As cross-cultural pollinization accelerates, its various permutations can seem both jarring and perfectly normal. Take, for example, the wholly natural assimilation of the story of Sherlock Holmes and his unwavering sidekick Dr. Watson in Chinese culture. Since 2011, when millions of television viewers first laid eyes on Benedict Cumberbatch as the iconic sleuth and Martin Freeman as his sexually ambiguous sounding board, fans have created an endless parade of homoerotic narratives that cater to what appears to be a full-fledged obsession with the pair of British actors.
According to a report in Australia’s Herald Sun, Cumberbatch is “an erotic god.” The story states, “In an online forum devoted to the actor, fans said they loved his hair, voice, height, eyes, physique, poise, nose, the speed at which he talks and a certain ineffable charisma. Some fans also paid tribute to his “cute wife” Watson, whom they call “Peanut,’ due to the Chinese phoneticization of Watson.”
The homoeroticization of male love is not completely foreign in Asian culture. The Japanese, especially Japanese women, have long been followers of a unique brand of Anime which places male love, if not erotic male love, at the forefront of its storylines.
But the Chinese, who have had far fewer opportunities to express themselves sexually as a culture, have found it necessary to keep their passions relatively underground. “Some of Cumberbatch’s Chinese fans are even risking jail to write him into slash fiction. In early 2011, authorities in China arrested Wang Chaoju, the webmaster of a popular slash fiction Web site Danmei Novels Online, and charged him with “disseminating obscene content” after finding about 1,200 sexually explicit danmei stories among the tens of thousands on the site. To avoid punishment, writers and readers of explicit slash often exchange content over email, ensuring the work remains invisible to the wider internet.”
Slash fiction – or “danmei “in Mandarin – is a genre of fiction that re-imagines fictional characters in erotic same-sex relationships, a concept familiar to most teenagers first coming to terms with their sexuality.
You’re kidding, right? Sherlock Holmes slash fic has been ubiquitous in both Britain and the US (and Australia and France and Italy and New Zealand and Canada, you get the picture) for years. I read Holmes and Watson slash featuring Jeremy Brett both of his Watsons back in the Eighties. Downey/Law Holmes and Watson slash is all over the net and “Sherlock” slash is on a hundred different fan/slash sites. So you have to go to China to find it? Give me a break! It has nothing to do with “Asian” culture! Slash is as Western as anything. Read Henry Jenkins or Constance Penley on “Star Trek” slash from the Seventies onward. Wake up! If fan fiction and slash is new to you, you’re writing about the wrong topic and need to find someone who knows what’s going on in the queering of mainstream culture!