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To borrow an internet phrase, ORLY?
OK, as a matter of de gustibus, as the saying goes, non disputandum est. You don't like, you don't read, but don't disparage other folks' pleasure reading.
Yesterday, John Scalzi posted as his Big Idea du jour Malinda Lo's Ash, a retelling of Cinderella, where Cinderella's a lesbian. And no one in the story cares. Because queer folks need fairy tales, too, wherein there's no one yelling hate at them or forcing them into loveless marriages, and they all live happily ever after.
Some people take issue with this, saying that it's uninteresting to have a world without homophobia. Others say it's forcing heteronormativity onto a lesbian. The comment thread is pretty interesting.
So the first, as mentioned above, is a matter of taste. The second... I'm not sure. When you say a lesbian must XYZ or else it's heteronormative, that's stereotyping. Lesbians must be oppressed or you're heteronorming them.
Really? We can't posit that, say, 100 years in the future the desert patriarchal religions and their followers, as well as most major cultures, get their heads out of their asses and say "hey, love is love, and it doesn't matter which bits you have"? Of course, as we learned with the civil rights movement in the 60s, you can't legislate away hate, but you can encourage society along a more friendly path. So 200 years in the future, it's plausible that 95% or more of people just plain don't give a shit who other people sleep with.
Why is that a bad thing?
Why is it a bad thing to posit a fantasy world where nobody gives a crap about who's fucking whom? If we assume that most homophobia in the real world stems from the desert patriarchal religions (which led to the development of patriarchal societies), why would a fantasy world, which doesn't have that religion, necessarily have homophobia?
Someone over on Scalzi's blog said (paraphrase) that they were tired of all stories about GLBT characters being coming out stories or stories about dealing with oppression. They wanted to read about something that *isn't* what they deal with every goddamn day. What's so wrong about that?
And, as I said above, as a matter of taste, if a story about GLBT characters not dealing with oppression doesn't appeal to you, fine. Don't read it. But don't tell the rest of us that we're wrong to want that sort of thing.
Don't we want society to view being queer as normal? As a non-issue? Isn't that the goal of increasing visibility and awareness? So I'm seriously befuddled as to why positing a society that considers sexuality a complete non-issue is a bad thing.
I'm positing in my space future a world that doesn't give a shit whom you sleep with, at least in most of it. And now I've spent a good 45 minutes writing this when I should have been writing that, so back to it.
OK, as a matter of de gustibus, as the saying goes, non disputandum est. You don't like, you don't read, but don't disparage other folks' pleasure reading.
Yesterday, John Scalzi posted as his Big Idea du jour Malinda Lo's Ash, a retelling of Cinderella, where Cinderella's a lesbian. And no one in the story cares. Because queer folks need fairy tales, too, wherein there's no one yelling hate at them or forcing them into loveless marriages, and they all live happily ever after.
Some people take issue with this, saying that it's uninteresting to have a world without homophobia. Others say it's forcing heteronormativity onto a lesbian. The comment thread is pretty interesting.
So the first, as mentioned above, is a matter of taste. The second... I'm not sure. When you say a lesbian must XYZ or else it's heteronormative, that's stereotyping. Lesbians must be oppressed or you're heteronorming them.
Really? We can't posit that, say, 100 years in the future the desert patriarchal religions and their followers, as well as most major cultures, get their heads out of their asses and say "hey, love is love, and it doesn't matter which bits you have"? Of course, as we learned with the civil rights movement in the 60s, you can't legislate away hate, but you can encourage society along a more friendly path. So 200 years in the future, it's plausible that 95% or more of people just plain don't give a shit who other people sleep with.
Why is that a bad thing?
Why is it a bad thing to posit a fantasy world where nobody gives a crap about who's fucking whom? If we assume that most homophobia in the real world stems from the desert patriarchal religions (which led to the development of patriarchal societies), why would a fantasy world, which doesn't have that religion, necessarily have homophobia?
Someone over on Scalzi's blog said (paraphrase) that they were tired of all stories about GLBT characters being coming out stories or stories about dealing with oppression. They wanted to read about something that *isn't* what they deal with every goddamn day. What's so wrong about that?
And, as I said above, as a matter of taste, if a story about GLBT characters not dealing with oppression doesn't appeal to you, fine. Don't read it. But don't tell the rest of us that we're wrong to want that sort of thing.
Don't we want society to view being queer as normal? As a non-issue? Isn't that the goal of increasing visibility and awareness? So I'm seriously befuddled as to why positing a society that considers sexuality a complete non-issue is a bad thing.
I'm positing in my space future a world that doesn't give a shit whom you sleep with, at least in most of it. And now I've spent a good 45 minutes writing this when I should have been writing that, so back to it.
