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No really, that is my theory :)
Basically I am increasingly sick of male writers justifying(1) their creepy exploitive objectification of women by the fact they're being "thought provokingly shocking" yet consistently shying away from the slightest whiff of m/m(2) sexuality (especially on the part of their protagonists omg) even when the plot would naturally lead there, and even though it's a really easy way to shock a (typical) audience.
Unlike a lot ofwomen people I don't get any particular kick out of m/m sex scenes or romance, but I've read enough slash that they no longer stick out at me as being any more unusual than any other sort of sex/relationships. And as a result I've begun noticing how glaringly absent they are from mainstream science fiction.
The flip side of this problem, and they seem to pretty much always go hand in hand, is men never being seen as sex objects for women either. Women may be enthusiastic about sex, but the camera/narrator lingers on their body and hotness, or at most has them talking about how totally awesome the main character is.
(Another thing these sorts of stories tend to do, as part of their fairly strict gender hierarchy, is not having anyone who doesn't fit into neat male/female boxes. Also I've avoided talking about representations of f/f sexuality since I think that has a whole different slew of problems)
****WARNING: contains discussion of creepy, deliberately shocking writing. Also spoilers for Dollhouse.******
Some examples:
Iain M Banks (in an interview I found trying to see if anyone else had a problem with his books) said that he didn't write gay characters because "He didn't feel he understood the lifestyle". This from a man who has written cults, aliens, child slave owners, kings of small asian nations, psychopaths and AIs.
There's also a lot of sf which ignores the existence of same sex relationships or people outside the m/f binary etc when creating their premise eg the Lillith's Brood series which assumes that everyone wants to be in a m/f relationship and make babies (and thus when aliens force them into the former and get in the way of the latter it's only the lack of babies they complain about) But this doesn't annoy me anywhere near as much (YMMV).
And in case it's not clear: I do not in principle have a problem with sf which doesn't contain m/m sex or relationships because the plot just doesn't end up needing it. There's never been any in any of my stories, after all. And I don't even have a problem (in principle) with stories which are open about being softcore porn for straight men. But don't pretend that the reason I don't like it is because I'm an easily shocked prude or philistine :P
EDIT: The way sf (and most other fiction) avoids LGBT characters and issues is definitely a problem! I was just trying to avoid people saying "So what you're saying is I HAVE to insert a gay character into EVERY STORY or I'm a homophobe?". That said, nix's comment made me poke at the fact I've never written any gay characters (lesbian and bi, yes. But not gay, or for that matter trans) and I think it is to some extent a result of my heteronormativity, in fact my Enchanted fic falls into EXACTLY the same trap as Lillith's Brood. Hmm.
I thought about giving some examples of sf which doesn't elide m/m sexuality when it comes up as a natural consequence of the plot, but this post is already long enough. I will say that off the top of my head I can't think of any written by a straight man :)
1)In a lot of cases I've read interviews with the author, but you can often just tell that's the mindset. That's certainly what their male fans say if you complain.
2)I was going to say "gay" but that seems unfair to bi etc men.
Basically I am increasingly sick of male writers justifying(1) their creepy exploitive objectification of women by the fact they're being "thought provokingly shocking" yet consistently shying away from the slightest whiff of m/m(2) sexuality (especially on the part of their protagonists omg) even when the plot would naturally lead there, and even though it's a really easy way to shock a (typical) audience.
Unlike a lot of
The flip side of this problem, and they seem to pretty much always go hand in hand, is men never being seen as sex objects for women either. Women may be enthusiastic about sex, but the camera/narrator lingers on their body and hotness, or at most has them talking about how totally awesome the main character is.
(Another thing these sorts of stories tend to do, as part of their fairly strict gender hierarchy, is not having anyone who doesn't fit into neat male/female boxes. Also I've avoided talking about representations of f/f sexuality since I think that has a whole different slew of problems)
****WARNING: contains discussion of creepy, deliberately shocking writing. Also spoilers for Dollhouse.******
Some examples:
- Wanted: the various "uninhibited" bad guys are shown doing "shocking" things, up to and including raping women and having sex with goats (gender unspecified), but nary a whisper of m/m sex. Or in fact, any of the "bad" women doing anything beyond cheerful serial monogamy.
- The works of Iain M Banks (eg The Algebraist). His Culture are in theory this completely free and unselfconsciously fluid and enlightened post scarcity society where everyone changes gender, body type, brain chemistry etc at will. But his plots often seem to revolve around people (mostly men) outside the Culture, or misfits within it, who find themselves drawn to/part of much more sexist, violent, primal societies (ie like ours :)), and it seems to me at least that the reader is expected to be drawn to them too (despite their assumed left liberal, anti sexist etc leanings) While he sometimes writes from a female POV, and several of his male characters have been female at one point or another in their history, from my spotty memory all the (often quite violent) sexualised imagery is of women, and we never see any of his male characters show the slightest signs of attraction to any other men. And the only time I can remember seeing a male character be female "on screen" he was just doing it as a favour to his girlfriend and was still definitely male.
