You know, you mentioned that there's often a hierarchical situation involved and I wonder if that's a male thing. I mean, men do tend to organize themselves socially in hierarchies as opposed to females who have very different ways of doing it, traditionally. Speaking from a kids' mass-market perspective, stories about girl friendships are often fueled by jealousy.

You know, that makes me wonder if that's the thing about femmeslash. See, with women very often jealousy is the subtext, not sex. It's sort of like men-inverted. Like, with men there's the idea that on the outside they tend to "pretend" not to like each other. They fight, playfully insult each other, call each other names. That's why it's always a big deal in fiction/TV comedy when they have to show real affection. You know that means things are serious.

With women it's the opposite. This was described in a book I read last year, Odd Girl Out, but the book basically told you what any girl who went to junior high already knew--it was about the "hidden aggression" of girls. It talked about how girls are so expected to be "nice" and be good friends and all that that what they tend to repress isn't affection because that's what they use to cover the real stuff up. The subtext isn't love, it's jealousy. Not because women can't really be friends, of course, but just because that's the things they feel like they have to hide. I can't think of too many female friendship movies (Let's just say I'm not a Beaches-type!) but think of something like The Turning Point. Two women who are best friends for life and yet the climax is a screaming fight where they finally say all the things that have festered between them for years. There are similar scenes between men, of course, but I don't think they have the same cliche of jealousy and resentment buried under kissy-kissy affection.