Gay YA
LGBTQ characters in YA fiction & LGBTQ YA Authors
Gomorrahs of the Deep, a Musical Coming Some Day to Off-Broadway Part 3!
Jun 12th
We are happy to bring you the third and final part of Gomorrahs of the Deep, a Musical Coming Some Day to Off-Broadway by Steve Berman, a gay musical short story from his upcoming anthology. Missed Part 2? Catch up here: http://www.gayya.org/?p=289
“Where did you get the guitar,” Hugh asked when he saw me sitting in the front row in English. For the first, and last, time.
“I borrowed it from the music department.”
He smiled. “Do you even know how to play?”
“No, that’s why I borrowed a guitarist, too.” I waved toward Casey, who also cut class for a noble effort. “She owns every one of the Guitar Heroes.”
When Mr. Shimel called Hugh to come up to the front of the class and begin his presentation, I followed.
“It’s a duet,” I told the heavy-set teacher.
Hugh cleared his throat.
Ships are like prisons don’t you know
men kept with other men on decks below.
Melville knew this from his life at sea,
he found homosexuality.
Let me tell you about the Gomorrohs of the deep.
Let me tell you about the Gomorrohs of the deep.
Proof’s in Moby Dick, his most famous book.
Never were sailors so damn tight. Take a look.
Tracy Borland giggled, starting a slight infection that spread to the students around her. In response, I threaded my fingers between Hugh’s to hold his hand tight. Then I pressed against Hugh, as if spooning him (which would happen tonight) as I sang the next verse.
Think of that savage islander Queequeg.
In bed he harpooned Ishmael’s pant leg.
What about that chapter where they all squeeze
out lumps of whale gunk, isn’t that just a tease
Brian Coleman’s wide mouth stopped masticating a lump of pinkish gum.
Hugh smiled.
To boys like me, who search each book each day
for characters like me, proud to be gay.
Derek Fiesler grunted out “No way…” so it was only fair that I winked at him. His face flushed and he looked away.
Ships are like prisons don’t you know
men kept with other men on decks below.
Melville knew this from his life at sea,
he found homosexuality.
Let me tell you about the Gomorrohs of the deep.
Let me tell you about the Gomorrohs of the deep.
Melville wed, had a wife, that much is true.
But his real love was Hawthorne, a dude—
yes, that man who gave us The Scarlet Letter—
Melville’s heart ached to know much better.
Before you say foul at what we have found
step wise and meet us on some common ground.
You, like us, like Melville, want only bliss
and that’s why boys, when they want, should kiss.
In the moment of silence that followed, we kissed, right there, in front of the entire class. A kiss that lasted several moments as Casey geniused a guitar solo. I’d like to think we earned the B+ for that alone.
This story is © 2011 by Steve Berman (http://www.steveberman.com). This is a work of fiction, as are all characters portrayed in this story. Please do not copy without permission of the author.
Giving Back to LGBT and Ally Teens
Jun 8th
I know what it’s like trying to find a scholarship that really fits who you are. It seems they want a little more of this or a little more of that. Well, I decided to start my own scholarship and hopefully there will be people out there that realize this is them. It’s very informal and that means you will be applying for a scholarship with an amount you aren’t sure about. To help make it easier, it will be at least $200 which I will pay if we don’t raise enough money.
Now…raise money? What’s that mean? I’m going to set up a month long series of auctions in order to raise the minimum, but hopefully more. This will take place during November of 2011. We’re obviously more than happy to take any donations…so if you want to help us raise money, get in touch. At the end of November, you must have applied to the scholarship and then the judging begins. I’ll narrow the entries down to just a few or so and then hopefully enlist some people to help me out in choosing the ONE winner.
If you don’t think this scholarship is for you, it would still mean the world to me if you would spread the word. We want to find a deserving person. This person must live in the 48 continental United States, be between 15 and 19 years old, identify as LGBT or an ALLY and are working to make sure everybody is accepted…and not just tolerated. After all, the scholarship is called Living Beyond Tolerance. You can apply now until the end of November. To learn how to do so (and for full details of the scholarship) go here: www.bridgethegapx.blogspot.com
I run the blog, Let’s Get Beyond Tolerance, and it was through this that I decided to set up a scholarship. I want it to make a difference for someone. All they have to do is promise to use it for education of some sort…but that could be a variety of things!
In order to raise awareness for the scholarship and auctions, I’m hosting an LGBT Book Summer giveaway. Just go here: www.letsgetbeyondtolerance.blogspot.com to learn more on how to enter. This is open to everyone, not just those who are eligible to earn the scholarship.
So help us make a difference in someone’s life, whether that someone is you…someone you know…or someone you’ve never heard of but that is doing something wonderful in their life. Spread the word, apply for the scholarship, enter the giveaway, and live beyond tolerance.
-Lauren Becker
The Persistence and Power of Labels
Jun 7th
Lately I’ve been listening to a lot of Jessie J, particularly one song from her debut album, titled “Who You Are”. We appear to be living in an age of anthemic songs about “loving who you are” from pop divas, gay icons at their finest: Katy Perry with “Firework”, my beloved Mama Monster Lady Gaga with “Born This Way”, and this smaller, more intimate offering from my new favourite, Jessie J, a queer English singer-songwriter. My fresh-faced, musical snob 18-year-old self would be appalled by the amount of commercial pop I’ve been listening to ever since I left the yeasty, beer-stained dorm halls of my former glam-punk princess self behind, and she would be especially appalled by the fact that I am finding meaning–of all things!–in the lyrics of such saccharine bubblegum tripe. She would scream at me to resist mainstream stupidity and write POSEUR all over my face and arms in black biro pen while I slept, painting an Aladdin Sane lightning bolt over her eye while hugging her Libertines and Clash records to her chest.
