Date: Sat, 1 Feb 1997 07:23:24 +0000
From: me_n_thee
Subject: Re: Profiles

I live in Scotland, and currently work in the field of historical 
computing. I have two hopelessly non-vocational degrees but 
luckily  computers will do what I say, which makes me somewhat 
more employable.

I've been a fan since 1979, but never particularly active, 
especially not in the years between 1985 and 1995. Then 
Bravo channel started the re-runs, and I bought a TV 
and a video and a cable connection, finally got an internet 
connection as well, so here I am. I love meeting new fans and 
will be happy for anyone to contact me, or to drop in past if you 
happen to be in Scotland.

Solo

Subject: Re: [VP] and how did YOU get into slash?
Date: Tue, 19 Jan 1999 09:17:04 +0000 (GMT)
From: me_n_thee
To: veniceplace@jbx.com

Subject: Re: [VP] and how did YOU get into slash?

I wasn't going to write in on this subject because so many people 
have already said what I was going to say a lot better than I 
could hope to say it. But what the hell...

> How did YOU get into slash? 

I discovered S&H in 1979, and in the early 80s I was friends with 
a couple of lovely women in the US who kept me informed about 
zines and letterzines and, well, fandom in general. (To think 
back - in those days of snail mail, we managed to communicate 
about twice a month if we were *lucky*; letters from Europe to 
the US could take over a week!) And one day they sort of casually 
asked in a letter whether I'd ever thought of S&H, um, having a 
sexual relationship. To which I, truthfully, answered 'yes, of 
course'. I was 16, I think. So by return I got my first slash 
zine, and boy was that an eye-opener. I'd never read erotica of 
any kind before, and while I was perfectly happy with the 
*concept* of slashing the boys, I just hadn't expected anything 
*graphic*. I hadn't known this kind of thing existed, het *or* 
gay (yes, I was very innocent). So I put the zine away, thinking 
'I've got to think about this', and for about a week after I sort 
of chanced the occasional peek at various bits to see if it got 
any easier to handle. Well, I did come round in the end. :)

Having said that, S&H is my only fandom and S/H is the only slash 
that works for me. I need to believe in the relationship before 
the slash has any appeal for me.

> Why did it appeal to you?  

The relationship. I'm another one of those who were fixated on 
buddy relationships, preferably involving some kind of danger,
from a very early age - I can't remember ever *not* being 
attracted to it and I do remember actively looking for it as a 
child. (In books, mostly, since I have never been a keen watcher 
of TV.) I also, strangely, remember being pretty closeted about 
this predilection of mine, don't ask me why because I really 
don't know what was going on in my 6, 8, and 10-year old brain. 
I just knew it was Very Important to me and therefore nobody 
else's business. 

But I did let on to one close friend, which is just as well 
because in the summer of 1979 she said to me 'there's this show 
on TV which you'll like'. I said 'TV? Bleah, I don't like TV.' (I 
didn't. I still don't particularly.) But she really pestered me 
to give it a try, so that night I joined my mother in the living 
room while she was doing the ironing, and watched The Hostages 
with her. I was hooked instantly, but not entirely sure whether 
this ep hadn't maybe just been a fluke. Two weeks later we got 
Shootout. Never looked back.

And the slash aspect occurred to me pretty quickly, simply 
because I'd been interested in classical Greece for a good while, 
one of my favourite books was the Iliad, and I'd been devouring 
Mary Renault books since I was ten. Slash, the basic idea of it, 
was nothing new to *this* 14-year-old. I didn't think about it 
much, though, just sort of kept it in mind as a nice possibility. 
I didn't feel strongly about it. And I certainly didn't know 
there were people out there who were *writing* it!

> Are you in the closet about it? 

Resounding YES. I'm in the closet about being a S&H fan, never 
mind slash! There's a total of three non-fans on this entire 
island who know that I'm into S&H. Those three also know about 
slash, to varying degrees. My dearest and oldest friend, who went 
to school with me and experienced my love affair with S&H right 
from the very start, knows all about me anyway, and I've even 
given her some slash to read (she didn't like it, but that's 
okay.) My boyfriend... that's a different matter. We've been 
together for three years and only after a few months of dating 
did 
I even admit that I watch the show. (Like I said, if it's 
Important, I don't talk about it.) He now watches the eps with me 
whenever I put them on and he's getting to be quite an expert on 
the show. And a few months ago I very cautiously raised the 
subject of slash. Just sort of made him aware that it's there,
and thatI read it. I get the strong impression that this is as 
much as he wants to know about it, or at least that's how I 
interpret the signals he's sending out. -- The third person is 
a good friend who likes to watch the show and somehow always 
seems 
to pick up the right vibes from it at the right time, so at one 
point I just told him that slash existed. He'll probably get to 
read some, eventually. He might even like it.

> What compels you to write it and read it?

I like to read SH fiction of any kind and I don't really care 
whether it's slash or gen, as long as they don't go off and get 
married and break up the partnership. Slash is a kind of 
insurance against that. I get a sexual buzz from some (very few)
slash stories, but that's not my main reason for reading them. 
Maybe I'm still an innocent. :)

Solo

Subject: Re: [VP] How did you get into slash?
Date: Tue, 08 Aug 2000 09:58:37 +0100
   From: 

Katherine said:

>Well, like I said recently on another list, I'm *not* into slash.

Ditto here. S/H is my only slash fandom. I 'see' the potential there, and I 
don't 'see' it anywhere else. I also belive in 'logical and possible 
extrapolations', I guess.

Having said that, I saw the potential for S/H very early on... it was maybe 
1982 and I had been sent my first (gen) zines by friends in the US and I 
loved them. One day, one of those friends asked very cautiously whether I'd 
ever thought... S and H... might... you know... become lovers... and she 
added quickly that if this thought displeased me she would never mention it 
again! I guess she must have been very relieved when, two weeks later (this 
was snail mail days, folks!) she got my reply saying 'but of course!' 
Because I *had* thought about it, albeit in a very vague sense and 
certainly not graphically. And I liked the idea, it made perfect sense to me.

So then I was sent my first slash zine (Code 7 #1) and started reading it, 
and thought "Whoa! I didn't know words like cock came into this!" I can't 
quite remember what I had expected, but certainly nothing so explicit 
(blame the sheltered upbringing). I played hide and seek with that zine for 
about a week, peeking at various pages (whoops, there's that word again, 
and here they say 'fuck'!!), acclimatising myself. I figured if I believed 
in the concept, I ought to be able to get around a few words I wasn't used 
to seeing in print. Didn't take too long, either. Now I look back and 
think, what an innocent I must have been. :-)

Solo


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Bay City, U.K.: http://members.xoom.com/zebrathree/index.htm



