Reading these comments over again - I wish there was some way to assure you that all slashers are not out to deny John & Rodney's friendship (or any other character's). I can tell you that from my perspective, McShep does not invalidate John-Rodney friendship. When I give a scene between them a slashy reading, I am never, ever trying to imply that if they didn't have physical attraction, they wouldn't be as close.
And I've said this before, I know...it just makes me weirdly depressed to think that when I started writing slash, you were forced to conclude I didn't care about John & Rodney's friendship anymore; that every slash fic I've written is pissing on their friendship, for you. For me, slash works just as h/c does; it's a short-hand way to get the chars to express the depth of feelings between them. (The original slash fic, to my understanding, was like this - people were writing Kirk/Spock in outrageous h/c scenarios to get them to confess their love, and then someone decided to just cut to the chase and have them express the love in a more traditional way.)
I think the problem is the social construct of "love" - "true love" is supposed to be romantic; "as a friend feels about another friend" is kind of a joke because friend love is not supposed to be as meaningful as romantic love (heck, most friends rarely even use the word "love" and especially among male friends it's usually treated as a joke when they do). Yet fen are constantly shown male-male friends with bonds more intense than any of their canon romantic bonds. At the same time, we have the social construct of the romantic "ever after"; there are almost no stories that put friendship above romance, in the end. You pretty much can't write a "happily ever after" that doesn't involve romantic love & marriage; there's no formula for it.
Slashers circumvented this, found the escape clause - make the friendship into romantic love, make it an acceptably complete happy ending. A lot of the early slash was the infamous "we're not gay, we just love each other" - the point wasn't homosexual love, the point was the love between two male friends. The point of slash isn't to deny friendship; it's to preserve it in the face of social expectation.
I understand your perspective on romance, that you find the traditional "happily ever after" emotionally disturbing and anything but happy. And I know you can't just switch your feelings around. But as threatened as you feel by slash, most slashers are honestly not trying to threaten you; most of the McSheppers I know absolutely love that the boys are best friends, and that's a large part of why they slash them.
Re: Comment got too long, oops! (edited)
Reading these comments over again - I wish there was some way to assure you that all slashers are not out to deny John & Rodney's friendship (or any other character's). I can tell you that from my perspective, McShep does not invalidate John-Rodney friendship. When I give a scene between them a slashy reading, I am never, ever trying to imply that if they didn't have physical attraction, they wouldn't be as close.
And I've said this before, I know...it just makes me weirdly depressed to think that when I started writing slash, you were forced to conclude I didn't care about John & Rodney's friendship anymore; that every slash fic I've written is pissing on their friendship, for you. For me, slash works just as h/c does; it's a short-hand way to get the chars to express the depth of feelings between them. (The original slash fic, to my understanding, was like this - people were writing Kirk/Spock in outrageous h/c scenarios to get them to confess their love, and then someone decided to just cut to the chase and have them express the love in a more traditional way.)
I think the problem is the social construct of "love" - "true love" is supposed to be romantic; "as a friend feels about another friend" is kind of a joke because friend love is not supposed to be as meaningful as romantic love (heck, most friends rarely even use the word "love" and especially among male friends it's usually treated as a joke when they do). Yet fen are constantly shown male-male friends with bonds more intense than any of their canon romantic bonds. At the same time, we have the social construct of the romantic "ever after"; there are almost no stories that put friendship above romance, in the end. You pretty much can't write a "happily ever after" that doesn't involve romantic love & marriage; there's no formula for it.
Slashers circumvented this, found the escape clause - make the friendship into romantic love, make it an acceptably complete happy ending. A lot of the early slash was the infamous "we're not gay, we just love each other" - the point wasn't homosexual love, the point was the love between two male friends. The point of slash isn't to deny friendship; it's to preserve it in the face of social expectation.
I understand your perspective on romance, that you find the traditional "happily ever after" emotionally disturbing and anything but happy. And I know you can't just switch your feelings around. But as threatened as you feel by slash, most slashers are honestly not trying to threaten you; most of the McSheppers I know absolutely love that the boys are best friends, and that's a large part of why they slash them.