The truth is, I’ve always had a soft spot for dancehall pop, the sort of relentlessly manufactured easy listening perfect for dancing the night away with my best fags in NYC’s gay clubs as well as pounding out a few miles on the pavement. (Funny how my Gay Clubbing playlist and my Workout playlist are remarkably similar.) But at 18, I wasn’t allowed to admit this, because I was a biracial, bisexual glam-punk princess, and biracial, bisexual glam-punk princesses weren’t supposed to listen to commercial music. Pop music was the antithesis of actual musicianship because it was soulless, or so I believed. I thought that declaring my 18-year-old self like a college major was the culmination of a lifetime of striving for authenticity.
I grew up in very privileged southern California neighborhood, where I attended small private schools for the majority of my primary school education. By small I mean small–there were 36 of us in my graduating junior high school class, and the majority of us had gone to school together since kindergarten. In some ways, this intimacy was very freeing; I was never pigeonholed into any sort of label by my peers (it’s hard to when you’ve literally grown up with your classmates) and therefore never felt any pressure to conform to someone else’s idea of me. But in the absence of someone else’s preconceived notions, I had to form my own, and there behind all the uniforms and dress codes, I was constantly questioning and refining and searching for my “authentic” self.
High school, of course, is a horse of another color, and my particular horse was of a very rare and unfamiliar hue. I went to an all-girls prep school, where social hierarchy and social labels were considered moot. In the absence of labels, I had many different identities, but didn’t have others like me to direct me, to form an entity against which I could hone my thoughts, feelings, and emotions. In many ways, I graduated high school without having a clue as to who I was: as an Asian girl, as a white girl, as a girl with a boyfriend whom she didn’t like to f*ck, as anything other than the amorphous idea of “JJ”-ness that I was still in the process of defining.
Perhaps it was the reason that when I got to college, I became AS LOUD AS POSSIBLE. In nearly every way. The label didn’t matter as long as I wore it with conviction. But to wear a label with conviction, one has to have confidence in it. And I didn’t have confidence in nearly anything about me. Why couldn’t I make friends with other Asian kids? Why wasn’t I good at math or science? Why, as a “straight” girl, did I find myself attracted to other women?
I made peace with my Asian-ness (or lack thereof) fairly quickly, but being bisexual was a label in which I had little to no confidence. The problem was I had no idea what being bisexual meant. Oh I could recite the textbook definition to anyone who asked, but “bisexuality” came with a lot of baggage. I had a lot of lesbian friends who doubted my queerness because I “acted too straight”. I had a lot of straight friends who seemed to think I was going through a phase. I had a lot of gay friends who claimed that sexuality was always fluid when plied with a little alcohol. There were still others who claimed that I wasn’t a “real” bisexual because I had never been in a relationship with a woman in my life. (To be fair, I hadn’t really been in a relationship with a man either.) And that bias against me has never gone away, especially as I’ve been in a 5-year relationship with a man whom I love very dearly. The other remark I often hear–not from Bear, thankfully–is that I’ll inevitably dump my boyfriend because I, a bisexual, just “can’t make up [my] mind”. In the words of Jessie J, “I’ve forgotten how to fit the mold”, mostly because I don’t understand it.
There persists a myth in our collective social conscience: that to name something or to know someone’s true name was to have power over him or her. I thought that if I could just find my sexuality’s true name, I could finally stop refining and defining that part of myself. I thought that I could finally be brave and true to myself, that I would suddenly find it easy to step into the “B” letter of LGBTQ. In all honesty, that hasn’t been the case.
Being true to who I am is in some ways easy; it’s living truthfully that’s hard. To live each day with conscious conviction, to know that I am a girl who happens to like both boys and girls, and who happens to be in love with a boy right now, and will perhaps be forever?
Living and writing the truth is always hard. How often have I read representations of bisexuality in YA as a convenient stop on the way to heterosexual happiness? Or complete gay happiness? Or complete lesbian happiness? Bisexuality as a sexuality isn’t just a pit-stop on a sliding scale of gayness; it is a valid identity on its own. Because “gay”, “straight”, “lesbian”, “bi” are labels to describe an identity, but the identity is what each person makes of it. Identities and labels are useful in YA, and I think it would have helped me form my own ideas about my sexuality had it been around when I was a teen, but behind the label there is always a three-dimensional person. One who wears many labels.
S. Jae-Jones (called JJ) is an avid skydiver, an editorial assistant at St. Martin’s Press, and an aspiring writer. Visit her at http://sjaejones.com/
When Darkness Falls
Jun 6th
A little explosion happened on the Internet this weekend when Meghan Cox Gurdon, writing for The Wall Street Journal, took aim at contemporary young adult literature for what she saw as too much gruesomeness, violence, and “darkness,” which defies specificity so much as to be next to meaningless. I’d like to unpack some of what was offered by Ms. Gurdon and respond. And because I was gearing up to write about mentors in gay YA before her article came out, I’ll try to include a bit of that here, too.
- The world is significantly different in 2011 than it was in 1971—Forgive the understatement, but pointing to books like Are You There God, It’s Me, Margaret as standard bearers for what YA literature should be today is the ultimate in naivete. Isn’t part of the point of YA as a genre to connect to where young adult readers are now? I’d love for this generation to read old Judy Blume, Paula Danziger, and Lois Duncan books, but honestly, I’d rather they just read voraciously, and I wish Ms. Gurdon prioritized this too.
- Young adult audiences have been reading dark, morbid, haunting, violent narratives for decades—Insisting that any one genre could be responsible for teenage behavior is to misread the autonomy that young readers have and underestimate their capacity to absorb material without internalizing it. I for one read a lot of Stephen King, who is almost never described as an author of “light” material, and I had a lot of peers who, back in the day, devoured his work, as well as Peter Straub’s, Dean Koontz’s, and countless other horror writers’ work. Pointing a spotlight on the YA genre is only possible because there is a YA genre. So everything else is off the hook for the messages that may be contained therein?
