Little boxes on the hillside,
Little boxes made of ticky-tacky,
Little boxes, little boxes,
Little boxes, all the same.
There’s a green one and a pink one
And a blue one and a yellow one
And they’re all made out of ticky-tacky
And they all look just the same
Little Boxes ~ Malvia Reynolds
This was one of my moms favorite songs that I remember her singing in the car driving Highway 101 all the time. For those of you not San Francisco centric this song is about Daly City’s Westlake neighborhood juxtaposed with a huge cemetery right next door. Which should tell you how much the Bay Area means to me. Anyway the song is in essence about the traps of conformity.
That’s what I want to talk about today Little Boxes and I see them in M/M Writing often and I see more being suggested constantly. Little Boxes to me are like “public safety announcements” in fiction. They represent a goal for some to use their writing in some way to educate the public while in actuality they are a formula, an almost mindless one at that.
One current topic is the old BDSM phrase Safe, Sane, and Consensual. It’s great for starting a discussion with about safety and common sense in BDSM practices sure. BUT… It honestly is something you quickly learn if you know anything about actual BDSM scenes that does not all the time fit. Be it “non-con” play or even simple mistakes that happen. The whip stroke that accidentally cuts flinging blood everywhere or the suspension support that fails or the candle wax that accidentally burns. That is why real experts in BDSM now go beyond Safe, Sane, and Consensual and talk about Levels Of Risk since that can more accurately describe what takes place in a BDSM scene.
That’s what I want to point out if anything. Getting beyond the Little Boxes or the traps of formula and mindlessly following a trend without exploring why.
Another thing I could bring up would be something as simple as Safe Sex. I see this constantly in M/M Contemporary stories. The almost ludicrous Condom Scene or even worse the I’m OK, Your OK Scene. You know the one where perfect strangers pinky swear they are not HIV+ and then proceed to not use condoms because we had to bring that topic up anyway to address Safe Sex. Quick question… Did anyone catch Oprah the other day and all those straight women infected by that guy with HIV? Why are M/F Romance writers not demanding everyone use condoms in their stories?
So why is it we make Safe Sex a big deal in M/M Contemporary Romance of striving for realism in the stories using the ever present magic condom and yet what it all boils down to is just condoms and healthy guys pinky swearing their HIV Negative status (Sometimes using the term “clean” even) and having a grand old time in bed? Where are the thousands of guys like me who have been HIV+ for close to twenty years now and still have sex and still fall in love? Where am I in your stories? Where are the two guys who confess they are HIV+ and decide to have a grand old time in bed without condoms?
*THUD* Oops I just made a Safety Maven faint.
Sorry folks, but that is The Desert Of The Real and a real decision and an important one that real gay men make everyday.
Am I unclean? Do I represent this monster under the bed that no one wants to write about?
See what I mean about those Little Boxes? They really are traps. Promoting mindless “public safety announcements” can turn into a joke if there is no balance, if you do not show the other side of the coin. Can we get beyond Little Boxes and can writers who do decide to discuss this stuff in their stories get a little more sophisticated here?
Little boxes, little boxes,
Little boxes, all the same.
Tags: Wank
K. Z. Snow wrote,
Thank you for this post, Teddy! And the song lyrics. I’ve always LOVED “Little Boxes”– fondly remember Pete Seeger doing it.
Yeah, there’s been a lot of pontificating about all kinds of elements in m/m fiction. BDSM is just the latest. Characters shouldn’t cry, act effeminate, feel suicidal, have this kind of sex that way or that kind of sex this way, have facial hair, have chest hair, get too friendly with women, pout, brood, giggle, fart, snore, drink, smoke, use drugs, kiss without brushing their teeth first . . . on and on and on ad nauseam. All the nitpicky dos and don’ts have been making me crazy for a long time.
It should go without saying there’s as much variety among GLBTQ people as there is among straights. And that certainly includes HIV+ individuals having sex.
Link | November 4th, 2009 at 7:43 am
TeddyPig wrote,
You are welcome but my mother is the one who influenced this type of thinking.
