sing poets and sing singers at the alter of the straight

[frith_in_thorns]

There is a growing prevalence at the moment for Neal/Diana fic. This upsets me a lot, and I'm going to talk about why.

Disclaimer: I am not censoring anyone (since I am not a government entity, it would be literally impossible for me to do so). It is everyone's personal choice to write what they write. I am just trying to explain why this

Comments

My ten pence

[faile_telcontar]

Hi there

Re: My ten pence

[frith_in_thorns]

*giggles* I've surely paid you back by moving into what must be The Least Accessible Flat In Oxford...

Thank you for this comment :)

Re: My ten pence

[faile_telcontar]

This is true. I am assembling my mountaineering gear in preparation...

Re: My ten pence

[frith_in_thorns]

If you do ever brave it then I think I had better cook you a three-course dinner or something!

[emily_shore]

Here via the Lashings blog...

I should say up front that I'm not familiar with the canon concerned, but writing a self-identified lesbian character in a relationship with a man she's canonically said she's un-attracted to seems like a pretty rubbish thing to do. I'm not advocating that.

Having said that, there is a broader point, which is that writing a queer character as attracted to someone of the opposite sex doesn't make them not-queer, it only makes them not exclusively gay or lesbian. Bisexuality is a queer identity too.

I wish it didn't seem like such a zero-sum game sometimes, because obviously (as you say) there is a long and damaging history of portrayals of gay people just needing to find the right opposite-sex partner in order to be "cured" of their queerness.

But I did want to point out that writing queer characters in het relationships *can* be a way of respecting queer identities, and indeed is a valid way of protesting against bisexual erasure (which is a big problem too).

[frith_in_thorns]

Oh, definitely! I didn't mean to imply that bisexuals aren't queer, and I apologise for coming across that way. I think that really the only solution to this problem in the long run is simply having SO MUCH MORE queer representation in media, so that everyone gets a proper seat at the table.

[emily_shore]

Thanks; I think we can agree on that.