Editing Slash fiction (section)

==History==
It is commonly believed that slash fan fiction originated during the late 1960s, within the ''[[Star Trek: The Original Series]]'' [[fan fiction]] [[fandom]], starting with "[[Kirk/Spock]]" stories generally authored by female fans of the series and distributed privately among friends.<ref>{{Cite web |date=2011-07-07 |title=Short History of Kirk/Spock Slash |url=http://beyonddreamspress.com/history.htm |access-date=2024-03-09 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110707231116/http://beyonddreamspress.com/history.htm |archive-date=2011-07-07 |url-status=live }}</ref><ref name="SATW"/><ref name=CHot20thcent799>{{cite book |title=The Cambridge history of twentieth-century English literature |last1= Laura |first1= Marcus|first2=Peter |last2=Nicholls |year=2004 |publisher= Cambridge University Press|page= 799|isbn=978-0-521-82077-6}}</ref>
The name arises from the use of the [[slash (punctuation)|slash symbol]] (/) in mentions in the late '70s of K/S (meaning stories where Kirk and Spock had a romantic [and often sexual] relationship), as compared to the [[ampersand]] (&) conventionally used for K&S or Kirk and Spock ''friendship'' fiction. For a time, both ''slash'' and ''K/S'' (for "Kirk/Spock") were used interchangeably. Slash later spread to other fan groups, first ''[[Starsky and Hutch]]'', ''[[Blake's 7]]'', and ''[[The Professionals (TV series)|The Professionals]]'',<ref name="Kustritz">{{cite journal
 | last = Kustritz
 | first = Anne
 |date=September 2003
 | title = Slashing the Romance Narrative
 | journal = The Journal of American Culture
 | volume = 26
 | issue = 3
 | pages = 371–384
 | doi =  10.1111/1542-734X.00098
 |url=http://www.asu.edu/courses/fms351vm/total-readings/fms351-L14-reading01.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130622084932/http://www.asu.edu/courses/fms351vm/total-readings/fms351-L14-reading01.pdf |archive-date=2013-06-22 |url-status=live
 }}</ref> then many others, eventually creating a fandom based on the concept of slash.<ref name="Boyd">Boyd, Kelly (2001) [http://ir.lib.sfu.ca/dspace/handle/1892/8734 "One index finger on the mouse scroll bar and the other on my clit" : slash writers' views on pornography, censorship, feminism and risk]</ref><ref name="Normal Female Interest">Henry Jenkins, with Cynthia Jenkins and Shoshanna Green,"'[http://web.mit.edu/cms/People/henry3/bonking.html The Normal Female Interest in Men Bonking': Selections from Terra Nostra Underground and Strange Bedfellows],"in Cheryl Harris and Alison Alexander (eds.) Theorizing Fandom: Fans, Subculture, and Identity (Hampton Press, 1998).</ref>  Many early slash stories were based on a pairing of two close friends, a "hero dyad", or "One True Pairing", such as Kirk/Spock or Starsky/Hutch; conversely, a classic pairing between [[Foil (literature)|foils]] was that of [[Roj Blake|Blake]]/[[Kerr Avon|Avon]] from ''[[Blake's 7]]''.<ref name=Tosenberger/>

The first K/S stories were not immediately accepted by all ''Star Trek'' fans.<ref name="sinclair-01">Jenna Sinclair, [http://www.beyonddreamspress.com/history.htm Short History of Kirk/Spock Slash]. Retrieved 2008-06-30.</ref> Later, authors such as [[Joanna Russ]] studied and reviewed the phenomenon in essays and gave the genre some academic respectability.<ref>Russ, Joanna, "Pornography by Women for Women, With Love" in her book, ''Magic Mommas, Trembling Sisters, Puritans & Perverts''. New York:  The Crossing Press: 1985.</ref><ref>Penley, Constance, "Feminism, Psychoanalysis, and the Study of Popular Culture." In Grossberg, Lawrence, ed., ''Cultural Studies'', Rutledge 1992, p. 479. A detailed examination of K/S in terms of (among many other things) feminism and feminist studies.</ref> Greater subsequent tolerance and acceptance of homosexuality and increased frustration with the portrayal of gay relationships in mainstream media fed a growing desire in authors to explore the subjects on their own terms, using established media characters. ''Star Trek'' slash fiction remained important to fans, while new slash fiction grew up around other television shows, movies, and books with sci-fi or action-adventure roots.

