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

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.

Current Mood: discontent

Threaded | Flat

To borrow an internet phrase, THIS.

Especially in fantasy and sci-fi, if your society isn't like this society we live in, why should it have homophobia just because. It's not any more interesting than any other kind of conflict and the Cinderella has a class and family conflict built into the story that gives the interest and makes people continue to read that story and archetype. It doesn't need anything else unless you really want to put it in and then it might be sort of... stuffed full of unnecessary conflict that detracts from the Cinderella story quality of a Cinderella story.

My thoughts are very rushed, just had to get it out before I disappear for a few hours. I really like this post.

I think if a story becomes uninteresting because the conflict doesn't come from someones gender then something is wrong with the writing and with the story itself. Sure it can be an element in a story, just like any social separation can be. Class and race are good examples of often used sources of minor or not so minor conflict. But you don't HAVE to have those specific ones. Especially in fantasy. There are plenty of places to draw conflict from that have nothing to do with gender.

Why would it be uninteresting for it to be two women without added conflict from that fact, yet somehow not uninteresting when it's a man and a woman who don't have that particular social issue to begin with?

Yesssssssssssssssssssssssss.

Edited Date: 2009-09-02 07:11 pm (UTC)

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.

Honestly, I've read fiction that utterly ignored the way queers are treated in society and felt so alienated and erased that I stopped reading. I don't think there's anything horrible about me feeling that way, and I don't think stating how I feel is telling other people that they're wrong to want something else. Then again, fairytales are nice, and sometimes I do want to read something where I don't have to be depressed. It just depends on how the author handles the elements in the story and how fed up I am about homophobia/heteronormativity in every other piece of media that I see.

I don't think the responses on the blog were actually that reductive about the issue.

I'm probably going to read that book at some point.

It reminds me of one of my favorite presentations of how homosexuality is dealt with in a science fiction world. I don't want to give the source, as then it'd be a minor spoiler. The set-up is that two people are undercover on a dangerous mission to investigate something. They have cover identities. The set-up is the classic amusing one where even though they aren't actually involved at all, they are posing as newlyweds. This is a fairly classic comic set-up, but they are both male. It plays out pretty much the way you'd expect if they were a male-female couple. Humor ensues from the set-up with the funnier one making comments about oh I forget, I think things like picking out curtains and how his parents want grandkids and the straight man (umm, in the serious sense not in the orientation sense) being mildly annoyed at the cover, but having to go along with it.

The fact that they are both male is never especially relevant. Nobody reacts to that aspect at all. And that seems exactly the way it should be.

It was nice to see, especially as it came out well before same-sex marriage was legal anywhere in the US.

Thanks for the edited link to Mac's comment. That's so spot-on. (As is your entire post here...)

It's so refreshing for me to read anything that views being queer as normal and as a non-issue.

...of why I have a love/hate relationship with

interracial.

Part of me wants to join in the "WHY PEOPLE GOTTA BE HATIN ON ME JIS CUZ I GOT A WHITE/BLACK/NOT-THE-SAME-COLOR-AS-ME BOYFRIEND/GIRLFRIEND?!?!"

But whenever I bring up the point that by glorifying our SO's difference from us only among us, and not really venturing outside of our little safety camp, the problem that forces us to congregate so we can pat ourselves on the back for being "subversive"...persists, they go "But, but, but!!! We HAVE to!"

Conflict can be fun, but it also gets exhausting. I guess in lit, it depends on a lot of factors how we react. As for me, I guess I'd have to decide which is more important: relating deeply with a character or stepping into a world where I don't have to acknowledge that pain/frustration/etc.