Aloha everyone! Thanks so much to Grace Duncan for setting up this great idea on a sex-positive blog hop! :-)
Lately there’s
been a fair few scuffles over two things which I see popping up in all sorts of
blogs and comments.
One is the
moans and groans about women writers of gay romances.
The other is
the insta-love thing that seems to stick in some people’s craw.
There’s a
lot of "not realistic" stuff thrown about over "insta-love." And it only seems
to apply to m/m romances. Why? People DO fall in love instantly all the time. If it hasn’t happened to you in your life, I’m not sure whether to say
you’re lucky or not lucky. I’m going with NOT. Even Shakespeare knew about love at first sight.
I think
about descriptions from WWII, or from men I’ve met in this lifetime, or have read about. We often hear, “…the moment I
laid eyes on her, I knew she was the one, I was going to marry that girl. It was love at first sight.”
“When I met
her, it was instant kapow, right between the eyes. I just fell in love with
her.”
Often people
have a soul connection from another lifetime. So when they meet again, they’re
reconnecting from the past, recognizing each other again. Of course, they would
love instantly.
Also
culturally things move differently in different countries. I come from New
Zealand and we don’t "date" for years. We go on a "couple of dates" with
someone and we’re either going out with them or not. We might not fall in
love with them instantly, but we do know whether there’s a connection there.
I’ve fallen
in love with someone kapow the first day I laid eyes on them and also grown
in love with someone. I actually think I’d take the kapow kind. I can’t see
that either produced a better relationship funnily enough and you’d think one
would work better, but that hasn’t been my experience.
We fall in
love instantly with lots of things. Why not a partner?
The moment I
saw that car, I just fell in love with it…
The moment I
laid eyes on that ginger kitten, I knew I had to take him home.
The moment I
walked in that house, I knew I had to have it.
On my first
bite, I fell in love with the dish, I had to get the recipe.
Is it really
so odd? So unusual? I don’t think so.
I think we’re
geared to love. On a heart and soul level, love is such a binding force in the
Universe that we naturally gravitate toward it.
And when we
recognize that connection to another kindred spirit—we take it.
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Because love
is love and it doesn’t always come along in several varieties to choose from
like say a car, or a dress or a selection of cheeses. Often we only get presented with one love at a time. Sometimes not, of course... :-)
Which leads
me to the women writers on gay romance thing.
Like it or
not, writers have always written about things they know nothing or little about, but are
drawn to for some reason.
Q: “Why did you
write about a past life set in WWII?”
A: “I’ve always
been interested in that period of history.”
Q: “Why did you
write about the Civil Rights Movement?”
A: “I’ve always
hated prejudice. I wanted to say something about that particular incident and
highlight what went on for people.”
And the list
goes on…
We write
about what interests us often as writers.
I write the
characters that pop into my head, often unasked, uninvited. They just turn up,
noisy, fervent, raiding my booze cabinet, clattering around in my kitchen,
until I have no choice, but to sit down and listen to their story.
And once
they start and I’m intrigued, I find myself reaching quietly for a pen and
paper to take notes.
Sometimes a
story is going in one direction and then a rogue character turns up and hijacks
the whole thing. My first full length novel Henry
and Isolde due out in Spring next year was like
that. It started out as a "nice wee romance," until "bloody Charlie" turned up.
He was nicknamed that by me because he wanted to be in the relationship with
Henry and Izzy. I just said no. You can’t. People won’t like that. What will
the readers think? (I had no idea at the time I started writing that, that
people WOULD like that.)
I talked to
my mentor. He said, give him one scene, let him run with it. It’ll probably satisfy
him. It didn’t. Four books down the track…and Charlie’s almost the main
character. LOL.
We women
like male/male romances in the same way we like male/male sex.
Why? Because
we like men too.
And
generally I think we’re gravitating more toward whole men. Men who show
emotions, aren’t scared to cry or feel afraid. We want a more "feminized" man.
I don’t mean an effeminate male. I mean an actualized man who shows he’s human.
They’re very attractive to many women. For years too, we’ve often felt left on
the outside on the seeming chasm that are men’s emotional states, thoughts, and feelings. We WANT to know men are human, feel, get hurt, get emotional, all the
things that are often not deeply seen in m/f romances. Although I write my men
that way because I have known real men and I like them enormously.
Men that don’t
cry or show emotions scare the shit out of me.
We women I
think too are doing our small part in gay awareness, relationship equality,
slowly fighting homophobia. We ripple out into layers and layers of society. Afterall we do know what it's like to be an oppressed minority.
