My Shameful Addiction
Noticed a decline in the regularity of my columns? There's a reason for it. A better reason than part-time graduate school in addition to full-time work and a busy social life: I have a new addiction. An embarrassing addiction. And I just can't stop. I even got reprimanded at work for spending too much time on non-work related computer stuff, so now my addiction is mostly limited to evenings at home. All evening, every evening. I've tried to quit, I've tried to only do it for an hour or two, and I've even made myself not even touch the computer at home or otherwise do it at all for an entire day. And it almost kills me every time. I am an addict.
Unlike most addictions though, this isn't a socially acceptable vice. It's not drugs or drinking or chocolate or sex with random strangers. No, it's far more insidious than that, because it doesn't seem like the sort of thing that should be addictive. And since it's not socially acceptable, it also carried a rather heavy burden of shame with it, one that makes it a secret guilty pleasure, which probably makes it about twenty times more enjoyable than if it was something I could talk about with being so embarrassed I could actually die. I've told bits and pieces to lots of people, and they all keep reassuring me that it's not that freaky or abnormal, but what they don't seem to realize is that I can't stop. I've tried. Well, sort of. I don't want to stop. I think I even kind of like being embarrassed. Having something to hide feels good, for someone who has tried to make her life an open book on even the most intimate subjects.
So what is this addiction, you ask. What on earth could you be doing that's causing such humiliation and loss of control? Nose picking? Masturbating in grocery stores? Huffing aerosol deodorant? On-line role playing games? No, it's far far worse. Something that seems harmless on the surface, amusing, perhaps slightly titillating for a few moments before it gets boring: I'm addicted to slash.
I tried not to be. I tried to think it was just amusing and titillating and then get bored with it. I did! Really! But I failed. Something about it just gripped me, somewhere deep and dark and reptilian-brained.
But perhaps I've lost some of you. What is slash, you want to know? Slash is a deviant genre of fan fiction. I can already hear you with your 1980s "Whatchu talkin' 'bout, Willis?" comeback. Fan fiction is (are?) stories written by fans of books/movies/tv shows/comics/cartoons/you name it rather than by the actual author/creator. They are original stories set in the same world and feature the same characters, doing all kinds of things they aren't doing in the actual books/movies/etc. There's tons of articles and information and graduate theses on slash (or yaoi) out there on the web, and I'm hardly an expert. I can only tell you my version, what little I have learned in the last three months of my obsession. So fan fiction is, for example, stories of things that could have happened in, say, "Lord of the Rings" but Tolkien never wrote about it.
Sometimes the stories are simply adventures or character developments. Often, though, they are romantic. Often the romantic pairings are not what the original author ever intended, or in fact completely contradict the author's romantic pairings. And in slash, the pairings are homosexual. And a good portion of the "romance" is NC-17.
There are so many places to go on this subject, so many possible lines to explore regarding slash and slash writers and slash readers that I don't even know where to begin. Perhaps I'll write more next time. I'll wrap this up with one final confession, and the true explanation for why I haven't been writing my Cants: after a few months, it was no longer enough to just read slash. Yes, I've started writing it.
I'm sorry. It was an accident. I couldn't stop myself.
Give me my penance, pass the scourge, and I will happily flog myself until I have beaten away the demons possessing me.
Right after I finish reading this one archive…