Science, y'all.

[melannen]

ETA early morning jan 18: a short follow-up with more poll numbers + things /ETA

I was going to wait and post this later, with a much more elaborate stastistical work-up, population variables and meta-analysis - because I think it's interesting in its own right - but the ongoing conversation I'm seeing, and the extremely clear result I'm getting, is making me think it's more important to get the facts out there, than to make them pretty.

So: Are slashers straight?

I spent an afternoon and evening finding all of the polls & surveys of slash demographics I could that included a question on sexuality. Some I already had bookmarked, some I found through google, delicious, and following citations in academic papers. I'm sure there are more out there, and if you have links to more more polls I would love to add their data to my analysis. But you know what? The results of the ones I've found are pretty consistent, across a large range of survey population. And it is, to be quite honest, not the result I was expecting, even as a slasher who does not herself identify as straight, and is used to finding people like her in fandom.

Are slashers straight?


I present to you the raw numbers on sexuality for the 10 polls & surveys I could find results for, plus several more I could only find references to.

You'll note that there are a variety of categories used for sexuality; for the purposes of the meta-analysis, I am counting as "straight" any poll answer that was straight, heterosexual, primarily heterosexual, heteroflexible, or direct equivalent. I am using "queer" as shorthand for everybody else, including people who self-identified as bi-leaning-straight, questioning, and asexual. (You'll also note that the polls that included options beyond gay, straight, and bi had *significant* numbers of participants choosing them, something you might want to consider in general when talking about fans' sexuality. Just fyi.)

I only listed gender statistics for a few of the polls. That's because I'm lazy, and the way LJ polls work, separating out the responses by gender wouldn't have been terribly meaningful without a lot of annoying hand-collating anyway, so for the record: any poll with no gender statistics here either had no gender question, or over 90% self-identified women respondents. As this analysis is mostly meant to address the question of slashers' sexuality, I'm leaving gender identity unexamined for the quick'n'dirty version. (Though I'll note that only one of the polls had options specifically involving non-gender-binary people and orientation. Other possibilities, fandom: they exist.)

http://www.libraryofmoria.com/jsr/part2.html#21
2003
Library of Moria, a LOTR fic archive
Participants: 275
Heterosexual: 124
Mostly Heterosexual: 39
Bisexual: 84
Mostly Homosexual: 0
Homosexual: 10
Undecided: 6
Non-sexual: 2
Percent identified as queer: 37%

http://rushlight75.livejournal.com/38193.html
2003-10-14
Pre-metafandom, but widely distributed through its precursors
Participants: 1000
Male: 26
Female: 974
Only result available is an average Kinsey Scale rating: 1.8
(which kind of comes out to 40% queer, but not really)

http://idroppedarice.livejournal.com/59133.html
7-28-2004
Harry Potter slashers, by way of Fiction Alley Park
365 participants
straight: 173
bi: 119
gay: 22
undecided: 49
Percent identified as queer: 52.7%

http://lavinialavender.livejournal.com/179885.html
4-28-2005
locked, but currently available through Google's cache; mostly HP and anime slashers
participants: 203
straight: 85
gay: 8
bi: 73
Confused: 36
Percent identifying as queer: 54.6%

http://www.misterpoll.com/polls/242137/results
2006-2-13
posted by Proserpina "For the yaoi girls", but I have no idea where it was linked/promoted.
total: 43
heterosexual: 23
homosexual: 1
bisexual: 11
pansexual: 2
asexual: 1
unsure: 5
Percent identifying as queer: 53% 47%

http://hederahelix.livejournal.com/259632.html
6-29-2006
Mostly the metafandom crowd; specifically slash-focused.
Participants: 402
Heterosexual: 35
Heterosexual but slasher: 62
Bisexual, but heterosexual in practice: 102
Bisexual: 128
Bisexual, but queer in practice: 26
Lesbian, gay, queer, etc but slasher: 30
Lesbian, gay, queer, etc: 19
Percent identified as queer: 76%

