Just barely in time for MediaWest, here's the current version of the zine lists. I'll cc to both Lysator and FC; apologies to those who are on both and so will get long posts twice. As ever, please let me know if you spot errors or omissions.

Ordinarily I omit the erotica lists when I post to Lysator, but this time I will leave them in, just to make two points:

1) There is roughly about four times as much gen as erotica-- and the latter category includes not only slash but heterosexual publications like Horizon's zine =Ultra=, as well as mixed zines that include many gen stories.

2) Slash is hardly an American phenomenon. If you look at the indicators of country of origin for the various zines, you will see that erotica of various kinds has been produced in the same places that produce genzines, and in about the same ratio relative to each other. B7 slash, like B7 fiction in general, started in Britain, for obvious reasons. Yes, there are earlier prototypes in Trek fiction, but then that is true of all fan fiction; Trek was the first organized media fandom, so that is where =everything= of a media-fannish nature can ultimately be traced.

The basic idea of slash-- putting romantic elements, especially same-sex ones, into a story that did not necessarily originally have them-- has recurred in many different times and places, including ancient Greece and seventeenth-century Japan. The slashy reworkings of the stories of Achilles or Atsumori can hardly be blamed on the citizens of a country that didn't exist yet!

And FWIW, I think it is extremely improbable that it will damage an actor's career to have it become known that quite a lot of women have sex fantasies about him, regardless of the nature of those fantasies. IMO the opposite effect is much more likely!

Susan Beth, I'm enjoying the H&H posts greatly. Amazing how well the descriptions fit.

Emily, good to see you here again, under whatever name (I think I can guess who you are), and thanks for your kind words.

Sarah