Link | November 4th, 2009 at 7:54 am
Ally Blue wrote,
I’ve gotten some flack for a few of the things my characters have done. Like no-condom sex where one of the guys used to be a hooker. And using non-sounds for sounds (do not do that at home, kids, truly). Also like OMG NOT SHOWERING the morning after. Meh. Different strokes and all that. My guys are how they are. Sometimes they’re grubby, sometimes they’re fastidiuous, sometimes they’re stoopid. I make no apologies.
I’m going to be brutally honest though and tell you that the main reason I’ve never written an HIV+ character is because I’m absolutely terrified of not being able to do justice to that person’s thoughts and feelings. I can get the medical details right. That’s not a problem. But I can research for the rest of my life and never KNOW, in my gut, what it feels like to be positive. I don’t sweat other aspects of gay romance. I know what it feels like to be in love, to have that love returned, to have that love rejected, hell, even to be looked down on and discriminated against for who I am (female), even though it’s not the same as being discriminated against for being gay. I even know what it’s like to walk down the street and be aware at all times of where I am and who’s around me (all men are rapists when I’m alone; sorry, guys, it has to be that way).
BUT. I can’t know, can’t even imagine, what it feels like to have a long-term health problem like HIV, which has so much baggage attached to it. I’m even wary of writing characters with long-term health problems I’m more familiar with, ones without the baggage, like diabetes or heart failure or kidney failure or spinal cord injury, because I don’t know what it’s like, emotionally and psychologically, for people who live with those things, and I have no real way to get into that head space.
I’d like to do it, actually. Would love to explore the dynamic of a relationship with at least one HIV+ partner. But it ought to be done right, and frankly I don’t think I’m good enough.
Link | November 4th, 2009 at 8:04 am
TeddyPig wrote,
Now see I hate that Ally the point of writing is to explore. You know the facts now go think about how you would respond and go from there. Imagine there’s no heaven.
I sorta keep coming back to that guy at the end of Angels In America (Which is the ultimate honest HIV/AIDS flick ever and the last one I will ever need to see because death from AIDS in movies is sooooo over) when he does not die and finds out heaven can wait but who cares and what is he going to do with the rest of his life?
Free your mind and the rest will follow.
Link | November 4th, 2009 at 8:17 am
Ally Blue wrote,
Dang. I think you’re gonna talk me into another plot bunny, you evil bastard >_<
Just remember, you only have yourself to blame if I keep bugging you with emails all the time asking you insane questions…
Link | November 4th, 2009 at 8:26 am
K. Z. Snow wrote,
Buck up, Ally! I just submitted a story that centers on the ex-gay movement, and I suspect I’ll catch plenty of flak about it.
Link | November 4th, 2009 at 10:36 am
Nat wrote,
“Why are M/F Romance writers not demanding everyone use condoms in their stories?”
There’s a lot of it, actually.
I’ve always compared it to those inside the gamer community (old timers, mostly) who insisted that their characters had to do all these normal things during the course of the campaigns: eat, crap, pee… Damn, we were trying to play Dungeons and Dragons and some guy would want to stop the campaign and ask if everybody’s character had peed that day. Please.
I don’t care if fictional characters engage in unsafe sex. Just like I don’t care that an author kills a fictional dog or has his/her characters not shower once in the whole story. It’s a book. It’s fiction. Except for within the confines of its laws (don’t spring a deus ex machina at the end), I’m happy just to read and not worry about some fictional people’s fictional pee.
Link | November 4th, 2009 at 10:41 am
Selah wrote,
I may be way off here, but I think the m/m romance community is going through the same politically correct growing pains as the m/f romance community did a while back. Remember a few years ago when all forced seduction was OMG-so!-wrong! and any Alpha male who ran roughshod over his heroine “for her own good” was anathema to enlightened romance fans? Now Anna Campbell’s The Courtesan is touted as groundbreaking, and J.R. Ward’s vamps never met a TSTL shellan they wouldn’t use as a doormat if necessary.
I think we’ve got a microcosm of that happening in m/m romance, except The Rulz center on how all gay characters and relationships should be depicted in the “right” way (light on the girly emo, heavy on the Safe, Sane and Consensual). As if the emotionally damaged and the sexually rebellious don’t exist…or don’t deserve their HEA? Or because we authors have a responsibility to write only what’s deemed “healthy” or a good example of “wholesome” gay-ness, whatever that is?
