actually, i want to comment further on this (though i do like it!). i think a lot of what you said here sums up why i personally find most (male) slash unappealing. because it's usually two men seen through a woman's eyes, it doesn't really ring as authentic to me, especially when you toss in the tendency to feminize one of the partners. the best male slash i've ever read was by a lesbian writer, and i think she did it so well because the men in her fic weren't objects of desire to her, but simply two people who were attracted to each other and happened to be male. she didn't feel the need to turn either of the partners into "the girl."

of course, i'm not a big fan of romance in general, het or slash, again because of the tendency of so many writers to assign "male" and "female" roles to the partners no matter what their gender. like you said, we've all lived through the feminist revolution, so why the hell do so many writers insist on clinging to outdated tropes?

one more point you raised that i want to comment on, which might get me in some hot water, is the "i'm greedy" theory. i should preface by saying that this doesn't apply to all slash writers, but that is precisely the reason i feel pretty contemptuous towards a good bit of slash that i've read. to be fair, this is mostly slash written by young or very naive writers. more mature writers accept that it's fantasy and write slash because they're interested in the dynamic of two men, not because they feel threatened by a fictional female, while, in my observation at least, the writers who are most insistent on feminizing one of the men are the ones who can't stomach the thought of another girl being with "their" men. also in my observation, those writers tend to be more than a little misogynistic. that somehow seems to come through in their writing, and it just grinds my gears like nothing else.