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baixueagain · 2 years

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Couldn’t help but notice this reblog in a certain recent “queer is a slur” discourse post.

Beyond being ahistorical, it is significant in its third paragraph, which is almost entirely made up with TERF and alt right dog whistles. For anyone who has even a basic idea of what to look for, this blogger has just outright shown their hand.

Let’s start from the beginning of the text I’ve marked in blue:

“a pedophilia and incest apologist”

This is a very handy tactic especially prevalent in alt-right rhetoric these days. It stigmatises anything it is attached to, in this case the person who coined the term “queer theory.” Topics like pedophilia and incest are extremely taboo and emotionally laden, and attaching them to a subject will cause many people to automatically distance themselves from that term out of a semi-instinctive desire to not associate themselves with such things. Spread this attachment widely enough, and you can push entire groups into abandoning terminology, praxis, and people.

For the record, I’m not sure of the source for this claim. The woman who coined the term “queer theory” was Teresa de Laurentis, and I’ve never seen anything by her which tries to excuse pedophilia or incest. She certainly wrote about the gendered nature of incest, but this was in no way laudatory. This may also be a reference to the work of Gloria Anzaldua, who helped further popularize the term. She spoke frankly and openly about her sexual fantasies, many of them of a taboo nature, because of her firm belief in de-stigmatizing discussions about human sexual behaviour. Not only are such fantasies extremely common, they are in no way apologetics for real life abuse, nor do they predict real life behaviour.

“a straight woman with a fetish for gay men”

We’ve gotten to the transphobic dogwhistle now. This is an accusation frequently used against trans men and nonbinary AFAB people, especially those who pursue relationships with men. With the current surge in transphobic public rhetoric, it has received a new breath of life, and trans mlm are currently facing a slew of accusations of being straight women/girls who have just fetishized gay men to the point that they’re trying to “become” gay men/boys themselves (CW: link leads to transphobic hate site genderhq.org). These accusations are even being used in queer circles--including by trans people--to gatekeep who “gets” to write fiction about mlm. Just a week ago, for example, queer writer Alex Marraccini accused indie trans mlm author Ana Mardoll of fetishizing mlm, claiming that Ana’s “fetishistic” writing isn’t nearly as groundbreaking or liberating as the work of real cis gay men.

I’m not sure who the blogger is referring to here as there’s no real consensus on who first used the term “queer studies.” However, I think they may be referring to Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, who was most certainly not a straight woman. She was queer and came out as a trans man, though as far as I know continued to publicly prefer she/her pronouns (hence my own pronoun use here).

“use intentionally over academic language”

Ah, good old anti-intellectualism. If I can’t understand you, you must be using over-academic language just to confuse me on purpose. This dogwhistle not only gives people an excuse to dismiss anything they don’t understand straight away, it pushes the conspiracy theory that we academics are part of an ivory tower conspiracy to Queer Everything for...reasons (see below).

“to obfuscate that their founding texts and members are Marxists”

Aaaand here we are, the full show of the hand. This blogger is either alt-right or well down the pipeline to becoming one. The old chestnut that These Academics We Disagree With are all secret Marxists is one that is, you guessed it, strongly tied into antisemitism and Nazi conspiracies that push the belief that Karl Marx, Marxism, and Marxists are part of a global Jewish conspiracy that seeks to destroy the West.

And of course we have one more “incest and pedophilia” whistle to round things off, just to doubly ensure that people understandably disgusted by those things attach them to queer theorists.

Anyway, once again I beg the good people of Tumblr to please pay close attention to TERF rhetoric, where it comes from, how it’s used, and the other movements that it is tied to. I am not being a paranoid conspiracist when I say that “queer is a slur” discoursers and “pedophilia and incest” scaremongers and their ilk (including anti-kink discoursers) are tied to TERF rhetoric, which is itself allied increasingly with the alt right. They are telling you this for themselves. Listen to them when they tell you who they are.

#queer #queer discourse #discourse #lgbtq #transphobia #terfism #dogwhistles #terf rhetoric

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lordsovorn · 10 days

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I honestly love it when stories with neurodivergent, trans, gay, etc. characters or themes are set in fictional or fictionalized Old Time Periods, before any of this terminology even came into existence.

They are not "gay" or "straight" - they are in love.

They are not "autistic" - they are weird.

They are not "trans" - they've simply changed how they represent themselves to be in line with what they are.

In a way, because these words are never present, because they are never diagnosed or feel the need to find an identity and a safe place to show it, it brings to light their undisputable existence even more. That they are normal and human. That this may bring problems and misunderstandings, and also joys and opportunities. That they are compex and diverse with their own personal traits that lead them to each particular expression of their identity, and that their needs and innate characteristics affect how they act and present themselves. It puts these people out of the "discussion box" and clearly among all the other differently weird humans.

In a way, it pushes aside this debate to scientifically or theologically rationalize trans-ness, queerness; it pushes aside this cold mechanical rationalizing of kindness towards the neurodivergent and disabled. Instead, without all this terminology, we are confronted with the simple humanity of it all.

It shouldn't honestly matter if you are confirmed to be neurodivergent - the world should be kind to weird and obsessive and awkward and forgetful and different people anyway. It shouldn't matter that there are gay frogs in nature - there are gay people in nature, and they deserve to be treated as people, inseparable from the rich interwoven tapestry of human expression and love.

All of these discussions are real and important, because they allow us to achieve real political or legislative or cultural results with real people, millions of them, each weird in their own way. But it's so nice and refreshing to see them pushed aside from time to time, to reveal the simple truths of kindness and humanity behind it all. To explore the ways of caring, learning and communicating - and, after all, isn't that what truly matters at the heart of it?

#thoughts #delicious in dungeon #brought to you by #dungeon meshi #dunmeshi #also Frieren #and you could even say Fear & Hunger - Cahara is bi and That's Just How It Is #queer #queerness #neurodiversity #tag your favorite stories that do this

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friend-of-a-cat · 1 month

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So... I'm doing research for a piece of creative non-fiction (a personal essay) I'm writing for one of my uni assignments about the fact that I'm asexual and demiromantic and think that we, as a wider society, have gotten the concepts of love and attraction all wrong, and I've been researching more into the split attraction model because, well, I see it as something that's important and relevant, and this came up in my Google search:

The initial red flag of this article is the fact that it's on BetterHelp. I didn't see this at first, and did a double take.

Anyway, the first thing I would like to ask is: what are these 'cons'? As far as I'm concerned, there are none. I understand that, for many people, romantic and sexual attraction are intrinsically linked, but, for many, they're not, and the split attraction model existing doesn't harm the former - it helps the latter. The latter includes people who are on the asexual and/or aromantic spectrums, as well as people who are, for example, heteromantic and bisexual, panromantic and homosexual, biromantic and heterosexual, etc. - basically anyone whose experiences differ between their romantic and sexual attraction.

I do find it a bit annoying that, when many people talk about both of these kinds of attraction, they lump them into one 'label', which is mostly [something]sexual (e.g. heterosexual, homosexual, etc.). But, for them, the two are linked, so referring to themselves as [something]sexual to cover both seems fine and dandy. Which... it is. However, I find it wild that people don't realise that, despite the fact that the two may seem linked to them, they are actually two different experiences. People who are both alloromantic and allosexual should be able to see this, right? They can think someone is sexually attractive yet not be romantically attracted to or want to date them. That is a thing that can happen.

Anyway, I decided to read through the article. It isn't bad, per se - much of the information is useful, and it seemed to be quite positive. Until I got to the 'cons':

Now, I'm not really into the discourse surrounding the split attraction model - in fact, I didn't realise there was discourse surrounding it. This is because I tend to, either accidently or on purpose, avoid discourse in general. But... 'oversexualisation'? In what context? If anything, not using the split attraction model would be considered 'oversexualisation' (even though I don't think that that is, either - I honestly don't know why this word has been brought up here) due to the fact that many people focus on sexual attraction over any kind of attraction and use it to cover romantic attraction, too, when they talk about it. I genuinely have no idea what they are referring to here.

In regard to the second point: what? Attraction is complex. That's the whole thing. The split attraction model makes it less complex for many people. It allows people to figure out who they are and have the terminology to be able to voice it. Attraction is a spectrum and so is gender. Of course both of them are going to be complex. Society made both of them rigid in the first place, so breaking out of those rigidities is going to be confusing for everyone. The split attraction model helps people understand themselves, and I would like to think it helps them understand others. Everyone benefits.

I don't know if I can speak much on the third point, as I'm not familiar with the discourse, as I previously mentioned, and don't really know what it entails. Though, in saying this... what do they mean? When has asexuality - or aromanticism, for that matter - ever been prioritised over other queer identities? There's a severe lack of discussion and education surrounding both of them. That's just a fact. People who are asexual and/or aromantic are oftentimes even shunned by the wider queer community they are a part of. I don't really have much more to add on this point because I'm so confused by it. By the way, this article barely talks about aromanticism, despite the fact that it's an important part of this model, too.