http://wisdomeagle.livejournal.com/931805.html
February 2, 2007
Mostly the metafandom crowd; not all slashers - includes het & gen fans.
469 participants
straight women: 206
bi/omni/pansexual women: 186
lesbians: 56
asexual: 30
Straight men: 10
bi men: 5
Gay men: 3
Percent participants who identify as queer: 59.7%

http://jadelennox.livejournal.com/265022.html
Feb 7, 2007
A small poll of one fan writer's circle, not specifically fandom-focused:
Participants: 35
straight: 8
gay: 1
bisexual: 10
sligtly bisexual (kinsey 1 or 5): 9
other: 5
Percent participants who identified as queer: 71%

http://sailorptah.dreamwidth.org/11270.html
Feb 13, 2008
Mostly the metafandom & anime crowd, but not specifically fandom-focused; a freeform survey which emphasized complex & fluid sexuality
Total participants: 71
Identified as some subset of queer: 60
Percent participants who identified as queer: 84.5%

http://kleenexwoman.livejournal.com/248586.html
2-12-2008
Mostly the metafandom crowd, but with some exposure outside it
Participants: 577
gay: 25
bi-leaning-gay: 47
bi: 62
pan: 76
bi-leaning-straight: 84
straight: 192
asexual: 37
other: 23
no labels: 31
Percent identifying as queer: 66.7%

Polls whose results are not included in this analysis:

There are two other polls on FAP, but they were free-response threads and I'd've had to collate the results by hand, which I didn't have time for: http://forums.fictionalley.org/park/showthread.php?s=f041f722f3998ddd1bfbc6055d650507&threadid=19455&highlight=slash+survey and http://forums.fictionalley.org/park/showthread.phps=f041f722f3998ddd1bfbc6055d650507&threadid=133998&highlight=slash+survey

...it's on my list.

blnchflr ran a poll through metafandom sometime in early February, 2007, which was deleted, originally at: http://skuf.livejournal.com/132143.html . The only data I could find was a reference that it was "running closer to just 35% saying they are "strictly het".

I found several fandom demographics polls pre-dating 2003, but none of them had a sexuality question, which is interesting in its own right. (I suspect that the farther you go back in slash's history, the less likely it is that we would have even dared to ask these questions, and the less likely we would have gotten accurate answers, if we did. And in a time when fanfic was getting a *lot* of flak from the straight world, presenting an image to outsiders of "ordinary housewives" was important. I think the time when we need that protective image is fading.)

Finally, Wikipedia's reference for saying that "polls claim most slashers are heterosexual women", which has propagated everywhere, is Anne Kustritz's paper "Slashing the Romance Narrative", first published in the Journal of Amercan Culture in 2003, available in pdf here: http://www.laurientaylor.org/research/sources/slashfic.pdf . She, in turns, cites three informal fandom essays in her fandom demographics section, which is only a small part of the paper - those three essays are no more or less rigorous or inclusive than the 11 I have analysed here, note. The first is a clearly parodic essay on the Sith Academy, http://www.siubhan.com/sithacademy/criticalintro.html , which uses no poll or survey data, and does not even touch on the question of slashers' sexuality (despite Kustritz' citation implying it does.) The second is given the URL http://www.apps4.vantagenet.com/zpolls/count.asp?rlt=91221204045&id=91221204045 , which was a poll of the Darth Maul Estrogen Brigade in 2000. It is no longer available online, nor can I find any other references to it remaining online. The second was at http://www.sockii.com/ma/criticalintro.htm ; it is also no longer online, and I can find no details on it whatsoever except the date given of 1999, though the URL + the other references in the paper strongly imply that it was limited to TPM fandom, like the others.

