...that I fervently wish didn't exist. The fact that it does says something very disturbing about the human (and perhaps Vulcan) race.

[Via that disgusting pervert Treacher]

I was going to explain about naughty Enterprise stories, but Haloscan keeps having a tizzy about it.

Seriously, Rand, so many commenters have problems with your haloscan filters, over perfectly innocent stuff - why not use something like Captcha instead?

Rand, you didn't know?

Really, you didn't know?

Not that I approve of that aspect of their relationship, mind you, but they are consenting adults and it really is none of our business.

This stuff goes back to the early-1970s and fanzines. It is usually referred to as "slash" fan fiction, and abreviated as K/S. See David Gerrold's 1973 book "The World of Star Trek" which refers to this.

If you go to a science fiction convention you can often find a dealer who sells all kinds of slash zines. It started with Kirk/Spock and by the late 1970s had expanded to include a lot of other television shows, including Starsky & Hutch and Miami Vice and just about any other show that featured two male leads, often leading in really surprising directions (such as very obscure shows like The Sentinel, and The Pretender). The fiction is written almost always by women, but there is some by gay men. There is also a subgenre of people who edit together film clips to music to try and depict a romantic relationship between two (male) characters. All of this stuff was confined to photocopies and fanzines and conventions until the Internet took off in the 1990s.

And if you're shocked by this, you should see the artwork...

For an academic discussion of this subject, along with some interesting insights about NASA's effect on popular culture, see Constance Penley's book "NASA/Trek."

The TV Guide schedule entry for "Amok Time":
"Mr. Spock succumbs to a powerful mating urge and nearly kills Captain Kirk."

"NASA/Trek"

Now THAT's a slash fiction I'd rather not see!

It's stuff like this that made me realize that part of the problem I have with Trek is the fans themselves.

I am told that the phenomonom has spread to literature. There is, for instance, Harry Potter slash.

The mind boggles.

Piffle. These adolsecent scribblings are nothing next to my white-hot LAW & ORDER slashfic universe. It all began in 1993 with the first installment: "I Am Curious, Briscoe"...

New to Rand, perhaps, but not new at all:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slash_fiction

I recently learned that a female friend has developed an interest in Harry Potter slash (much to my suprise), and Xena/Gabrielle stories abound as well, though typically less violent than much slash fiction. They began with Kirk/Spock, but have spread, rather fungus-like, from there....