Pissed off at homophobia!

[stormkeeper_lovesall]

So I just finished reading the amazing fifth book in Juliet Marillier's spell-binding Sevenwaters series. Like the fourth book in the series, two of the minor characters are two men who are in a relationship with each other. I loved the way Marillier wrote them, and I decided to peruse goodreads.com to see if others love the Sevenwaters series as much as I do.

Wtf at the homophobia on there?!? Several people complained that there was a same-sex couple in the series. One said it's not historically accurate (because gay people apparently only came into existence within the last 30 years?), one said the author must've been compelled to do it by the "pro-gay trend".

Even if you're a total homophobe, the relationship between the two men was definitely in the background of the novel. They don't so much as kiss "on camera"!

Is Goodreads dominated by 'phobic nut jobs?? I mean, I know homophobia exists but maybe I expect better from fans of fantasy novels.

Maybe I've been coddled by the same-sex-lovingness that is X-men First Class fandom.

Comments

[shar-bernadotte.livejournal.com]

Sounds like YouTube comments. Specifically, on the Lion King: Be Prepared...omg that was TOTALLY inspired by the nazis...mhmm yep. WTF??? Seriously people, seriously?

I was not even really aware of homosexuality, or any stigma surrounding it, until I stumbled across Lord of the Rings fanfiction. Even though I grew up in church I still formed my own opinions about things. And 'fuck you' to everyone who gets on their bloody soapbox about nonsense like that, if you do not like it, don't fucking read it. Unless it is just there for shock value or whathaveyou, then I can see being opposed to it. I hated the book 'Orcs' by Stan Nicholls for similar reasons.

Holy mother of satan....rant off.

[stormkpr.livejournal.com]

Keep ranting - I'm right there with you.

Though if you have time, I'd be interested in hearing more about how you first heard about homosexuality (LOTR?) and growing up in the church and if you thought it was weird at all.

If you have time. I had a killer day at work and am signing off and going to bed now.

[shar-bernadotte.livejournal.com]

Lol. G'nite, sleep tight, don't let the....nevermind...

So...LotR came out when I was...ten/eleven. I didn't really go searching online for it until the second movie, so I was probably twelve the first time I was introduced to 'slash' a Legolas/Lurtz by Morgana. Scary thought, that is, how old I was. Amazing the strangeness you can stumble upon online by accident. I have just kept with it since. Never really got into porn, but I love erotica.

Never told my parents about any of that. My dad would probably kill me, my mum...who knows. She'd probably just give me that disappointed look that I do so hate.

Strange thing is, I never really thought about it in terms of real life until I moved to AZ. Then I started learning all sorts of strange things. Fell in love with a girl at the church I was going to, kissed her in the bathroom at church(how kinky is that?). Then she was forbidden to speak to me because her mother was under the impression that I was evil because I dressed modestly in black. Brilliant that lady was. I didn't dress like a two bit hooker like half the popular girls at that church but because I wore black...OOOO...she's so evil. Bitch... Met a boy after that. Still miss him. Still miss her. Meh.

Hmmm...can't say I ever felt it was weird, per se, but I knew it was frowned upon so I never brought it up to any of my family. But then again, we are all so screwed up I hardly think they have any right to give me 'the look' for writing strange things like I do. And I haven't even written some of the strangest things that I have come across just in my family. TMI follows--I got my bondage kink from my brothers...So yeah...

I'm just rambling now, aren't I?

I probably should stick to fanfiction late at night...somehow it usually manages to be more coherent than I am...

[stormkpr.livejournal.com]

Actually, I thought all of this was very interesting. Thank you for sharing it.

[sugar-fey.livejournal.com]

I don't frequent Goodreads a lot, but there were a lot of reviews for Malinda Lo's 'Ash,' which is a lesbian retelling of Cinderella, saying "How dare they make a straight fairy tale gay????? And how dare they not say it's a gay book on the cover? I started reading this and then half way through I found out it was a gay book and OMG how can they expect me, a Straight Person, to read about gay people ew ew ew AND I'M TOTALLY NOT HOMOPHOBIC, OKAY."

*seethes*

All the 'GLBT trend' comments are a huge pet peeve for me. It's as annoying as the men who make threesome comments straight away when they find out I'm bisexual. BISEXUAL WOMEN DO NOT EXIST TO FULFIL MALE FETISHES, YOU MORONS.

Okay, I need to calm down now.

Incidentally, if you're looking for fantasy with lesbian protagonists, then 'Ash' and 'Huntress' by Malinda Lo are really good. I wish there had been books like them published when I was a teenager and coming to terms with my sexuality.

[shar-bernadotte.livejournal.com]

I think the appropriate responce to that 'not homophobic' person is 'Let the buyer beware'. What a douche.

I concur about bisexual women. Men can be such idiots, but I feel for them. Two brains and only enough blood to run one...shame, what a shame. Ah well, I still love them, some of them anyways.