(I will also note, because it seems worth noting, that the demographics section of that paper was very strongly trying to make the point that slashers are NICE WELL-ADJUSTED WOMEN WHO ARE NOT DEVIANT OR SCARY, so I am inclined to think the author had a bias toward categorizing slashers as heterosexual, especially as she uses the phrase "mostly to totally heterosexual" in the passage with the citation, but does not qualify heterosexual anywhere else. There is a lot of wiggle room in "mostly", as the variety of categories in the polls I listed above demonstrate. ...also, I @#$%&^@$ hate wikipedia's goddamn paternalistic notability and citation rules, since it means those two ten-year-old Phantom Menace polls somehow turned into GOSPEL TRUTH on the way to the printing press.)

So, over 9 polls, in a variety of slash subfandoms from the late-teens yaoi set to the mid-thirties meta fans set, dates ranging over 7 years. Only onetwo polls had less than 50% queer participants, and that wasone of them the earliest one, and even they were at 37% and 47%. The median percent of queer participants was 59.7%, and the mean was 61.5% 60.8%.

SO when people say things like "slash fans are appropriating queer experience", what THE MAJORITY OF SLASHERS, WHO IDENTIFY AS QUEER hear is either "you aren't queer enough, your queer identity isn't real" or "male voices are the only ones qualified to speak for the queer community."

I think the question of how queer women can appropriate queer men's identity, and the damage that can be done when gay men speaking about themselves are drowned out by women, are valid discussion topics, and worth addressing. That is not a conversation that is going to happen as long as THE MAJORITY OF SLASHERS, WHO IDENTIFY AS QUEER, are being erased from the discussion. fyi.

And SO when people say things like "slash is a legitimate way for straight women to express their sexuality", what THE MAJORITY OF SLASHERS, WHO IDENTIFY AS QUEER hear is either "you aren't queer enough, your queer identity isn't relevant" or "straight voices are the only ones qualified to speak for the slash community".

I think the question of how straight women's sexuality interacts with queer sexuality, and the ways straight women's sexuality defines slash, are valid discussion topics, and worth addressing. That is not a conversation that is going to happen as long as THE MAJORITY OF SLASHERS, WHO IDENTIFY AS QUEER, are being erased from the discussion. fyi.

Can I say that one more time? I like saying it. Science makes me happy.

THE MAJORITY OF SLASHERS IDENTIFY AS QUEER.

ETA: People in comments have pointed out math errors that change the numbers slightly: I've added corrections in the relevant places. The conclusions still stand, however (for now.)

ETA 2 early morning jan 18: a short follow-up with more poll numbers + things /ETA 2

Comments

[azurelunatic]

I am a $GENDERCATEGORY and I am/have been emotionally attracted to:
0, opposite sex only
1, opposite sex mostly
2, opposite sex more than same sex
3, same and opposite sex equally
4, same sex more than opposite sex
5, same sex mostly
6, same sex only
*, Pansexual, sapiosexual, and other sexual attractions without regard to gender (Kinsey "YES")
X, asexual, nonsexual, and other forms of Kinsey "NO"
?, none of these options come close
_, decline to answer



I am a $GENDERCATEGORY and I am/have had intimate emotional/romantic relationships with:
0, opposite sex only
1, opposite sex mostly
2, opposite sex more than same sex
3, same and opposite sex equally
4, same sex more than opposite sex
5, same sex mostly
6, same sex only
*, Pansexual, sapiosexual, and other sexual attractions without regard to gender (Kinsey "YES")
X, asexual, nonsexual, and other forms of Kinsey "NO"
?, none of these options come close
_, decline to answer



I am a $GENDERCATEGORY and I fantasize about personally emotionally/romantically connecting with:
0, opposite sex only
1, opposite sex mostly
2, opposite sex more than same sex
3, same and opposite sex equally
4, same sex more than opposite sex
5, same sex mostly
6, same sex only
*, Pansexual, sapiosexual, and other sexual attractions without regard to gender (Kinsey "YES")
X, asexual, nonsexual, and other forms of Kinsey "NO"
?, none of these options come close
_, decline to answer



