Within a year of the first Star Trek fanfic, "slash" had kinked off on its own. Women fascinated by the friendship between the emotional Kirk and the logical Spock began writing stories that, shall we say, advanced their relationship. The Vulcan "mind-meld" was not the only kind of melding going on.

Fans called the first erotic sketches "Kirk/Spock" or "K/S" stories. Soon the genre was named for the slash between the names. Starsky and Hutch soon found themselves in bed. Luke Skywalker and Han Solo were slashed, so were Luke and Lando Calrissian. Today the most popular couples include Mulder/Skinner, Qui-Gon/Obi-Wan from Star Wars Episode I, and Xena/Gabrielle from Xena: Warrior Princess. (Lesbian slash is somewhat less common than gay slash.) Almost every character on television has been placed in a compromising position. Crockett and Tubbs engage in their own special Miami vice. Hawkeye and Trapper snuggle in their cold M*A*S*H tent when Frank Burns takes a three-day pass to Tokyo. Jar Jar Binks from Episode I can be found pleasuring Darth Maul. Lock up the kids! Click here to witness some of this variety: Scroll to the bottom of the screen for a guide to slash abbreviations: "SS/JL: Sam Seaborn/Josh Lyman (The West Wing)"; "C/P: Chakotay/Tom Paris (Star Trek: Voyager)"; "SA-M/O: Sith Academy's Maul/Obi-Wan (Star Wars: The Phantom Menace)"; etc., etc., etc.

Reading slash for the first time is disorienting. I'm a straight prude who likes to keep his favorite TV characters locked in the television. My brain could hardly process the images—in lubed-up detail—of Hawkeye and Trapper masturbating each other and Obi-Wan Kenobi having anal sex with Qui-Gon. (Pause for a practical question: How do fanfic writers move Spock and Kirk from consulting on the Enterprise's holodeck to rolling around in bed? Click here for an example.)

Slash certainly is intended to feed sexual fantasies. "I find the idea of two men together to be erotic," says WPAdmirer, who writes Carter/Skinner slash. "And I don't know anyone who could look at the body of Mitch Pileggi [who plays Skinner] and not be interested."

But the porn generally isn't the point. Even at its filthiest, slash, too, is guided by Tannen, not Larry Flynt. According to Jenkins and to slash writers, slash is rooted in female fascination with deep male friendships. Slash writers seek to turn men inside out. "Theirs is one of the most intense friendships I have seen on television, and it seems quite plausible to me that the relationship could have a physical component," says Jane St. Clair, who writes Kirk/Spock slash.

Protagonists spend more time talking about their feelings than groping each other. "What could be more exciting than love between two grown men—the hiding, the secret meetings, the confessions of love?" asks Belynda, a slash archiver.

What matters is not the sex, says Chrysothemis, who writes Due South slash, but "the emotional relationship of the two characters." Her slash often mimics romance novels, with sex hinted at but not described. Slash's interest in how characters feel sometimes reaches parodic proportions. In some K/S slash, Kirk and Spock quit their jobs with Starfleet to work on their relationship.

If you missed the link on how slash writers get their characters into bed, click here.