- Speaking of which, young readers are capable of reading anything, whether it’s called YA or not—To suggest that it’s only YA writers and books who are beholden to a narrow frame on topics, violence, gore, and mood, well, that’s a strange line to draw in the sand. Sure, movies, music, and video games have their age-designated hierarchies, but is that a good idea and does it really work to protect young consumers? I’m ready to walk away from the concept that kids are only ready to expand their content horizons when they’ve reached certain ages. Every individual is different, n’est-ce pas?
- Focusing on some elements of a book as negative erases the parts that are positive, and ignores the overall messages that are present—The Hunger Games, which Ms. Gurdon dismisses as “hyper-violent,” is a meditation on war and the trauma it causes children. How would an author pick apart war, death, and loss without violence? In trying to envision a non-grotesque way to handle such heavy topics as incest, abuse, and international conflict, I’m drawing a blank. Either we make a space for controversial and taboo subjects in all of literature—including YA—or we burrow our heads in the proverbial blinding sand. Katniss has her mentors and supporters and learns she can find strength in a morose, chaotic world. Even Harry Potter himself learns (again and again) to trust his elders (tip of the hat to Dumbledore!) and friends, as each book in J.K. Rowling’s series gets darker and darker.
- There are plenty of YA books that are humorous, fun, or “light” on the market—Pretty Little Liars, anyone?Any of Percy Jackson’s adventures? YA novels cover the gamut of topics, tone, characters, settings, eras, and so on. Readers who don’t want to read about gaybashing—not everyone does, certainly—need only choose another book. I’m sure I’m in good company in resisting what looks like a call for censorship at the book procurement level.
- Reading should be about pushing boundaries, learning about faraway lands and new concepts, and enjoying a good story—It is entirely too huge an assumption to state that reading about specific behaviors or choices “normalizes them.” Ms. Gurdon uses the example of cutting, self-injury some partake in to get a rush or release tension. If we could point our magic wands at every book with cutting in it, would that decrease the incidence among today’s youth? I presume they could also learn about it on the Internet, in texts from their classmates, on Facebook chats, etc. Wouldn’t reading about it in a context of character and that character’s decisions be less problematic, not more? With such free-flowing information swirling around all of us today, there is little to nothing that young adults won’t hear about.
I’m glad WSJ ran this article, honestly, because to see the outpouring of support for YA authors and readers was heartening. Those of us dedicated to producing the best written stories for young readers are a tough lot.
Must be all those scary novels I read as a kid.
Gomorrahs of the Deep, a Musical Coming Some Day to Off-Broadway Part 2!
Jun 5th
We are happy to bring you Part Two of Gomorrahs of the Deep, a Musical Coming Some Day to Off-Broadway by Steve Berman, a gay musical short story from his upcoming anthology. Missed Part 1? Catch up here.
The next day, during lunch, my best friend Casey lowered her vintage cats eye glasses further down her nose before poking me with a french fry. “You look like someone took away your pixie sticks and your parents blocked Bravo.”
“I had a fight with Hugh.”
She dipped the offending fry into a puddle of mayonnaise kept by a napkin on her lunch tray. “Not ‘we had a fight.’ So you admit this was all your fault?”
“Did not!”
“Well what weren’t you solely guilty of offending him with?”
“He wants to give a presentation in Shimel’s class. On how gay Melville is.”
“What’s wrong with that?”
“It’s crazy. Capital ‘C’ crazy. The kids will tear him apart.”
Casey rolled her eyes. “Please. You know how much of the assigned reading has gay sub-text staring between the lines? We’re all used to it by now.” She nudged Sharon sitting beside her, causing her to spill some of her milk down her chin. “Right? Some of us like reading about all that boy-smooching.”
She stood up on the bench.
If you squint real hard you’ll actually see
great works of literature don’t shy from sodomy.
My eyebrows rose. I glanced around but the rest of the cafeteria seemed ignorant that a senior wearing thrift store chic was singing in their midst. They only cared about their greasy carbs or wilted salads.
It’s all subtext I’ll have you know,
of boys wanting to find some beau.
Read ‘tween the lines if you don’t believe me.
Then Sharon and the other girls sitting at our table lifted their lunch trays over their heads, swiveled around and swayed.
And we girls, how we love to think of those guys
stranded on the beach in Lord of the Flies,
waiting for fair-haired Ralph to conquer his Jack,
while the choir boys ‘round them didn’t hold back.
Casey kicked away a foil-wrapped burger.
Think fan-fic is only recently?
I’d wager folk in 16th century
wanted that hunk Romeo
to dump Juliet for Mercutio.
Read ‘tween the lines if you don’t believe me.
And we girls, how we love our gamecock.
That Watson adored his roomie Sherlock.
Sure Doyle gave the good doctor a wife.
But we all know Holmes was his fantasy life.
Casey leaned down and offered me a hand to step up onto the table. I shook my head no, so she grabbed my arm and pulled me up with surprising verve.
Mark Twain’s books aren’t immune to such gaiety.
Or did you miss the crossdressin’ Huckleberry?
Running off with his Jim
for reasons not so prim.
Read ‘tween the lines if you don’t believe me.
“You’re crazy,” I said. And looked down to see I had stepped in mac n’ cheese. My poor Converses. Dairy and canvas don’t match.
After cleaning off in the bathroom, I was a bit late to Algebra. Ms. Benress turned from the blackboard, already marked up with problems galore, to give me the stink-eye as I took my seat.
I began copying xs and ys in my notebook. Why anyone would ever want to add such two different numbers was beyond me. Xs were… well, like me. A bit naughty by nature (you never see moonshine jugs with YYY on them or hope to see a Y-rated movie). Xs were complicated. Like an intersection or a crossroads. But passionate, especially with Os. But Hugh was totally a Y. Always wondering about things. Y this? Y that? And yet… you couldn’t spell so many wonderful words without Y. Dearly. Sweetly. Smartly. Yummy needed two.
Ms. Benress asked the class who would like to solve the latest equation she chalked on to the board. Hands went up. Not mine. Yes still she called on me. I groaned and slid out from behind my desk.
But my mind wasn’t even attempting to do the algebra. Instead, it put words to the patter of my feet, the tapping of someone’s pencil, even the ticking of the old clock on the wall.