I am a $GENDERCATEGORY and I fantasize about emotional/romantic connections between (checkboxes):
Pairings involving someone of my own gender, that are the same as my own romantic preference
Pairings that involve my own gender, but are opposite from my own romantic preference (bisexuals, this just plain doesn't apply to you)
Pairings that involve my own gender, and are the same as my *other* own romantic preference (bisexuals, here, this one's for you)
Pairings that do not involve anyone of my gender, but I would consider their gender as a romantic partner.
Pairings that do not involve anyone of my gender, and I would not consider their gender as a romantic partner.
pairings that do not fit neatly into the gender binary in relation to each other
X, No romantic pairings at all (can you even have solo romance?)
?, none of these options come close
_, decline to answer




I am a $GENDERCATEGORY and I fantasize about emotional/romantic connections between (checkboxes):
men and women
women and women
men and men
people who do not fit neatly into either of those categories
anybody without regard to gender

[azurelunatic]

Please to rate how important the following factors are for you in your selection of fannish entertainment:

Someone of the same gender identity as me
Someone of the same gender identity and sexual orientation as me
A character I find physically attractive
A character I find emotionally attractive
A pairing where I find both/most/all characters physically attractive
A pairing where I find both/most/all characters emotionally attractive
A pairing where the characters are well-suited to each other with little to no further development or changes from their source material
Familiar source material
Familiar pairing
Familiar/trusted author
Familiar tropes evident in prompt/summary

[grey_bard]

No offense, but if I were reading a survey about being a slasher and it asked me who I fantasized personally having sex with, um. I would find it a little unnerving. I swear I'm not trolling you, just honestly curious, what is the purpose of this question?

[azurelunatic]

The idea I'm going after here is: "The people you like slash about, would you actually consider boinking them (if they existed), or do you think the concept of you boinking them is hot, or are they only hot to you in slash?"

One of the toxic tropes of observers to the fic world is that "Fangirls only like Character X because they want him themselves". However, I have noticed in myself that there are pairings where I would not like either/any of the participants myself, but think they work well together. Neither McKay nor Sheppard really makes me say "hi I would like to take one of you home with me" to myself, but I think they have excellent chemistry together, and I really like that.

And "what the hell" questions about my proposed questions here are totally cool. I am used to rigorous debate over far less personal proposed changes in LJ Suggestions, so it's only reasonable that questions about intensely personal stuff should raise eyebrows.

I do plan on having a "hi, not sharing that thanks" option for every question where it's remotely reasonable. (Questions like "I am taking this survey", for example, would be a question where a "decline to answer" option would possibly be silly ... though you probably could learn things from how many people came through, looked at the thing, and just ticked that.)

[grey_bard]

That makes sense. Perhaps if there was some non-audience biasing way you could let people using the survey know that you're trying to find the intersection between personal and fictional desires?

[azurelunatic]

Something like --

This survey was originally conceived as a way to figure out "So how many slash fans aren't strictly heterosexual women, anyway?" and began expanding in order to accommodate finer points of "slash", "fan", "strictly", "heterosexual", "sex", "women", and other terms that we thought were pretty nailed down until we actually took a critical look at them. The scope of the survey has likewise expanded to cover many aspects of the complex interrelationship that includes personal sexual orientation -- in identity, activity, inclination, and other aspects -- and slash creation, consumption, and fandom.

As the survey touches on (dwells on, actually) sexual orientation and the sex-positive and sometimes frankly smutty world of slash, it also meanders into questions about one's own personal sexual expression, which is a bit of a touchy topic to divulge to a stranger, particularly when we've expressed up front that we really can't wait to start shaking the data to see what falls out. This is why just about all of the questions have a "decline to answer" or equivalent option.

-- perhaps?

[grey_bard]

Yes, that's awesome. Is that copypasted from somewhere earlier in the post that I was too stupid to remember?

