I think there's something to that, but I also suspect it's not the end of the story. After all, while there is one tradition of fanfic that is intensely canon-focused, in the sense of "we can't write that because we don't see the foundations of it in canon," there's another equally valid, equally active tradition of wildly subverting canon, more the approach of "I'm going to write exactly what they should have and never did," or even just people amusing themselves by doing something other writers don't do. When fans want to follow canon we do, and when we don't want to, we jolly well don't *g* So I only pay so much attention to the idea that, well, we would if we could, but TPTB haven't helped us out by giving us the right material. They haven't given us much queer material, either, but we dredge up the smallest hints, exploit our advantages, and to paraphrase Monique Wittig, failing that, invent. We much less often do that when the subject is women's queerness (which, really, when you think about it -- *plenty* of lesbians' experience has been always being one of the guys, of having a "masculine" frame of reference and feeling most comfortable in the company of men).

I think if I were going to make generalizations (more generalizations *g*), I'd say we may still be socially at a point where the need to fight for our own equality largely means setting out the terms and limits of our relationships (romantic and otherwise) with men, and so that's very much on writers' minds when they sit down to write female characters. It's the area of contention, so inherently more interesting for us to work through. Just a thought.