Fanfiction, the writing of stories by amateurs involving the characters, or at least the general precepts, of a TV show, movie, comic book, etc., is an overwhelmingly female endeavor, with women outrepresenting men by 2 to 1.
One very popular genre of fanfiction is slash, or yaoi; which is the pairing of two characters of the same sex (usually male, if they are female it is called femslash or yuri) who are generally portrayed as straight on the show. For example, Captain Kirk having an affair with Mr. Spock would be slash. (In general, pairing characters already known to be gay would presumably not be slash, but I can't think of any actual examples offhand).
[It should be pointed out that this is a subset of shipper fanfiction, which makes up the majority of fanfiction in my experience - shipper fanfiction is dedicated to pairing up two characters in a relationship and is often used as wish fulfillment for those who wish to see characters pair off in a different way than they actually do in the show, movie, etc.]
While I don't read slash myself, being a connoisseur of fanfiction I cannot help but notice how many stories have it indicated in the summaries that they have slash in them. Or how many times I have read a story only to find halfway through that a male character is longing for another male character.
My thought: is it possible that this is the female equivalent of the male fascination with lesbians?
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