This is why I quit reading reviews online as well as youtube comments. Too many strange people with a soapbox.

[stormkpr.livejournal.com]

don't frequent Goodreads a lot, but there were a lot of reviews for Malinda Lo's 'Ash,' which is a lesbian retelling of Cinderella, saying "How dare they make a straight fairy tale gay????? And how dare they not say it's a gay book on the cover? I started reading this and then half way through I found out it was a gay book and OMG how can they expect me, a Straight Person, to read about gay people ew ew ew AND I'M TOTALLY NOT HOMOPHOBIC, OKAY."


This attitude just mystifies me. I mean, I read about straight people all the time and I don't go 'ew gross, how dare they force me to read about someone with a different orientation than mine??'

[rhoda-rants.livejournal.com]

"It's as annoying as the men who make threesome comments straight away when they find out I'm bisexual. BISEXUAL WOMEN DO NOT EXIST TO FULFIL MALE FETISHES, YOU MORONS."

THANK YOU. I also looove getting the opportunity to explain the difference between bisexual and polyamorous over and over and over....

[denisia.livejournal.com]

Ugh. :(

Have you seen Shelfari? It's an alternative to Goodreads. I'm biased because I have an author page there (and I didn't create it; I just edited it when i saw it was there) but it seems to be a friendly place.

http://www.shelfari.com/

[stormkpr.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the link - I will check it out!

[denisia.livejournal.com]

Random completely unrelated question...in X-Men FC is Magneto a Holocaust survivor??? I was talking with a tour today and when we got to the discussion about Auschwitz tatoos, one of the boys said 'oh, like in Xmen...' and then went on to tell me that Magneto had one. Really??

[shar-bernadotte.livejournal.com]

If you are talking the numbers on the left arm, yes. Magneto had one. You can see it in XMFC, in the pub in Argentina. Erik shows his arm to two apparent Nazis before killing them. And you can see it in XM Last Stand, when Magneto is confronted by the younger mutants at a mutants rights rally. They ask him where his 'mark' is if he is so proud to be a mutant and he shows them the numbers.

[denisia.livejournal.com]

oh wow. I had no idea...do you know if that is comics canon too? Thanks for letting me know. Auschwitz was the only camp that tattooed so it meant he went thru there.

[shar-bernadotte.livejournal.com]

I have not a clue about comic canon. Too many of those that I never bothered with them.

And you are welcome.

[stormkpr.livejournal.com]

I don't know about comic canon either. I thought I heard once that in comic canon he is *not* a Holocaust survivor, but I could be wrong.

[denisia.livejournal.com]

I was at work so I couldn't check, but I looked it up on the Marvel site when I got home...yup, he was a Holocaust survivor--Sonderkommando at Auschwitz--and the bio says that his fear of another Holocaust against mutants motivates a lot of what he's done...

http://marvel.com/universe/Magneto_%28Max_Eisenhardt%29

[stormkpr.livejournal.com]

The movies did a great job of bringing this out. They made it clear that he fights because he fears that mutants will end up in concentration camps, basically.

Some might argue that the movies have painted him quite sympathetically in that way. On the other hand, it's good to have a "bad guy" who has legit reasons for his actions.

[denisia.livejournal.com]

It really gives the character a lot more dimension, and I agree with the latter argument: I think it's great. It's way too common for films/books/etc. to paint villains as one-dimensional characters, ie, they do bad things because they're evil, and that's that. It's a lot more realistic to show the background that motivates characters to behave as they do. Magneto's motivations make a lot of sense, in the light of what he's been through.

[stormkpr.livejournal.com]

I've always liked that the X-men have had multi-dimensional bad guys. Even though I'm mainly a fan of the X-men, I have to admit the bad guys are intriguing. With Azazel and Riptide, they have so little screen time that we don't know why they align themselves with Shaw and then Magneto, but I've spent a lot of time and fanfic speculating on that (as opposed to why they aren't on the X-men's side).

Also in First Class, we see three X-men choose to go over to the 'bad side' (Mystique and Angel, in addition to Magneto) so again the viewer gets to easily see what could motivate a mutant to do that.

[denisia.livejournal.com]

Are you talking about the female Angel? I know that in the comics, (boy) Angel has been caught up and turned evil on a bunch of different occasions...

For all of the heartbreaking things Marvel has done (*cough* destroying Power Pack and killing off beloved characters) it's a credit to their writers that they've always been able to create such richly textured characters, both with the heroes and the villains. There's such a crossover between the two, as well. At the same time when the bad guys do horrible things, well, they're shown as being horrible...so it's not as though Marvel's justifying bad actions; they're just showing the viewer/reader all of the things that make those characters tick.

[stormkpr.livejournal.com]

You said it exactly!

And yes, I meant female Angel.