The last point is just a rehash of the second point. If I was told about any of this stuff growing up, I would have realised I was ace and demiromantic from the start. Instead, I realised I was ace a few years ago after watching Jaiden Animations' video about the fact that she's aroace (I don't want to use the term 'coming out' here because, frankly, I hate it - I'll save that rant for another time). I only realised I was demiromantic in the past month after... realising that people getting romantic crushes on and/or falling in love with someone when they barely know them is actually a thing that happens and isn't fake. These two terms fit me best at the moment, and explain everything. If I had've known these terms as a teenager, that would have been great. The split attraction model helped me so much in breaking down myself and my identity, and offered me the foundation I needed to ask myself questions. Yeah, attraction and gender are confusing - I said it before, and I'll say it again. But why would you cast something so helpful aside? That will only hinder people - both those who are struggling with their own identity and those who are trying to understand the identities of others. Education surrounding the complexities and spectrums of attraction and gender are so important, and this model will help people teach other people about attraction.

I also read a bunch of hate comments, as one does whenever they go on Reddit or Twitter or literally any social media platform ever, regarding the split attraction model. This didn't surprise me. These specific people seem to hate this model because... well, I don't really know. They were mostly spewing aphobia. I don't think a single one had a constructive point. Also, most of the search results for 'split attraction model' on Google are actually critiques of it, or articles talking about critiques of it and being on the fence. Come on, people. Do better.

Anyway, the split attraction model is important. Education is important. Allowing people to figure out who they are and express it is important. This should all go without saying.

That is all.

#my ramblings #my writing #i want this out there somewhere so i'm actually tagging multiple things for once in my life #asexual #aromantic #aroace #ace #aro #lgbtqia+#split attraction #split attraction model #uhhhhhh #i don't know what else to tag #if you've read this far... hi #edited because some of the sentences didn't flow as well as i wanted them to lmao

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fresne999 · 6 months

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Half way through the journey of our analyses

I feel like roughly half of the analysis I'm reading about OFMD S2 is folks who clearly fixated on a character (it's Izzy, it's always Izzy that inspires this kind of analysis) write analyses that cause the 2nd response of, "Um…did you ever study literary analysis in school."

Now I come at this from a slightly odd place in that I did study literary analysis in school (30+ years ago) where I learned it's possible to interpret anything about any way, because we're all bringing different lenses to the analysis. Which isn't to say that an author can't have an intended interpretation.

Dante in Canto V of Inferno (Divine Comedy) would still like folks to understand fixating on the two damned-lovers and ignoring the details that the artist is putting in there for you to catch about how they are damned because they won't change the toxic patterns that got them there in the first place. Also, they can't because they are in hell, and hell is like that. That Dante-the-writer had Dante-the-character swoon over those same two damned-lovers (because Dante-the-character is on a journey of moral correction) is hilarious, but doesn't make it any less the point of that section of the work, but I digress.

As a career, I am very aware that folks love to misinterpret what is meant to be very clear instructions. Of course, I'm writing policies and procedures, which is a bit different from writing fiction, and is worlds away from creating a t.v. show. But that's the life experience that I always bring to literary analysis. Frequently, people choose their interpretations to fit what they want to see, and that's part of being human.

I've seen a fair number of folks interpret Izzy's redemption arc in S2 as one of a queer man struggling with disabilities and mental health issues whose struggle is made meaningless by his demise. Which sure, you could interpret it that way and in that it's coming from I'm sure an emotional place, I get it. And hmmm… I might give this interpretation more credence if I hadn't read a lot of Izzy analysis for S1 that was wildly different than the text.

So let's take a step back.

First, know the rules of the literary universe: OFMD is a show where the reality is not ours. It is either the Core Universe or something very close to it. BTW: If you've never heard of Core Universe or read the seminal BtVS+HtLJ "When Hellmouth's Collide" (https://www.ltljverse.com/index2.htm), a Core Universe is one where everything lines up. Row boats are magic, and where there is a Badminton, he will accidentally stab/shoot himself.

Terminology more befitting of that fancy literature degree might be to say that OFMD functions along the logic of Magical Realism. Characters will appear briefly for the purposes of the story and then disappear not to be mentioned again (Nana, Calico Jack, Mary Read & Anne Bonny). Things align because they are meant to align. It is a universe where the Gravy Basket is a real place, and meant to be taken seriously. It's also a universe where a man may become a seagull, because he loves the sea. You change for love, but the ways you change may be positive or toxic.

They can result in a bird that never gets to know rest. Always flying over the sea. Or they lead to becoming a bird, who can float in the sea or land on a unicorn's leg.

Transformation.

Anyway, S1 - Stede commissioned a ship with secret passageways. It did not have a buxom mermaid on the prow, nor something more befitting a ship named the Revenge. He commissioned a unicorn prow and went off to become a pirate.

A not particularly violent pirate. But a pirate who didn't have a problem with the violence of piracy. See Stede telling Lucius (hardest working man on the ship in S1) to take notes during a violent raid where the show's logo was literally carved into the chest of a dead man.

BTW: The tone about violence is darker in S2, but the violence was there in S1. It was just presented in a more whimsical way. The nose jar was full of noses in S1. We heard about Blackbeard's violence. A man was skinned alive off screen, but we focused on the Prussian (but also sort of French) party.

What Izzy needed to be redeemed from was established in S1. The problem is that folks who interpreted Izzy as a) the central focus of the show and b) a put upon manager just trying to do right by his crew (or as one Tumblerina referred to him as the man/father of the family going out to hunt - excuse me while I vomit - and support his family as men must do), are not going to understand what Izzy's S2 arc was all about.

Ed and Stede are the main characters in a romantic story. There are other characters with their own arcs, but they are the main characters.

In S1, Stede created a safe space where characters had a chance to breathe for the first time. Possibly ever, and as a result revisited parts of themselves they'd lost. Wee John got back in touch with his roots as the son of a seamstress. Frenchie got back to what he loves, scamming the rich. The Swede sang like a siren of the sea, because it doesn't always have to be scary.

Ed had his first good time in years. After expressing suicidal ideation to Izzy because of his terminal boredom in S1.E4 - Discomfort in a Married state, Ed found himself some balance. Some sweet marmalade.

Ed and Izzy were in a toxic relationship that only reinforced their toxic behavior. And yes, I'm going to overuse the word toxic. While piracy is a place where you can go be yourself and shag whoever you want (whatever happens at sea stays at sea), it's not a place where you can be soft. Gentle. Emotionally open. Available.

Ed's only path out that he could see at the time was to plan to skin the face of the man who built a ridonculous boat with a unicorn on the prow and wear it for the rest of his life. A plan to send Stede to Doggy Heaven.

BTW: This is why Izzy uses the line in S2.E3 - the Innkeeper, that they put Ed down like a mad dog, so that Stede could reply that they sent Ed to Doggy Heaven. Reiterating this concept of piracy as violence, as taking away faces / identity / lives, but also losing one's own. Forgetting even what day of the year it is. Also revealing that Stede knew about Ed & Izzy's plan to murder him, send Stede to doggy heaven, and had moved on.

This is also why the respite in S2.E4 - Fun and Games is so critical. Mary Read/Anne Bonney are portrayed as direct parallels to Stede/Ed. They are selling what are, no doubt, the spoils of their piracy. But they've chosen a remote location with no community, but each other and a life where they are not actually communicating. Which on its surface is where Ed and Stede end up, and yet…the Revenge can sail back. They are on the shore facing the sea, not in a jungle lost from a clear view. I'll quote the relevant Dante in just a bit, never fear.

Ed and Stede's new inn has the potential for a solid foundation, because the unicorn has been planted firmly in the ground, and if we get an S3, I firmly expect the unicorn leg to have transformed into a tree, because I've read a lot of medieval literature and that's how that sort of thing works.

Well, it could be a penis tree (this was a thing in medieval marginalia), but somehow I don't think it will be.

But I'm getting a little ahead of myself.

Back in S1, the plan to murder Stede and take his identity broke down despite Izzy trying to perform an intervention to get Ed back into the toxic soup, and ended with Ed curled up in a bathtub and opening up about murdering his father. An image the show chose to flash on the screen multiple times in S2 just in case folks forgot that this was a traumatizing event for Ed, and was itself the culmination of years of traumatic abuse at his father's hands.

Just as Stede kept flashing back to the moment his father tells him what it is to be a man, and kills an animal, the blood splashing on Stede's wee little face.

That this is the point of the show. Transforming past trauma. It's there. You always carry the scars. Sometimes, you decide to tattoo yourself with the image of the thing you fear, and then the thing you fear is always there, but you've got to keep moving forward. To stay in one place, to stay trapped in the same emotion/action, is hell. I've read a lot of lit crit of Dante's Inferno. Trust me, it's the same thing.

