On The X-Files, Fox Mulder and Alex Krycek are bitter enemies. On CSI , Nick Stokes and Greg Sanders are murder-solving forensic experts. On Angel, Angel and Spike fight together to save the world - and fight over the affections of blonde bombshell and vampire slayer Buffy Summers. On television, these male relationships challenge and fortify the meaning of friendship between men. On the internet, they’re lovers.

These relationships are explored in a genre of writing known as slash, which is part of the larger phenomenon of fan fiction, self-published stories written by fans featuring characters from television, movies and books. In slash fiction, which earned its name from the slash symbol that combines two characters’ names (e.g., Kirk/Spock, the genre’s first pairing), heterosexual characters are placed within a homosexual relationship or situation.

Surprisingly, slash has been around for nearly 40 years. After the original Star Trek series was cancelled by NBC in 1969, fans of the show gathered together at fan conventions to hand out their self-published stories about the show. Eventually, the stories were published in fan-created magazines known as fanzines. With the advent of the World Wide Web, slash fan fiction made its way onto the net via newsgroups and, eventually, elaborate archives.

So why is it that a genre that deals exclusively in same-sex relationships, mostly between men, is written almost entirely by straight women?

“So many reasons really,” says Marianne Landon, a 26-year-old Newfoundland native who has been writing fan fiction for more than 10 years. “In my case, I can tell you that television writers have a massive problem right now in heterosexual relationships. It’s a simple one really: They don’t know how to write them. I don’t tune into shows, watch movies or read books for the unresolved sexual tension. I tune [in] to watch the characters and the advancement of their relationships. I’d rather see no romance at all than what television considers romance these days. They go into it to tease us with the ‘will they, won’t they,’ and at a certain point I stop caring.

“Speaking as a heterosexual woman, I am not interested in wondering if Sam Carter and Jack O’Neill [from Stargate SG-I] or Dr. Meredith Grey and Dr. McDreamy [from Grey’s Anatomy] are finally going to break that taboo and cross that line. Let’s face it: Manufactured sexual tension does not make a realistic relationship.”

Landon says that the theme of her slash writing is primarily the close male friendships between contrasting personalities, such as Jack O’Neill and Daniel Jackson from Stargate SG-1. Landon adds: “The fact that the characters are both men is not an obstacle to me - nor should it be. In truth, it’s a factor that very rarely enters my mind.”

Straight women, however, are not the only writers of slash. Gay men also write and participate in this form of fan fiction, as do a number of bisexual and lesbian women.

“As a gay man, I thought I’d try my hand at contributing works of gay romance from a perspective that I knew from intimate experience,” says Tarchannon, a gay male fan fiction writer. “Since gay people seem to be defined in society by their romantic relationships, I think that the world needs to have realistically depicted gay romance and gay relationships become commonplace in the media - unlike in the stereotypical and virtually sexless depictions we’ve seen on shows like Will & Grace. I think this is essential for gay men and women to become accepted fully by society, and by writing slash, I feel at least some contribution toward that end.”

Tarchannon, a 39-year-old medical researcher with a Ph.D. in genetics, has been reading and writing fan fiction since the earliest days of the internet; he wrote his first fan fiction story in 1991. His partner of 15 years, Curtis, has also taken up the hobby. The type of characters he tends to “slash” are strong, masculine, male characters who defy common gay stereotypes - something that he identifies with, and many gay men do as well.

When asked whether he knew why so many straight women write slash fiction, Tarchannon says: “I cannot claim to know. I imagine the reasons for lesbians or bisexual women are similar to that of gay men - to see [their] favorite characters represented in a meaningful way. Not as a sidekick that suddenly announces that he’s gay and is killed off the next issue, or an occasional look that’s never acted upon, but a fully realized interaction of major, fully fleshed characters that they rarely see in the media today.”

Slash is a controversial subject within the fan fiction community. Many fans argue that placing these heterosexual characters in homosexual relationships is unfaithful to the vision of their creators, while others argue that slash writers confuse close friendships with romantic feelings.

Landon believes that some fans may indeed confuse friendship with romance, especially when television programs show “good-looking guys in close contact, [who] happen to exchange a few looks or stand a little too close together.”

