FYI Slash refers to m/m or f/f “romance.” Which is hugely popular with the hags & definitely not my bag. 50 shades of crap is BDSM-Lite for old ladies and repressed housewives without imagination.
The feministas got really pissed at the old, bodice-ripper “rape without consent” books (despite the fact that, yes as trashy as they were, they were well-written, mostly historically accurate epics with heroines who kicked metaphorical ass). 50 Shades and similar books are popular because they “empower” the Mary-Sue heroine, since she gives verbal/written permission to be “raped”/spanked/tied-up/whatever.
Modern females like this because A)The heroine is in “control” because it’s what she wants & B)The dark mysterious covers give them the illusion of reading a “respectable” book.
Meh, give me oldies like Rosemary Rogers “Wicked Loving Lies” or Christine Monson’s “Stormfire.” Crazy plots, euphemistic sex-scenes and loads of fun. Romance readers read to fill a “hole” in their lives; I read them for the adventure not the amateurish sex, so all the book s I read are 30-20 years old.
Sure enough. My level of involvement in fanfic is generally to flee at high speed. I knew slash was smutty fanfic, which was already really too much information.