Yesterday I talked about RPS, or real-person slash, and the story I wrote about Fiona Apple. Today I’m continuing the topic by talking about pro wrestling slash.
Wrestling fanfic is a weird area. On the one hand, you’re writing about the characters that the wrestlers are playing on TV. On the other hand, some of the wrestlers’ characters are just themselves. Take John Cena, for example; if you write fanfic about John Cena the wrestler, are you also writing fanfic about John Cena the person? Moreover, if you’re writing sexual (or spanking) fanfic about John Cena, the same question applies, but even more so. Are you fantasy-pushing onto John Cena?
It’s a little easier with characters like (for example) Goldust. We know, because he’s spoken about it, that Dustin Rhodes, real name Dustin Runnels, is not at all the same person as the Goldust character. So if you were writing fanfic about Goldust, it’s as if you’re writing fanfic about, say, Captain Janeway. Kate Mulgrew isn’t really Captain Janeway; she’s playing a role. So too was Rhodes. But how much of a character was John Cena playing when he was still wrestling? And how much of a character is he playing when he’s interacting with the public as John Cena the person, especially now that he’s retired from wrestling and is now an actor?
A quick look reveals plenty of pro wrestling stories. Hell, even I wrote one, although all of my characters are original. And even if I was including (for example) Rhea Ripley, I wouldn’t put her in sexual situations. That would feel weird.
As I wrote this blog post, I also thought about historical fiction and historical romance. Think about Alexander Hamilton and Maria Reynolds — in actuality, they did sleep together. So what if you wanted to write fanfic about that time in Hamilton’s life? Would you include the sex between Reynolds and Hamilton? Or would you not show it on the page? Ultimately both people are dead so they can’t sue you, but is it ethical? The same thing applies to the film Blonde, in which Ana de Armas plays Marilyn Monroe. In that movie, the two of them have sex on screen. Is that considered slash? Is it unethical to try and dramatize what happened in real life? We don’t know exactly what happened behind closed doors; we don’t know positions or activities. Is Blonde, therefore, real-person slash because it explicates the sexual activity?
This is why I write fiction about fictional characters: I don’t want to have to delve into these ethical considerations. Sure, if I write historical fiction, I’ll include actual historical characters, but I probably won’t show them having sex on the page. Of course, I don’t plan to write historical fiction, but… Well… You never know.