So there's been yet another kerfuffle in the m/m community about this post over Dirty Discourse (warning for some NSFW images attached thereto). The post was entitled ‘Gay Men Are Not Collectables’ and in it the anonymous author talks about how uncomfortable the m/m community makes him feel. In ... Read more »
identity politics
you must be at least this tall
Somewhat naively I’m going to start this post by saying it’s going to be quite short because my current intent is to make a couple of brief points about something that mildly irritates me. It will, of course, inevitably wind up as a long, rambling essay full of pointless digressions and spurious ... Read more »
on censorship
So, yet again, the attention of the romance community has been drawn to book that a lot of people think is really, hugely offensive. As always, large segments of the internet have responded to people saying they are offended by something with claims that the people who are saying they are offended ... Read more »
inclusive spaces: ur doin’ it rong
So there’s been a flood of photos on Twitter and Fb from the UK LGBTQ Fiction Meet dinner and an awful lot of them seem to include, well, naked dudes. I have several things I want to say on this subject but they all basically boil down to the title of this post. First off, let’s be clear that I ... Read more »
laws, sausages & the RITAs
So you might have noticed that there’s been some controversy recently over the RITA nomination of Kate Breslin’s For Such a Time. For those who haven’t followed the discussion, the story is a re-telling of The Book of Esther in which, in short, a Jewish woman in Theresienstadt, falls in love with ... Read more »
reviews, ratings and issues of identity
So I’ve noticed something recently that’s been troubling me. And yes, this is going to be one of those posts. A recent trend that I am overall pleased about is an increasing diversity in queer romance. We’re seeing more stories featuring protagonist who are trans*, asexual, genderqueer or ... Read more »
Preferences, sexual and otherwise
I’ve just read this post by Heidi Cullinan on the subject of writing about socially marginalised communities. As ever, there are things here I agree with, but there are also a number that I disagree with quite strongly. I should probably say from the outset this isn’t really about Cullinan and I ... Read more »
The rest is drag
As usual I’m going to start by linking to someone else’s post and saying I mostly agree with it before going off on a random and largely unrelated tangent. The post in question is this one by E.E. Ottoman. It touches on a lot of complex issues so it’s quite difficult to summarise but broadly it’s ... Read more »