Discussion → Welcome

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  Marshall Moore

  Apr 23, 07:18am

  
  

  Hello. I don't know whether this group will take off or languish, but here we go. I think the literary world has moved beyond the conception of the gay writer or the lesbian writer as it existed in the '90s and '00s. In my experience, you don't have to be a gay man to write about them, and gay men who write actually do have other things to talk about. I've been saying this for years (and staying away from the online bickering about what is authentically gay vs slash, mm, etc). I assume this goes on for women, bisexuals, and the other colors on the rainbow flag as well. Have we moved on?

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• 
  Gloria Garfunkel

  Apr 23, 12:33pm

  
  

  Welcome to the world of group uncertainty. There's no way to undo a group (they claim). I'm not gay, but interested. Your flag is gorgeous. That's my favorite part of starting a group, finding the right picture; the second is reading a collection of stories on the same theme. Groups give that opportunity. Check out some of mine. You can always leave but it's crucial in the growing phase that they gradually, slowly increase members. I have a lot of ones. Good luck!

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• 
  Jane Flett

  Apr 25, 08:19am

  
  

  Hi Marshall. Thanks for setting up this group.

  I think the 'have we moved on' question is a good one. I'd like to think that we'll get to the stage where having LGBT characters in a story is not what suddenly defines that story as being A Gay Story. (Though, seeing as how a lot of time stories written by women about family or relationships or whatever are still viewed as Women's Stories, I'm not sure how close that time is...)

  I mean, that LGBT(QIA) writers can write about these things and have them be viewed as incidental as opposed to the whole point, rather than thinking you have to default to straight characters in order for it to not be "about" sexual orientation. And that straight writers can include LGBT characters without being thought of as co-opting, or accused of trying to get attention. That would be great.

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• 
  Marshall Moore

  Apr 25, 07:08pm

  
  

  I know there's been a lot of bickering online about gay vs slash vs mm. When I learned about these quarrels, I had mixed feelings: boredom mixed with mild disgust, mostly. So women have discovered the erotic appeal of gay men getting it on... what's not awesome about that? I believe some gay guys out there got a little butthurt over the notion that slash "meant" for women readers, or written by women, was somehow inauthentic. That's about the point where I tuned the whole thing out. Fiction writers aren't social workers, and carts shouldn't be put before horses. I think people are beginning to realize this now. Publishing is slow to change, and the relationship between readers and books is profoundly intimate. These ideas will persist, but I think they're losing their immediacy. I hope so, anyway.

  I think that a related issue is the journalistic need/urge to categorize. When people describe things slightly outside their own areas of expertise, distinctions get lost. I see this all the time in the media. So it's not always writers ourselves, nor readers, who perpetuate some of the old thinking. Someone writing a review or profiling a writer may care about the subject but may not be finely attuned to all the nuances. And sexual minority communities are forced to care about how language is used to describe us.

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