Answers aren’t ever easy,
not when you’re unsure your right.
Not when you love him dearly,
perhaps I’m just too uptight?
“The Xs and Ys please,” Ms. Benress said.
X marks the spot of my heart.
Only one boy has the map.
If singing keeps us apart,
I’ll end up feeling like crap.
How does he ever love me
when I only question Y?
What I’ve done, what misery.
Who wants to say goodbye?
I drop the chalk, I turned from the board and headed out the door. I knew that Hugh would be eating lunch and headed back towards the cafeteria.
A hall monitor looked up from the paperback book he read. He held up a hand to bar me from going further.
Please let me make amends now.
I’ll risk two days detention,
to tell him my solemn vow.
Please I need his attention.
The monitor sniffed at a coming tea and nodded his assent.
I ran down to the cafeteria doors, pushed them open and…
…everyone but Hugh in fifth period lunch stared at me. Not Hugh because he wasn’t there.
“Sorry,” I muttered.
I waited for him by his locker as the bell rang.
He offered me a weak smile, the sort that is a bit of armor for your feelings. I had never hugged him at school before. I wanted to so, right then and there, but hesitated too long. He opened the locker door between us. More armor.
“You didn’t eat lunch?” I asked.
He shook his head. “No, I went to the library to work on my report.”
“Maybe I can help?” I rubbed at his shoulder.
“You haven’t even read the book.”
I winced. “True. Well then, can I borrow your Dick?”
“What?”
“The Melville. I want to know what all the fuss is about.”
He lightly rapped the back of his head against his locker door. “What happened to your copy? We were assigned the book a month ago—”
“That reminds me to ask Amazon for a refund. Super Save Shipping my ass.”
“—and my presentation is today.”
“Yes, but it’s 8th period, last period of the day. I’ll give it back before 7th. Promise.”
“Fine.” He handed it over.
I made sure to brush his fingers when I took it from him. He sighed, a sign—I hoped—he was shedding some armor.
I brought the book with me to gym class. Yeah, Mr. Meno yelled at me, demanding I drop it, but I just told him that the school board was far more concerned with me exercising my mind than my body. He growled a bit but then ignored me for the rest of the class.
I could see that Melville liked his words, but I wasn’t so much interested in what he wrote as I was following the thread of notes that Hugh had made. They led me to this one ongoing passage about Ishmael squeezing lumps of whale spermaceti—which I hoped wasn’t what I thought it—ugh—with other crewhands. Hugh had written in tiny scrawl around the margins. I thought of secret codes and a thrill went through me:
Clearly this is Melville’s attempt to show not only the joys of masturbation but how such an affectionate act can bring men closer.
I grinned and fought down a massive giggle. Hugh had written “masturbation.” Serious Hugh. I wonder if he got turned on while reading the passage which seemed more gross than erotic to me.
Once thirty minutes of chin-ups, push-ups, near throw-ups surrounding me were finished, I followed after the other boys back to the locker room. I sat down on the scarred wooden bench down one tunnel of lockers and read more.
Before I turned another page, though, I noticed that the usual accompanying din of guys changing and showering had…a rhythm?
I looked up from Melville to watch a line of seniors, bare except for the towel wrapped around their waists, heading off to the showers. As they passed each locker, they slapped the metal door with their palms in a steady staccato, which they matched with a shanty:
Yo, all young fellows that just might be queer
for me, way hey, blow the man down
best pay some attention and listen here
Give me some time to blow the man down.
I set the book down on the bench and cautiously stepped to the end of the hall, watching as the line of boy as each stripped off their towel and threw it on to a hook–every one landing with perfect precision, as if a ball in a net—before they stepped inside the hissing, shower.
I’m a high school senior fresh from Jersey.
Breaking hearts because I have no mercy.
So I took a few tentative steps closer. The testosterone in my blood reacting like iron fillings to a magnet. As the guys sang, they soaped themselves. The steam from the hot spray obscured… well, all the good parts, like a cartoon censor.
When a cute guy is wanting a date
for me, way hey, blow the man down
when our bodies touch that just might be fate.
Give me some time to blow the man down.
Each slick boy squeezed the soap in their hands—like the sailors of the Pequod had worked the spermaceti—causing the bars to leap into the air, only to be caught by the boy next in line. Not since I was seven had my jaw hung so low.
Then tomorrow there’ll be another boy
all while yesterday’s one sheds tears ahoy.
You want me? Dare you take me home tonight?
For me, way hey, blow the man down
I’ll leave your bedside, my exit stage right.
Give me some time to blow the man down
I turned away from temptation…after a second look. I grabbed Moby Dick and was thankful for the book’s size in hiding the obvious effect the shanty performance had on my mainsail.
I ran into Hugh just before he walked inside his 7th period class.
“Hey,” he said.
But my answer was to tug him hard in the direction of the nearest boy’s bathroom—he started to complain, but I told him French class could wait.
Once inside the bathroom, I shoved him into a stall. I had a lot of enthusiasm I needed to work out of my system.
He met my kisses with guarded measure. “But…I’ll be… late.”
My lips ate his words up. I slid one hand around to the back of his polo shirt, another hand to the front of his chinos.
He pressed his face into the crook of my neck and gasped. He managed to say, “Not here. Come over tonight. We’ll watch Les Chansons d’amour again.”
This story is © 2011 by Steve Berman (http://www.steveberman.com). This is a work of fiction, as are all characters portrayed in this story. Please do not copy without permission of the author.
My favorite film. “Promise?” We lost our virginity to Honoré’s visuals and Beaupain’s lyrics. I squeezed him tight as the echoes of the experience filled my head and chest.
“Tu doives entendre je t’aime,” he said softly into my ear.
I took a step back. We smiled and chuckled at our obvious erections. His hand cupped my face for several seconds. Then we left the stall and sought to look a bit more presentable.
“This is the greatest book ever,” I said.
“Really?”
