#and like. it is saying THE MOST about Gender since Le Guin or Butler imo. but it's NOT marketed as queer at all | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

utilitycaster · 8 months

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A few recent books I've read and disliked led me to this conclusion but it feels like there's been this switch over time with queer stories. It used to be that queer relationships (or queerness in general) had to be Show Don't Tell because, well, you could not make them textual! So you get, for example, shows like Legend of Korra, or Xena: Warrior Princess, where you have women who are clearly devoted to each other to a degree that goes beyond mere friendship, and a ton of effort and care is put into that depiction because they can't actually be shown in an explicitly stated relationship. And as a result, these relationships, while they never receive confirmation in the show, are rich and complex.

Now not only is it much easier to make explicitly queer stories outside of niche areas; it's even popular (and, cynically, a marketing tactic). The problem is I've run into a bunch of stories that are marketed very clearly as A Queer Story that forget to like...be a story, or show me why these characters should be in a relationship. It's All Tell No Show: I'm told that the characters are gay and are in a relationship, but no work is done to actually explain why I should care about this beyond "well they are gay and in a gay relationship."

I'm not going to rehash what I discussed here, but Baru Cormorant is an example of those books where I'm given no real reason to care. The protagonist is a lesbian but the prose reads like a phone book. On the other hand, while Starless has a queer disabled woman as a one of the two protagonists, it also provides her with traits other than "queer, disabled, woman, important" and grants her a rich interiority (even though the story is told entirely from the first person point of view of the other protagonist.)

And the thing about the good examples in that link (Starless, Teixcalaan): they show and tell. It's both explicit that these are queer stories with a canon romantic relationship, but the little moments that make up the tapestry of a relationship are given the time that moments in a subtextual - or frankly, even a queerbaiting work are. That's the real tragedy; for queerbaiting to work, you have to actually make the relationship compelling enough for people follow it until you pull the rug out from under them; whereas you can slap a cold fish kiss on a cold fish queer relationship and technically you are Better because it was Explicit Representation even though everything about it was poorly constructed. I would rather have an lazy and shoddy explicit relationship than queerbait just on principle; but honestly I'd rather have a good story that does neither.

One of my more cynical interpretations of this is that writers are either intentionally or inadvertently taking advantage of the legacy of the Show Don't Tell era of queer coding to place the burden of those small moments on the audience. They know that people looking for queer relationships in fiction are used to having to dig for moments and subtext; but instead of providing that subtext, they set up the clunky text and assume the subtext to support it will emerge from the fandom. Or perhaps, more generously, especially for younger queer writers, they are just so used to having to provide that work themselves that they forget they are doing the writing and are able to (and should) layer subtext and text together and weave something actually good.

Either way, it's this that's led to the "Lesbian necromancers in space, need I say more"* era of recommendations, taglines, and writing, in which explicit representation is, if not plentiful, at least available; but a worrying amount of it forgets to actually write realized characters or a relationship with chemistry or a plot that makes sense.

I should also note: there's obviously a TON of straight romances and books that range from mediocre to abominable. I am under no circumstances arguing that "gayboring" media shouldn't exist. But while I don't think queer stories should be held to a higher standard, I don't think I should be obligated to settle for a lower standard either simply because it's gay. I know it's fraught, in that we're at risk of publishers and producers taking away the message "people hate this because it's gay" rather than "people hate this because it's poorly developed," but like...at the very least, could we recommend things in terms of "this is a great book that has a wonderful queer romance" and "this show is gay but it is also deeply mediocre, and if it weren't gay I wouldn't recommend it at all; do what you will with this information."

*I should note: I happen to like The Locked Tomb (of Lesbian Necromancers in Space fame) a lot! I know it's not for everyone; I know it can feel very gimmicky at times. But no matter how you feel, that tagline is DIRE and does a miserable job of representing the books. Like, that premise could suck, actually (and plenty of people find it does) if you're not sold on the mere fact that it's got lesbians, necromancy, or space in it. Worth noting that neither Starless nor the Teixcalaan books were heavily marketed as Queer Romance Fantasy/SF even though both very much are, which does further make me think this is a case of people writing good books that are queer, vs. people writing books with the intention to be on some New Queer SF list or, god forbid, Booktok.