In my Big
Fat Greek Wedding, there’s a scene where the mother says something like, “The
man, he is the head of the family, but the woman…she is the neck, she turn the
head of the man.”
We have that influence across the board.
I see women authors and women in general supporting gay rights on fb more than the
men sometimes. And I think we do that in so many ways as women. What we do ripples out
from a single person to a group. The majority of women are still the
larger group or percentage that bring up children. We have a great deal of
influence in the world. We can teach our kids to hate or teach them to love.
Throughout
history, we women have quietly influenced all sorts of things:
Back in
1848, a group of women started their fight for women’s right in Seneca, New
York. Stanton, one of the chief organizers drafted a “Declaration of Sentiments, Grievances, and
Resolutions,” that echoed the preamble of the Declaration of Independence: “We
hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men and women are created
equal.”
In 1941, Eleanor
Roosevelt helped open some doors and endorse the first black airmen to serve in
the US military as pilots—The Tuskegee Airmen. She was immensely interested in their
cause and insisted on flying with their leader.
Although
the Secret Service was anxious about the ride, Chief Civilian Flight Instructor
Charles Alfred Anderson, known today as “The Father of Black Aviation,” piloted
Mrs. Roosevelt over the skies of Alabama for over an hour.
Flying
with Anderson demonstrated the depth of Eleanor Roosevelt’s support for black
pilots and the Institute’s training program. Press coverage of her
adventure in flight helped advocate for the competency of these pilots and boosted
the Institute's visibility. Roosevelt was so impressed with the program
that she established and maintained a long-term correspondence with some of the
airmen.
Back in 1955
on an Alabama bus, one woman sparked the Montgomery bus
boycott that lasted for 381 days and brought about massive reforms when she said
NO.
In her autobiography, My Story Rosa Parks said:
People always say that I
didn't give up my seat because I was tired, but that isn't true. I was not
tired physically, or no more tired than I usually was at the end of a working
day. I was not old, although some people have an image of me as being old then.
I was forty-two. No, the only tired I was, was tired of giving in.[23]
On
the day she went to trial:
— December 5, 1955 — the
WPC distributed the 35,000 leaflets. The handbill read,
"We are...asking every
Negro to stay off the buses Monday in protest of the arrest and trial ... You
can afford to stay out of school for one day. If you work, take a cab, or walk.
But please, children and grown-ups, don't ride the bus at all on Monday. Please
stay off the buses Monday."[28]
It rained that day, but the
black community persevered in their boycott. Some rode in carpools, while
others traveled in black-operated cabs that charged the same fare as the bus,
10 cents. Most of the remainder of the 40,000 black commuters walked, some as
far as 20 miles (32 km).
Can you imagine walking
in the rain and often the oppressive sweltering humidity of Alabama for 381 days—that's over a year? Getting to work exhausted, already foot sore, hot and sweating
like a pig, then doing a full day’s work for awful wages and walking home
again?
It changed things though.
One woman…started a spark…
Changes DO happen when people speak out, say what's not right, stand up for what they believe in, write about, blog about, get on social media...
We forget that once:
We women were not allowed to vote and had few rights.
It was legal to have signs in windows of businesses saying "No blacks, negroes, colored allowed."
It was illegal for gay people to marry like any other human being.
And despite
being hetero myself and a woman to boot, I’m still happy to be counted as one
woman who cares. I hope that possibly something I write will bring about a
small change somewhere for someone regarding gay relationships, rights and equality. I
hope that I research well and am sensitive to the gay men I write about and
love.
Because love is love, no matter what form it comes in.
And I am tired of people saying otherwise.
Aloha everyone! Meg :-)
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Go to http://new.inlinkz.com/luwpview.php?id=463768
Just click on anyone's name. :-) Thanks!!
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www.twitter.com@amor_meg
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What an amazing and wonderful post. These points are all something I've thought of before but I've never seen them put together so eloquently in one post before. Thank you for sharing!
ReplyDeleteAloha Sarah, :-)
ReplyDeleteThanks so much for reading and your great comments! :-) I appreciate that so much!!
Its nice to know someone else has had the same thoughts. :-)
Thanks and aloha Meg :-)
Wonderful post, Meg! Much food for thought!
ReplyDeleteAloha Alexa! Thanks so much for reading and commenting. :-)
ReplyDeleteI appreciate you coming over here. :-) Aloha Meg :-)