I don't know about you, but slash fiction is something I've been blissfully ignorant of. I'm usually pretty open minded but slash fiction involving underage characters seems, well, pretty weird to me.
I mean, I know a person or two who played with this genre—explained at Wikipedia— particularly with X-Files
But I admit I was a little bit surprised that when I typed "Harry Potter blog" into Google, it led me to slash fiction sites where people imagined sexual situations with Harry Potter characters.
Am I a prude to find this a bit, well, odd?
Do you read and like such things? If so, what's the appeal?
I came across the slash fiction while preparing for a book discussion at my blog. Here are some more harmless but fun Potter-related links:
- Harry Potter thoughts in another language.
- The Harry Potter personality quiz, courtesy of this blog.
- An excellent Harry Potter quiz (with some spoilers)
- A complicated house sorting quiz.
And here are some good ones I previously shared:
- You can go find out what your Harry Potter alter ego is.
- Just how popular is Harry Potter at Guantanamo Bay? The answer.
- Here is an excellent review I may use as a jumping off point for the discussion.
- Here are some spoiler thoughts for those who finished the book.
- And here are other related links.
Edited: PC
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - Victor Plenty
None of the main characters are 18 yet, so Harry Potter slash fiction seems inappropriate at the very least, and possibly criminal to possess in some areas.
Slash fiction in general is completely uninteresting to me, but I'm not hostile to its existence if the characters are all adults. If some people want to write about Kirk and Spock finding rather unusual ways to explore strange new worlds, well, okay. Just don't ask me to read it.
Harry Potter slash fiction goes much farther beyond the boundaries of taste. The whole concept has too much potential for really creepy results.
2 - Yvonne
I have read both fanfiction and slashfiction, that has involved Harry Potter characters. HP Slash is 99% of the time, is written by young women, and tends to be about the romance between the characters, but sometimes can be explicit. The characters are usually older (over the age of 18), as the authors are aware of the implications involved.
The authors do not intend to create "nasty results".
3 - Taja
I read a great deal of HP fanfiction: slash, femmeslash, and nonslash. I don't deliberately seek out slashfics to read, but I won't avoid them, or any other fic that explores unusal or taboo romantic/sexual situations, either. For me, the appeal is always the writing. Is the fic well-written? Are the characters written (more or less) in character? Does the plot hang together?
And the idea of underage characters engaging in sex? Does anyone really think that teens don't have sex? that there aren't homosexual and bisexual teens, having sex? Not ALL teens, to be sure, but it does happen.
Yes, I generally think the fics that explore relationships between adults and teens, whether slash or nonslash, are a bit icky. But the fics with that sort of content that I've liked, MEANT for that situation to be icky, not for it to be viewed or consumed as kiddie porn.
Art imitates life. Fanfiction is art. Not all of it is quality work. (I won't pick on any particular work or genre.) Not all of it is appropriate, or intended for, younger readers. (Would you let a ten-year old read a Harlequin romance?) Not all of it is to everyone's taste. ('Piss Christ', anyone?) It sure provokes a reaction in the reader though, doesn't it?
4 - The Theory
Regarding sexual situations in online fiction... Would it be any more or less shocking to read something of that nature in a regular fiction book?
I mean, if you changed all the character's names and put a real binding on it I don't think any of us would be talking about legal ramifications.
Now, the catch in this case is that the Harry Potter characters, thanks to the movies, have the faces of real teenagers. Some people might read them and have in mind whatever they innitially pictured hermione when they read the books... or they might see Emma (was her last name Watson?), the girl who portrayed hermione in the movie.
which is a little unsettling.
5 - Victor Plenty
Sex scenes involving minors are dangerous ground, no matter what the characters' names are. It doesn't matter whether it's online or print media. Doesn't matter if it's words, video, photo images, drawings, paintings, illustrations, or whatever. Laws and cultural values are growing more and more suspicious of anything involving explicit sex. If minors are portrayed, very few will defend the material even as a free speech issue.
I'm not saying anything about whether this should be the case. But this is what's happening, like it or not. If you want to protect yourself from a whole lot of trouble you need to be aware of it before you start writing any fanfiction involving characters younger than 18.
Yes, people younger than 18 sometimes do have sex. That doesn't make it safe to portray them doing it in your fiction.
6 - Pat Cummings
According to the Wikipedia page linked to this article, "Warner Brothers, on behalf of Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling, has issued cease and desist orders in the past as a result of this type of slash."
Because of this, I have removed the link to the "chanslash" sites for the Harry Potter characters.
This is a valid discussion, though, people -- is such fiction, written about fictional characters, really dangerous? Or is it just... fiction?
7 - Blue Eyes
I think it's just fiction. The books are just fiction, the ff is just fiction. That's why they are called Fanfiction! IN the books it's alright to have Ginny making out with Dean and Harry, Ron with Lavender, Why would this be any different then having Harry and Draco kiss in a ff?
Isn't it suppose to be the writers decision on what they wish to write? I'll admit I read slash, but I don't think of it as mindless, yucky, or odd. It's the writing that makes it beautiful. Two people over coming difference and finding love in one another, it shouldn't matter what gender. What I think is wrong is that if it was Harry and Ginny in ff stories it would completely fine. It's because it's slash.
I think it should be dropped. It's all play. You can just as easily pick up a boy/boy romance in a book store, or look up porn. Slash ff's are just stories, with words, no pictures in an online book, they do not make money by writing them they even state that they don't, so why the big issue.