- Dollhouse: The female dolls are shown in skimpy outfits (even when it's impractical), do a lot of often fairly degrading sex work, and are shot in an objectifying way. The male doll is mostly shown doing non-sexual stuff like being a government agent, and in his ONE sexual/romantic engagement (with a fairly attractive woman) he spends most of the time in a suit being all James Bond-ish (I'll admit he was objectified or at least shown semi naked a little, but not a whole lot). Most male prostitution is m/m yet it's existence at the Dollhouse is at most vaguely alluded to. I think the questions of consent the show claims to be exploring would be MUCH more effective if straight male viewers imagined being (consentually!) brainwashed into wanting m/m sex.
Iain M Banks (in an interview I found trying to see if anyone else had a problem with his books) said that he didn't write gay characters because "He didn't feel he understood the lifestyle". This from a man who has written cults, aliens, child slave owners, kings of small asian nations, psychopaths and AIs.
There's also a lot of sf which ignores the existence of same sex relationships or people outside the m/f binary etc when creating their premise eg the Lillith's Brood series which assumes that everyone wants to be in a m/f relationship and make babies (and thus when aliens force them into the former and get in the way of the latter it's only the lack of babies they complain about) But this doesn't annoy me anywhere near as much (YMMV).
And in case it's not clear: I do not in principle have a problem with sf which doesn't contain m/m sex or relationships because the plot just doesn't end up needing it. There's never been any in any of my stories, after all. And I don't even have a problem (in principle) with stories which are open about being softcore porn for straight men. But don't pretend that the reason I don't like it is because I'm an easily shocked prude or philistine :P
EDIT: The way sf (and most other fiction) avoids LGBT characters and issues is definitely a problem! I was just trying to avoid people saying "So what you're saying is I HAVE to insert a gay character into EVERY STORY or I'm a homophobe?". That said, nix's comment made me poke at the fact I've never written any gay characters (lesbian and bi, yes. But not gay, or for that matter trans) and I think it is to some extent a result of my heteronormativity, in fact my Enchanted fic falls into EXACTLY the same trap as Lillith's Brood. Hmm.
I thought about giving some examples of sf which doesn't elide m/m sexuality when it comes up as a natural consequence of the plot, but this post is already long enough. I will say that off the top of my head I can't think of any written by a straight man :)
1)In a lot of cases I've read interviews with the author, but you can often just tell that's the mindset. That's certainly what their male fans say if you complain.
2)I was going to say "gay" but that seems unfair to bi etc men.
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i do. i have the same amount of problem with it as i do with people putting hetsex or het romance into sf when the plot doesn't really need it. and while each individual story only annoys me a little bit (each individual story with unnecessary hets or without queers), it's so common that it ends up PISSING ME OFF. quite a lot.
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But on the other hand (a)While I do think the lack of LGBT characters in sff is a huge problem in general I didn't say so and (b) Editing my post to reflect this I poked at the lack of m/m relationships in my own writing some more than I did the first time and I do think it reflects a heteronormative bias(*), and this is actually a moderately glaring omission from one story (and the lack of consideration of trans and intersex people is actually more significant. And I only just noticed! I suck!).
So thanks for pointing that out and sorry for letting my straight blinkers get in the way. I need to go think about how to edit my story!
(*)It's not that I would never write a m/m relationship, in fact I've been pondering adding one to my current story, but the fact it's "just happened" not to turn up so far in my writing is I think actually pretty significant :/
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i remember reading through trudi canavan's 'black magician' trilogy [spoilers follow] and, even though i was quite annoyed with the main characters, i remember being so amazed that there was a gay (bi?) man in it who actually ended up moderately happy and not dead. he's not a major character, but it was such a relief. and it was really only then that i realised i'd been carrying the expectation around with me that he would end up dead and/or totally miserable, because that's what happens to gay characters!
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I'm straight and it's blatant enough to irritate me. There's been a recent run of "Lesbian romances with happy endings" at
*notices added meaning of this icon in this context*
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ha, and the icon does work particularly ... meaningfully, given the subject. heh.
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It may partly reflect the fact you are mostly interested in and identify with female characters.
Especially because it's important not to assume that any character without an explicitly stated sexuality 'defaults' to heterosexuality.
Also, if you are interested in widening your bases, can I put in a plea for asexuals, who in terms of representation vanish to almost non-existence. Especially so since the Doctor has now been sexualised.
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Specifically, in my Enchanted fic I have Nancy (a modern New Yorker) consider the consequences of a system where any woman can become an all-powerful queen by marrying the prince..yet never mention the possibility of the prince marrying a man (or a princess marrying a woman) One could argue that it wouldn't occur to her, but that doesn't let me off the hook for not thinking of it myself.
However, I can say happily that my Charlotte Lucas is asexual, or at least aromantic. I don't know that it's going to become any more apparent in my fic than it was in Pride and Prejudice, but that's definitely the characterisation in my head.
Also this discussion has reminded me of a Hiro/Ando plot bunny I had a while back which I may get around to writing :)
(*)In fact the only male protagonist I can remember writing ever was the title character of a story I wrote in highschool with the tentative title "The Attack of the Giant Space Potato".