The depiction of LGBT characters in fiction

[Shryke]

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

Can we also not pretend many young men think about sex ALOT then?

[Myshkin]

Can we also not pretend many young men think about sex ALOT then?

I never suggested otherwise. I simply suggest that "dudes think about sex all the time!" is a poor argument in Ringil's defense. Further, even if we take this as true (which I don't) it's still a poor character who is based around this concept, gay or straight. How awesome would Jon Snow be if he was constantly thinking about "mashing some titties", or "pounding that slit"?

[Sci-2]

How awesome would Jon Snow be if he was constantly thinking about "mashing some titties", or "pounding that slit"?

HAHAHAHA, Dude I almost choked.

[Shryke]

I never suggested otherwise. I simply suggest that "dudes think about sex all the time!" is a poor argument in Ringil's defense. Further, even if we take this as true (which I don't) it's still a poor character who is based around this concept, gay or straight. How awesome would Jon Snow be if he was constantly thinking about "mashing some titties", or "pounding that slit"?

Except the fact that some young men do think about sex all the times is not a poor defense at all, but exactly the point if the complaint is "Ringil is always thinking about sex". Which was, of course, the context the comment was made in in the first place.

If we admit some young men think about sex almost all the time, a young male character who does the same is perfectly normal.

[Nukelavee]

Normal, I guess, but integral to the story? I dunno. Just sayin.

[Shryke]

Normal, I guess, but integral to the story? I dunno. Just sayin.

What defines "integral to the story" and why must every character trait conform to that?

[Kalbear]

What defines "integral to the story" and why must every character trait conform to that?

I define what is integral to the story. Every character must conform to that, or I will censor that book, that author and that author's family. That's right - I literally put a ballgag in people's mouths that don't agree with my specific viewpoint.

That's what you want to hear, right Shryke?

I am actually personally fine with gay characters just being gay as part of their collection of trivial character traits. He's got brown hair, bulging muscles and likes cock. Ok. That's fine. But it's not particularly deep, and I wouldn't hold it up as something particularly groundbreaking or profound or even that interesting. In that case, being gay is very little to do with things like cultural norms, shames, non-conformism or any number of other things that are somewhat interesting to LGBT culture and it's basically just reduced to 'I like to fuck guys'.

And maybe that's okay. I even argued that in an ideal world that's what it should be like, where a person's personality is essentially independent from their sexual orientation. It's definitely not a negative portrayal. It's just not that interesting to me, and I felt like the constant "I LOVE COCK MMM COCK" over and over was gratuitous and somewhat weak. Then again, that's sort of the feel for the Kovacs novels too, so it's not inconsistent.

[sologdin]

does the text in question focus as distinctly on the sexual appetites and practices of the non-homosexual characters? it's the potential differential, i think, that may matter--if the non-heterosexual characters are simply ciphers for certain practices whereas the heterosexual characters are not reducible to specific practices.

[Shryke]

I define what is integral to the story. Every character must conform to that, or I will censor that book, that author and that author's family. That's right - I literally put a ballgag in people's mouths that don't agree with my specific viewpoint.

That's what you want to hear, right Shryke?

No, but it's hilarious to see how defensive you've gotten. I think you might need to relax Kalbear.

does the text in question focus as distinctly on the sexual appetites and practices of the non-homosexual characters? it's the potential differential, i think, that may matter--if the non-heterosexual characters are simply ciphers for certain practices whereas the heterosexual characters are not reducible to specific practices.

If it's anything like his other books I've read, I doubt the sex is confined solely to the gay characters.

Shit, I just finished Black Man this morning. I'm now wondering whether the major ground Richard Morgan has broken is in the first depiction of a titty-fuck in a novel from a major publisher.

[Sci-2]

Everyone gets sex but the lesbian in TSR. If I can get a copy I'll go back and see if Ringil's narrative focuses more on sex, but I gave my copy of TSR away.

There was enough wank scenes for straights IIRC. The novel is decent to good, very classic fantasy plot but worth at least reading the first few chapters to decide for yourself.

[Grack21]

I think I lost the argument here. Are we saying young boys that think about sex ALL THE TIME don't exist? Cause i was a young boy once, and that's all I thought about. (Not that it isn't a cliche).

[Datepalm]

I like how a debate on feminism has dissolved into a bunch of guys desperately trying to demonstrate that actually, all they think about really is sex, all the time, no, really! :)

Shit, I just finished Black Man this morning. I'm now wondering whether the major ground Richard Morgan has broken is in the first depiction of a titty-fuck in a novel from a major publisher.

I thought that was a rather good scene, actually, as possibly over-graphic sex scenes go.

[Kalbear]

No, but it's hilarious to see how defensive you've gotten. I think you might need to relax Kalbear.

Aw, thanks! I think it's mostly that you've finally broken me, Shryke, and I've finally gotten completely tired of you never advancing any opinion and only asking leading questions while quoting massive blocks of text and asking a single line. You've won. Grats! It's really funny to me that you didn't bother responding to the actual meat of the statement I made either. Nice! I'm sure you and contrarius will get along swimmingly and eventually win the record for longest game of questions ever played.

I think I lost the argument here. Are we saying young boys that think about sex ALL THE TIME don't exist? Cause i was a young boy once, and that's all I thought about. (Not that it isn't a cliche).

