on but by that point thanks to the above I was quite adept at spotting the subtext in films and tv (I mean really is there a main character in CSI Grissom doesn't flirt with!). But despite the fact that I read anything and everything and seem to only be capable of writing slash, femslash remains my first love.

[matilda36.livejournal.com]

I love both Fanny Flagg and Alice Walker. :)
I am glad to see I am not the only one who came to slash through politics and literature.

I mean porn is always good but sometimes I get the impression that fandom is taking over reality...

[mickey-sixx.livejournal.com]

See, I'd love to be able to say that I read such-and-such a book and it changed my whole perspective on things (Like you and misstemperance), but...the truth is, I didn't.

I came across Slash about the same time I came across fanfiction and Fandom alike. I was in the local library, using the computers there (because at first I didn't have one, and then when I did, I didn't have an internet connection). I was in my Harry Potter stage (bordering on the obsessive) and I think I was searching it on google or something like that, and I found a link to Fanfiction.net.

When I got sucked into that, I just read everything. I clicked on one fanfic, and as I read it, I realised that it was Harry/Draco. And what surprised me more was that I didn't mind. In fact, I found it really hot! At first, it was just all the fluffy ones, but then I went up a few ratings and got to the really good ones.

And, to be honest, it has opened my eyes to a lot of things about life and about me. I now know more about gay sex than I ever did before, and some of the terms and meanings and kinks. I'm also discovering my own sexuality, and that I don't think I'd be particularly bothered whether I dated a guy or a girl. *shrugs*

So yeah, that's me......

[matilda36.livejournal.com]

I actually like the idea that slash has opened your eyes on things. :)

I think it is part of what I was trying to convey in my rambling: reading, be it fiction, essays or fanfiction can make you more aware of yourself and the world around you.The important thing is to be aware of it. At some point in the space time continuum.

[mistokath13.livejournal.com]

Complicated question you're asking there. ;)

I remember being 15 or so, and reading a book called "Die Mitte der Welt" (Middle of the World, I'm *so* waiting for them to translate it into English already, so I can torture *everybody* with it...). It's about a boy who falls in love with another guy at school - and it's so much more, because it's not his only problem. Altogether, it's a wonderful book, and it doesn't matter that it's for teenagers/kids. I still occasionally re-read it. (whenever I can pry it loose from my sister's fingers, since she's the one who owns it nowadays...). That book impressed me. I mean, I've been writing since 1st grade (I recently found a fic I've written when I was I think in grade 2 or 3 - unbelievable, but yes, I started with RPF...*shakeshead*). And then came the X-files. My first fandom. And then came the Internet. New worlds opened up. Stargate. Highlander. Andromeda. Eventually, Lord of the Rings and CSI. CSI:NY. Everything else. Up to this day, there are shows I can watch and never think of any pairings, and when I see other people coming up with it, I simply cannot read it. There's fandoms where I don't really read the slash fic...like the X-files. And then there's fandoms where I can and do...well, you know that, right ;D?

But how and why it really started? I don't remember. I'd like to say I've always been odd, but I've probably been one of the most ordinary and normal kids around. Boring, even. Okay, that didn't change. ;) Reading slash - I think I've been doing that for a long time. At least since I was 15. Obviously. (Okay, technically, that's only 9 years, but it feels like I've always been like this).

*huggles you just because*

[mistokath13.livejournal.com]

Aaaah, also? Jimmy Sommerville. *grins* Love some of his stuff...

[matilda36.livejournal.com]

*grins*

Jimmy Sommerville rocks. 4He sings that kind of songs that get in your brain and never leave you.

I spent the afternoon humming to myself:

You make me feel almighty reaaaaaal

[matilda36.livejournal.com]

Some of my favourite books have been written for teenagers.

My first girlcrush was Jo March.

They are the books that shape our first adult look at reality after all.

[noxnoctisanima.livejournal.com]

Ohh question!

I became a slasher before i knew what fandom was. I was reading a story that i thought was written by the original writer, it featured a main femslash pairing. After i'd gotten fandom straight i just never moved out, i just shifted sideways into other fandoms, and got more chrotchty and slash loving as i went.

[matilda36.livejournal.com]

4Fandom is such a lovely place... once you enter in it you don't want to come out.