#long post #the book i read this week (light from uncommon stars) was also like. really hit or miss #the locus review of it is spot on. like. i think one of the characters' stories is fantastic but i think it's afraid to have any bite.#also this was out of scope for this post but like. i have recommended terra ignota before #and like. it is saying THE MOST about Gender since Le Guin or Butler imo. but it's NOT marketed as queer at all #and part of that is that it's really not capable to read it as a romance (certainly not a happy one) despite there being queer pairs in it

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sophygurl · 5 years

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WisCon 43 panel Polyamory And Alternative Relationships In Fiction And In Real Life

Science fiction is rife with examples of how to love outside the box. From Le Guin to Jemisin to Steven Universe, speculative fiction allows us to create and experience relationships often shunned by mainstream society. What fiction do we resonate with, or wish was reality? What offers food for thought, or has helped us with our own complicated relationship styles? Who gets it "right"? This panel will explore titles showcasing polyamory, asexual relationships, relationship anarchy, & more.

Moderator: Rebecca Mongeon. Panelists: Emily Luebke aka Julian Greystoke, Rose Hill, Samantha Manaktola, Nisi Shawl

Disclaimers: These are only the notes I was personally able to jot down on paper during the panel. I absolutely did not get everything, and may even have some things wrong. Corrections by panelists or other audience members always welcome. I name the mod and panelists because they are publicly listed, but will remove/change names if asked. I do not name audience members unless specifically asked by them to be named. If I mix up a pronoun or name spelling or anything else, please tell me and I’ll fix it!

Notes:

Samantha introduced herself as queer and non-monoagmous with found family and networks of people in her life.

Emily introduced herself as an author, actor, and asexual married to a pansexual man.

Rose introduced herself as demi-pan and married to a straight man and dating an ace bi woman [I think I got that right but have a “?” in my notes so maybe I mixed something up]. She said she writes poly in her fiction.

Nisi said she was exposed to poly since when she was a hippie and then she later read a comic about it where it was named and realized “oh, that’s what I’m doing!” It features in her fiction and she is interested in non-romantic/non-sexual relationships as being the core of a story.

Rebecca started the discussion about found family.

Rose talked about intentional family and cited the Circle of Magic series by Tamora Pierce, which features a family of non-bio and non-romantic connections. They live together and begin to refer to one another as family over time. Those bonds last as they age. [I am currently reading this series and am enjoying this aspect of it.] Rose connects to created families.

Nisi said this is based on her lived experience in the black community. She views the entire black community as a found family and grew up calling neighbors aunts and uncles, etc. She talked about this being a silver lining of the results of the slave trade breaking families up. When people call one another brother and sister - it’s because they are. You don’t know if they are or aren’t, so you claim them. We decide that we are family. Nisi added that there is also the African idea of claiming your ancestors whether you know for sure if you’re related to them, for similar reasons.

Emily talked about being a theater kid and how the theater became her family.

Samantha talked about the shows Steven Universe and Leverage and how the message is that being the person you are makes the bonds with your people tighter, and the tighter those bonds are, the better you get at being yourself.

An audience member brought up the issue of combined bio and found families. People tend to respect the closeness of non-romantic ties if you are siblings, but friends are “just friends.”

Nisi told about how her mom adopted Eileen Gunn because she and Nisi became sisters, so her mom figured - that makes her my daughter, too.

Samantha talked about her mom and how she did not necessarily understand about ethical non-monogamy, but she tried. She tried to map it onto experiences of non-ethical non-monogamy, and ended up thinking she would still eventually choose one person. Her mom did understand the importance of her friendships, and said that her friends were therefore important to her, as well.

Emily talked about a friend that her dad decided was part of the family - whether her liked it or not.

An audience member asked the panelists to clarify their definitions of chosen vs. found family.

Samantha said it’s mostly interchangeable but there is some nuance. Chosen can be intentional, found family maybe you just fell into.

Rose agreed that it’s interchangeable.

Rebecca brought up the issue of ace representation.

Nisi said she wants people to talk to her about this [I believe the context was for her to better understand for writing inclusion purposes?].

Samantha said the answer to this is not very satisfying. It’s a lot harder to find ace representation that any other kind of non-traditional relationship style. She mentioned that Seanan McGuire has done it, and that Anne Leckie’s Ancillary Justice has some in it but it’s questionable because it’s not a human character.

Emily said it’s mostly aliens and robots that she found, especially when younger. She includes at least one ace character in all of her works now. One example of rep is Let’s Talk About Love which is an ace love story. McGuire’s Wayward Children had rep but she didn’t love it. Radio Silence has a demi-sexual character.