Izzy's redemption arc is firmly based in the events of S1E6 - Here Dragons Be, because it's where the pustule of his relationship with Ed breaks. His attempted intervention fails to get Ed to kill Stede, so Izzy tries to kill Stede. Not realizing that a) Stede is a main character and b) this is a Core Universe show. Where it's possible to win a duel by being stabbed in the left side of your gut and stay there for many hours and not die. So he loses the 1 thing that defines him, his job.

Izzy's redemption arc is firmly based in the events of s1E8 - We Gull Way Back, where he enlists Calico Jack to lure Ed off the boat (with all the toxic masculinity that entailed) so that the British could show up and shoot the head off the unicorn, and kill Stede. So Izzy can crawl back into his old patterns / job / life.

Izzy's redemption arc is firmly based in the big drama confrontation in S1E10 - Wherever You Go There You Are, when as a person whose entire identity is tied up in being Blackbeard's First Mate and after realizing that he couldn't cut it as a captain on his own, he does whatever the f- he can to get Ed back into the toxic soup so he can get his old role/job back.

This isn't to say that Ed's off the deep end actions in S2.E1&2 aren't his own choices. He is a main character. His emotional arc is one of the driving forces of the show. But they are the choices of a man who wants to die. After a lifetime of violent action that had been increasingly drowning him, he wants to die in the violence of battle, but the enemy are never good enough. He wants Izzy to kill him, but Izzy won't. Until he does…sort of. He wants to die in a storm. He's carving notches on his wall hoping to lure Ned Low to him so that he can die in pain. But Ed is the devil and does not die.

Except Ed's not the devil. He doesn't have a head made of smoke. He's a man. Not a fisherman. Not a fisher of men, and what an interesting attempt to go Christ himself off into the wilderness only to be fired for not being that good at it, and then receive his letter from the deep.

Because in a show full of magical realism, the bottles with messages will reach the intended recipient eventually.

"In the middle of the journey of our life, I came to myself in a dark wood for the straight way was lost. Ah, how hard a thing it is to say what that wood was. So savage and harsh and strong, that the thought of it renews my fear. It is so bitter that death is little more so. But to speak of the good that I found there, I will tell of the other things I saw…and like one with laboring breath comes forth from the deep onto the shore, who turns back to the perilous water and stares, so my spirit still fleeing turned to gaze upon the pass that has never left anyone alive." Dante, Canto 1, Inferno.

Instead of dying, Ed goes not to Purgatory (sorry I'd quote the opening lines, but Inferno actually works better here), but to the Gravy Basket, where he confronts the spirit of Hornigold. Dead spirit. Aspect of Ed's self. Both. Neither. Hated. Self. Unkillable.

Is saved by a goldfish incarnation of Stede.

But just as the imaginary as Stede's vision of what / who he thinks he needs to be for Ed, this is not true. Life being what it is, Ed and Stede rush when they need to go slow. They break apart because they are saying words, but the other person is hearing based on their own interpretation.

BTW: The clue Dante-the-writer gives the reader in Canto V of Inferno is how one of the damned lovers, Francesca, explains how she hooked up with her brother-in-law, Paulo. She describes reading an Arthurian romance. She and Paulo kissed when Gwenevere and Lancelot kissed in the story. Except the version they are reading (and Dante tells the reader which version this is) was intended as a cautionary tale. Also, Paulo and Francesca were real people who were murdered by Francesca's husband when he caught them together. So there is that too.

I always like it in fiction when characters misinterpret each other because they hear based on their life experiences and don't hear the things that are said/unsaid based on the life experiences of the other person speaking. That's good writing. It's also how we end up with wildly varying interpretations of works of fiction.

But I digress.

Izzy's S2 arc is that he must let go of his relationship with Ed and turn to others. He must learn to let go of toxic masculinity and let in softness. Not weakness. Water is not weak, but it is soft. Calypso, goddess of the sea, is not weak. Her birthday is whatever day you need it to be. She is vast and deep and soft and relentless.

In Ro-sham-bo, it's a shame that there is not a gesture for water. Because it is not paper that defeats stone, but water that wears away the stone. Of course, scissors wouldn't do much to water either, so that would sort of break Ro-sham-bo, so I suppose it must stay as it is.

It is through a craft's project that the crew of the Revenge find healing. Turn Izzy into the unicorn. A unicorn that Izzy's own actions caused to be decapitated with a British cannon ball in S1. That Izzy rendered legless (drunk). But the Revenge is a boat. They just need to swim/sail. It is through a craft's project that Izzy is able to offer healing to Lucius, who in turn is then able to turn their art away from fixating on Ed, and the trauma that he's been through and back towards love, and Black Pete.

But it's not possible to see Izzy's S2 arc, if you didn't interpret S1 Izzy as needing to go through his own gravy basket.

That Izzy dies because his transformation is necessary. He can't leave Ed, and if he doesn't leave Ed, then Ed can't stop being Blackbeard. The kracken. He literally tells Ed this as he chooses to transform. To free the world of Blackbeard, so Ed can be Ed. Yet, I've read so many posts by folks saying, "But why did he have to die?" Which sure, you can choose not believe what the character says while dying.

Which is a narrative privilege. To get a good dying speech. "There he is" get to be transmutted from an attack to an actual seeing. The larger than life concept of a smoke headed pirate can waft away.

Stories are hard to kill. They live on long past us, and as long as someone is remembered, especially in a universe like OFMD, we live.

Though always reject the gift of a clock. That's someone telling you that you've only got so many hours left of life. If you are a character in a story.

Thus the other parallel in this season is Izzy to Auntie and Ed to Zheng Yi Sao. Auntie must allow Zheng softness. Izzy must go through a sea change to something new and strange. Also, this would be a case of Doylistically the writers needed to line up Olu with Stede for that to work, and thus the new configurations of Olu and Jim's relationship, which, shrug, could be poly. Could be friends to lovers to friends. Woulda, coulda, had more time, but that's on Max for not giving us 2 more episodes.

Prince Richard was trying to become a concept, but was too in love with the mechanics of it. Stede was trying to become a concept too. Found his fame, and all too quickly the toxic end of that particular route. Magical Realism was on his side until he tried to face down Zheng Yi Sao, the Queen of Pirates, and then the rules of the story weren't. Because those clocks were ticking. Everyone was in a very dark wood. The memory of blood splashed on Stede's face as a little boy was a warning. It was a reminder. It was the wrong lessons we take from our childhood and must unlearn to become whole.

Having the final shot of the show being Buttons landing on the unicorn leg as a reminder that this is a show about transformation. One thing becoming another thing. Somewhere the dead are dancing in Calypso's court. A dance below the sea and on the sea and with the sea. While the living keep sailing on their magic ship to do…I don't know.

Because the Golden Age of Piracy is coming to an end. They'll go create new worlds and new places to be. Transforming.

If we get no more of the show, this is a resolution.

Since I've been quoting Dante, I'm going to end this with the final vision in Paradiso. Because folks who haven't been reading my analysis for the last 30 years / read it, may not realize that the Divine Comedy (a story that begins in sorrow and ends in joy) ends with the vision of a 3 way rainbow.

"In the profound and shining Being of the deep Light, three circles appeared, of three colours, and one magnitude: one seemed refracted by the other, like Iris’s rainbows, and the third seemed fire breathed equally from both. O how the words fall short, and how feeble compared with my conceiving!…Power, here, failed the deep imagining: but already my desire and will were rolled, like a wheel that is turned, equally, by the Love that moves the Sun and the other stars."

#ofmd #ofmd s2 spoilers #ofmd season 2 #ofmd analysis #ofmd meta

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writers-potion · 28 days

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Hi, I am trying to write a homosexual book that takes place in the 20s. I am unsure where to start and how bad the 20s was for homosexuality so if you have any tips it would be appreciated. Thank you for reading.

Homosexuality in Historical Fiction

I'm going to answer this in two parts: (1) Tips for writing queer historical fiction, and (2) the 1920 gay culture.

Get Your Language Right

Vocabulary is key to capturing how homsexual people identified themselves and interacted with one another at the time. Consider:

The kind of language/code used at the time. For example, gay men in the 1950-60s would have spoken Polari to skirt UK’s strict anti-homosexuality laws. This might mean your characters say seemingly ridiculous things like, “Bona to vada your dolly old eek!” (good to see your nice face)

Authenticity vs. Sensitivity. We don’t need to perpetuate old slurs just because they were used “at the time”. Would the readers of today (your target audience) be accepting towards use of such language?

Is it really necessary? Just like in the case of foreign languages and dialects, it may be better to just refer to the code/secret language being spoken rather than overdoing it in dialogue. Also, does your character identify themselves as a part of this community at all?

Balance Between Struggle and Hope

Often in historical LQBTQ+ fiction, if the conflict is badly written, the readers are just going to feel angry and frustrated. Because:

Even the likable, otherwise reasonable characters won't be able to accept homosexuality easily, often opposing it downright.

Homosexual characters may be confused, struggle with self-doubt and self-hatred (which can't be fun to read, obviously)

The norms of the time make any “resolution” rather disappointing (compared to modern times).

