Attack of the Girly Men (this wee rant will be making free use of Tom Paris and Harry Kim, largely because they're fresh in my mind right now and it's the P/K 'ship that irritated me enough to want to write this)

Now I don't know if this is just a tendency in the slash I've been reading lately (mostly P/K from Voyager) or if it's a general trend in the whole slash community, but I can tell you right now that the girlification of our men has got to stop. These are MEN, people. Men. Testosterone-driven, awkwardly communicative, drink beer and put up a front of masochistic stoicism men. They are not girls. They (generally) don't burst into tears at the slightest emotional provocation. They (in so far as I can recollect) are not prone to excessive sap or overblown romantic displays. They certainly don't act like they're suffering from manic mood swings, and I doubt even Harry Kim would roll over and display his belly in abject submission quite as often as P/K writers have him do so.

I started writing slash because I liked writing male characters. If I wanted to inject femininity into a relationship I would have gone with Het or chosen a fandom with feminine men, such as "Are You Being Served". But no. I like MEN. I like the repression, the intensity of feeling, the desperate, longing desire to just be. And the sex isn't so bad either.

Men can cry. Men can feel all the emotions of women. Men can be torn up by angst, can be insane with jealousy, can be plagued with doubt and fear and so fucking in love that they can't see straight. Men can be romantic and sweet and endearing, can be thoughtful and kind and loving. Men can stay awake at night and worry, or just lie there and stare in wonder at the beauty of their partner's face. Men can be emotional cripples or sensitive as fuck-all. And, yes, some men are girly; and, yes, I am certainly not above slipping-up and writing a man as girly. Just look at some of my shitty early work. Men are all these things and more. I freely admit that.

But here's the thing. This is slash. That means that there are going to be two men; and while one is being manly, the other one is too. So while Tom is being jealous, Harry is getting more and more pissed off because, hey, he's a man too and he can defend himself, mm'kay? Harry is most likely not going to be secretly pleased by this sort of thing, because Harry is a man and he's got an aggressive streak too. Just watch "The Chute" a couple of times. True Harry is a complete and total submissive but that doesn't negate his manliness. It just means that he's more willing to bow to trusted authority than average.

Men have different relationships with other men. You can't just shove two guys into the conventional relationship rolls and say "Why yes, this is slash. Can't you tell by the two men getting it on?" It doesn't work. It's bad writing, the characters are as close to the canon as the alpha quadrant is to the delta, and it makes me wonder if the only reason you're writing slash is because you want to be 'daring' and flaunt the social norms. Get some guy friends. Observe them. Watch how they interact with each other. Don't assume that because they do one thing with a girlfriend they're going to do the same thing with a boyfriend. If you don't know any guys, just watch some television ("Oz" if you want some first-hand slash relationships; "Friends" if you just want to see how guys act). Watch a movie like "Oceans 11". Read some Tolkien (or really any sort of fiction that focuses on masculine friendship). Watch the show/movie that you're trying to slash and see how your playthings interact; remind yourself why you wanted to slash them in the first place. And if it was just because you think they'd look exceptionally hot together than just ignore all this and write the PWP.

Slash is about men. More importantly, slash is about taking that wonderfully precious creature known as the masculine relationship and tossing in a bit of sex. Slash is about men being men with other men and if it's done right, there doesn't even have to be any sex. Just read any of 's wonderfully, painfully brilliant Good Omens fic.

So please. For the sake of slash. For the sake of my sanity. For the sake of the poor, abused boys who can't speak for themselves. Stop this...flood of girly men. Give our boys some respect. They're men, damn it. And I like them that way.

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