The Darker Side of Slash Fan Fiction

Like other forms of fan fiction, slash fiction--centered on same sex relationships between fictional characters--is a powerful cultural dialogue. Though the genre can be socially transformative, particularly as an active feminist resistance to patriarchal ideologies, it is more complex than other literary forms of resistance.

This collection of new essays covers topics on real, "fringe" bodies and identities; the inscription and transgression of bodily boundaries; and the exploration of power, autonomy and personal agency. Exploring the darker side of the genre, they also discuss how systems of authority are both challenged and reiterated by the erotic imagination and how the voices of marginalized groups are both raised and ignored within slash fiction and fan communities.