One step forward, six steps back (Say Yes to Gay YA)

[pameladean]

sartorias and rachelmanija have an essay up on Genreville (a site well worth the attention of readers of sf and fantasy in general) about sending a collaborative YA fantasy novel to an agent and being told that the agent would represent and expect to sell it if they would just remove a gay viewpoint character, or make the character, at least apparently, heterosexual -- one suggestion was that, should the series the book is part of be a huge hit, the character could be revealed to be gay later on. Ugh.
I am frankly astonished that anybody should have such an experience in 2011, but that just shows my naivete, and my enormous good luck in having an editor who told me that the same-sex relationship in my forthcoming novel was one of the things she liked.
The article is set up so that other authors who have had similar experiences can comment pseudonymously if they like. I am curious but alarmed to see how many more writers have had this happen to them.
Pamela

ETA: The agent not named in the original Genreville post has responded:

http://theswivet.blogspot.com/2011/09/guest-blogger-joanna-stampfel-volpe.html

sartorias and rachelmanija have responded in turn:

http://rachelmanija.livejournal.com/969918.html

And Malinda Lo, who has published YA novels with gay characters, produces some statistics, which demonstrates that really, there is a serious problem here:

http://www.malindalo.com/2011/09/i-have-numbers-stats-on-lgbt-young-adult-books-published-in-the-u-s/

Having known sartorias for the better part of 25 years, and having known rachelmanija for a much shorter but non inconsiderable amount of time, I am inclined to look askance at the agent's version of events.

Comments

[willshetterly.livejournal.com]

You don't think the "So You Want to Be A Wizard" books are YA? If so, they're mid-grade, not adult.

According to the folks on the YA panel I did at Armadillocon, the "fuck" taboo's been thoroughly broken in YA. (When Elsewhere was published, I had to take out a joke with "fuck" in it for the YA hardcover; it went back in for the Tor paperback.) And no one ever complained about the gay guys in Elsewhere having their own room. At least, not that I know.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I did not say, "Nothing of Diane Duane's is YA HA HA SHETTERLY YOU ARE WRONG WIKTORY FOR THE MRISSA." I asked which ones you're talking about. "So You Want to Be A Wizard" series? Fine, that's YA; that's being published as YA even now. I mean, not with as many books per year as I'd like. (More, mooooore!) But YA, yes, indisputably. Are you talking about the gayness of the adult mentors or something else I'm forgetting about this series?

And no, it's not that I was claiming that you couldn't have the word "fuck" in a YA; that one's pretty simple. It's that people conversing about sex...while having sex...and having the conversation with other people who are not having sex? That is a little more complicated than "the word fuck appears in this conversation," and a little harder on a lot of people's comfort levels.

[willshetterly.livejournal.com]

Ah. I'd assumed you were familiar with it. My bad. Yes, the mentors are gay, and are of at least Dumbledore-level importance.

Because, really, I was talking about the Duane books that I thought were YA that have important gay characters.

As for having sex and talking about it, one of the more amusing compliments that I got for Nevernever was from someone saying that the best scene they'd encountered in YA fiction about first-time condom use involved a werewolf. The characters definitely talk about sex while having sex, and though they don't talk to anyone else, everyone in the place knows they're fucking.

[pameladean]

You can't demonstrate unequivocably that Tom and Carl are gay. I assume this to be intentional. I think they are, but it's perfectly possible to read the books as if they are old close friends.

P.

[willshetterly.livejournal.com]

Among the stupider things I do is forget that some people can't read subtext. And others don't read it as well as they think. Dangerous stuff, subtext.

So, yeah, it could be those books shouldn't be on the list of gay fantasy.

[jinian.livejournal.com]

I'm doing a full reread to double-check this very issue right now; most of the way through book 9, I've found no overt reference to Tom and Carl's relationship that doesn't explicitly call it "friends" -- and zero physical contact between them. I was even a bi kid, though granted a very literal one, and it took me until past age 20 to think to myself "heeeey..."

[redbird]

It's not just that some people can't read subtext: it's that some people, some of the time, don't want to notice some of it. Subtext is great for seeing what you're looking for, and overlook what you aren't, or would rather not see. Someone who likes a book, and would prefer not to read about gay characters, is more likely to overlook subtext that indicates that the characters are gay.

A non-YA example: in the Patrick O'Brian books, what is the relationship between the two main characters? Is Stephen Maturin in love with Jack Aubrey, who he often addresses as "my dear"?

[willshetterly.livejournal.com]

I agree with your general point, but I'll quibble with your example: Maturin and Aubrey love women and do not share a home, or even a cabin on voyages. Sure, you could write fanfic in which they sneak off for some quality time, but you'd have to be a mighty fine writer to make that fit with what O'Brien gave us.