Your goal is to juggle between these strong negative emotions to convey the central message and let hope shine through. Linger too much on negativity and your novel will be dark, but treating these themes 'lightly' will make you sound shallow.

So, treat oppression just as you would write a physical antagonist. It's powerful and a possible life-threatening opposition to the Lead, but it has flaws, loopholes and needs time to regroup before it hits our Lead again with increased force.

+ General Tips

Beware of giving your characters hindsight. As a writer, we know what happened both before and after the time period the characters live through, but they don't! The characters not being able to predict what comes can be a good tragic element.

The word “homosexual” wasn’t coined until 1869, and didn’t become common parlance until the early 20th century. From at least the very early 17th till the mid-19th century, the most common term for women was “tribade,” referring to the act of tribadism (scissoring). Some people used the term “fricatrice.” In the 18th century, “lesbian” and “Sapphist” started to become more common terminology. Men were called sodomites and pederasts (a word which didn’t have the paedophilic connotation it does today). The word “homophile” was coined in 1924 and was most commonly used by gay men and lesbians in the 1950s and 1960s.

“Gay” didn’t take on the almost exclusive meaning of homosexual until the 1960s, and even then, it was still used in the old sense of “merry” more than a few times. Only in the 1970s did it finally emerge as the most popular, mainstream word.

Less suspicions were aroused by a lesbian couple living together for decades than a gay male couple. Many people assumed they were just two very close spinster friends, not that it was a Boston marriage. There were many more questions about why two men would want to live together.

To avoid the very real risk of jail, lobotomy, conversion “therapy,” or the loonybin, sometimes a gay and lesbian couple would enter a ménage à quatre. Though it appeared on the surface as though two straight couples lived in the same duplex or right next door, they were actually just lavender cover marriages. Some had children (through various means) and co-parented.

Photo booths were seen as a safe space where a same-sex couple could kiss, cuddle, and embrace without fear of arrest or public suspicion.

Some lesbian couples were able to adopt children as single women, in jurisdictions which permitted that. More daring couples underwent artificial insemination and then went abroad to give birth, coming home with “adopted babies.”

Similar to the handkerchief code in the BDSM community, some gay men signalled to one another with red neckties and green carnations. Parisienne lesbians signalled to one another with violets in their hair.

There’s a long history of gay bathhouses, dating back centuries. Since male homosexuality was illegal and severely punished, a bathhouse was among the few places it was safe to meet potential partners and engage in sexual activity. Even the very real fear of police raids didn’t deter patrons. Manhattan, Paris, and London were home to many famous (and luxurious) gay baths, but there were plenty of lesser-known ones in other cities.

While not everyone was lucky enough to have a lavender ménage à quatre, many people had individual lavender marriages. Sometimes the spouse knew s/he was serving as a cover, sometimes not.

There were also more “traditional” ménage à trois marriages, composed of the lavender couple plus the true same-sex partner all living together. Sometimes these arrangements were composed of a bisexual plus a partner of each sex.

People did NOT casually out themselves! They could only confide their secret to other confirmed friends of Dorothy and extremely radical allies who had proven they could be trusted and wouldn’t turn on them.

You don’t have to make your straight characters raging, violent homophobes, but it’s completely unrealistic and historically inaccurate to show them all immediately, unquestioningly, lovingly accepting their friends’ homosexuality if the secret comes out. They might agree to not let anyone else know, but the friendship would probably be over. Other people, a bit more open-minded, might eventually reconcile but never be able to completely shake the belief that their sexual orientation is unnatural, strange, or wrong. Some people might only come around after decades of estrangement and realising gays and lesbians are just like everyone else.

To avoid discovery, some lesbians called one another by male names in their letters. Some liked those nicknames so much they continued using them in real life.

1920 Gay Culture

The United States - The Roaring Twenties

As the United States entered an era of unprecedented economic growth and prosperity in the years after World War I, cultural mores loosened and a new spirit of sexual freedom reigned.

Harlem’s famous drag balls were part of a flourishing, highly visible LGBTQ nightlife

"Pansy Craze”: gay, lesbian and transgender performers graced the stages of nightspots in cities

lesbian and gay characters were being featured in a slew of popular “pulp” novels, in songs and on Broadway stages (including the controversial 1926 play The Captive) and in Hollywood—at least prior to 1934, when the motion picture industry began enforcing censorship guidelines, known as the Hays Code. Heap cites Clara Bow’s 1932 film Call Her Savage, in which a short scene features a pair of “campy male entertainers” in a Greenwich Village-like nightspot. On the radio, songs including "Masculine Women, Feminine Men" and "Let’s All Be Fairies" were popular.

On a Friday night in February 1926, a crowd of some 1,500 packed the Renaissance Casino in New York City’s Harlem neighborhood for the 58th masquerade and civil ball of Hamilton Lodge.

Nearly half of those attending the event, reported the New York Age, appeared to be “men of the class generally known as ‘fairies,’ and many Bohemians from the Greenwich Village section who...in their gorgeous evening gowns, wigs and powdered faces were hard to distinguish from many of the women.”

The tradition of masquerade and civil balls, more commonly known as drag balls, had begun back in 1869 within Hamilton Lodge, a black fraternal organization in Harlem. By the mid-1920s, at the height of the Prohibition era, they were attracting as many as 7,000 people of various races and social classes—gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and straight alike.

London - Balls and Adverts

Like other large cities at the time, London was home to many drag balls and nightclubs where the gay community could express themselves.

"Lady Austin's Camp Boys" (1933): At a private ballroom in Holland Park Avenue, west London, 60 men were arrested in a police raid after undercover officers had watched them dancing, kissing and having sex in make-up and women's clothes. But despite facing a lengthy prison term and disgrace, the organiser, "Lady Austin", told officers: "There is nothing wrong [in who we are]. You call us nancies and bum boys but before long our cult will be allowed in the country."

Other gay men found partners through personal advertisements, which could be an equally risky strategy.

In 1920 the publisher of a magazine called the Link and three gay subscribers were each sentenced to two years of hard labor on charges of indecency and conspiring to corrupt public morals.

Some adverts even appeared in the national press, such as the Daily Express, although they were not quite so blatant. People would ask for 'chums' of their own sex and offer to take people on holiday.

One man responding to an advert in the Link wrote that he was "very fond of artistic surroundings, beautiful colours in furniture and curtains, and softly shaded lamps and all those beautiful things which appeal to the refined tastes of an artistic mind". He added: "All my love is for my own sex", and wrote that he longed to give his love "in the most intimate way".

Gay adverts often had references to Edward Carpenter, Oscar Wilde and Walt Whitman, or would say 'I have an unusual temperament'.

Berlin - The Weimar Republic

The Weimar Republic, Germany’s first parliamentary democracy lasted from 1918 until 1933 and was a time of progressive cultural renaissance from cinema, theater and music, to sexual liberation and a flourishing LGBTQ scene.

Berlin was home to around 40 known queer bars, a number which had doubled by 1925. The cabaret bars and clubs like Eldorado were packed to the brim with lust, tassels, glitter and flamboyance.

Drag shows were the norm and stars like Marlene Dietrich (a Berlin-native) and Josephine Baker who were icons for the queer community, performed regularly in Berlin’s lavish halls.

Kiosks sold an array of well known queer publications like Die Hoffnung (The Hope), Blätter für Menschenrecht (Leaflets for Human Rights), Frauenliebe (Woman Love), and Das dritte Geschlecht (The Third Sex).

As homosexuality was still illegal, Berlin’s Tiergarten and other parks, Nollendorferplatz as well as train stations and the infamous octagonal public bathrooms

Underground spaces flourished.

Here's a list of books with an LGBTQ+ POV character, set at least partly in the 1920s:

Self-Made Boys: A Great Gatsby Remix

Dead Dead Girls (Harlem Renaissance Mystery, #1)

In the Field

The Lady Adventurers Club

Last Call at the Nightingale (Nightingale Mysteries, #1)

A Good Year

The Last Nude

The Sleeping Car Porter

Once a Rogue (Roaring Twenties Magic, #2)

Slippery Creatures (The Will Darling Adventures, #1)

Crazy Pavements

References

https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20180212-polari-the-code-language-gay-men-used-to-survive

https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2004/jul/03/gayrights.world

https://www.history.com/news/gay-culture-roaring-twenties-prohibition

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the-bar-sinister · 19 days

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Fandom | Fanfiction | Self Ship | Whump

👉 he/they | queer | married | adult | elder millennial

👉 plural | fictionkin (serious/spiritual)

👉 Muti shipper | Poly shipper

Our Website | Our System Directory | Our F/O lists

Archive of our Own account

No DNI we block at will 🫡

Frequent tags:

Selfship

Villain f/o

whump prompts

text post meme

blog updates

friend mail

Current Fixation: Ace Atttorney.