[azurelunatic]

Nope! Though there may be snippets here and there that resemble something close to parts of that. I had some disclaimery stuff drafted out up front, but not quite so specific.

This is going to be really entertaining to assemble from the evolved pieces all through this whole comment thread.

[azurelunatic]

Also an assurance that from the survey designer and primary survey compiler perspective, we're not trying to define-around someone so they're not part of a population they thought they were part of, is probably in order too.

So possibly an identity-centric set of questions on the original three axes of interest might go:

I'm a slasher/slash fan.
I think I'm (probably) a slasher/slash fan.
I don't think I'm a slasher/slash fan.
I'm not a slasher/slash fan.

I'm straight.
I think I'm (mostly) straight.
I don't think I'm (entirely) straight.
Straight? Oh hell no.

I'm female.
I think I'm (generally) female.
I don't think I'm (entirely) female.
I'm not female.


Naturally there are problems with that set of questions, especially that it doesn't explore the possibilities if you aren't.



Throughout the survey there will be definitions of terms, and you may be familiar with the terms. The definitions are provided primarily as a service to people who are not familiar with the terms, and are, to the best of our (the survey creators') knowledge, accurate representations of the terms as they are found in the wild. It is always possible that our definitions and yours do not match up. I totally don't want to attack your identity if your definition and mine do not match up. During the design phase of the survey, when various random fans pointed out stuff that I missed, my usual response was to acknowledge their point and add an inclusive clarification of some kind to the question, and possibly five more related questions that just sprang to mind. If you happen to see something where you are not included, choose the best fit, other, or decline to answer as appropriate, and holler in the comments so we can improve in the next round.

[(Anonymous)]

If you're replacing "what do you identify as" with

"I'm straight.
I think I'm (mostly) straight.
I don't think I'm (entirely) straight.
Straight? Oh hell no."

I feel that might be a step back. Because defining everything in terms of straight or not is... deceptive. A bisexual would be entirely right to define herself as not straight. But a lesbian (also not straight) would be identifying as a totally different kind of not straight.

[azurelunatic]

I do not want to replace the series on orientation, particularly not the identification part of it, with that. Oh no no.

I'm not sure if I'd want those exact questions in the survey I'm designing at all, given that there as so much more precise questions. But those questions do cover the original form of the question, and in such a way that they point out that we really need to be asking about so much more than just that in order to get a reliable and useful answer.

Slash/not slash is deceptive in the same way, because it doesn't separate gen from het or the same-sex narratives that emphatically aren't het or gen, but don't fit into slash either. So's woman/not woman, because of the male vs. off-the-gender-binary thing.

Foo/not-foo is better survey design than Foo/Bar, when Foo and Bar aren't on a binary continuum, but it in no way captures the diversity inherent in non-foo.

[stellar_dust]

I just want to pop in again and say that to me "mostly" means about the same thing as "not entirely" - so if you do use a version of that question in the poll, clarify it a bit to something like "I think I'm (mostly) straight/I think I'm (mostly) not straight"?

Okay, so looking at these questions...

[grey_bard]

I am a $GENDERCATEGORY and I am/have been attracted to:

Does this mean "I find these people hot" or "I would actually like to have sex with these people"? Because these are two different things.

And....


I am a $GENDERCATEGORY and I have had consensual sexual contact with:

does not take into account people who *would*, but have not had the opportunity yet, or people who are sexually interested in XY or Z but would not seek out sex with them for whatever personal or pragmatic reason (also interesting data).

So perhaps adding another question like:

I am a $GENDERCATEGORY and given a suitable opportunity would have consensual sexual contact with:

Because just because you're not experienced at the moment doesn't mean you wouldn't act on it. And just because you identify as something doesn't mean, in the life you live, you feel comfortable acting on it or acting on all of it.