“No. But this may be the greatest day ever for me.”
He kissed me again, on the cheek. “Don’t be late for English. I’ll need you there to cheer me on.”
I decided then to skip Study Hall. I knew I had to do more than just applaud my boyfriend’s efforts.
Stay tuned for Part Three!
Jacob Woods on HIV
Jun 3rd
Jacob Woods writes at his blog Good as Gay about lgbt and related social science topics that interest him. He is a psychology student and the president of the Gay Straight Alliance at Itasca Community College in Northern Minnesota (I’ve got nothing to hide.) Here are his thoughts, stemming from his experience with psychology.
I have held firmly that the lgbt community is highly promiscuous. More promiscuous than the heterosexual community. My first encounter with this was an anecdotal one. When I first started realizing I was gay, long before coming out of the closet, I would go online to find other gays to try to hook up with. There was gay porn online, pictures to be shared via e mail and soon for me, sexting on phones. Boys on Espin the Bottle and naked images of cute guys on Myspace flourished my mind. I felt internally guilty for being attracted to the same sex. I wrote extensively about my guilt in my journals often threatening suicide while praying to God to save me from the sin’s I was committing. It is a common story for many folks identifying as lgbt.
The guilt in me was largely a part of my family where some were openly anti-lgbt because of the Bible. My brother was more just afraid of the idea and my mom’s side of the family had a Biblical perspective. Every time I shared a picture with someone, or got someone to send a nude picture to me, I felt I was getting away with wrong. And largely, my actions, were immoral to me as none of those relationships were real. My actions were a detrimental process of trading pics, getting off, feeling good for a moment, and quickly feeling deathly uneasy.
What I was originally looking for was someone to talk to about my sexuality. But instead of finding discussion, I found sexual promiscuity because so many other people were socialized to do exactly what I was exposed to, trade pics. I had multiple people tell me that I wasn’t truly gay if I didn’t trade nudes with them. I was considered a phony if I didn’t trade. Being fourteen, I started telling other gay guys that they weren’t truly gay if they didn’t trade pics with me. If they didn’t trade, I knew that they weren’t truly gay and I could move on to the next sixteen year old male exposing himself on Myspace. But I was fourteen.
Six years later I understand the mechanism of guilt and learned helplessness. First there is guilt. If you search on Google you will see that finding information on guilt and an increase in a specific behavior is difficult. This is especially true with regards to sex and guilt correlated to an increase in sexual promiscuity. People don’t think guilt and sex in Google is that exciting, and there aren’t a whole lot of people talking about it when Justin Bieber and Lady Gaga exist. There are better things to talk about apparently. But I can attest to the fact that guilt in sexual behavior increases the amount people have sex. It first came up in my intro to chemical dependency class. My instructor for the class said that users are more likely to continue using if they are made to feel guilty about their behavior. I approached him after class and asked him if it was applicable for more than just drug users. He said surely. Just because it isn’t online doesn’t mean it isn’t out there! The instructor is Bob Gephart who is a licensed psychologist. I’ll take his word on it.
When it comes to the HIV epidemic, the issue is partially guilt. There are however, other mechanisms at play which I won’t cover. There is guilt for being gay, guilt for not being able to maintain a long lasting relationship, guilt for not being able to succeed, guilt for smoking and drinking the night away, and guilt for being alive. A lot of the lgbt community feels guilty for being. That shows in the suicide statistics, the drug statistics, and the disproportionate amount of depression the lgbt community among other negatives.
That is where learned helplessness comes into effect. Hypothetical situation below.
A son gets kicked out of his Minneapolis home after coming out of the closet. He is seventeen and still discovering much about life on his own. He is now homeless because his Evangelical parents do not tolerate their gay son. The son is lucky enough to have a cell phone on him and finds a library. He gets in contact with a gay guy in his thirties willing to take care of him. They hook up and begin going to parties, the gay 90′s, raves, and gang bangs. There is full access to drugs, full access to sex, and full access to a whole lot of trouble. One bad thing happens after another.
After awhile, the seventeen year old teen is now twenty working at McDonald’s living in an apartment. He has AIDs, but doesn’t know yet, and has pretty much gave up on pursuing anything else. He has been rejected his whole life, and in homelessness, he was never able to maintain a stable relationship. He has learned how to be helpless because he was helpless his whole life. He was rejected by parents, (social rejection runs the same neural pathways as physical abuse, Dr. Jackie MacPherson, Itasca Community College), rejected by multiple boyfriends, and often discriminated against when applying for some jobs and places to live around the city.
He has given up and will probably continue the same promiscuous lifestyle of hooking up and having sex with multiple partners throughout the years. This is all he knows.
It is difficult to grasp onto the hypothetical, but this is a very real situation. There is a high risk for all of these factors and the cycle is dangerous. Feeling guilty while also doing nothing to better ones situation is a mathematical equation for trouble. It is seen with many minorities including African Americans with IQ’s and Native Americans with alcohol. It only becomes a stereotype when one generalizes all minorities as dumb or all gays and lesbians as promiscuous, or all Native Americans as heavy drinkers.
I am fortunate as I was not kicked out of my home or rejected by family after coming out. Most of my issues were a result of knowing my brothers stance and most of my families stance before thoroughly talking about it. My cousin, who is gay and living with HIV, was always talked about as a bad person. He isn’t a bad person. He just made some interesting decisions. But most of what was available to him was because of the oppression. The gay bars, the gay clubs, the gay exclusive places where mostly gay people go and etc. If there was an orientation blind society, the gay exclusive bars wouldn’t be as necessary as they are now as they make hookups “safer” and more available. This also makes HIV, drugs, and trouble, more available.
Whether or not one agrees with these statements in regards to promiscuity in the gay male community is futile to me. I fight to rid the oppression as anyone else does as this will surely deplete the HIV epidemic faced by gay males.