Source fandoms: Resident Evil, Metal Gear, Marvel Comics, Persona games, Slayers anime, GTA V, Great/Ace Attorney, Homestuck, Danganronpa, Fire Emblem Three Houses, Urusei Yatsura, Digimon, Girls Frontline, Steven Universe, Pathologic, Jem & The Holograms, Peter Pan, Welcome to Demon School, Disgaea, Sherlock Holmes media

non-source fandoms: Invader Zim, ABC’s Lost, Twin Peaks, Silent Hill, Star Wars, Star Trek, Lord of the Rings, Vampire Chronicles (books), Doctor Who Labyrinth, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Final Fantasy (4-9), Pokemon, Black Lagoon, Miami Vice, Bioshock, Bioshock Infinite, Prey 2017, Dishonored, Call of Duty, Red Dead Redemption, Frankenstein, the Strange Case of Doctor Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Gargoyles, Fallout New Vegas

Favorite genres: horror, mystery, thriller, noir, crime fiction, psychological thriller, supernatural horror, sci fi horror, gothic lit

previous icon:

Shipping, plurality and squick explanations under the cut.

Our ships: We are a polyshipper and a multishipper. We ship multiple characters together in the same context, in the same relationship, in the same fics etc.

A "ship" for us does not equal in OTP or an ideal relationship. We use the word "ship" to denote any romantic or sexual relationship between two characters, even when that relationship is unhealthy, toxic, twisted, and bad for one or both participants. Ships are a narrative tool, not something aspirational.

Plurality: We are a plural system– many people living together in one body. We have been plural since we were children, and we have been blogging about our plurality for 15+ years.

Please do not use psychiatric or pathologizing terminology for our plurality. We do not refer to ourselves with terms like DID, alter, or introject, and our system members do not have defined roles.

Our preferred terminology is: plural, system member, and fictive.

System members tend to sign or tag posts and refer to one another with a two emoji 'signature' rather than a name. Unsigned posts are understood to be a product of multiple members or a joint consensus.

squicks / tropes we prefer to avoid

non-con of any kind (but especially underage non-con and non-con incest)

pregnancy & babies (especially as the joyful and expected result of a romantic hetero-presenting relationship)

nonbinary or trans characters deciding it's better for them to perform their assigned gender at birth

Characters submitting to the will of a lawful aligned god.

Parental control and discipline being shown as narratively positive and correct

characters giving up their careers and aspirations and 'settling down' when they fall in love

prophecies that are unavoidable and/or narratively depicted as inherently good and just

characters following the life-path set out for them by their parents/following in their parents footsteps

filial duty and filial piety in general

pretty much anything to do with traditional family structures, gender roles, and lawful aligned religion, honestly

wing whump / characters having their monstrous or inhuman traits harmed

monstrous or inhuman characters becoming human (especially when presented as positive)

soul destruction / soul death

characters being metaphysically kept apart for all time

any kind of 'conversion therapy' or metaphorical conversion therapy (especially being portrayed as positive)

We are:

non-christian | magical practitioner | chaotic neutral

polyamorous | largely aplatonic

trauma survivor | abuse survivor

Weird | Freakish | Monstrous

on sibling coded ships

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lilyginnyblackv2 · 3 months

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Someone tagging my Buddy Daddies post with "friendship". A post where I specifically talk about viewing them as queerplatonic...

Queerplatonic doesn't mean friendship. Those are two different kinds of relationships and is something that I even mention directly in the post...I can't.

This is why we need more aspec (especially aromantic) representation in fiction. Our specifically queer terminology is constantly misunderstood or viewed in a non-queer way, which is just annoying...

#aspec representation #aromanticism #queerplatonic #queer #Buddy Daddies

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rippleclan · 5 months

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[Image ID: A pixel pride flag with the title "Clan Culture: Gender & Sexuality]

So... gay cats! I'll admit, RippleClan's Promise doesn't really focus on queer themes all that much, but there are gonna be some gay cats, and they're gonna be in realistic, well-written relationships, and I'm going to write them through the lens of a fictional culture! Yeah! I don't want the cats to see gender and sexuality just like modern humans do, so I want to give them a few quirks that you may have already seen in Moon 11.

Gender: Scent-Based Assumptions

Now I'll be honest, a lot of cats in the Clans are cis. It's just statistics, is all. However, cats don't have all the physical gender identifiers us humans do. Sure, ginger cats are more likely to be toms, and tortoiseshells are almost always born female, but there are plenty of exceptions! As such, Clan cats can't just assume they know what someone is from far away.

When meeting a new cat for the first time, when they are some distance away, a Clan cat will use they/them pronouns to define the newcomer. However, once the cat comes closer, the Clan cat then switches to he/him or she/her based on the cat's smell. This is because toms and mollies have distinct differences in their scent. The intensity of someone's hormonal scent varies throughout any given moon, but it is fairly consistent among fertile cats like those in the Clans. It's hard to translate tom-scent and molly-scent into human terminology, since a cat's sense of smell is far superior. However, based on research into actual cats, I have a few analogies.

Tom-scent is the stronger of the two and possesses a slight sour tint. Molly-scent, meanwhile, could best be described as both sweet and salty. Spayed/neutered cats possess either an extremely weak version of their birth-scent or none at all. In those situations, or when a cat's scent is confusing, Clan cats will check with the newcomer.

If your scent does not match up with your gender/pronouns, then you'll need to introduce yourself. This is common in Clan culture, so no one feels weird about it. It's weirder for someone whose scent matches their gender to specify pronouns, as in a Clan cat's eyes, its just restating something they already know.

Gender: Scent Affirmation

Since scent is the biggest identifier of toms and mollies, trans cats in the Clans focus less on changing stuff about their bodies and more on shifting their scents. Clerics have some treatments for this! Lemonweed is a common treatment to reduce tom-scent or molly-scent if the trans warrior eats some of it. When it comes to producing a certain scent, different cats need different herbs. Trans toms can use pine pollen, stinging nettle root, or sasparilla root. Trans mollies can add fennel to their diets instead.

If a cat is nonbinary or otherwise doesn't want their tom-scent/molly-scent, they'll focus on lemonweed. In theory, if humans kidnapped them and didn't kill them outright, they might be able to return with all that scent stripped away, but that's not really feasible.

Sexuality: We Care About One Thing and One Thing Only

Clan cats don't really care about sexual nuances. You can really date anyone (okay not really but not based on gender). They mostly look at individual relationships and ask a single questions: can they make kits?

I know, that's an icky question to us, but that's because we don't live in a society where our survival is contingent on a small population reproducing. All relationships are classified as either able or unable to have kits. Most straight relationships are in the former category. However, relationships between, say, a trans tom and cis tom might still fall into that category too (but I'm not writing that for... multiple reasons). These relationships have a cultural pressure to have at least one litter of kits that survive to adulthood. It can be hard to be in a relationship where kits are possible, but you just don't want any.

Meanwhile, if the relationship is physically unable to produce kits, there is some cultural disappointment that can linger over a relationship. However, this is resolved if the couple manage to adopt some kits (which considering how often Clangen cats just find random kits, isn't a long shot), as adoption is seen as the same as birthing kits right into the nursery.

(Up next, artisan lore!)

#rippleclan #clangen #warrior cats #warriors #rippleclan lore

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snowysobsessions · 1 month

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Queer Resources!

This is by no means a complete list and it's something I will keep adding to and improving. If you have any helpful links not listed here, please send them my way!

Please reblog this post, as you never know who may desperately need one of these resources. Feel free to share individual links with friends/family as well. Knowledge is power, after all!

General:

Online safety guide for queer people This guide is extremely thorough, having sections for being online while queer in general, dating online, navigating the workplace, advice for queer people under 18, and more. If you grew up online and think you don't need to read any of this, I am begging you to read it. There's always something you don't know, something you won't think to do in a stressful situation. Please, please read through it all. Safety first!

Coming out handbook by The Trevor Project (PDF) A downloadable PDF walking you through the coming out process. It's a bit long, but well worth reading even if you have come out already to friends and/or family. It is very supportive of you, the reader, so it is wonderful if you feel unsure or nervous about your identity.

Quick guide for coming out (nonbinary focused) This is a briefer guide for if you or someone else just needs an overview of the process. It doesn't focus as much on the emotional support part and more on the logistics of coming out. So this one is good if you're very confident in your identity and just need to come out.

Pronouns and names:

Pronoun Dressing Room This site lets you try different pronouns AND names for yourself. You can fill the text fields with literally anything you want. It also has lots of neopronoun presets, organized alphabetically and by theme. To "try on" pronouns and names it uses a simple example paragraph where someone talks to their friend about meeting you. But there is also sections of public domain books where your name and pronouns replace the main characters'.

Pronouns Page This site allows you to make a "card" that lists all your names, flags/identities, pronouns, and terms you want used for you, as well as your preferences for/feelings about of them. It is highly customizable, you can add neopronouns, nounself pronouns, and emoji pronouns. You can even make separate cards for other languages. These cards can be easily shared with others and linked in profiles. It is also a huge resource for terminology, definitions and descriptions of identities, and how pronouns have been and are used in culture and fiction. There's also a full calendar of awareness days/week, appreciation days/weeks, and days of remembrance.