She says: “We sexualize just about every relationship we see these days so there is an element of misinterpretation going on, but I don’t think that’s limited necessarily to single-sex friendships. I’ve seen it across the board, really! When I’m writing Jack/Daniel, I’m building on what I’ve seen in the story and the emotion that’s already there. There’s a connection between them and I [am] just following along.”

Tarchannon has a different opinion on the buddies-turned-lovers theory. “I don’t think anyone feels that there can’t be great heterosexual ‘buddies’ - quite the contrary. But after a lifetime of seeing just that, I think there is a collective appetite for different directions. We all know Butch and Sundance, but ... could Butch and Sundance [have] been bi? Absolutely. Were they? Very unlikely. But it’s fun to think about those characters recast to represent that which is familiar to you. What were the moments that made it seem possible? What happened in those scenes that we didn’t see? It’s all great fun and very entertaining for imaginative people that like to write.”

Just like the Rorschach test, it’s all a matter of individual interpretation.

Outside of the fan community, slash has a much larger enemy: copyright infringement. Many writers and television producers such as Anne Rice (Interview With the Vampire), J. Michael Straczynski (Babylon 5), Lee Goldberg (Diagnosis Murder, Monk), and George R. R. Martin (A Song of Fire and Ice) are opposed to fan fiction in general. Rice has gone so far as to request that fan fiction regarding her work be removed from the internet, and to threaten writers with legal action if they don’t comply.

On her official website, she states: “It upsets me terribly to even think about fan fiction with my characters. I advise my readers to write your own original stories with your own characters. It is absolutely essential that you respect my wishes.”

Actors from the short-lived science fiction series Blakes 7 attempted to stop the distribution of slash fiction at their conventions, stating that they believed it tarnished their characters by portraying them as homosexual. But eventually, the actors gave in.

While Landon doesn’t write fan fiction associated with the authors above, she does have her general worries. “Well, any writer of fan fiction who says they aren’t afraid [of] some legal action is not being a hundred percent truthful,” she says. “No matter how much you rationalize being one fish in a very large ocean, you still have moments of panic. We’ve all heard the horror stories, and most of us are very cautious about how we approach it.

“[Fan fiction authors] and the powers that be have always had an uneasy relationship. Shows, movies and book series often succeed because of these groups - alienating us is never good for business. However, they are bound to protect their own copyrights. I’m happy to protect the current status quo. They pretend people like me don’t exist; I pretend they don’t know; and we’re all happy. ”

The official stance from many production companies and publishing houses is that as long as there is no profit being made from fan fiction, there is no reason to take legal action. Other writers and producers, however, encourage their fan bases to write fan fiction, most notably Joss Whedon (Buffy: The Vampire Slayer, Angel) and J.K. Rowling (the Harry Potter series). While Rowling isn’t a big fan of slash fiction, she does encourage readers to explore their imaginations and says that she hopes it will encourage reading. Whedon, a strong supporter of the LGBT community, has often teased his fans with nods to slash fiction in his series. The creative team of Angel’s fifth and final season often said that the romance of that season was the budding relationship between Angel and Spike. In the director’s commentary for the episode “A Hole in the World,” Whedon stated: “Spike and Angel, they were hanging out for years and years and years. They were all kinds of deviant. Are people thinking they never ... come on people! They’re open-minded guys!”

Stargate SG-1 and Stargate: Atlantis are also shows that pay close attention to their fan base. Both shows occasionally drop hints at the close male relationships teetering on the line between friendship and romance. Stargate: Atlantis is the first American science fiction program to show a male-male kiss.

Some of Hollywood, especially in light of Brokeback Mountain, does seem to be paying attention to audiences’ increasingly tolerant attitudes and openness to gay content. However, does Hollywood get the picture that gay people are just that - people? Landon remarks: “ Hollywood right now is writing a lot of gay characters with just that focus. It is the beginning and end of who they are as people. The fact the person I want to sleep next to at night has boy parts rather than girl is not the whole of who I am; it’s not the whole of who my gay friends are either.

“I think if Hollywood paid attention to its fan base, it would get that. Slash as a whole is writing characters differently . ... The approach they take is [that] orientation is a part of the character, and not the total of the character.”