My only advice is this, educate yourself on lgbt issues before going out on the town. Know the statistics, know who you are hanging out with, avoid risky sexual behavior, avoid extensive drug use, seek help if you are in need of it, and please, in the least, wear a condom. That and you are capable of anything you set your mind to. Don’t let any obstacle stop you from pursuing yourself. If you are living with HIV, there is still more you can do! Don’t give up!
Jacob Woods (http://twitter.com/#!/TheJacobWoods )
For more of Jacob’s stances on lgbt, minority issues, and much more please visit his blog at Good as Gay!
Gomorrahs of the Deep, a Musical Coming Some Day to Off-Broadway
Jun 2nd
Today, we are excited to bring you a musical gay love story, written by Steve Berman. It will be released in a February 2012 anthology, but you get to read it here FIRST ! Stay tuned, because we’ll be releasing the story in three pieces over the coming weekend. Enjoy! (Note: Any formatting errors are ours.)
When I was seven, my babysitter sat me down on the plump couch in our basement and let me have an entire bowl of butter pecan ice cream if I would be quiet while she watched a DVD—I think she had a report due for class and decided to rent the movie than read the book. As the opening credits ran for Kiss Me, Kate I stuffed spoonful after spoonful into my mouth. But by the time the cast sang “We Open in Venice” I had forgotten about the ice cream and stared wide-mouthed at the television. My legs began to swing with the music, upsetting the bowl. Melted, sticky sweet goo spilt over both our laps.
Some might think the memory as disaster, but that night my eyes opened to new wonders, my ears heard a new heartbeat. I began begging my parents to buy me that DVD and others, too. My fairy tales were movies featuring Princes Charming like Danny Kaye and Gene Kelly. I didn’t lack for ogres—such as Audrey II from Little Shop of Horrors—or wicked witches with appetites—for that, there was Lola from Damn Yankees.
I have always wished that real life were more like musicals. But people don’t burst into song and dance when their emotions rise or fall. Mouthing lyrics while listening to your iPod or wailing in the shower don’t count. I want a chorus to warn me while singing verse. I want the romance of being serenaded, of the duet. And all I get is high school.
One night, my boyfriend asked me to come over to study together. My hope was we’d be making out rather than struggling through Moby Dick, a book which squashed my brain like a lead weight whenever I tried to read more than a few pages. Then I saw what Hugh had done to his bedroom. Photocopies of thick bearded old men replaced the posters of Bob Dylan, Morissey, and the Red Caps.
“Herman Melville and Walt Whitman,” he said, with the blatant ardor most gay boys reserve for pop stars thick with eye-shadow or young actors infamous for stripping off their shirts on film.
“Like the bridge?” My experience with Whitman involved crossing the Delaware River from South Jersey into Philly so we could hit the Trocadero Theater to watch indie bands.
“Like the gay poet.”
“Oh.” I collapsed on his messy bed. I lay on my stomach and rested my chin on my hands. “So you like…really want to study?”
He nodded. “Remember our essays are due this week.”
“Fine,” I sighed. Being at the tail end of the alphabet, I planned on procrastinating until Thursday. “Can we work out an incentive program? I’m thinking it’s about time someone invented Strip Book Report.”
Hugh raised an eyebrow. The left, which went a little wild near the center of his forehead. I wanted to pluck the few errant hairs while he slept. But it matches his mop of unruly curls.
“Imagine. We take of our sneaks after writing the introductory sentence.” I roll over and dramatically kick off one cherished Converse All-Star. “State our thesis, off comes the shirts.
“By the time we’re at the conclusion, the floor is covered with our clothes.” I stretch my head back, off the side of the bed, and offer my best leer, seventeen years in the making.
He leans over and kisses me. A bit sloppy but that’s fine because we both laugh a little. Then he shakes his head. “No. I need to work on this.”
“So I’m moral support then. I can help you navigate Wikipedia for answers.”
He clamps a hand over my mouth at that. “Heresy!” I stick my tongue out and lick his palm, which doesn’t taste that great but one has to know. No boyfriend is ever perfect.
“I have this tremendous idea.”
When he takes his hand away, I feel the beginning of a frown. Hugh’s ideas, especially when he considers them tremendous or monumental usually end up being problematic. Like last summer when he decided to rewrite Shakespeare’s Taming of the Shrew as a webcomic featuring actual critters. I cured him by downloading the The Killer Shrews on my netbook and loudly playing clips of that awful film whenever he mentioned the otter Petruchio falling for a furry Kate.
“Do tell.”
“I’m going to do a whole presentation—not some 6th grader’s book report—on the homoeroticism in Moby Dick.”
I laughed. Awful move. Worse, I tell him: “You might as well sing it.”
His expression grew pensive, then hurt. Like last summer when he went through a phase he called Inner Fat and wore nothing but baggy clothes. At one point, I pulled up his boxers over his navel without giving him a wedgie and told him he was ridiculous. He sulked for nearly two weeks before I dragged him free of the bad mood by insisting he watch quirky French films with me.
“It’s not a dumb idea.”
I sit up in his bed. “I never said that. But, even if there’s some gay in the book—”
“There is. Lots. Whole scenes.” He blinks at me, as if trying to wake from a bad dream. “Didn’t you read it?”
“I’m more a Spark Notes kinda guy. But, why would you want to rub their noses in it?”
“They’re not puppies,” he said.
I suddenly envisioned Mr. Shimel’s class as dogs. Tracy Borland’s thing for scrunchies earned her labradoodle status. Brian Coleman’s jaw belonged to an English bulldog. When Derek Fiesler wore his basketball jersey—a glimpse of muscled arm and hairy pits!—that would be one hot Great Dane.
“Besides. I’m out. You’re out.”
“But neither of us wears pink shirts. We’re like…assimilated. Why call so much attention to being different? Different is death in high school.”
“I’m tired of acting like everyone else,” he said. “We’re not—”
“Maybe I am.”
“You’re not. You’re a theater geek.”
“I prefer thespian.”
“You work stage crew.”
“Ersatz thespian.”
“You just used the word ‘ersatz.’ That’s a SAT expression.”
“Now a good vocab is being lavender, too?”