I’m not writing a textbook on how to be a strong, psychologically healthy example of a gay man or an article on how to make sure your lover sustains only the agreed-upon number of bruises during a paddling scene. I’m writing fiction. Stories about people who aren’t real, but who often have the same faults and/or kinks as real people. As far as I’m concerned, my responsibility ends at the point where I deliver a good book that people enjoy reading.
My last hero was a cruel, self-deluded bully who wouldn’t know a safe word if it jumped up and bit him on the dick. So far, reviews have been stellar and sales even better. My readers have spoken.
In terms of the larger, m/m reading community? This, too, shall pass.
Link | November 4th, 2009 at 11:18 am
Moriah Jovan wrote,
I wouldn’t say that. I’m getting plenty of heat for merely LIKING forced seduction, the “Alpha male who [runs] roughshod over his heroine “for her own good,’” and admitting it. Like I said in another thread, I’ve lost two contacts I valued because of it because they “lost respect” for me.
Never mind I wrote it in a modern context (i.e., NO paranormal elements and NOT historical) with sexual harassment and the whole ball of wax.
That was just who that character was, and that was just who the heroine was to take it and then fling it back in his face. The thing about that scenario is the GROVELING. The forced seduction, the alpha asshole, the “for her own good”–the GROVELING is part of the sexual scenario. How well the hero grovels is the make-it-or-break-it.
But the thing is, no, this PC thing in m/f romance is still going on and, IMO, getting hotter.
Link | November 4th, 2009 at 1:45 pm
Selah wrote,
But the thing is, no, this PC thing in m/f romance is still going on and, IMO, getting hotter.
I’m sorry that’s happened to you, Moriah. I’d hoped, given the slight evidence I cited, we’d begun to progress past it. Apparently, I’ve been too optimistic in expecting people to be able to separate real life behavior from fiction. Wouldn’t be the first time.
Link | November 4th, 2009 at 1:52 pm
Moriah Jovan wrote,
Oh, np. I have my theories about why this is happening.
Link | November 4th, 2009 at 1:56 pm
Selah wrote,
Do share. I’m interested in your point of view, since we’re obviously hanging with different crowds. Pretty please? :)
Link | November 4th, 2009 at 1:59 pm
Moriah Jovan wrote,
I think it has to do with academics getting into romance reading in a big way, enjoying themselves with it, and attempting to turn it into literature to justify the reading of it.
Then instead of taking it for what it is and analyzing that (erm, possibly going back into the history, like, you know, The Sheik by E.M. Hull circa 1940 to put it all in context, would rather change it to suit their sensibilities and (dare I say it?) feminist agenda.
(I’m gonna get a lot of flak for that, too!)
I wrote a post on this. The forced seduction hasn’t gone away. It’s morphed into paranormal.
Anais Nin said:
Rand wrote a scene in The Fountainhead she was called upon to defend, and she said, “If it was rape, it was rape by engraved invitation.”
I very often reference Nancy Friday’s books, rife with anecdotes about the prevalence of the rape fantasy, that came out in the early 70s, around the time that the bodice rippers really took off (and they were FAR more risk-taking than anything I’ve read the past 20 years).
Sorry, but the fantasy’s been there forever and a day, it’s. It’s not going away because some people new to the genre don’t like it. Maybe it needs to be updated or written better, but it’s not going away.
Link | November 4th, 2009 at 2:08 pm
Moriah Jovan wrote,
Scuse me. I shoulda said “litrachoor.”
Link | November 4th, 2009 at 2:13 pm
Nat wrote,
“Then instead of taking it for what it is and analyzing that (erm, possibly going back into the history, like, you know, The Sheik by E.M. Hull circa 1940 to put it all in context, [academics] would rather change it to suit their sensibilities and (dare I say it?) feminist agenda.”
You know, I had never thought of it that way. Wow. What a bing-bing moment for me right now. I don’t know if you’ll take flak for it, and I hope you don’t care if you do. It shouldn’t matter other people’s opinions. But for what it’s worth, I was surprised, intrigued and ultimately captivated by what you said.