List of nonbinary names These are organized into separate pages by first letter. It includes non-English names, gives origin and meaning for each name, and, perhaps most helpfully, includes how often that name is used as a feminine or masculine name. Even if you are not nonbinary, this can still be helpful in choosing a new name. Personally I found this page infinitely more helpful than going to baby name lists, which are often split by gender and don't have as much for gender neutral names.

Gender:

The Nonbinary Wiki home page This wiki is an invaluable resource, I'm not exaggerating. It has almost everything you would want to know about gender, sexuality, and romantic attraction. It has who made the flags, their meanings, when terms were coined, archived posts, the history of identities, sub identities and micro labels... everything. I will note that understandably, the info for binary gender experiences on this wiki is limited.

List of (common) nonbinary identities This list gives descriptions, history, and more for every common gender identity that isn't strictly the binary female/woman or male/man. Almost every one of these identities has its own dedicated page which goes into further detail. And this list includes nonbinary identities that have existed in non-European and non-American cultures for centuries, or even thousands of years.

List of uncommon nonbinary identities This is a huge and detailed compilation of identities that have as little as one person known to use that label. It also has links to the original or archived posts where the term was coined, if available. This page can be used as something to help you figure out what you like and what you don't like in terms of gender identity. And you never know, the perfect label for you could be in here.

Legal recognition of transgender and nonbinary people by country This page details how inclusive, or exclusive, countries are to trans and nonbinary people. Such as if they allow "X" for gender/sex on ID and passports, what is required to have it changed, and how easy or difficult it is to change your legal name. Canada, the UK, and the USA have dedicated pages for this that go into further detail and provide more resources.

Romance and sexuality:

List of romantic and sexual orientations (nonbinary focused) This list does include common ones like lesbian, but also includes rare identities such as Aquian, being attracted only to people who's gender changes. As I said this is focused on orientations that do not assume you are a binary gender, the people you are attracted to are a binary gender, or that your gender is connected to your sexuality.

AUREA (The Aromantic-spectrum Union for Recognition, Advocacy, and Education) AUREA is not very large right now, but what it lacks in quantity it makes up for in quality. It has a large glossary of romantic, aromantic, queerplatonic, and other related terms. Which includes rare terms and identities under the aromantic umbrella. They have downloadable PDFs with basic info on aromanticism, as well as links to research that has been done on aromanticism.

Guide to Aromanticism This contains basic info about aromanticism, and "Am I Aro?" questioning section, and links to aro creators. Reading through the whole thing shouldn't take more than half an hour.

Allosexual Aromantic resources This site links to a wide variety of resources by, for, and information on allo-aros. There's terminology guides, how to write allo-aro characters, how to be a good ally towards allo-aros, essays, and fiction featuring allo-aro characters.

AVEN (The Asexual Visibility and Education Network) This is a wonderful resource for information on asexuality. It has a thorough FAQ section for both people questioning and friends/family who have questions and concerns about asexualism.

Asexual Perspectives This is a community blog where people can write about their experiences as asexuals. These posts are incredibly validating and eye-opening and I strongly recommend you read them.

The Gray Area This is a quick FAQ about greysexualism and demisexualism that is for questioning, allies, and people unfamiliar with greysexualism.

AVEN Forms AVEN hosts a form where asexuals, and people who once identified as asexual, can talk about their experiences.

An Asexual's Guide To... This is a brief sex ed taught from an asexual perspective. Which is to say it does not automatically assume you are interested in sexual activities and have some experience feeling sexual attraction. Even if you aren't asexual, it can be quite helpful in understanding the experience. It does not teach you much about the actual having sex part, though. It focuses more on being comfortable with yourself and your body. It is also inclusive to intersex people. (This guide has no pictures, if you were worried about that.)

Setting sexual boundaries with a partner list This is not queer specific but still helpful as it does not assume the sexual relationship is between the two binary sexes/genders and still works if you are intersex. To cut down the paragraphs at the beginning, this is a list of sexual and romantic actions and behaviours. You are supposed to assign a yes, maybe, no, or not applicable to everything on this list to indicate if you are willing, unsure, or will not do those things. It is suggested you go through it with your partner, but you can fill it out alone to figure out your preferences. This list/guide can be useful if you have sexual trauma and/or have had an abusive partner in the past and need to communicate what may trigger you.

#queer resources #queer #queer community #lgbtqia #lgbtq #lgbtq community #transgender #nonbinary #asexual #aromantic #allo aro #pronouns

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murderturtles · 6 months

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I think what I love about OFMD’s queerness is how genuine it is. It’s a queer storyline, but it doesn’t know it is. There’s no winks to the camera, no topical political jokes, no use of whatever the new socially-acceptable terminology is. And that’s not by virtue of it being a work of historical fiction; these people definitely don’t talk the way people in 1717 would have spoken! But there’s no lampshading or bathos when it comes to the queerness, there’s no need for excuses. One of the most aggressive characters puts on drag makeup and sings a French love song and it isn’t a joke! It’s a gorgeous moment! It’s an illustration of character development and comfort and community! There’s no bullshit line about the patriarchy or straight people, no strangled attempt to relate to the audience, they just do. It doesn’t feel like pandering because it isn’t. I fucking adore that.

#as much as I love the movie for rwrb they did this shit a LOT #and it was forced EVERY TIME #ofmd s2 #ofmd season 2 #ofmd spoilers #our flag means death #our flag means death spoilers

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hispillowprince · 9 months

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not to "um akshully..." with my first post on my shiny new blog (that is exactly what i am doing),

but ao3 (and initially tumblr to an extent) is, to its core, a "proship" website. the funny thing about this more recent distinction between pro/antis, the terminology itself and the discourse surrounding it is that it's simply rebranding and packaging topics of censorship within spaces that exist for self expression by and for fans/nerds/outcasts/what have you.

the principle of using a tagging and filtering system to AVOID broader censorship (that more often targets marginalized groups and limits freedom of expression) is a progressive one. censorship that is out of the hands of the community is not. this does NOT mean that everyone should simply subject themselves to content that makes them uncomfortable, or that people shouldn't be held responsible for, you know, basic human decency and respecting boundaries with one another...which is why tagging and filtering systems are set in place for us to have the ability at our disposal without altering the experience for others. what it DOES mean is we know that understanding that distinction between fantasy and reality is often integral to our experience in fandom.

we are not spokespeople. we are not and should not be held to a standard of wholesome, squeaky clean representation in our own free time and space we have simply to have fun and find like-minded people. this isn't the writing room for a bloody disney channel program trying to make The Gays palatable to pearl clutching parents, and frankly, when websites like tumblr, fanfiction sites etc are hit with the banhammer, things tend to only go downhill from there and lose creativity and engagement (including sfw creatives!). censorship has always and will always target those that don't fit the marketing bill, aka unsavory "fans/nerds/outcasts/what have you," whom are often - you guessed it - marginalized people that utilize fandom as an outlet.

whether people use fiction to draw inspiration for their art, process and recontextualize things in their lives (like traumatic events, introspection, humanitarian issues and so on), find community or simply have a good time, it is something that makes the human experience so fascinating. we have always and likely WILL always fantasize, dream and create (and share in those things).

to me, the fundamentals of an anti-harassment or proship stance is not that fiction has NO bearing on people or their experience, but that without the ability to make our own decisions and boundaries for ourselves, we are inhibited from learning, progressing and breaking the barriers of what confines us. this includes - but is not limited to - sexuality and sexual content.

sexuality. sex. infamously a natural form of expression/communication that has been weaponized and stolen from people in a sickeningly long game of "if we can't sell it or use it to manipulate and instill fear into you, then we don't talk about it at all." this game is effective in its continued tired controversy over whether or not people are allowed to discuss icky, gross sex in ways that can sometimes challenge our relationship with it and how we've been socialized to approach it. WHY open discussion about these things is healthy and helps set a precedence for being safe and mindful with it.

how does this tie in with proshipping? it's an alignment of values with censorship in this way. it's symbolic, really. we reclaim power for ourselves, making our queer coded villains and monsters something to play with than to shut us out. giving our little faves toxicity as a treat because we know how harmful it is to navigate a world without anyone to guide us through the steps or understand our own history/ies. or, you know, just be horny and silly online and find people who want to do the same.

anyone who claims they're pro/anti and makes it solely about what they deem okay to harass others with earns them my opinion that they're an asshole. anyone who simply does not want to engage with/discuss something that may or may not be considered problematic or controversial is simply a person. we all have lines we draw for ourselves. much like how someone playing d&d or video games doesn't spawn evil cultists or violent criminals, exploring sexual themes through fiction does not a predator make.

so, on that note - the end, lol. i hope this drabble of not entirely coherent figurative fist shaking at the sky serves you, or doesn't. either way, you know what to do when you don't like something! it's called blocking, babeeey. gold star if you made it to the end of this fat essay lmao

drinking water is really important though fr like it's not just a memefied thing it's-

#proship #fandom discourse #proship discourse #queer lens #good lord do i ever shut up #the answer is no once i get going #ily fandom friends so so much #mwah #censorship #sexuality

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highladyluck · 1 year

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Would you be so kind as to write a quick little "why you should/shouldn't read" for the Vorkosigan saga? Doesn't have to be specific, but it sounds like you're having a lot of fun over there and I want a reason to join in on another unreasonably long and convoluted-sounding book series. Also it sounds like you're ready to gush about it at a moment's notice

Ooooh, with pleasure! The Vorkosigan saga is a collection of short stories, novellas, and novels written across 30+ years by Lois McMaster Bujold, focused on Miles, the disabled scion of one of the most politically powerful (and progressive) feudal lords of the 3-planet Barraryan empire. Barrayar was a colony planet settled by a couple ethnic/cultural groups from earth (I’ve spotted Russian, French, & Greek and I think there’s a 4th) and they ended up left to their own devices until around 200 years ago when they were discovered by the rest of galactic society (other human colonies).