“Help me,” he said.
I shook my head. “And feel all those fears from when I first came out rush back into my chest? No thanks.” Even as I said that, I could feel my heartbeat race a little faster, my stomach parkour around my middle. I didn’t even want to be in class if he was going to be writing G-A-Y on the whiteboard in front of everyone. I heard phantom laughter.
“Not with this.” I grabbed my backpack, zipped up my hoodie and left his room, rushed down the stairs, didn’t even bother to call out a “Goodbye” to his folks.
The suburban streets were quiet, making my anger feel all the more necessary to keep me warm. It was early November, but few houses on the block are lit because the neighborhood prefers menorahs to tinsel. I kept to the middle of the street. My hands were tucked away in the pocket of my white hoodie.
I soon heard my boyfriend’s car whining behind me. When he rolled down the window, the radio’s song filled the air.
Then he sang:
Get in the car. It’s cold. Don’t be so angry all the time.
I kept walking but slower.
Get in the car. Don’t make me beg. Don’t make me rhyme.
I stopped and turned.
Don’t call me Ishmael.
“I won’t.” he said. “Your name is Greg.”
I took a step forward, resting my hands on the open car window.
Tell me you won’t go through with this. Tell me that tomorrow will be sane.
He shook his head.
I can’t. I won’t. Don’t you see? That would go against my grain.
They’ll laugh at you and, if I stand by you, me as well.
What else does English class do than make our lives a hell?
It’s only Melville.
Only Melville?
I kicked the door to his car and shouted.
Don’t call me Ishmael!
He drove after me.
You’re afraid of what? That I’ll make of fool of us? But I can’t stay quiet any more.
It’s just a book about a whale. Nothing else. You’re finding fags where there aren’t, all to start some stupid war.
You saw the line. ‘Bosom friends.’ If that’s not the gayest thing you ever heard a sailor say—
I stood in the glare of his headlights.
I’m drawing a line. Right here and now on the street. Abandon please this Moby Dick essay.
It’s only Melville.
He stopped the car to lean his head out the window.
Only Melville?
Please. Don’t call me Ishmael.
He opened the driver’s side door.
He had a voice. Like any of us, he wanted to be heard!
He’s long since dead. Are you some literary nerd?
I won’t put the man in the closet, like all the teachers do.
He’s better off in the dark. Find another book to review.
Why won’t you be my Ishmael, why won’t you be my first mate? I need your strength for this effort, I need you to relate.
I started stepping back.
I’m not some Ishmael, I am only a Gregory. You’ll do this alone. I won’t be part of some classroom… infamy.
And I ran all the way home.
Check back on Saturday June 4th for Part 2 of Gomorrahs!
This story is © 2011 by Steve Berman (http://www.steveberman.com). This is a work of fiction, as are all characters portrayed in this story. Please do not copy without permission of the author.
How Trans Happens
Jun 1st
There’s a fight going on, but not many people know about it. It boils down to what most fights look like after a long time simmering and evaporating away their unnecessary parts—the right to tell a story. Like many other battles this one is about a people, power, and ownership.
I’m talking about where transgender comes from, why it occurs, and what meaning to draw from it.
If we left it up to The New York Times and David Letterman, transgender people, all, struggle with being the wrong sex in the wrong body. Chances are they know it early on, they suffer tremendous amounts of angst and depression, and they demonstrate their trans-ness by loving every activity ever singled out for the opposite sex, the one they want to be so dearly. And anyone else who feels a bit differently—a person who doesn’t always feel totally female every day, a man who still loves to wear pink, someone who doesn’t feel the need to go on hormones—they become invalidated. They are not authentic transsexual people, or they would be marching in lockstep to the narrative of the greatest biological trick ever hoisted against human beings, hemophilia and cystic fibrosis notwithstanding.* Somehow the whole conversation reminds of people from different Christian denominations arguing about who’s going to heaven faster or better.
The whole thing is a red herring, folks. There is no single narrative that describes the emotional and physical nature of being trans, and there is especially no singularity with regard to how one understands coming to identify as trans-anything. Call those statements generalizations, but I see them as opening up a space for people to be their authentic selves without impinging on anyone else’s identity, and so I’m comfortable with saying that.
Okay, why does this matter to the YA writer? Two quick reasons:
- Readers infer what writers imply, so if we regurgitate this story about pelicans bringing the messed up trans babies into the world, we give it more power and presence.
- We need to be prepared as writers for criticism from transfolk about how they are portrayed in our work. This is particularly important given the overall dearth of transgender characters or ideas in YA fiction.
What do I propose about this? Well, namely that we create characters who are whole people but don’t fit “the narrative.” This doesn’t mean that we need to debunk the narrative—there are many people who believe it describes them and their history, and that’s fine for them. And us, I presume. But let’s not stop there. It’s actually better for us as writers to be able to use the full reach of our imaginations in writing stories with trans themes, elements, and characters. We should explore gender for a YA audience in new ways:
- Put the trans character front and center, not as a sidekick
- Show mentors in the story who have struggled with their gender identity or expression
- Use the genre to push transgender themes
- Invent new gender paradigms (maybe there are 5 genders that are self-selected at a certain age? a town in which everyone dresses androgynously and never thought about gender?)
- Talk about gender via another coming-of-age moment, or as part of understanding other emerging parts of the character’s identity (how being trans affects playing on the basketball team, for example)
- Show characters who aren’t afraid, hateful, or ashamed of their past gender history but who are trans nonetheless
Regarding criticism, if we stay away from stereotypes about transfolk (and other communities), and allow for multiple paths to trans-ness, I think we’re on solid ground as writers. At the end of the day, if we are able to say we opened up space for readers to see themselves or understand each other, we’ve had a damn good day.
*That’s tongue in cheek. I wish more trans folks thought about what taking up disability rhetoric meant for people with disabilities.
