I think it's one of the potential drawbacks of slash that its very existence to an extent denies the possibility of homoerotic subtext in gen stories.
Not necessarily. I've found that gen fic writer by slashers is often at least mildly slashy, and I've deliberately attempted to write homoerotic gen on at least a couple of occasions (ex: Three Musketeers fic, because d'Artagnan has a massive, hero worshiping crush on Athos in canon, and it's a 19th century novel, so subtext is just automatically there). And then there's the Starky & Hutch fandom, where the only obvious difference between the slash and the gen is the lack of sex scenes in the latter. I know there are S&H gen writers who strongly believe that the guys aren't sleeping with each other and don't want to, but their stuff reads pretty much exactly like the slash anyway.
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Not necessarily. I've found that gen fic writer by slashers is often at least mildly slashy, and I've deliberately attempted to write homoerotic gen on at least a couple of occasions (ex: Three Musketeers fic, because d'Artagnan has a massive, hero worshiping crush on Athos in canon, and it's a 19th century novel, so subtext is just automatically there). And then there's the Starky & Hutch fandom, where the only obvious difference between the slash and the gen is the lack of sex scenes in the latter. I know there are S&H gen writers who strongly believe that the guys aren't sleeping with each other and don't want to, but their stuff reads pretty much exactly like the slash anyway.