Wngwjleo
From Fan History Wiki
wngwjleo is an acronym from slash fandom. It stands for "We're Not Gay, We Just Love Each Other." This term is used, often derisively these days, to refer to a type of story where the characters are "strictly heterosexual" except for their one true love who happens to be of the same sex. They do not consider themselves gay or bisexual, and in fact much emphasis is often made in the story to stress how much they are still heterosexual--except for this one exception. The characters often face a great deal of anguish over their same-sex love and only come to accept it through difficult circumstances.
Wngwjleo was a common trope in early slash fiction, up through the 1980s. It was rampant in popular fandoms such as Star Trek Kirk/Spock fiction, Starsky & Hutch, and Man From U.N.C.L.E.. It is still present to some extent these days, though not as commonly. Such stories are often looked down upon as in fact expressing a homophobic point of view, and in modern slash fiction it is more often to find the characters written as bisexual, or in fact completely gay.
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[edit] Historical Definitions
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[edit] History
- accioslash states that, in the 1980s:
- "a big thing was homophobia in slash fandom...When I first started out...nobody was ever gay in slash fandom. Any slash fandom. And not just in the main pairing. Usually if there was a gay character, that person would be an original character. Canon characters weren't even bi-sexual. And this was in no way because people disliked using labels. Both of the men (I can't recall ever seeing femmeslash in the old days) were absolutely 110% straight. There was generally ample canon 'evidence' to 'prove' that these were macho men who never once looked at another guy in the showers or on the street and thought to himself, "I'd totes tap that ass." Yet in spite of being totally straight they somehow managed to overcome their natural desires to fall in love with the only person in the universe they would turn gay for. Many older fics go on at length to beat the reader over the head with the not-at-all subtle message that being gay is a Very Bad Thing and that what makes it okay is that our guys love each other's souls and the dangly bits are secondary. This was done by the almost obligatory internal monologue where even the shortest PWP had to take the time to point out that yes, our guys still regularly get a stiffy whenever anyone female over the age of 16 and under the age of 75 enters the room regardless whether she's appealing in any way or not but absolutely under no circumstances does he ever omg! get hard for any of the sweaty men he regularly showers with at the gym even if they are pure sex on legs. Because he's really straight, ok, and it's only because the other guy is his soulmate that he wants him. And it's not even about the sex, really. They just do that because guys have needs. They aren't really queer. They love each other. Because, you know, gay is all about sex, but slash is all about love."[1]
[edit] Examples
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[edit] External Links
[edit] Discussion
- Love Conquers All!1!1! – slash, incest and taboo in fanfic.: reallyreally on August 20, 2007
- Sexuality, with a side of WNGWJLEO. Come for the survey, stay for the pictures.: sailorptah on February 13, 2008
- Some Thoughts About Fandom...: accioslash on October 23, 2008
