I completely agree. And whenever people feel the need to denigrate something else to justify why what they're doing is so quantitatively better, I suspect that they don't feel comfortable liking what they like.

About the only thing I don't feel guilty about looking down my nose at is RPF. I honestly think that is demented and no long, eloquent essays are ever going to cure me of the gut reaction that screams out against it.

Agreed. And I think the fact that it's using the names and images of real people vs fictional characters is what sets it apart from slash or het or femmeslash.