Slash with Holmes and Watson is easier; all you have to do is assume Watson is bi or more closeted.

subtext is like that

[redbird]

I don't think Jack and Stephen are lovers, but there are people who read it that way, or as Stephen being in unrequited love with Jack. The point is that people read text, and subtext, differently. The subtext is available there if someone is looking for it, between the ways they address each other and the fact that they do, in fact, share a cabin much of the time (rather than Stephen sleeping in the standard location for a ship's surgeon).

Re: subtext is like that

[willshetterly.livejournal.com]

While readers are going to read what they will into stories, I don't subscribe to the school that says whatever a reader thinks is legit. Crazy readers impose crazy readings and ignorant readers impose ignorant ones. But I also don't think the author's intention is paramount--though I do think it should not be ignored. I guess I think reading subtext is detective work, and you have to be careful that you're not making up clues.

For me, the gay relationship in the Wizard books was so obvious that I remembered it as explicit, I didn't read a gay subtext in the Aubrey/Maturin books (I would've expected a bit of recognition from one or both of them during the scenes where homosexuality comes up), but Holmes/Watson can seem deliberately self-slashing, especially after Reichenbach Falls, when Doyle seems to have said, "Okay, it's obvious what my readers want, so I'll chuck Watson's marriages and write about the odd couple sharing a flat."

[papersky.livejournal.com]

Of course not! O'Brian has gay characters and isn't hesitant about talking about sex, if he'd wanted to write Jack and Stephen as gay he'd have done so on the page.

I very much like to see all kinds of relationships in fiction, and close non-sexual friendship is one of those kinds.

[willshetterly.livejournal.com]

My. I wrote my response before reading yours. We're in agreement.

Emma also has little patience with people who read non-sexual friendships as repressed romances.

[ethelmay.livejournal.com]

For the record, Maturin calls lots of people "my dear" (and "my dear sir" is of course utterly unremarkable).

[dd-b.livejournal.com]

Having a minor, non-viewpoint character who might be gay (or two, in this case) is very different from having a protagonist who has an ongoing relationship with somebody of the same sex during the book. Defining anything beyond some line to be "gay fantasy" doesn't seem useful to me exactly, at least as a basis for our future behavior.

I do see the utility of having some vaguely clear definition to use for counting things already published and coming up with statistics.

[willshetterly.livejournal.com]

I wouldn't say those mentors are minor. Well, unless you think Dumbledore is minor.

Still, my bad. I remembered them as being more clearly out. I completely agree that if this is an issue, the way to respond is to point out the successful writers with prominent unambiguously gay characters.

[(Anonymous)]

"minor" means gets relatively little narrative time and/or point of view compared to MAJOR characters.

"Minor" does not mean "unimportant to the protagonist or the plot."

[willshetterly.livejournal.com]

Because your comment had been screened, my answer is below: http://pameladean.livejournal.com/141554.html?thread=2470642#t2470642

[serialbabbler.livejournal.com]

I didn't read them as being gay and I'm actually not all that bad at figuring out subtext most of the time if I'm in the mood. Of course, as an Asexual, I have no trouble imagining two adult men living together and really just being friends... Certainly I wouldn't have had any trouble imagining that when I was twelve or whatever age I was at when I read the first book in the series.

*Would actually like it if there were more books with no sex in them at all because sex scenes are booooring, but knows that's not bloody likely to happen.*

[ethelmay.livejournal.com]

Diane Duane posted on Usenet a number of years ago to the effect that it was intentional that Tom and Carl's relationship NOT be unequivocally either gay or not gay. http://groups.google.com/group/soc.motss/msg/25c9214646dd8589

> What might be good reasons for
> me _not_ getting too definite on this subject in the books themselves?
> Hint A: Discard what will possibly be the first reason to come to
> mind (i.e. anything to do with potential sales, marketing, or possibly
> being banned anyplace).
> Hint B: I really dislike labels. _Any_ kind. I look forward to the
> day when there will be no need for them any more, and nothing left but
> people for whom it is OK to love other people in ways that do no harm
> to the loved (or others). I much doubt I'll see such a time in this
> lifetime, but it's a goal worth working for.

[pameladean]

Thank you very much for tracking this down.

I'd be happier about it if there were also discernibly gay characters in the series and if there were opposite-sex pairings who were close friends but not romantically involved. Otherwise it seems a bit like people responding to calls to legalize gay marriage by saying marriage shouldn't be the concern of the state. No, it shouldn't, but it is, and a long-term, not-in-one's-lifetime solution is very hard on a lot of people who need to get married, or to read about gay characters, now.

Obviously Diane Duane has written a lot of gay characters elsewhere, certainly more than I have; which once again makes one contemplate a general comparative dearth in YA fantasy, including hers.

P.

[ethelmay.livejournal.com]

Yes: as I've said elsewhere, "I am not especially happy with that authorial decision, given that the rest of her narrative appears to completely accept all the standard heterosexual labels (and also given that hers is a very language-based wizardry system, in which names have power), but I suppose it makes sense to her."