Neil said -

...

Possible reasons might be:

*underwriting of the female characters *intensity of interaction between male leads *failure of writer identification with female leads<<

etc. -

An additional possible explanation that makes sense to me is that women have strong internalised prescriptions against sexual self-expression. I'm not arguing about whether this is a good thing or not - just pointing out that it exists, for many women. Despite social changes over the past few decades, and despite the fact that women are very different one from another, I feel that many women have conflicted feelings about sex, associated with guilt, fear, shame etc. The details aren't important to this discussion. However slash allows women to jump out of this frame, take a holiday if you like from these mental restrictions.

I also think this is why the male protagonists in slash often behave like women. In particular behave like 'bad' women. In ways that would be deemed bad if women did them.

I think a lot of other female fantasies (Mills and Boone dominant heroes for example, who sweep passive chicks off their feet) are to do with making the intrusive voice of conventional social expectation *shut the hell up* for a few minutes. This may well be the case for men too, though conventional social expectations are clearly different for them, so the fantasies will be different too I expect.

Alison

********************************************************************** This email and any files transmitted with it are confidential and intended solely for the use of the individual or entity to whom they are addressed. If you have received this email in error please notify the system manager.

This footnote also confirms that this email message has been swept by MIMEsweeper for the presence of computer viruses.

www.mimesweeper.com **********************************************************************