slash n.

a subgenre of fiction, originally published in fanzines and now esp. online, in which characters who appear together in popular films or other media are portrayed as having a sexual (esp. homosexual) relationship

[< the written form of K/S n..]

Fancyclopedia


SF Criticism

SF Fandom

Genre

  • 1984 Not Tonight, Spock! Jan. 1

    Recommended Book List…to include gay books, other slash zines, or media zines with good K/S stories.

  • 1993 SFRA Review May 64

    There is another chapter on slash, or fanzine stories written with the assumption of a homoerotic relationship between male media characters (Kirk/Spock is the most famous kind of slash).

  • 1997 Entertainment Weekly 26 Sept. 84

    One subgenre, ‘crossover’, posits a universe in which characters from different shows (and networks) coexist in a single hyperactive universe; one story weaver has Law & Order detectives Logan and Briscoe working a murder case with the X-Files duo. Another variety, ‘slash’, creates sexual histories more appropriate to the Kinsey than the Nielsen report.

  • 2020 T. J. Klune The Extraordinaries i. 13 T. J. Klune bibliography

    After all, Nick was one of the most popular writers in the Extraordinaries fandom…and slash would always be more popular than the hetero nonsense FireStoned seemed to want.

Research requirements

antedating 1984
Earliest cite

in 'Not Tonight, Spock!'
Research History
Meg Garrett submitted a 1984 cite from the letterzine "Not Tonight, Spock!"
Ben Ostrowsky submitted a 2020 cite from T. J. Klune.

Added to the OED as a new sense of the word in September 2003 with an earliest cite of 1984.

Last modified 2021-02-04 17:25:53
In the compilation of some entries, HDSF has drawn extensively on corresponding entries in OED.