Early slash fans in England feared that they would be arrested, because slash violated the obscenity laws there at the time.<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Falzone|first1=P.J.|title=The Final Frontier Is Queer: Aberrancy, Archetype and Audience Generated Folklore in K/S Slashfiction|journal=[[Western Folklore]]|date=2005|volume=64|issue=3/4|pages=243–261|jstor=25474751}}</ref>

===Slash sources===
From its earliest days, slash fiction has been particularly inspired by popular [[speculative fiction]] franchises,<ref>Seed, David Seed (ed.), ''A Companion to Science Fiction'' (2005), "Science Fiction/Criticism" p. 57, {{ISBN|1-4051-1218-2}}</ref><ref name=CHot20thcent798/> possibly because speculative fiction may lack well-developed female characters or because the speculative elements allow greater freedom to reinterpret canonical characters. However, other large bodies of slash fiction, such as ''Starsky and Hutch'' or ''The Professionals'', are based on non-speculative sources.

Slash fiction follows popular media, and new stories are constantly produced. There is some correlation between the popularity and activity of each variety of slash fiction and those of the source of the material. Some slash fiction readers and writers tend to adhere closely to the canonical source of their fiction, while other participants may follow the slash content without being fans of the original source material itself.<ref>Green, Shoshanna, Cynthia Jenkings and Henry Jenkins. "Normal Female Interest in Men Bonking: Selections From 'The Terra Nostra Underground' and 'Strange Bedfellows'." Ed. C. Harris & A. Alexander. Theorizing Fandom: Fans, Subculture and Identity. New Jersey: Hampton, 1998: pp. 9–38.</ref>

===Slash on the Internet===
Until the Internet became accessible to the general public in the early 1990s, slash was hard to find. It was published only in fan-edited non-profit [[fanzine]]s (often called only "zines"), which were usually priced just high enough to recoup printing costs,<ref name="Kustritz" /> and were sold via adzines or at conventions. With the advent of the Internet, slash fiction writers created [[Electronic mailing list|mailing lists]] which gradually took the place of [[amateur press association]]s (APA), and websites such as [[FanFiction.Net]]<ref name=CHot20thcent798>{{cite book |title=The Cambridge history of twentieth-century English literature |last1= Laura |first1= Marcus|first2=Peter |last2=Nicholls |year=2004 |publisher= Cambridge University Press|page= 798|isbn=978-0-521-82077-6}}</ref> (which gradually started taking the place of zines).

Forum boards and message boards were active during the first half of the first decade of the millennium, and sites such as [[Angelfire]], [[Geocities]], and [[ProBoards]] were quite successful. Other venues in which slash was, and still is, published are [[Facebook]] and private groups. Much later came [[Archive of Our Own]]. As slash publishing gradually moved to the Internet, the field opened to more writers, and a greater quantity of material was published.

The Internet allowed slash authors more freedom than print: stories could include branching story lines, links, collages, song mixes, and other innovations. The Internet increased slash visibility and the number of readers, as readers were now able to access the stories from their own home at a much lower cost, since zines cost more than an Internet connection. The number of [[fandom]]s represented increased dramatically, especially those devoted to science fiction, fantasy, and police dramas.<ref name="Kustritz" /> The Internet also increased the level of reader interaction, making it easier for fans to comment on stories, give episode reviews, and [[Meta (prefix)|discuss]] comment on trends in slash fandom itself. Websites and fanzines dedicated to fans of ''[[The X-Files]]'', ''[[Stargate]]'', ''[[Harry Potter]]'', and ''[[Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV series)|Buffy the Vampire Slayer]]'' became common, with tens of thousands of slash stories available.<ref name=CHot20thcent798/>