[ SECRET POST #2199 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #2199 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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06.
[Dragon Age 2]


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07.
[Baby-sitters Club]


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08.
[The Twelve Kingdoms]


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11.
[Dangan Ronpa]


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12.
[Homestuck]


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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 00 pages, 023 secrets from Secret Submission Post #314.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 1 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

queer fiction by non-queer writers

[(Anonymous)]

I was dwelling on The Killers' song Andy You're a Star (about a teenage crush on a member of the wrestling team) by Brandon Flowers, who says it was a true experience of his but doesn't identify as any flavor of queer. It got me thinking, how do you FS and people in general feel about straight or otherwise not-quiltbag people writing and making quiltbag media? Is it supportive and inclusive, is it baiting, is it Othering, is it appropriation, so on? Of course individual examples and their overall tone will differ greatly, but I'm asking a more general opinion of this phenomenon.

Re: queer fiction by non-queer writers

[(Anonymous)]

oh fuck me this was meant to be in reply to GC main, reposting there

how do I made comments

[(Anonymous)]

Nevermind, it seems I posted in the right place and I just confuse easily when people post general-discussion outside of the GC thread proper, disregard my flailing

Re: queer fiction by non-queer writers

[castle_anon]

It's just a story. The sexuality of the person who wrote it means nothing to me (though I can see where it *could* be seen as a potential indicator of the story's quality/realism, but that is hardly set in stone).

Re: queer fiction by non-queer writers

[(Anonymous)]

I'm gay, and I don't let the sexuality of an author have any bearing on my thoughts about their writing. If a story is good, and it treats gay people with respect, and good characterization than that's great.

If it's bad, then I simply think of it as bad writing, nothing more than that. I move on to a better story.

I hate this idea that we should be segregating creativity, along the lines of sexuality. I feel that everyone should have the right, to write, what they want to.

Re: queer fiction by non-queer writers

[(Anonymous)]

I think that it's a story...? Unless it's done in a way that's really obvious the author is doing one of the things you mentioned I don't see a reason to care.

Tbh, I usually don't look up the authors I read anyways, so I'd never be any the wiser anyways.

Re: queer fiction by non-queer writers

[(Anonymous)]

I'm personally fine with it. I don't think it's automatically any of the things you mentioned, although there is the potential for it to turn into those, depending on how the author approaches the character and the subject matter is handled. Where I think the most issues come up are with either fetishizing of queer sexuality, stereotyping, and misinformation. I think that all of the above are more the result of bad writing and two dimensional characters in general, though, and not necessarily because someone who's not queer is writing about a queer character (although they can be related, they're just not a given simply because an author is not queer). It's more likely that a queer person might have better insight into certain aspect of a queer character's life or some of their possible experiences, but queer characters are like queer people, and being queer is not all that they are (and also all queer people are not a monolith, so those experiences will vary a lot).

I've seen queer writers write pretty flat, two-dimensional, even stereotypical queer characters, so I don't think straight authors have the patent on that. The trick is to create a character as a character who's well-rounded and not defined solely by one aspect of their identity, which is the trap that some authors (straight and queer alike) can fall into. They go in thinking they'll create a QUEER!character, rather than creating a strong character who is queer. When someone is writing about a minority group and they're not part of that minority, they should be respectful and listen to what people from that group have to tell them, but it's kind of silly to try to bar anyone not from a group from creating characters that are part of the group.

Re: queer fiction by non-queer writers

[caecilia]

I don't care as long as they don't pat themselves on the back for being totally revolutionary.

Also, I wish m/m and f/f erotica were called just that instead of "LGBT fiction". I'm not gonna start a petition or anything that's just a pet peeve.

For the most part I don't really care about the author's private life I just care about a good story.

Re: queer fiction by non-queer writers

[(Anonymous)]

+1 to the back patting comment. Tho I tend to find that the authors who are self-congratulatory about being "open-minded" tend to convey that attitude in their writing, so it ends up shitty. Lol.

Re: queer fiction by non-queer writers

[ladyknightanka]

I think it can be neat, pending it's not written offensively. It's always nice to read about queer characters, so more people writing them isn't innately a bad thing at all.

Re: queer fiction by non-queer writers

[(Anonymous)]

I think that for the most part it is fine, but sometimes it seems like queer people aren't telling their own stories.
For example, the straight guy who pretended to be gay for a year then came out as straight again and got a book deal. That's not cool- he is telling the story of his sanitized 'coming out' where he risked nothing (He told close family members and friends that he really was straight) but sold a story that most if not all queer people could have told without having to deal with more than a year's homophobia.

Re: queer fiction by non-queer writers

[(Anonymous)]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/13/timothy-kurek-straight-christian-pretends-gay_n_1963657.html
Forgot the link!
My mistake, he only told an aunt and two friends.

