The model of the romance genre which the author rejects in order to contrast it with "intimatopic" slash fiction may not be one which romance scholars would concur (given, most notably, that there are friends-to-lovers romances and many romances are not between two heterosexual protagonists): the romance genre is considered as though it is monolithic, and then contrasted with the features of a specific sub-set of slash fiction. Since the comparison between romance and "intimatopic" slash fiction is made at some length, and since this essay has been cited frequently, I felt it was worth adding to the database. Here's the abstract:
I challenge the assumption that slash fan fiction is unique, and I situation slash fiction within a wider literary context. Unlike others, who have linked slash fiction with the popular romance, I look elsewhere for mainstream literary equivalents. To avoid categorizing all types of slash fiction within the same rubric, I use a genre-based approach to isolate a subset of slash fiction that is centrally concerned with intimacy. I then trace the parallels between amateur and mainstream fictions, elucidating a hitherto uninvestigated genre of literature, which I term intimatopic. By analyzing intimatopic texts from both slash and mainstream communities, I investigate the features that link them. After considering how each structure is used to highlight intimacy, I trace these links across the representation of homosocial bonds, sexual interaction, equality, and hierarchies, as well as the pervasive structure of hurt/comfort. After exposing the core of intimacy that defines intimatopia, I discuss the subversive potential of slash and its mainstream equivalents, concluding that it is not erotics but intimacy that has the potential to subvert current assumptions about interpersonal relationships. Throughout, I consider intimatopic slash fiction to be part of a wider body of literature that is similarly concerned with representation of interpersonal intimacy and the ways it can be facilitated.
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This more recent trend toward viewing slash as less unique and esoteric can also be seen in work by Sara Gwenllian Jones, who asks whether slash is "really so oppositional" and suggests that slash stories "emulate" the style of mainstream popular romance novels (2002, 81). Catherine Salmon and Don Symons's evolutionary account of slash fiction at first appears to continue that trend: they claim that slash fiction is "so similar to mainstream genre romances that it could reasonably be classified as a species of that genre." However, Salmon and Symons are unwilling to completely reject the traditional paradigms segregating slash fiction from professionally produced literature, concluding that slash "uniquely fuses traditionally female romance with traditionally male camaraderie, adventure and risk taking" (2004, 97, 99, emphasis mine). It is interesting that both Jones and Salmon and Symons have suggested the popular romance novel, of the type produced by Harlequin and by Mills & Boon (Mills & Boon is the British equivalent of the Harlequin romances of the United States), as a mainstream parallel to slash fiction. However, I think that closer parallels can be found without the need to recast homoeroticism into heterosexuality. (98)
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Salmon and Symons suggest that mainstream heterosexual romance novels exist in the fantasy world of "romantopia," a world in which sex becomes part of a larger plot where "the heroine overcomes obstacles to identity to win the heart of and marry the one man in the world who is right for her" (2004, 97). In contrast, the subset of slash fiction and its mainstream counterpart that I elucidate here takes place in a fantasy world I dub intimatopia, because its central defining feature is the exploration of intimacy. Although Catherine Driscoll (this volume) shows how a proportion of fan fiction combines elements traditionally associated with romance with those traditionally associated with pornography, the fiction I wish to address requires a different approach. Although some intimatopic texts do indeed share stylistic features with both romantic and pornographic genres, in their most defining feature, they differ greatly from either of these two neighboring literatures. Romance novels and pornography, although in different ways, both work to separate sex and intimacy. Intimatopic texts, on the other hand, work to connect these two elements, and this is why they need a separate genre all to themselves. (99)
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Intimatopia is a homosocial world in which the social closeness of the male characters engenders intimacy. (100)
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There are a vast number of professionally published intimatopias; however, for the sake of conciseness and clarity, I will refer to the mainstream work by Mary Renault, Mel Keegan (who also writes slash fiction), and Marion Zimmer Bradley. Many mainstream intimatopias are, like slash, appropriative, and those that are choose to appropriate similarly homosocial settings. (101)
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In romantopia, although sex might provide a temporary oneness, it is a oneness enjoyed with reluctance, for the hero and/or heroine are generally ambivalent about the love they feel. It is also a temporary oneness that does not extend to other aspects of the relationship; indeed, in romantopia, the heroine may marry the hero still marveling at how little she knew him. This is in stark contrast to the images of emotional sharing, mind linking, and psychic oneness that pervade sexual relationships in intimatopia. The crucial difference between romantopia and intimatopia is that in intimatopia, intimacy is normally established before sexual interaction and is always maintained after it, whereas in romantopia, it is only established by sexual interaction and is frequently transitory. Salmon and Symons mention this difference between slash and the romance novel, claiming that in slash, "the bond of friendship is firmly in place long before sex rears its head" (2001, 84). However, although they think that this is a minor difference, I believe it is a crucial one. Stories in romantopia are often structured around sexual misunderstandings that, Tania Modleski (1990) claims, function to explain a man's brutality as an expression of his love. In this way, the entire structure of romantopia is based on a hypothesis that would be impossible within intimatopia, for only in her ignorance of the hero's psychology can the heroine misinterpret violent behavior as brutal when in romantopia it is a manifestation of love. By contrast, in both amateur and professional intimatopic literature, the psychic oneness achieved by the protagonists prevents this kind of ongoing misunderstanding. Although there certainly are subsets of slash fiction that specialize in pairing characters who are apparently adversarial in the source material, these subsets are rarely intimatopic in nature. Perhaps this type of slash fiction has more in common with the romance novel than does the genre of intimatopia considered here. (106)
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I have discussed how popular romances often depict scenes of sexual violence; so do intimatopic texts from both amateur and professional writers. However, whereas in romantopia sexual misunderstandings are caused by a lack of intimacy, in intimatopia, apparently similar scenes are based around intimacy and closeness. Even the violent sex that at times occurs between the heroes in intimatopic texts is used to engender intimacy. (107-108)
The model of the romance genre which the author rejects in order to contrast it with "intimatopic" slash fiction may not be one which romance scholars would concur (given, most notably, that there are friends-to-lovers romances and many romances are not between two heterosexual protagonists): the romance genre is considered as though it is monolithic, and then contrasted with the features of a specific sub-set of slash fiction. Since the comparison between romance and "intimatopic" slash fiction is made at some length, and since this essay has been cited frequently, I felt it was worth adding to the database. Here's the abstract:
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