Fly-by rec

[briarwood]

A fascinating discussion of bisexuality (or the lack of it) in slash fiction.

Personally, I've always written Jim and Blair as bi. Sam Winchester, too. I'm not sure about the other SPN boys. I wonder, though, if that comes across. I mean, I don't as a rule have characters declare their sexuality. Maybe y'all don't notice they're not technically gay?

A weird thought for me to start the day on.

Comments

[starwatcher]

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I mean, I don't as a rule have characters declare their sexuality.

I think that's normal. We would naturally assume that, whichever gender a person is attracted to now, that's the gender the person will always be attracted to. And we'll hold that assumption until something happens to show us that we're in error.

Unless you want your two men to be kissing, and one thinks, Ya' know, I love this guy, but if he wasn't here, I could love a gal just as much. That would go over like a lead balloon -- not least because, when two characters are wrapped up in each other, it would be rather unrealistic for them to be considering other possibilities at the same time.

In the final analysis, I'm not sure it matters. Character A is with Character B at this time. I don't care if he's gay, bi, or straight -- just, what's he doing now, and who's he doing it with? *g*
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[mab-browne.livejournal.com]

My default position for TS is a cheerfully bisexual Blair and an openly gay or closetedly gay Jim. It just suits my vision of the characters. Unless it doesn't suit my story...

It's true that no-one wanders around saying 'Hi, I'm Mab and I'm straight/gay/lesbian/TV/TS' but I do see where the OP is coming from. In a PWP, what does it matter, but a medium-long story or canon based first time, it might be worth considering the existence of all those canon women.

I wonder if the lack of bi-ness which Logophilos perceives also ties into the fairly obvious misogyny that creeps into some slash. 'I'm in ur canon, screwing up ur slashy OTP'.So instead of the guys being bi, the woman is so often a bitch or a psychonutter, and when the guys fall into bed together they've never had sex this fulfilling before :-(. There's rather a lot of that in TS, especially earlier stories.

Plus, there's the pov of the OP's therapist, which seems to be quite common. I watch one gay issues comm, and there's sometimes comment indicating some members of the gay community to be fairly ambivalent about bisexuality, as well. A 'bisexuality is for people who can't make up their minds' idea, and we're very much a culture for our dualities and all or nothing assumptions, and we don't like the grey areas.

/rambling on. Bet you're sorry you posted that link and comment now. :-)

[slipperieslope.livejournal.com]

In RL most of my gay friends don't believe in bi. In fiction I don't care. If the writer makes the premise acceptable I am down with whatever; vampires, spirit animals, Jim in drag, you put pen to it well enough and I believe!

Story h0r, yepper ; )