Review of Jennifer McMahon’s My Tiki Girl
May 31st
I read Francesca Lia Block’s Dangerous Angels (the collected Weetzie Bat books) when I was about 17. My best friend Monica gave it to me, and that book changed my life. It’s the first place, after Ellen, that I encountered any openly gay people. I grew up in southern Idaho, which is just about the reddest part of one of the reddest states in the country, and to see major gay characters, characters portrayed in a positive light, as though their lives are the most natural thing, just another way of living, was so powerful. Couple that with Block’s beautiful magical realism, and I have a book that has stayed with me and book to which I return every year or so, a book that is a marvel of beauty.
I bring it up here because when I first started My Tiki Girl, a novel about a young girl, Maggie, and her magical friend Dahlia, I thought I was seeing the second coming of Dangerous Angels. When Maggie was in 8th grade, she was involved in a car accident which left her with a damaged leg and which killed her mother. Maggie’s life BTA (before the accident) was one of carefree popularity. In her life ATA (after the accident), she is a freak and a loner. So when she meets the equally freaky Dahlia, Dahlia’s sensitive younger brother Jonah and her irrepressible mother Leah, Maggie thinks maybe she’s found a place and a family where she can truly be herself. She loves the creative spontaneity of Dahlia’s family. They visit a graveyard and have a tea party with the dead on Halloween. They stay up late telling stories and dancing. And Maggie finds herself falling in love with the bright and shining Dahlia.
But what Maggie first takes for irrepressible and shiny and wondrous is cover for a mother with schizophrenia; Dahlia’s bright shining personality is a cover for a girl who desperately wants to fit in, to be admired and to be taken care of. When Dahlia and Maggie’s relationship is exposed and they become the stuff of malicious high school gossip, their carefully constructed fantasy of a light and perfect world crumbles.
By the time you reach the e
nd of Maggie’s story, you desperately wish she could have found a place with Weetzie Bat and Dirk and the crew. However, though there isn’t a simple happily ever after for Maggie or Dahlia or the others, the story ends with the hope. Though the characters suffered as they tried to figure out just who they were and where they belonged in their world, McMahon lets the reader glimpse a little light and the promise of some joy at the end of their tunnel.
Debra Touchette is an assistant librarian, grad student, fledgling blogger and wanna-be teacher. She blogs about her reading at Library Lass: Adventures in Reading, and is @threelefthands on Twitter (but mostly just to see what shenanigans @maureenjohnson and @realjohngreen are up to).
The GBLT Genre
May 25th
I’ve been musing over the labels we give books, especially labels in sales lists: ‘Gay Books’, ‘Lesbian Books’, ‘GLBT Books’. I’ve been wondering if everyone has the same understanding of these labels, exactly, and whether they are an entirely good, helpful thing, or have the potential to be negative in some way. I’d like to know what people think.
I’ve been scanning several ‘genre lists’ and in one alphabetical list ‘Gay and Lesbian’ found its place between ‘Dark Fantasy’ and ‘General Fiction’. So, I thought, when does a book become ‘Gay and Lesbian’ as opposed to ‘Dark Fantasy’? What if a ‘Dark Fantasy’ book has gay central characters? What if the story is quite general, but has a lesbian character in it? What if a bookseller decides it only just pops up when someone searches for ‘Gay’ or ‘Lesbian’ books?
I scanned the same genre list for ‘Heterosexual’ – it wasn’t there, of course. So this list could lead some to think that 31 of the 32 genres (from Action & Adventure to Young Adult) do not include gay or lesbian central characters. To be honest, if I was just starting out as a gay teen reader, I’d feel a bit fed up about that. My greedy eye would scan ‘Horror’ and ‘Erotica’ and I’d think: those look exciting, why aren’t they for me? Authors might also feel a bit fed up too – if a fair-minded writer has a strong gay character in a Dark Fantasy book, I think they’d worry if it was slotted exclusively under ‘Gay’ or ‘Fantasy’.
So, a genre list is an example of how labels can make people feel sidelined or excluded – even labels that set out to empower and guide vulnerable groups. Of course, it is essential for people to be able to locate books with GLBT characters because there are sadly so few – but do the books have to carry such an exclusive label on sales lists?
I completely agreed with Sarah Diemer’s post that more straight people should read books that contain gay characters. But will they, if we put the ‘Gay and Lesbian’ stamp on them? Let’s be honest: how many non-LGBTQ people would buy a book like Fifty Gay Lesbian Books Everybody Must Read. I hope masses do. But I’m not sure that, in reality . . .
Politically, of course, it’s important to fly the GLBTQ flag but wouldn’t it be wonderful if GLBTQ characters and themes ran powerfully through the blood of all genres. That way, everyone would get to read them and no one would feel excluded by labels. Wouldn’t it be great if the quality of masses of stories with non-heterosexual characters were so strong that ‘Heterosexual’ replaced ‘Gay and Lesbian’ on that genre list.
Perhaps that’s the point. Perhaps we need to encourage more authors to write quality literature from the perspective of a greater variety of characters – and to not worry about what genre box it will be squeezed into – so their work filters out naturally into the hands of all kinds of readers. I did attempt something along these lines when commissioning ‘Truth & Dare’ (an anthology of short stories). I wanted to gather stories with a wide variety of real-life characters, and not sideline quality or inclusivity for the sake of genre. I don’t know what genre the anthology will fall under other than YA. In fact, I challenge anyone to ‘genre’ it more specifically.
Lots of bloggers gather together lists of books of specific ‘genres’. I’ll finish with a quotation from a blogger’s own ‘gay’ booklist, called ‘The Gay Fiction Booklist That Doesn’t Suck’.
‘The sad thing about gay fiction is that there isn’t enough of it for a reader to be discerning. No matter how shoddy it is, it will end up on gay booklists just to fill up space. And if you try to leave something off because it sucks, people will assume you haven’t read it. As a result, a lot of crap ends up getting recommended on gay booklists.’
Food for thought, eh?
Liz Miles is the editor of the inclusive anthology Truth and Dare. Truth and Dare will be released tomorrow in the UK and is already available in the US.