Rose added that explicit ace rep is rare. Often it’s just not said and she’s left wondering if she is just headcanoning it. The Perfect Assassin has an ace romance sub-plot. She is wondering if there is any ace poly rep?

Nisi brought up The Bicycle Repairman by Bruce Sterling - not really ace rep because the character removes all sexual feeling.

Rose said that her ace groups tend to talk about poly a lot as something that makes sense, but her poly groups don’t tend to do the same - and in some cases seem to think it is antithetical.

An audience member asked how an author can explicitly show that a character is ace without it being about their asexuality.

Rose said that romantic subplots are super common, so you could have one character flirting with another and the other character just says “oh sorry I’m not attracted to people in that way” and there you go - explicit ace rep.

Emily added that if you’re writing from the pov of an ace character, it can be very obvious that they’re just not interested.

Nisi talked about a character in three of her short stories and a novel [I think it was Brit Williams?] who likes the idea of having kids but is grossed out by what you have to do to make one. Also mentioned how in historical fiction it might be hard to talk about explicitly because there wouldn’t have been language for it - but a character can still be shown to be ace even if they aren’t using those words.

Emily added that when you’re ace, you just don’t think about that stuff much. The character might be surprised to find out how much other people are thinking about sex, for example.

An audience member asked if poly was on the same axis as queerness as an identity.

Rebecca said she wasn’t sure this was the right place for that discussion. [Fair. It’s a complex issue and not necessarily the scope of this particular panel imo.]

Another audience member asked about world building when things are assumed that are different from our world - such as everyone in that world is poly.

Samantha answered that there are different ways to do poly as a social construct. Anne Leckie, for example, built a world without gender norms and everyone was “she.” [Didn’t catch the title] Another piece I didn’t catch was referenced in which two societies are put into contrast with one another where one has poly as the assumed family structure and one doesn’t. Basically, there are a lot of different ways to build this into a world.

Rose added that world building with poly and queerness tends to be static whereas in real life it can be very fluid or change over time. Societies built as commentary tend to be fixed systems.

Nisi had some recs along those lines - a short story, Otherwise; Candace Jane Dorsey’s Black Wine; The Devil in America.

An audience member rec’d Shadows of Aggar by Chris Anne Wolfe, which has poly world building.

Another audience member suggests Nalo Hopkin’s work, which is often about liberating sex, love, and desire, especially from perspectives of people with disabilities and from marginalized races.

Samantha spoke about living with chronic pain and how it helps to have a strong network of people to help care for her. Additionally, overcoming trauma around sex has been helped by polyamorous relationships. It’s been empowering and healing.

Samantha rec’d Ruthanna Emrys’ work - Winter Tide, Deep Roots, etc. about a group of researchers. One of them is Deaf and they all communicate in sign language. When they might have to disband, it’s difficult because they have become family but also they’re losing this capability of communication with one another and source of strength they’ve found with each other.

Nisi mentioned Five Books About Loving Everybody, I believe this post she wrote about books with poly: on tor.com - out of those, the only one she thought was liberating was N. K. Jemisin’s The Obelisk Gate. But Octavia Butler’s Fledgling was about nurturing.

An audience member suggested The Gilda Stories by Jewelle Gomez

Nisi commented “I keep naming all of these black authors... hmmm.... I wonder why.”

Rebecca asked the panelists about poly utopias.

Nisi said Samuel Delany’s Tales of Neveryon is a reverse anthropology - not utopian, but it seemed as if the society was polygamous with one male and multiple females who were closely bonded. It might have been a man owning several women, but it ended up being a bunch of strong women who bring in one man.

Samantha said the most true-to-life stories are not utopias. There are less stories about opening up a relationship that’s already there than stories about people finding one another in the third act.

An audience member suggested Gentleman Jole and the Red Queen by Lois McMaster Bujold - it resonated with them, but they know others who react to it very differently.

Another audience member talked about what makes the characters feel more real to them, what draws them in more is not the world building but the character building.

Last audience rec that I got down was Marge Piercy’s Woman on the Edge of Time.

[This was a fascinating panel with moments that meant a lot to me emotionally and cool stuff I learned more about and lots of recs to check out - thanks panelists!]

#wiscon #wiscon 43 #polyamory #asexuality #found family #ace representation #poly representation

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