[faith_girl222]

I am a $GENDERCATEGORY and I identify (overall) as:

0, heterosexual only
1, heterosexual mostly
2, heterosexual more than homosexual
3, equally heterosexual and homosexual

really rubs me the wrong way, as someone who identifies as bisexual. i already have to deal with the twin feelings of a) not being considered queer enough to have a right to the designations "homosexual" or "gay" or sometimes even just "queer" and b) putting myself back in the closet anytime i describe myself as something that translates into "not queer", so i'm really not comfortable checking off a box that would mean using "heterosexual" to describe myself.

oddly, i did not have this reaction to the description of possessing two romantic preferences. i'm still trying to puzzle that out, but i think it might have to do with: i don't identify as 50% homo and 50% hetero, i idenity as 100% bi. but romantic preference seems to imply "how much of the time am i romantically interested in X," which is quantifiable. my sexual orientation isn't based on the frequency with which i find other human beings, of any gender or physical sex, sexually attractive.

also:

Please to rate how important the following factors are for you in your selection of fannish entertainment:

Someone of the same gender identity as me
Someone of the same gender identity and sexual orientation as me

why isn't there an option for "someone of the same sexual orientation as me" separate from gender identity? i find that a more necessary point of identification, and i would imagine this must be true for at least some other slashers given the number of female- and queer-identified slashers writing about male- and queer-identified (at least in the fic) characters. also, re-reading the question: is "someone" supposed to refer to the primary character(s) in the story, or the author? because one of those things is usually a lot more obvious than the other.

[stellar_dust]

... I'm not sure about using the word "fantasize" in every question? I think in most cases you mean "enjoy (and/or get turned on by) reading/writing fiction/fanfic about," but in some questions it seems to mean "have personal sexual fantasies about," and those are not necessarily the same. Right? At least, they're not the same for me, and I wouldn't be sure how to answer this as it's phrased right now.

Although, as I think about it more, I might be changing my mind. IDK. Does anyone else have a thought on this?

[azurelunatic]

Hmm, I think you are right, that generating your own fantasies is different than enjoying/going along with something someone else has structured and shared, though generating your own fantasies has a lot in common with the creation process.

So one would possibly say: fantasize about for the sex with oneself
Fantasize about (generating one's own fantasies) a pairing
Enjoy/get turned on by fic about a pairing
(Perhaps even revisit (rehash in one's own memory or re-read) a fic for personal pleasure (no need to get too detailed, either mental pleasure or "I'll be in my bunk"))
Transcribe personal fantasies about a pairing to fic
Generate fic that is then pleasurable to read
Generate fic for the pleasure of others, but that one is personally not pleased/turned on by

[stellar_dust]

Yes, something like that! There can also be a difference between getting turned on while writing a scene, and the things one imagines in (shall we say) the heat of the moment, I think. But it's a tricky distinction -- & separating fic-fantasy from sex-fantasy might be sufficient for poll purposes? I dunno.

[azurelunatic]

I'm not sure how far to inquire! I do like the distinction between fic/fantasy for entertainment purposes, and fic/fantasy for pleasurable purposes, but I'm sort of uncomfortable inquiring too specifically about heat-of-the-moment stuff (without bundling it in with other stuff so it's not just that) in a survey that isn't really intended to be specifically about sex, and moreover, a survey where (if I do this as a DW poll) I could see identifiable answers. That just ... I'm not comfortable with knowing that, and I don't think the general fannish public would be comfortable with me knowing specifically that.

[stellar_dust]

Yeah, I think you're right about that. You might just change "fantasize" to "enjoy fanfic" in all the above questions except the ones about "personally having sex" and "personally connecting"? I probably should have just suggested that in the first place. :/ More details in the poll options starts to get intrusive and probably a little off-topic, as well as magnifying the impossibility of supplying enough choices to specifically suit *everyone*. ie, I'm not sure all the stuff you listed two comments up necessarily has a place in this particular survey; just that what's meant by "fantasize" should be spelled out.