They have a cultural trauma around genetic mutations due to being atomic-bombed by a neighboring empire about 4 generations ago, and Miles’s life is shaped by the attendant prejudices around this. He isn’t actually mutated but he looks like he is, due to teratogenic damage from an attempted political assassination (chemical weapons + fetus = very short kid with brittle bones & chronic pain). He copes by being extremely desperate to prove himself, and is consequently pretty reckless with his physical body & mental health, but he’s protective of people he is responsible for & puts a very high price on personal integrity. (Reminds me of Rand and Mat, of course.)

There’s some ‘progressive for the 90s’ terminology/attitudes about queer people that are dated at best and wincingly off-base at worst, but that’s really the only complaint I have, and I think that has begun getting better as I go along. (I have similar issues with RJ.) It’s a series very much concerned with the politics of reproduction, in a way that still feels rare in science fiction. The implications of the technology of the uterine replicator on power, gender, sexuality, morality, and culture are explored. Worth noting is that the books also have some heavy torture scenes and occasionally deal with sexual assault. I think it is handled well & is not gratuitous but it’s definitely content warning territory.

The honor-based-checks-and-balances feudal structure of Barrayar is contrasted with various realistically flawed democracies (Komarr tends towards ogliarchy & the Beta colonies are a partially-automated semi-luxurious gay space socialist democracy), the other empire (Cetaganda is like the Byzantine empire if it was built on mad science eugenics), and various other interesting government models (Jackson’s Whole aka the libertarian goblin market, the Quaddie’s ascended engineer’s union, etc). The feudal structure is an exciting place to have the conversations about women’s labor (literally and figuratively), personal expectations, and societal responsibility that Bujold is interested in, because the personal and the political are so dramatically and obviously intertwined there.

In addition to the themes & setting, I’m enjoying it at least partially for the excellent structure of the stories; Bujold never forgets to hang up Chekov’s gun in the first act, but it’s always sneaky so it’s fun to try to spot it. Miles and his entourage are also a delight. These characters try their best, and make realistic mistakes, and are understandable even when you don’t agree with them. I also enjoy how the antagonistic cultures are fleshed out with nuance, much like how RJ introduces the Aiel and the Seanchan as faceless, inhuman enemies and then complicated things by giving them faces & human motivations. (In this analogy, Barrayar is Aiel and Cetaganda is Seanchan.)

For reading order, here’s some tips: https://bookriot.com/vorkosigan-saga-reading-order/

#vorkosigan saga #the vorkosigan saga #wheel of time #wot book spoilers #answered ask #using the RJ comparisons because I’m a WoT blog and so are you #also I like it for a lot of the same reasons I like WoT

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cartograffiti · 2 years

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Books that get funky with bisexual mains

...and one movie.

Hi, I'm bisexual and I read a lot! There are a lot of bi characters of sensational quality in books, but this is not a compilation of all the bi characters I have encountered, or even all the ones in books I recommend! Instead, this post is about books (and one movie) that I think do interesting things with writing about bisexuality, whether that's depicting nuanced experiences, or structuring entire plots that wouldn't be possible without a bi main.

I'm also not trying to claim these are higher quality than "bi the way" representation, but I think it's fun to do a roundup of books that go deeper. Some of these write-ups contain spoilers, but I didn't include anything I feel I personally would be disappointed to know going in.

Spotlight on: you know what that is? growth.

These are all books that make me think about bisexuality's journey in popular fiction, as well as being about personal journeys.

In Other Lands by Sarah Rees Brennan. This is a very fun YA book that explores, pokes, and sends up tropes of both high fantasy and contemporary coming-of-age stories. It follows Elliot throughout his teen years, including relationships with girls and boys, and growing into his aesthetic tastes and moral compass.

It's funny and heartfelt, and included here because it's unusual both to have a book where such a young person knows he's bisexual before the book begins (Elliot is initially thirteen and has had a crush on a boy before), and where the reader gets to follow a character through the maturation of their queer identity. A lot of YA stories are only about coming out, or only about one relationship, but this is a book about growing into yourself in many ways.

Swordspoint by Ellen Kushner. This is a 1987 cult classic of tremendous influence on the current fantasy scene. GRR Martin, Neil Gaiman, and Megan Whalen Turner are among the authors I know have praised it. It's a fundamental text of the fantasy of manners subgenre, and a great example of the subgenre I wish would coin a name--historical fiction for places that don't exist.

Two of its four core characters are also bi men. One has a variety of relationships, and is our window into the setting's high society, and the other is a professional duelist whose love for a disgraced scholar forces him into a dramatic series of power plays. It's a teacup rose of a book, lots of detail on a small scale, centered on personal stakes. This is a great choice if you want to remember bi representation isn't uber-new, and read about how queerness can be influenced by class.

Slippery Creatures by K.J. Charles. This is the start of a romantic spy thriller trilogy about WWI vet Will Darling, who inherits an antiquarian bookshop and discovers that somewhere in it is hidden a formula that both the government and a criminal organization want.

Will only has one love interest in the trilogy, the warm but secretive Lord Arthur "Kim" Secretan, but the fact that he's bi is never an afterthought. His best friend Maisie is a former girlfriend of his, and he expresses attraction in passing to everyone from Kim's platonic fiancee Phoebe to real world fashion designer Edward Molyneux. Some of his close friends are also bi, which makes for lovely conversations about vintage terminology. "We're ambidextrous." "I think she meant ambisexual."

Spotlight on: Cat Sebastian

Cat Sebastian gets a whole section to herself because she writes many bisexual characters. I'm inevitably going to read one of hers I haven't gotten to yet and wish I'd talked about it here. These three are highlights. Even if you pick up a different one of hers, it'll be great: she's one of very few historical romance writers who does not equate being high on the class ladder with being happier or safer, and in fact some of her characters consider it a moral deal-breaker.

The Queer Principles of Kit Webb. This is a duology with the book shown beside it, a pair of books about a set of posh best friends who fall in love with a set of former highwaymen best friends. Kit would never have turned to crime if he hadn't first been widowed, so the fact that he had a beloved wife once is as loadbearing to the plot of this romance as the fact that he's attracted to men, and Percy in particular.

A lot of romance books shy away from letting their mains have been in love before, ever. Whether it's through having characters think they've "never felt this so deeply before" or giving them ex-lovers who turned evil, they like to play up the present relationship at the expense of past ones, and this book doesn't do that. Because it allows Kit to have experienced romantic love for multiple genders in a way the text values and depends on, it does something I think is really special.

The Perfect Crimes of Marian Hayes. Sequel-companion to the above, can be read in either order but slightly better second. Marian and Rob are both bisexual, and in this book it doesn't affected plot events, but hugely affects their relationship with each other.

Marian has been married once and is a mother. Pregnancy was difficult for her, and she is afraid of dying if she goes through it again. She will not have sex that has a risk of conception, and cannot trust a partner who isn't fully on board with that. Neither of them had to be bi for them to work it out believably, but because they're bi, it lets them talk on terms of shared experience and trust while discussing the ways their histories shaped their relationships with their own bodies and specific acts. Very few books so explicitly address how your orientation can form your opinions about sex and parenthood well before they become relevant.

Unmasked by the Marquess. I haven't read the other two Regency Imposters books, but I think they're all about queer couples who can pass as m/f on paper? This one certainly is. Alistair is a grumpy bisexual nobleman who just wants to be debt-free and never be embarrassed in his life. Robin is...well, she's a nonbinary schemer disguised as her dead first love so she can help his sister find a husband. Also she went to Oxford.

Robin is only interested in men, but because Alistair is bi, they become interested in each other when he only knows her as a man. Neither of them has the vocabulary for the way she feels about her gender, but they work it out in a way I found believable and sensitive. Alistair was probably written as bi to wrap around Robin's arc, because his desire to be with her doesn't change as he learns about her, it just puts legal marriage on the table. Much more important to this book's inclusion in this post is that before Alistair can feel loved and supported enough to be open about his legally accepted relationship, he first has to hear from his family that they support Alistair's queerness. So often bisexuality is portrayed as only needing to be embraced if you're in a (perceived) "opposite sex" relationship; it's refreshing.

