The depiction of LGBT characters in fiction

[Sci-2]

It's been awhile admittedly since I've read it, but Hal Duncan does have this short on Strange Horizons.

I also loved this one, with a gay narrator.

ETA: Damn the second one still gets to me.

[Richard]

Axiomatic - I think I love you; even I would struggle to be that concisely eloquent on what makes Ringil tick.

Contrarius - thanks for repeatedly getting my (and Gil's) back.

A few notes on Gil from the horse's mouth for those who are interested:

Noble born male - it is axiomatic that he would become a killing machine; in line with European medieval models, this is what noble sons in this world are raised to be. Ties also to an immense sense of entitlement and arrogance, which spills out into his way of treating other people.

Thinks about sex too much? Oh, come off it. He's a young male, super fit and healthy, of dynamic personality. Hell, as a straight young man his age, I thought about sex all the fucking time - I just didn't have the nerve or style to get it! Gil has both.

Too in your face? Gil has the social class to get away with this and the tamped down rage to want to; he's probably suffering from PTSD, he's certainly been scarred by his rape. The blade on his back and the training and experience he's had plus a very cavalier attitude to whether he lives or dies so long as the other guy dies too makes him very very dangerous - you might see him as a ronin - a masterless samurai; and those guys used to scare the shit out of everybody.

Shock value? Well you can believe me or not, but Gil emerged as gay completely organically for reasons I explained in depth in an interview with Gaydar, thus:

Oddly enough, there was no really clear motivation – Ringil just emerged on the page that way. In the original character vignette, I was trying for a sense of the forgotten hero, the idea of a man of great strength and courage who’s been driven completely to the margins of the society he once helped saved. That required a stigma of some sort, and sexuality was an obvious choice, but actually I wrote the lines about lusting after stable boys who will always be gone with the dawn before I’d really thought it through. It just seemed to fit. After all, fucking the serving wenches just wouldn’t have carried the same charge, just wouldn’t have worked – no-one would care, there’d be no shame to the act, no social sanction. Wenches are there to be used, right? Taken by force or seduced, it wouldn’t make much difference. In this kind of world, that kind of behaviour would be perfectly acceptable, would almost be expected of anyone who’s a real man!

Of course, once I’d taken the initial step, the logic of the thing was self-reinforcing; if Ringil is gay and a social outcast because of that predilection, you immediately have a whole thicket of assumptions to work with, about that society and how it works, about Ringil’s motivations for fighting in the first place, about what has kept him alive this long, about the strengths this illicit element to his character will give him as well as the vulnerabilities. In writing fiction, you sometimes get hold of something like this, a character or a theme, and it’s like pulling on a thread that just keeps unraveling. Or like hitting the mother-lode in a mine, or maybe just grabbing a live cable. Hard to explain exactly how it feels. The whole thing just unfolds, there’s more, there’s more, it unpacks itself for you as far as the eye can see, and you suddenly realize you’re onto something good, something that rings true. All you can do then is scramble after it and try to harvest what it offers.

nuff said?

[john]

i'd say TSR/CC easily meets the various criteria established in these threads for proper depiction of homosexual characters.

1 - Representation. Yup, they're definitely gay.

2 - Not defined by their sexuality. Ringil is defined by his anger, imo. He's a warrior, a leader and a smartmouth as much as he is a gay man. Archeth is a halfbreed techno-elf diplomat. Her lesbianism is a long way down on her list of defining qualities.

3 - Homosexuality explored as a theme. Ringil's struggles and frustrations are gone into in some depth.

4 - Homosexuality is incidental. Archeth's lesbianism is irrelevant to the plot.

and, incidentally

5 - Consequences of rape portrayed. Ringil is traumatised by his rape. It affects most of his attitudes and actions as an adult.

6 - Not included for shock factor. Well, Morgan answered that one above.

Personally, i don't really agree with the last criterion in any case. Inclusion for the sake of shock factor seems a valid choice to me, in such a staid environment as the SFF genre. As long as the subject isn't treated insensitively amidst all the shock, i don't see the problem.

[Nukelavee]

Without having read the book in question...yeah, I can't comment on how successful the portrayal was, but...

I dunno about the assumption that the set-up required him to be gay, to achieve teh proper placement of the character, socially. On one hand, simply saying banging them wenches is taken for granted during that type of historical period is a cop-out, on the other, being a rake and preying on females from upper classes would also achieve a stigma. Look at Valmont, from Dangerous Liasons.

I mean, if the stigma is based on being "perverse", any number of fetishes and kinks would also work to put a character out of his society's comfort zone.

Just saying.

Oh, another character to consider - Gabriel, from Walter John Williams "Aristoi".

[Sci-2]

The only writers who ever worked on the Authority are Warren Ellis and Dan Abnett THE END

Why you no love Mark Millar?

