Gayfic
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[edit] Gayfic definitions
Gayfic is fanfic that tends to be written by, for and about gay, lesbian and bisexual characters.
Within the slash community gayfic can refer to femmeslash pairings such as Willow/Tara, gay pairings such as Jack/Toby in Dawson's Creek or to non-canon pairings such as Will/Jack in Will and Grace.
Outside of the slash community gayfic exists as a subgenre of pastiche within lesbian and gay literature.
[edit] Distinctions from Slash and Yaoi
Slash is often used as a catch-all term for homoerotic fanfic. However, slash has historically been written by and for heterosexual women. Many have a profound distaste for stories about gay lifestyles or even canon depictions that go beyond subtext. It is a common argument within the slash community that fiction about canon gay or lesbian relationships are not slash. It was once common that self-identifying queers were not allowed participation within the slash community
Gayfic will focus on the gay experience and gay lifestyle while slash tends to be focused on a disconnected romantic relationship. Some of the common themes in gayfic are coming out, gay-bashing, AIDS and Gay Pride. It is more common for gayfic to be about (idealized) peer relationships than about hierarchical. It is also more common that gayfic will be about casual and/or group sex as opposed to soulmate stories.
Yaoi is an expression of Japanese society and culture which is having an impact on the expression of both slash and gayfic. It is coming from a completely different context of sexual and gender expression. Two examples: Sailor Moon was a child's cartoon which contained a canon lesbian couple and several transexuals who have been edited out of the North American versions. Boylove magazines are readily available for consumption by teenage girls.
Yaoi tends toward heteronormativity for its characters. The character read as 'the male' is dominant in every way over the effeminant submissive.
[edit] Gayfic as a social expression
As attested to in The Celluloid Closet queer people hunger for representation within popular culture. Fanfic works with exploring neglected subtext and alternate story-lines within mainstream culture.
On slash lists, and in slash research, it is acknowledged that slash functions as an expression of heterosexual female desire. Just as the 'lesbian' fantasies portrayed in men's magazines serve as titillation to the normative heterosexual male gaze rather than as an accurate depiction of lesbian lives the gay romances in slash titillate the female reader. (PLEASE NOTE: heterosexual women normalizing gay relationships and expressing themselves as sexual subjects rather than sexual objects are also subversive actions.)
Gayfic can serve to re-insert queer cultures that had been censored out of history. Many literary historians consider the stories of Robin Hood to be ripe with homoerotic imagery. Other popular subjects for reclamation are cowboys, the California Gold Rush, Renaissance Italy, ancient Greece/Rome and Victorian England.
In present day, loud and often shrill denials of homosexuality by closeted celebrities such as Liberace, George Michael, Elton John, Rock Hudson and Freddie Mercury has led to a desire to 'Out' celebrities. This has been extended to fictional couples who are read as gay such as Frodo/Sam, Batman/Robin, Lex Luthor/Superman, Skipper/Gilligan and Bugs Bunny/Elmer Fudd. Obviously, (or is it hopefully) the titillation value is not as pronounced.
There were also a number of stories in movie and TV that are rumoured to have removed gay scenes. Sometimes the story is damaged with the removal of a sexual component to a relationship. Missing scene fiction is a method of improving a damaged story by restoring missing motivations and interactions.
[edit] Some Gayfic
These are some notable novels which read either historical or popular culture figures as gay.
- Author unknown, attributed to J. Watson
- The Sexual Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
- Publisher: Oympia press/ The Traveller's Companion, Inc. NY 1971. 1st printing (1971)
- A pastiche assuming that Sherlock Holmes and J. Watson had a long-term sexual relationship.
- John Preston
- SWEET DREAMS 1984
- GOLDEN YEARS 1984
- DEADLY LIES 1985
- STOLEN MOMENTS 1985
- SECRET DANGER 1986
- LETHAL SILENCE 1987
- Pastiche of the "The Executioner" books with Alex Kane as a gay Mack Bolan
- Mabel Maney
- The Case Of The Not-So-Nice Nurse Cleis Press, 08/23/96
- The Case Of The Good-For-Nothing Girlfriend 08/23/96:
- Lesbian pastiche of the Nancy Drew (Nancy Clue) and Cherry Aimes (Cherry Aimless) girls' books of the fifties.
- The Ghost in the Closet starring Nancy Clue and the Hardly Boys.
- Kiss the Girls and Make them Spy. A Jane Bond Parody
- The Girl with the Golden Bouffant. A Jane Bond parody.
- Mary Renault
- Fire From Heaven 1970
- The Persian Boy 1972
- Funeral Games 1981
- The Alexander the Great trilogy.