I think some people might have said something like the forced thinking of nothing but sex wasn't all that interesting and felt forced, sort of a IN YOUR FACE I LIKE TO FUCK GUYS AREN'T I EDGY FUCK COCK FUCK COCK way. It just didn't feel particularly genuine to me reading it, but none of his main characters tend to; they all feel fairly like wish fulfillment. But they're fun reads at least.

[Datepalm]

Mod: Stop with the sniping. If you don't like someones attitude or posting strategies or whatever, just ignore them or report the post if you feel it's egregious enough. More of it will be deleted out of hand.

Also, no braid tugging or spitballs, please.

[nickg]

<p>Not much to contribute, but I never thought about how hard it can be in writing a novel. So many mines to step on.

I haven't read TSR, but I am considering picking it up from the library to see what the fuss is about.

What I want to know is if anyone has read Gods War and Infidel and what is the opinion on the main character. From what I remember, she does talk/think about sleeping with women ( and men ) somewhat often, but I can't recall being put off by it.

[Grack21]

I've actually been trying to think of good portayls of LGBT in books I've read and I'm having a hard time coming up with either good OR bad ones, which says something itself I think.

Only one I can think is Mercedes Lackey, who has gay/lesbian characters sprinkled throughout(and The Last Herald Mage of course). It;s interesting the way she does it, very rarely is a characters sexuality,oh,whats the way to put this, their defing character trait. They just happen to be characters that are gay, and the people in the books never make a deal out if i(its accepted in the culture she created).

Ack, I thought of a bad one. A Companion to Wolves, where as far as I read, the character turns gay(yes, io would say turns, cause that's how its depicted) pretty much purely so the authors can write gay orgy scenes. It's exploitative in the worse way.

Try and think of some others but I'm not near my shelf.

[Grack21]

Not much to contribute, but I never thought about how hard it can be in writing a novel. So many mines to step on.

I haven't read TSR, but I am considering picking it up from the library to see what the fuss is about.

What I want to know is if anyone has read Gods War and Infidel and what is the opinion on the main character.

My opinion on God's War is that I bought it less then 24 hours ago. :P Into the queue!

[Myshkin]

I think I lost the argument here. Are we saying young boys that think about sex ALL THE TIME don't exist? Cause i was a young boy once, and that's all I thought about. (Not that it isn't a cliche).

First of all, did I misread the book? Is Ringil a 14 year old just hitting puberty? For some reason I thought he was an adult.

Secondly, that is exactly what I'm saying. It's fun and funny to say that young men think about sex all the time. It however is simply not true. I recently turned 30, and thus am not far removed from the halcyon days of my hormonal youth. When I was a teenager I thought about sex a lot. I also thought about baseball a lot. I thought about smoking weed and where I was gunna get the money to buy booze and smokes a lot. When I was in my early to mid twenties I thought about sex a lot. I also thought about work a lot (I even dreamed about it, fucking horrible job). I thought about literature a lot. I thought about my future a lot. At no point in my life has the pursuit of sex dominated or defined me as a person.

And finally, I'm not saying that Ringil thought about sex all the time, nor am I saying that he was a particularly bad character; I'm saying that his sexuality seemed forced, and had little purpose other than shock value.

[Datepalm]

What I want to know is if anyone has read Gods War and Infidel and what is the opinion on the main character. From what I remember, she does talk/think about sleeping with women ( and men ) somewhat often, but I can't recall being put off by it.

I quite liked her (from God's War at least. I need to get around to reading Infidel but my brain has been on hiatus this week) but she might have been somewhat gratuitously bi-sexual, along with the rest of that society. It made sense as I was reading, I think, since it's convincingly evoked, but looking back....hmm, not sure. I guess the main thing I can toss at that book in terms of GLBT portrayal is that it does very little to engage with contemporary GLBT issues, nesting them into a wider theme of gender polarity and lack thereof instead. Which i'm not sure is a bad thing.

How about Jo Waltons Farthing for nonsensical gratuitous gayness?

minor

Everyone in a cosy country-house murder mystery turns out to just so happen to be bisexual? Complete with twee categorizations based on ancient greeks to give the 50's characters the relevant vocabulary?

[Kalbear]

I will say that Renly and Loras are pretty horrible as far as gay characters go, representational wise. And in general ASOIAF is pretty horrible for LGBT. Anyone who engages in lesbianism is actually bisexual and totally hot (and we get first person perspective of the hotness too). The gay men we meet off the top of my head are Renly, who loves rainbows, lots of colors and dressup, is vain and more than a bit of a dandy; Loras, who is the knight of flowers and is indescribably beautiful to everyone to the point of androgyny; and a random guy in the vale (forgot his name) who apparently loves killing people and fucking guys. I think there's a couple of Ibbenese who are disgusting and like fucking each other too.

Renly in particular is kinda lame as a gay character from the stereotype perspective; while his being gay doesn't define him, the flaming, flamboyant gay guy growing up with Robert and Stannis just sticks out badly. I know for a fact that GRRM was doing that because he wanted to be somewhat unsubtle without openly showing a gay sex scene, but I think it doesn't work that well. (also, Renly and Loras are gay?) Loras is mostly fine, though it's toeing the line as far as the beautiful, feminine-looking and delicate flower goes.

He does a fairly okay job in making homosexuality shunned but not actively persecuted; it's much closer to the real medieval world he was going for. It doesn't help that all of the gays are secondary characters either; at best we get Dany and Cersei, both of which do their experimenting and both decide that what they really want is cock.