Slash fiction is a genre of fan fiction, largely written by women, that focuses on the epiction of romantic (and often sexual) relationships between two or more male characters, who may not be engaged in relationships in the canon universe. While the term originally was restricted to stories in which one or more male media characters were involved in an explicit adult relationship as a primary plot element, it is currently more generally used to refer to any fan story containing a pairing between male characters. The term is also sometimes applied to fiction focusing on relationships between female characters; however, some fans distinguish femslash as a separate genre.