Tuesday, June 23, 2009

The BT bit.

GLBT gets banded about a lot, but in practice when people use it, they tend to mean the gay and lesbian bit of the first two letters. Gay and lesbian literature is doing really well at the moment, such erotica is hot and flies off the shelves. That's excellent, and as it should be. But what about the BT bit? Bi and transgender material is not so visible, or so successful.

Part of the problem with bisexual and transgender is there are a lot of people who have trouble getting their heads round it. The view that if you aren't committed to being either straight or gay, its a lack of something on your part and not really a proper way of being. People who see transgender as meaning you can't cope with your gender perferences. There's all kinds of issues.

Oscar Wilde was married and children. There's a longstanding tradition of lavender marriages, to protect gay and lesbian people whose cultures will not tolerate them being out. Some people take a while figuring out their preferences as well, just to further complicate things. I like complicated stories, so more simplistic boy meets boy naratives don't always do it for me.

How important is it in an m/m story for both of the guys involved to be entirely gay? I've recently edited Dalia Craig's 'Hold me Tight' which is a threesome story with some hot gay sex in it. But it's not m/m, is it? In my own writing, I faced this dilema with 'Teacher's Pet' where one of the characters is a married polyamorous bisexual. But, to try and keep things straightforward, the only sexual content in the story is man on man. I've also explored the edges of transgender with 'Sweet Illusions', although again the sex there is very clearly m/m.

I'd like to see more bisexual and transgender writing. I think that would be fun. But then, I'm into people rather than any specific gender combination. I like all the possibilities!

You can pick up my stories from www.lvoeyoudivine.com and Dalia Craig's will be there soon too.

1 comments:

Elle Parker said...

I'm with you on this - Personally, I'm a little more flexible in my orientation, and I like to read about other people who are. It feels realistic to me because I know what I've gone through to come to terms with my own preferences. I think it can add an interesting element to a story, and I like the contract of an older, experienced person learning all new ways of engaging with another person and feeling a bit like a teenager.


Elle Parker
http://elleparkerbooks.blogspot.com/

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