If your afraid that your kids will read something that's not straight right wing stuff, then either tell them not to or set your computer up so they can't. If it bugs you then don't read it. It's as simple as that.
Remember it's just words, fiction.
8 - Victor Plenty
It doesn't matter what I think or you think.
The danger arises from what legislators, prosecutors, judges, and juries think. If they find some forms of fiction too disturbing, the authors are in danger of losing their liberty and their property.
If you don't like this fact, don't just say so here. Go ahead and say it here if you want, but don't think you have made much of a difference by doing so. Write to your legislators and make sure they know how you want them to interpret the Constitution's protections for free speech.
9 - Scott Butki
I'm glad this prompted a discussion and that I'm not the only one uncomfortable with Potter slash fiction.
10 - eriqo
What is slash fiction anyway??
11 - Victor Plenty
Slash fiction is a subset of fan fiction, in which the fan author sets up relationships between characters who are not romantically involved in the original version of the story.
The "slash" term comes from the brief descriptions used to alert readers to the content of these stories on fan fiction sites, Usenet newsgroups, and before the Internet opened up, on local bulletin board systems. A Star Trek story with Kirk and Spock getting romantically involved would fall into the category of "Kirk/Spock" stories, which is pronounced "Kirk-slash-Spock" when spoken out loud.
Eventually the whole genre became known as "slash" fiction.
I know all this because I wondered about that too. The term "slash" made me think the stories were about violence, which turned out not to be the case once I looked into it.
12 - Scott Butki
Thanks for the great summary.
I linked in my original post to Wikipedia's summary of the term, which is also interesting.
13 - eriqo
thnx vic!
14 - Aithinne
You guys are so niave! 12 year olds are having sex these days and in England where Harry supposedly lives the legal limit for sex is 16. I'm 13 and I've read a lot of books with explicite sex scenes because they are seen as classics.Rape and sex are in most books on my school reading list!
Kill Bill is exeptionally violent but is seen as arrt. Why should fanFICTIONS been seen as otherwise?
15 - Scott Butki
It's one thing to have underaeg sex and it's another to write about underage sex but it's quite another to take underage characters from fiction and imagine having sex with them.
If you wrote a novel and I then blogged about fantasies abuot having sex with a character you wrote about, that wouldn't strike you as odd?
16 - Scott Butki
Or do people disagree with that assessment?
17 - ciara
oooooo, harry potter is soooooo sexy!! ow can any1 not luv im? lol
ciara xxxxxxx
18 - with karate ill kik ur ass
its kinda sik if u ask me
19 - Rhonda
May I state, 17 is 'legal' age in the wizarding world so Harry is a few months shy of being an 'adult' in his world by the end of the sixth book. So therefore, even canon Harry is a 'man' now.
Now on to the "issue", Slash fan fiction in the HP Universe. Well there's a few things worth saying
1) Not all slash fiction is PORN, most of it is but there are slash stories where the characters (either two males or two females) do no more than Ron and Ginny did in the sixth book, which is heavy snogging (kissing). And quite a few focus on the issue of coming to terms with being gay/lesbian/bi more so than the sexual aspect of such a relationship. Maybe these fics are in the minority, but they exsist. And maybe it helps young people on the verge of coming out to read/write G-PG13 rated slash stories (yes, they exsist along with R/NC17 material) about characters they feel close to. And it helps in coming to terms with the fact they're not-Hetero.
2) Because these are fictional characters from a BOOK they don't have to be the age they were in the last published book or the 'current age' of the actors in the film. Plenty of stories in Harry Potter land (Het/Slash/Gen) 'speculate' on the future/adult lives of the characters and will likely continue to do so after the publishing of the seventh and final book. Especially since once it arrives the canon will be complete and set in stone, so everyone has an even playing feild.
3) HP Slash was pre-movie, so we can't make it dirty because now actual teen faces can be attached to the names. And not everyone is associating these characters with the actors. I personally have a Harry tbat's not Daniel Radcliffe, a Ron that's not Rupert Grint, and a Hermione that's not Emma Watson that has stayed with me because I read the books before the movies exsisted. I never had a problem imagining my trio becoming adults who (shock) had sex. Actually it did begin to squick me when Dan, Emma, and Rupert were little and (in the majority) people associated those cute little baby faces with Harry, Hermione, and Ron. But now even they're in there teens, so it's less weird.
4) I'm not for the teacher/student and adult/child stuff in HP (Heterosexual or not), but I personally have no problem with stories where teens (Heterosexual or not) have an honest coming to terms with their sexuality within a story, with or without a Harry Potter context.
20 - deatheater
id shag dan radcliff till he was dead!!!!!
no joke!honest!
21 - Scott Butki
How old is he now?
22 - Victor Plenty
If "shagging them until they're dead" becomes the new standard way of saying you find someone attractive, that would be a great deal more disturbing than any fan fiction.
23 - Annie
ok, this is really weird. I'd just like to say although im against sex outside the context of marriage, I have no problem with the characters having sex as long as it isn't put into the story. Rowling knows when the reader has got the idea, she doesn't need graphic details which would otherwise spoil these books.
24 - Annie
Bu the way, im 14, Aussie, and Catholic
25 - Scott Butki
Bad news. There's a new report out that Potter may get killed off in the next book. Details here.