Spotlight on: Nonbinary love interests

Obviously, you don't have to be bi to date nonbinary people, but these two communities have a...twirls hair...special relationship!

River of Teeth by Sarah Gailey. This is the start of a duology about, uh, hippo cowboys in 1890s Louisiana. It's alternate history inspired by a real proposition once made by the US government, and it's all about a revenge caper to steal a bunch of hippos.

The leader of the heist team is Winslow Houndstooth, a British-Chinese rancher, and he's our bi protagonist. He talks about his exes, has one very plot-important former hookup, and is in love with Hero, the crew's explosives expert. They're black and nonbinary, and the two of them have very moving synergy. A getting-to-know-you conversation has Winslow bracing himself to be asked "So, where are you from?" and Hero bracing themself to be asked "So, what are you?" and neither question ever comes.

Book Boyfriend by Kris Ripper. PK is an aspiring novelist who's hopelessly in love with his best friend Art, whether or not it's reciprocated. To process his feelings, he writes a romance inspired by the two of them, and tries to work out whether there's a way for bookseller Art to figure out it's a declaration of love without having to talk about it. Haha.

Art comes out as nonbinary about halfway through the book, which means there's a very unusual and skillful portrayal of a character in close first person adjusting to the new pronouns of someone he cares about. More pertinently, PK and another man in his social circle talk about how being bisexual/pansexual means sometimes people who are fine with the idea of being gay are awful to them for their actual sexualities. They go on a fake date so this friend can protect his (also bi/pan) girlfriend from scrutiny, it's great.

The Left-Handed Booksellers of London by Garth Nix. A spectacular start to a new urban fantasy series by the author of Sabriel and The Keys to the Kingdom. I love this book, it's so engaging and deft. Alternate 1980s, layered magic and mundane worlds, folklore references--if you like Ben Aaronovitch's Rivers of London, try this.

Art student Susan Arkshaw is looking for her biological father and instead runs smack into the gorgeous and talented Merlin, a left-handed warrior from an extended family of magical booksellers. He's also figuring out some gender stuff, and considering transition. I would not be surprised if a later book has Merlin come out as a trans woman, but as of book one, I think he's probably nonbinary. Susan is gender nonconforming in her own way, and, like Unmasked by the Marquess, this is a great dovetailing of bi identity with gender exploration--Susan and Merlin know they'll still be into each other however things develop. (This book also has the fastest introduction of transness in anything I've ever read that wasn't primarily about it. Nix emotionally grounds this book in queerness and familial love.)

Spotlight on: it's not straight if it's queer

Bi people deserve happy m/f relationships too!

Rosaline Palmer Takes the Cake by Alexis Hall. The start of a romance series about contestants on a fictional equivalent of The Great British Bake Off. Rosaline is competing to better her and her daughter's financial situation, and earns self-confidence as she goes.

That she's bisexual is very important to her, and creates a lot of plot. She faces significant biphobia from her parents and various people she interacts with, and in many ways biphobia is the chief obstacle of her arc. An ex girlfriend of hers is an important supporting (and supportive) character, and Rosaline has two men as love interests, who have very different attitudes to her sexuality. This is the one to grab if you want to scream in recognition and know a happy ending is coming.

A Merry Little Meet Cute by Julie Murphy and Sierra Simone. This is SUCH a good book. It's brand new, read it over Christmas if you celebrate. After all, it's a book set at Christmas, during the filming of a parody Hallmark Channel Christmas movie. Bee Hobbes (alias Bianca von Honey) and Nolan Kowalczk (alias Nolan Shaw) are, respectively, a very successful fat porn star trying to expand her casting and an ex-boy band singer trying to keep his star from burning out. They have massive unattainable celebrity crushes on each other, and now they're starring as love interests! What could possibly happen!

Both Bee and Nolan are bisexual and out professionally. They have wonderful conversations about it throughout the book, including talking about how bi stereotypes about men and women differ, how bi people being seen as sexually provocative or edgy has both helped and hurt their careers, and a sweet conversation that put me on the ground, because Nolan was one of Bee's bi icons when she was a wee teen fan. This is a heartwarming pick, but not sicky-sweet.

All the Feels by Olivia Dade. [EDIT 11/7/22: Thanks to e-b-reads, I took a second look at this book and discovered I had misinterpreted something early in the book and spent the rest of it projecting. Alex is not canonically bi, somehow. I’m not deleting my comments on it because I don’t think it would help anyone if I did, but lol this is the funniest thing I’ve ever done, how did I manage this?]

I didn't read the first book in this series and didn't need to. Lauren Chandra Clegg worked as an ER therapist until she burned out, and now she has a temporary gig babysitting impulsive actor Alexander Woodroe out of doing stuff that the tabloids can spin into bad PR for the last season of the Game of Thrones parody he stars in. They hang out and go on a road trip and annoy each other, it's very charming.

Lauren is straight and Alex is bi. It's somewhat unusual in itself to see a story where a bisexual man has a woman love interest, and more so when she isn't also queer. This book makes reference to his bisexuality regularly, but it's all of a piece with his entertaining personality. He has ADHD and a too-big heart and loves attention. I know guys like this and you probably do too. I love them, Lauren loves this one, ya love to see it, folks. This one's a pretty restful read on the bi angle. It's not a source of tension, just affection. These characters are also in their late 30s, making them the oldest in this post!

Spotlight on: you gotta have friends

Community support my beloved.

The Last Sun and its sequels by K.D. Edwards. I'm pretty sure the protagonist of this series, Rune St. John, is gay, but his queerplatonic partner (Brand) and romantic partner (Addam) are both explicitly bisexual. This is an edgy and tremendously inventive urban fantasy set among New Atlantean noble houses and their power struggles. Rune and Brand do detective and mercenary work that puts them in the path of the undead, time magic, schemes, escapes, a dinosaur... They're very cool and the magic is smart as hell.

It's very important to long-running themes of this series (3 books out of 9 planned) that the central cast has the diversity of sexual identities that it does. A major plotline focuses on Rune's revenge quest against his rapists, and the trio and their allies repeatedly invest in protecting other young people from sexual abuse and exploitation. It's a good example of being able to have a variety of orientations among nasty characters and villains without the text making any villainous implications itself. The core group members co-parent, cook food, pick on each other. They're loved and relatable, and it gives the narrative freedom.

A Strange and Stubborn Endurance by Foz Meadows. This is a lush fantasy-mystery-romance about a political marriage between noblemen from neighboring countries just exiting a long rivalry. They're trying to get to know each other, heal after acts of violence, and also figure out who keeps trying to commit murders in the family home--and also eat the most delicious-sounding food I've read in fantasy recently.

Velasin is gay, and his country is a queerphobic environment. He's moved to live with his bisexual husband Caethari and his family in their very open society. A significant part of both men's lives is queer community. Velasin had boyfriends and queer friends even when he had to be closeted, and he and Caethari consider the support of his queer friends and family crucial in navigating their marriage. There's a lot of emphasis on the interconnected nature of queer identities. Their personal growths relied on kinship and affection with trans people in their lives, and the fact Cae and Velasin have distinct sexual identities from each other is explored to a lesser, but still valuable extent. This is also an m/m book that actively ensures women are visible and active in their lives--a surprising number let women become merely incidental.

Bedrooms and Hallways (1998). Here's the one movie! Why is this in a post about books? Well, because it's my blog, and also because when I was selecting books, I kept comparing them to this movie. This is a romantic comedy about a group of friends, and what happens when one of them meets his brother's friends and the two social groups collide.

In particular, it's a story about a few people in their late 20s and early 30s questioning their sexual orientations. I'm not going to tell you who in it turns out to be bi or anything else, because I didn't know, and it was a complete roller coaster working out over 92 minutes who was going to end up together. It's one of the greatest queer romcoms ever made, that's all you need to know.

Last thoughts:

There are some really glaring shortcomings in the assortment here. Romance and gritty genres have always featured queer characters more prominently, and my exposure to bisexual characters is limited by commercial biases. There are fewer published characters of color in romantic relationships than white characters, fewer queer characters of color, fewer f/f relationships than m/m and especially m/f. It may only be because I'm nonbinary and seek out books with nonbinary characters with effort that I could think of four...and none of those have been well-publicized for the fact.

I thought of quite a few bi characters of color and/or bi women in relationships with women in books I considered including but ultimately didn't, because they just didn't do very much with exploring bisexuality. They're about queerness more broadly, address bi identity only in passing, or feature these characters as secondary friends to (often gay white men) protagonists. This is all ~good representation~ a lot of the time, but it shows me two things. One is that the publishing industry needs to take more risks in portrayals of women's sexuality and the sexuality of characters of color, by including more depth and nuance. The other is that I as an individual reader need to put more effort into seeking out what already exists.

#books #book recs #bookblr #bisexual #bisexual characters #queer romance #queer fantasy #lgbtq books #long post

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