(fantasy/future sf) World without homophobia = uninteresting?

[feuervogel]

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.

Comments

[smarriveurr.livejournal.com]

Well, that first commenter isn't saying that the story is uninteresting, just that he has trouble relating to it. Which is fair, but begs the questions A) How do you relate to a world with magic in it, but not a society that was never homophobic, and B) if you can't relate to a gay character in an open society, how can you expect a straight person to relate to a gay character at all? Or is the goal to make sure that novels with queer characters are targeted solely to a queer audience? I likes me my queer (http://www.amazon.com/Luck-Shadows-Nightrunner-Vol-1/dp/0553575422) swordsman (http://www.amazon.com/Swordspoint-Ellen-Kushner/dp/0553585495) books. I don't have problems relating to those characters, homophobic society or no. And it's rather funny, because he points to Kushner's work... in which there is indeed bigotry, but it's generally provincial and foreign. The characters encounter it mainly because they travel so much, and others do as well. A Cinderella story doesn't need to somehow touch on the other cultures of the world, if the one she's in is comfortable with homosexuality. In fact, it would be painful and forced to try to make it do so.

And at least the person discussing heteronormativity has the grace to point out that they haven't read the book and therefore can't reasonably comment on the portrayal of the queer aspect. However, it seems to me that if the author unintentionally wrote the book in such a fashion that there was chemistry between the two female characters... then those characters are more likely to be portrayed as real people than if she'd said "Hm, this is kinda dull - how could I dyke it up a bit and risk tanking my sales for the sake of being accused of insensitivity?"

I do like one commenter who "isn't sure that true medieval folks were anti-gay" and "not even sure that the terms “gay” and “straight” were defined in that era." Because, y'know, not even having a term for something in your lexicon totally precludes stoning someone for it.

The tabus against homosexuality, however, aren't just in revelatory middle-eastern religions. I know being "taken like a woman" was a bad thing in Viking society, and crossdressing was at least legal grounds for divorce, etc.

I think there's an annoying current of "pagan = matriarchal/gender-equal/enlightened" and "monotheistic = patriarchal/misogynist/repressivein fantasy circles that just, frankly, doesn't ring true. You can have a homophobic pagan society that treats women poorly. You can also have a monotheistic religion that's body-positive, gender-equal, and sexually free. You just have to understand the anthropology enough to justify them that way. It's just another decision you have to consider about the culture you're building.

So, yeah, in the end, it's fantasy. It's speculative fiction. Sure, it's often used to comment on our society, but it doesn't have to be bound to our society in every way. That's the whole point.

[feuervogel]

Viking society lost out, eventually, and they got converted to a desert monotheism. ;) As did the Celts, much of Africa, and swaths of Asia.

(Then there's Japan. Which doesn't have the Christianity-related homo taboo, but there are no gay people in Japan. It says so, on the label. But Japan is a lot more interested in conformity in general, so.)

[smarriveurr.livejournal.com]

They did hold out for a pretty long time, though. ;) Mainly grabbed them because I had a pagan culture I knew of, where I could with fair assurance say there was at least some strain of homophobia, even if it might have primarily been a manifestation of sexual roles and sexism.

(There are also, IIRC, some east Asian/Pacific cultures where it doesn't matter if you follow the gender-role you were biologically born into, but you damn well better conform exactly to one of the gender roles.)

[tsubaki-ny.livejournal.com]

I believe that was a feature of certain Native American tribes as well. (And Ghana, if I'm not utterly mistaken, and I could be, because I don't have the book "Marriage, A History" in front of me right now, but I swear it was in there, I PROMISE.)

[smarriveurr.livejournal.com]

I haven't does as much research on Native American beliefs, but I do at least seem to recall a "Contrary" role in some of the Great Plains cultures, in which part of your duty was to act in a fashion opposite societal expectations. Crossdress, say the opposite of what you mean, such things. Re-enforce societal rules by turning them on their head, basically.

[feuervogel]

Or this fascinating bit from Albania.

[smarriveurr.livejournal.com]

I do notice the article always refers to the sworn virgins who devoted their lifetime to living as a man as "Ms." I kind of wonder how they would feel about that.

[feuervogel]

Yeah, right? Like all the frakking news articles calling transguys "she."

[smarriveurr.livejournal.com]

*nod* I do believe if part of the point of your gender role reversal is being more comfortable in what society has defined as the opposite gender role, it's at least respectful to actually, y'know, acknowledge the new role. Treating someone who's sacrificed to live as a man for half a century in a patriarchal society to the title "Ms." for your readers abroad? Not cool. I'm no expert, it's just a hunch, but I'm pretty sure "Pasha" Keqi and the rest would clock that writer in the schnozz for that one.

[tsubaki-ny.livejournal.com]

That sounds very familiar! (There's a book by Native writer Drew Taylor called "Me Sexy"-- I think that's the one that deals with these aspects of various tribes. It's a collection of critiques on how Native Americans portrayed in romance novels...)