Re: queer fiction by non-queer writers

[(Anonymous)]

That got to me too. It's pretty much another one in a long long line of narratives with the theme "Nothing matters unless it happens to a straight white guy."

Re: queer fiction by non-queer writers

[citrinesunset]

I think it's fine for straight, cis writers to write LGBT characters and stories about them.

But if they don't identify as LGBT, I don't see it as LGBT fiction. It's fiction with LGBT characters. I'm white, so I don't think anything I wrote would be (or should be) considered "African American fiction." But that doesn't mean I can't write any characters who aren't white.

"LGBT fiction" would imply that the author was queer or trans to me. But I think it's fine for straight, cis people to write stories about LGBT characters.

Re: queer fiction by non-queer writers

[chardmonster]

I think the bigger problem is that Brandon Flowers would probably be yelled at if he said he was queer by certain people in the LGBT community.

"Hey, you admit to having feelings for a member of the same sex and are cool with that? not good enough!"

(I'm bi or something like it anyway)

Re: queer fiction by non-queer writers

[thene]

Calling it 'appropriation' very quickly gets you into a mess, because it's implicitly saying the queer experience is monolithic. I'm bi; if I write something about a same-sex relationship is it okay if the characters are bi but not okay if they're lesbian/gay? How would that even make sense? And is it okay for a gay male writer to pass comment on my life but not the reverse? See, I've only ever seen the 'appropriation' line used against straight and bi women, and that makes me suspicious.

The best fiction about non-traditional relationships & the people who are into them tends not to be constrained by strictly demarcated modern definitions of identity ANYWAY, and nor should it be.

Re: queer fiction by non-queer writers

[(Anonymous)]

I'm a lesbian and I've read good books featuring queer characters by authors who were straight. I honestly don't understand anyone who would say that straight people should automatically be banned from writing gay characters. By that logic, should lesbians be unable to write gay males? Should gay dudes not be allowed to write lesbians? Should women not be allowed to write about men? Should no one ever be able to write about characters who are a different race than them?

Re: queer fiction by non-queer writers

[maverickz3r0]

I would see it as supportive as long as the characters weren't treated any especially differently from the non-queer characters. It's rather a good way to get stuff out there into the media, as that leads to acceptance eventually--and unfortunately, many straight people are more likely to listen to other straight people than anyone queer.

Re: queer fiction by non-queer writers

[(Anonymous)]

I don't really care..If it's a good story and shows being LGBT in a positive light then why not. Also I find that I enjoy m/m porn that's written by straight girls (or even bi/lesbians) to be much more entertaining than porn written by gay men for some reason.

Re: queer fiction by non-queer writers

[gobbledigook]

It's not really a big deal for me, so long as the characters come off as sincere rather than a straight person's view of what a gay person is/would be like.

I can't say that it doesn't bug me a bit that straight people always seem to be over-rewarded for this kind of stuff though... Always landing interviews where they empathize that they are straight(those tend to be worse with actors), to the point where it seems like queer media reports in general are a lot more about gushing about the accepting, famous heterosexual allies instead of celebrating actual gay people.

Re: queer fiction by non-queer writers

[saku]

idc who writes about what as long as they do it correctly

Re: queer fiction by non-queer writers

[inkdust]

I haven't read the rest of the thread, so I don't know what's been said, but I view it similarly to male authors writing female main characters. If the character is well written and believable, they get a healthy chunk of respect from me (the ones that come to mind for male writing female are Peter S. Beagle, Charles de Lint, and Patrick Ness). If the character's sexuality plays a significant role in the plot, I think it's more difficult to find well done, but if it is well done, I don't see a problem in it. I haven't limited myself to writing characters solely from minorities that I'm a part of, and I don't like the idea of people doing so.

Re: queer fiction by non-queer writers

[cbrachyrhynchos]

If you write it, and write it well, you get on my short list of writers I'll buy and pre-order.

If you don't write it well, I won't come back.

Simple, really.

Re: queer fiction by non-queer writers

[elialshadowpine]

I think it soon becomes very limiting if we can only write about people like us. I am queer, and while I certainly have queer characters, I would be very annoyed if it were a requirement.

When I was growing up, I read books about queer characters that I'm pretty sure were written by straight authors. (At least, I don't think Mercedes Lackey is queer?) I can't put into words how much reading about someone like me helped me.

Nowadays, queer authors have more resources, but, I think that "only $minority can write about $minority" is a dangerous trap to fall into. That's a quick way to end up with a very homogeneous story. There's tons of resources out there for writers who are interested in writing The Other, and there are crit groups and the like for a reason.

Re: queer fiction by non-queer writers

[(Anonymous)]

Ok I'm gay, yes, but what the heck is quiltbag?