Not ‘from my hot little ovaries': how slash manips pierce reductive assumptions

Slash, a fannish practice, has been celebrated both for its transgression of male heterosexual representations and its female producers. Despite this recognition, slash manips – a form of slash photomontage – have yet to receive sustained scholarly attention. This paper argues that were slash manips to be taken seriously by researchers as objects of study, reductive cultural assumptions concerning gender, genre, medium and intent would be subject to critique. I detail what constitutes a manip and how it differs from the male celebrity fake. I also explore a similar process occurring at a commercial level and marketed to gay men, which I term ‘corporate slash'. The paper concludes with an analysis of the manips of LiveJournal artist mythagowood, which are prime examples of slash works not served by current definitions of the practice.