[megan-moonlight.livejournal.com]

A lot of people being close-minded (and not only about homosexuality) is a reason why I rarely visit goodreads.

For recs and stuff like that I ask my friends. General sites everybody visits are sometimes full of people with different opinions and all, but sometimes reading these opinions really makes me angry, so I stay away.

[stormkpr.livejournal.com]

It is true, comments you see on most websites can get pretty ugly. I guess the anon-ness of the internet has always brought out the worst in people.

[zodarzone.livejournal.com]

I think you've nailed it, people feel more free to be the jerks they are when they can do it without having any consequences.

I didn't really hear any complaints about Appolo and Midnighter in the Authority being gay when that first started, but I wasn't paying too much attention to the internet at the time. Professionals were more keyed up by the level of violence and drug use in the series, but typically applauded the gay relationship aspect.

[megan-moonlight.livejournal.com]

That's what I noticed about the reviews of The Authority, too. But now that I think about it, even if there were comments on violence and gore in the series, and even the comments about Apollo and Midnighter's relationship people still rated it very high even if they didn't like some parts (because not every negative comment is bashing). But I can only talk about the sites I've been visiting, don't know about the others.

I think it really depends on the people.

[maddiec24.livejournal.com]

I generally try not to read comments anywhere, whether it's youtube, news stories, whatever, because some religious and/or homophobic nut is going to comment, and can somehow twist anything to prove their "point". I had to stop reading them, because they just piss me off. And yeah, it's jolting sometimes, because all my fandoms have been about slash. You can forget everyone's not tolerant. You would think, living in Georgia, and right down the street from a homophobic church, I *wouldn't*.

[stormkpr.livejournal.com]

Good point...in fact, I guess that's one great thing about fandom in general. We seem to be more accepting than elsewhere.

[shar-bernadotte.livejournal.com]

I have never been to a church like that. Every church I went to growing up, it seemed to be a point of pride to have a 'gay friend'. It pissed me off because the 'friend' was always referred to as 'my gay friend'. Who gives a damn about their sexuality?

[furousha.livejournal.com]

lols, not historically accurate. I think same sex couples have always been around, have they not? I'll never get homophobia, it's not like the people outside of the relationship have to participate, so why should they care. I'm the "hey, as long as you're happy, it's all cool" type of girl. :)

[stormkpr.livejournal.com]

Amen!

[nytshd3.livejournal.com]

that's really obnoxious. i'll be honest, i never ever read reviews on goodreads. i like the recommendations feature and that i can keep track of what i'm reading and see what some friends are reading and stuff. but, well, its kinda like my recent post. people are so hatey and negative. plus, really, it's hard to take most reviews seriously. was it written by someone i might get along with? was it written by a friend of the author? an enemy of the author? someone who just has a wholly different worldview than i do? someone who has a kneejerk reaction to certain things? someone whose idea of great literature involves a female lead who spends half the book complaining about the size of her thighs? i'm reading a book now that i bet has a buttload of negative reviews because of its controversial nature.

i think if you were an author, online reviews would be a great way to torture yourself.

[stormkpr.livejournal.com]

i think if you were an author, online reviews would be a great way to torture yourself.

seriously. if i were a published author, i'd have to avoid them studiously.

[rhoda-rants.livejournal.com]

Oy. >__<

How dare a five-book series with I don't even know how many characters have all of ONE homosexual couple in the entire cast? Jeeez. The nerve of them nutty liberal author types!

Just one thing I'll say about fandom though, in opposition to "real" books: Although it's more tolerant of alternate sexualities and orientations generally, I think a lot of people read it to fulfill a certain fantasy or fetish. In other words, they don't take it seriously. A good chunk of the slash pairings you see in fanfic aren't canonical. If the author, who's somewhere out there writing real fiction, putting work on real shelves, for real people to see and be "corrupted" by--it becomes a whole 'nother ballgame.

Example: Harry Potter. How many crack pairings has that fandom cranked out over the years? And how many people flipped the hell out when JK outed Dumbledore? You do the math. It ain't pretty.

Just sayin'.

That people are dirty, dirty hypocrites and need to get over themselves and grow the hell up.

[stormkpr.livejournal.com]

Example: Harry Potter. How many crack pairings has that fandom cranked out over the years? And how many people flipped the hell out when JK outed Dumbledore? You do the math. It ain't pretty.

So true. It sucks, but it's true and you really hit the nail on the head.

[rhoda-rants.livejournal.com]

Yeah. The divergence between those two mindsets broke my brain a LOT before I figured that out. It still sucks, but understanding how that bizarro logic works puts it into perspective at least.

(I will say I'm even more anxious to read the rest of the Sevenwaters series now!)

[stormkpr.livejournal.com]

I really am dying to hear what you think of them! Been prowling the internet, apparently there's some spirited debate regarding her works. I won't get into it here so as to avoid spoilers.