Editing Slash fiction (section)

==Definition and ambiguity==
Slash fiction fandoms tend to be diverse and segregated, and each has its own rules of style, etiquette, history, and favorite stories and authors.

Slash cannot be commercially distributed due to copyright laws, and, until the 1990s, it was either undistributed or published in [[Fanzine|zine]]s.<ref name=EEL>Decarnin, Camilla (2006) "Slash Fiction" in Gaëtan Brulotte and John Phillips (eds.) ''Encyclopedia of Erotic Literature'' New York: Routledge, pp. 1233–1235.</ref> Today, slash fiction is most commonly published on [[Tumblr]], [[LiveJournal]] accounts and other websites online, such as [[Archive of Our Own]]. Legal scholars promoting copyright reform sometimes use slash fiction as an example of [[semiotic democracy]].<ref>See, e.g., Siva Vaidhyanathan, 'Critical Information Studies: A Bibliographic Manifesto' (2006) 20 ''Cultural Studies'' 292.</ref>

The term ''slash fiction'' contains several ambiguities. Due to the lack of canonical homosexual relationships in source media at the time that slash fiction began to emerge, some came to see slash fiction stories as being exclusively outside their respective canons and held that the term "slash fiction" applies only when the characters' same-sex romantic or erotic relationship about which an author writes is not part of the source's canon and that fan fiction about [[canon (fiction)|canonical]] same-sex relationships is therefore not slash.<ref name="Tosenberger">{{cite journal | last1 = Tosenberger | first1 = Catherine | year = 2008 | title = Homosexuality at the Online Hogwarts: Harry Potter Slash Fanfiction | journal = Children's Literature | volume = 36 | pages = 185–207 | doi = 10.1353/chl.0.0017 | s2cid = 143937185 }}</ref> The recent appearance on screen of openly gay and bisexual characters, such as [[Willow Rosenberg|Willow]] and [[Tara Maclay|Tara]] in the television series ''[[Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV series)|Buffy the Vampire Slayer]]'', the characters of ''[[Queer as Folk (UK TV series)|Queer as Folk]]'',<ref name=Tosenberger/> [[Jack Harkness]] in ''[[Doctor Who]]'', and numerous characters in ''[[Torchwood]]'', has occasioned much additional discussion of this problem. Abiding by the aforementioned definition leaves such stories without a convenient label, so this distinction has not been widely adopted.<ref name=Tosenberger/>

Some slash authors also write slash fiction which contains [[transgender]] themes and transgender/[[transsexual]] or [[intersex]] characters. As a result, the exact definition of the term has often been hotly debated within various slash fandoms. The strictest definition holds that only stories about relationships between two male partners ('M/M') constitute 'slash fiction', which has led to the evolution of the term [[femslash]]. Slash-like fiction is also written in various Japanese [[anime]] or [[manga]] fandoms but is commonly referred to as [[shōnen-ai]] or [[yaoi]] for relationships between male characters, and [[shōjo-ai]] or [[yuri (genre)|yuri]] between female characters, respectively.

Due to the increasing popularity and prevalence of slash on the Internet in recent years, some use ''slash'' as a generic term for any erotic fan fiction, whether it depicts heterosexual or homosexual relationships. This has caused concern for other slash writers, who believe that, while it can be erotic, slash is not, by definition, so, and that defining all erotic fiction as slash makes such fiction unsuitable for potential underage readers of [[homoromantic]] fan fiction. In addition, a number of journalists writing about the fan fiction phenomenon in general seem to believe that ''all'' fan fiction is slash, or at least erotic in character.<ref>Dery, Mark. Glossary. Flame Wars: The Discourse of Cyber Culture. North Carolina: Duke UP, 1994.</ref><ref>Viegener, Matias. "The Only Haircut That Makes Sense Anymore." Queer Looks: Lesbian & Gay Experimental Media. Routledge, New York: 1993.</ref><ref>Dundas, Zach, "[http://wweek.com/story.php?story=5307 Hobbits Gone Wrong] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080508040011/http://wweek.com/story.php?story=5307 |date=2008-05-08 }}." In ''Willamette Week'', July 14, 2004, retrieved 2008-07-15. A less-than-complimentary report on slash fiction and its role in the "Bit Of Earth" scam involving fans of ''[[The Lord of the Rings (film series)|The Lord of the Rings]]'' films.</ref> Such definitions fail to distinguish between erotic and romantic slash, and between slash, het (works focusing primarily on heterosexual relationships) and gen (works which do not include a romantic focus).

The slash mark itself (/), when put between character's names, has come to mean a shorthand label for a romantic relationship, regardless of whether the pairing is heterosexual or homosexual, romantic or erotic.<ref name=Tosenberger/>