The Dark/Gay Side of the Force

The Dark Side… that’s the topic this fortnight.  With that in mind, and given the fact that this is an erotic authors blog, my mind went in only one direction.

Gay erotic Star Wars fan-fiction.

Gay erotic fan-fiction, or slash fiction as it’s often called (named so for the slash that appears between romantic pairing’s names — Kirk/Spock, for example), has been around since the days of the original Star Trek TV series.

Pretty much any major sci-fi franchise has fans writing dirty stories about the guys they wish could just get together and fuck.  (This seems to be primarily a sci-fi fanbase thing, though it does occasionally crop up in other non-sci-fi franchises.)  This seems to pop up regularly on Tumblr — when I have some time to kill and scroll through my feed there, I see a *lot* of Teen Wolf chatter.  I’ve never seen the show — I don’t even know if it’s still on or what channel it’s on — but I know all about the smouldering sexual tension that fans see between the two male leads.  There might even be some minimal gay subtext to their relationship on screen, but the internet has taken it and run with it.

Slash fiction seems to be incredibly popular.

Star Wars: Episode VII: The Force Awakens came out in December of last year — about four months ago.  Fans, particularly LGBT fans and lovers of slash fiction, picked up on some sexual tension between the new characters of Finn and Poe.  Indeed, even the actors who portray Finn and Poe have spoken about sexual tension between their characters.  Unfortunately, as the article I just linked to pointed out — there’s probably little chance of seeing such a romance between these characters, particularly since they are lead characters.  I know I wouldn’t mind seeing them get down and dirty, though. :)

I was curious who prevalent Finn/Poe slash fiction is, given the huge popularity of slash fiction and the huge popularity of Star Wars.  On one site — *one* site — there are over 2,100 Finn/Poe stories listed.  Yes, there are a lot of Star Wars fans out there and a lot of slash fiction writers out there, but that number still astounds me.  While that site I linked to — Archive of Our Own — is, to my understanding, one of the larger fan-fiction sites on the net, there are still several others that would have their own database of Finn/Poe stories.  There are thousands upon thousands of stories of Finn and Poe getting it on.  (Since I’m a huge Star Trek fan, I had to know… there are over 12,000 Kirk/Spock stories on Archive of Our Own, which makes the number of Star Wars stories even more astounding, as Star Trek is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year -- it's been around 50 times longer than Finn/Poe, but only has 6 times the stories.)

It makes me wonder if it would actually be a good business move to make the characters gay in Star Wars: Episode VIII… though I suspect it still won’t happen.  Partly because of the business reasons mentioned in the article listed above — that this would probably get the movie banned in China, which is a huge market — and partly because such a move would, unfortunately and irrationally, drive a lot of conservative Christian folk to boycott the movie.  Even in this age of growing equality, it’s still solid business advice to keep your characters straight — at least your main characters.

But if it were to happen, if Star Wars were to make these characters fall in love, I wonder if that would actually reduce the interest in Finn/Poe slash fiction, since it’s no longer a “taboo” thing.  I suspect part of the appeal is that slash fiction writers know there’s little to no chance of it happening on screen, so they come up with ways to explore the characters’ unacknowledged lusts and the taboo nature of their steamy affair.  If they were a couple on screen, then the illicitness of the pairing is lost.  We know they’re in love, they’re a couple, and they likely fuck regularly.  While there are still many people that would love to write and read stories about an already-established couple, I suspect it would lose its appeal to slash fiction writers.

Slash fiction is about exploring the dark lusts of characters, of what happens when they finally give in to what they know in their hearts to be true, and it’s a re-invention of a sci-fi franchise, giving it new life and breath for fans.  It’s also about getting off. ;)



(Speaking of getting off… in my Googling, I found a photo manipulation blog.  It’s like slash fiction but in X-rated pictures.  Check out Finn and Poe finally giving into their burning need for each other, and check out some of the other pics on the site, too.)



Cameron D. James is a writer of gay erotica and M/M erotic romance; his latest release is Seduced by My Best Friend’s Dad (co-written with Sandra Claire). He lives in Canada, is always crushing on Starbucks baristas, and has two rescue cats. To learn more about Cameron, visit http://www.camerondjames.com.

A Stealthy Cad

by Kathleen Bradean

Have you ever written about your lovers?

Hmm. Yes, and no. Next question?

Oh. You want me to expand on that answer. Well, hmm. I've never turned on the literary hidden camera and preserved a... what does one call it? Sexual encounter? An episode? A tryst? Anyway, I've never written about one of mine from start to finish with any attempt at historical accuracy. Mostly because when it's good, I roll over and fall asleep. I'm such a romantic. But really, try to cuddle with me after an intense orgasm and we will have words. Mine will be, "Go away." Yours better be, "Sorry," or better yet, silence as you get on your own damn side of the bed.

I would never write that in a story.


I haven't written about most of my lovers since-- let's be honest here-- the average person makes for a terrible character. They aren't extreme enough to be interesting to read about, and extreme people in real life are too high maintenance to have an affair with. As an example, my latest passion, the TV show Sherlock. In real life, if you lived with someone like Sherlock, chances are that you'd (okay, I'd) take a baseball bat to him one evening as he plucked that damned violin for three hours straight. Not to mention that he'd probably be terrible in bed. But I'm sure there's already scads of erotic fan fic about him, and probably quite a bit of it is slash* with Sherlock and Watson. But without looking to verify this guess, I doubt there's as much erotic fan fic about Watson sans Sherlock, even though in real life Watson would be the far better lover of the two. Since I haven't done jail time for assault with a deadly weapon, you can assume that in real life, I haven't had a Sherlock lover. But I know that readers don't want a Watson; they want the Sherlocks. That's my best writer's reason for not using my real lovers as characters.

However, I have written about one truly terrible real life sexual encounter that reflects so poorly on my skills in bed that it comes off as a comedic piece. And I wrote it with enough true details that it's possible that she'd recognize herself. I have mixed feelings about telling that story. Not because I'm embarrassed about my part (well, yes I am, but if you can't cringe at your past, you don't have one) but because I feel like a cad sharing what she had every right to expect was a private moment. Thankfully, she's the only one who could point to a story and say, "That bitch wrote about me!"

I've grown stealthier about sharing things. Now I start off with characters and plots that are emphatically not me or past lovers until I reach the point in the story that must ring true. That's when I tap into those affairs that left deep impressions. I dredge up the emotions and physical responses and for a paragraph or two bare my past to readers. Old lovers won't know, because no one ever knows what's going on in your head or what sensations you're feeling. Old lovers won't see themselves in the characters. Readers won't know because it's hidden within a story-- or if you prefer, a morsel of truth wrapped in pretty lies and indistinguishable from the rest. But what I write in those paragraphs is the real thing. Like orgasms, that's something I don't fake.


* Slash. If you read erotica or fan fic you're probably aware of it, but if this is a new term for you, slash is m/m (male slash male) fiction. There's also f/f and other variations, but when someone says slash, they usually mean male, although not necessarily gay even if it includes male on male sex. Slash is a complicated topic. I'm not even going to try to address all the nuances here. Just take it to mean here that the fan fic with Sherlock and Watson probably portrays them as lovers.