Kidding. Actually Moon has a great analysis on how Mark Millar ruined that series but as linking to her blog seems to make people see red I'll just say it is worth checking out. I loved her review of Dan Abnett and need to check out his 40K stuff.

edit: grammar

[Sci-2]

Thinks about sex too much? Oh, come off it. He's a young male, super fit and healthy, of dynamic personality. Hell, as a straight young man his age, I thought about sex all the fucking time - I just didn't have the nerve or style to get it! Gil has both.

I thought about sex as well, but it was wrapped up in questions of body image, confusion about lust and love, and fears of rejection as emasculation.

I need to go back to the books, yet I don't recall this being the case in TSR. All that is gay about Ringil is fucking. If society is anti-gay, does he possess internalized issues about his homosexuality? Does he overcome them? If he doesn't, how does he escape the societal conditioning?

Ringil was a good character IMO (edit: and IIRC), I'm just pointing out why I can see people critiquing his gayness and how it comes off as tacked on.

[Humble Asskicker]

I thought about sex as well, but it was wrapped up in questions of body image, confusion about lust and love, and fears of rejection as emasculation.

I thought about sex as well, but definitely not wrapped up in the concerns that you had. Still do, as it happens. Clearly your experience is not a universal template.

[Sci-2]

Fair enough. I don't mean I was hand wringing over it, I mean sexuality is more than just thinking about sex.

[Humble Asskicker]

Fair enough. I don't mean I was hand wringing over it, I mean sexuality is more than just thinking about sex.

Maybe for you. For me it was just about sex. I wanted to stick my penis in a vagina. I didn't really care about anything else within that hemisphere. Rejection? Who the fuck cares, there's plenty of fish in the sea. Body image? It's not something that was on my mind since I was young and had a decent metabolism. And there was no confusion. I wanted to have sex - the only other concern was how to get another person to want to have it with me. And that's the entirety of what occupied my thoughts on that issue.

Sure, there are people who had a different perspective on this issue in their youth. But there are also people who were just like me.

[Arthmail]

Fair enough. I don't mean I was hand wringing over it, I mean sexuality is more than just thinking about sex.

No, that is not always the case.

[Verboten]

No, that is not always the case.

what

[Verboten]

Care to explain to me how homosexuals are all about sex all the time

[Sci-2]

In his defense, I think he just meant sexuality is something sometimes just about sex in general. Though even then I don't get it, given sexuality ties into so much of human existence.

(Mind you, I'm not saying there are no asexuals, I'm saying that society is - perhaps more than ever - wrapped up in sex.)

ETA: grammar

=-=-=

Another good one from Strange Horizons, about a man and his dead husband.

This one is gay YA short.

Interesting. Valente, IIRC, made this observation on Moon's blog - That there is much better representation in shorts for LGBT than in books. One might ask if this is true across the board for minority groups?

=-=-=

ETA II:

Thanks to Moon, linking to Malindo Lo's stats on LGBT YA:

http://www.malindalo.com/2011/09/i-have-numbers-stats-on-lgbt-young-adult-books-published-in-the-u-s/

[Arthmail]

Care to explain to me how homosexuals are all about sex all the time

Holy fuck. Go back and read what i said. Listen, if you guys have hang ups about sex, and like to think about it all of the time, tying it in with your sexuality and our place within the universe, so be it. I myself had something of a difficult time dealing with sex given my Roman Catholic upbringing. That being said, i know others who did not. What Richard alluded to in his response was that for some men, in their twenties, all they think about and talk about is sex. When i had my difficulties i was in high school, but i relaxed in university - which is about Ringil's age - and thought of nothing but sex.

You cannot assume that everyone reacts the same way you do to sex.

[Sci-2]

Sorry, I'm one of those OCD people that can't stop once I start and Google just enables me:

Gay YA Hits Mainstream.

[Verboten]

Thank you for the links sciborg, though you are rapidly infllating my To Read list.

[Myshkin]

1) Can we please have one fucking thread on this board that doesn't turn into a discussion about The Wire?

2) Whether or not Ringil's sexuality was conceived for its shock value is beside the point; I felt it was used for its shock value.

3) Can we please dispense with the old cliche that all young men think about is sex? It's just not true.

[Arthmail]

3) Can we please dispense with the old cliche that all young men think about is sex? It's just not true.

Or in other words, conform the conversation to how you want it to go? I mean, technically, that is not ALL that they think about. Nor do ALL young men think about it ALL of the time. But, some do.

[Sci-2]

Out of curiosity, what did people think of Will and Grace? Queer as Folk? L Word?

[Myshkin]

Or in other words, conform the conversation to how you want it to go? I mean, technically, that is not ALL that they think about. Nor do ALL young men think about it ALL of the time. But, some do.

Not quite. In other words, let's not base this conversation around an old joke used by sitcoms to get a cheap laugh.