Nin is one of those people I admire very much. For being themselves, warts and all. Plus, she managed to make a public hanging a sexy thing. Now that’s writing, baby.
Link | November 4th, 2009 at 2:24 pm
Nat wrote,
Where are my manners? I was directing my comment mostly @ Moriah. :)
Link | November 4th, 2009 at 2:24 pm
Selah wrote,
I think you make a good point. And I think it does come back to Teddy’s original “not my kink” thing.
The trouble arises when people take a kink they don’t like and turn it into “social disease.” I’m not huge into the male/female rape fantasy (nor a big fan of Ayn Rand in general) but you won’t catch me saying you’re wrong for liking it, reading it or writing it.
Why does “not my kink” have to mean “ew, you’re sick?”
Link | November 4th, 2009 at 2:25 pm
Moriah Jovan wrote,
Thank you, Nat. If I weren’t selling something, I’d care a whole lot less. ;)
Exactly.
The BDSM post in question really pressed my buttons because of all the people who should be sensitive to “not my kink” != “ew, you’re sick” it probably should be someone who practices an (by her own admission) underground kink.
Link | November 4th, 2009 at 2:30 pm
TeddyPig wrote,
First I stayed away from Rand because she seemed to be the darling of a lot of people I found pretty ego driven in my time.
Although I did play a really cool PS3 game called Bioshock recently and the kicker is the entire game and the way it plays out as far as storyline is based off her books and it is a intense game. Lots of moments where it was not pleasant or nice but you kept playing to see how much more evil it could get. Very startling game and really sophisticated take. I might review that game here it left a huge impression on me and yeah if you find Rand interesting get yourself a copy and try it out.
I think my real point is that writers should feel comfortable in exploring edges and especially here on the internet where edge is around every corner. My take on it is simply based on my BDSM experience and there is a huge audience that wants authors doing just that and not this New York Mainstream take on comfortable kink so not to disturb the Church Ladies.
In fact I think those Church Ladies are probably buying some pretty twisted stuff out there.
Anyway, expressing your opinion and saying “not your thing” in a review is very much OK but decreeing what is acceptable for a community or implying you know better than someone else is not to me. Questioning things is fine, demanding things not so much.
I do not mind discussing the controversial kinks because some of my bestest friends are twisted and so am I. There are simply more kinky people now on the internet and they have a market and a voice that needs to be listened to but lets not forget how very diverse the BDSM Community as a whole and it does not come with many labels.
I also think books like Mr. Benson or Leather Blues or a lot of the old BDSM classics will find a whole new audience online when they finally become available in eBook form since they won’t be stuck in the back corner on the Bad People Shelf.
Link | November 4th, 2009 at 3:24 pm
Moriah Jovan wrote,
*grimace* Sorry I highjacked your post and point, Teddypig.
Link | November 4th, 2009 at 3:52 pm
TeddyPig wrote,
No there is no specific topic in comments here.
I bring up so many different things when I do posts like this because I will sleep on a single sentence someone says in an email to me or a post I read and the next morning I come online here and dump it all out of my skull to stop the processing.
Doing that sometimes kicks people into oh yeah other topics and you know what that makes me think too. Then I sleep on it and we go around again.
My friends all know… Think of what I am saying as a writers buffet. Take what you want and go write something.
I am the very evil plot bunny.
Link | November 4th, 2009 at 4:04 pm
Ally Blue wrote,
He is. It’s true O_O
Link | November 4th, 2009 at 5:13 pm
Angelia Sparrow wrote,
The Church Ladies ARE buying the pervy stuff. (or getting it for free from their pusher-daughters) I used to be one.
Your post reminds me of two other posts, Teddy.
One my own
GWM, straight-acting atheist, seeks same for romance genre
and one on fandom
The Hummus Essay
I dislike the trend I’m seeing in all twenty-something straight-acting macho guys. Where are the drag queens? Where’s the man who wears his fairy wings on any even remotely appropriate social occasion? I like my fictional gay men to show the same variety that the real gay men in my life do.
I confess, I’ve used the “clean” talk. Because that’s how straights of my experience talk about all STDs. I’ve learned better and the next contemporaries will reflect that. I would hesitate to write an HIV+ character. I don’t know all the medical ins and outs of HIV+ life. I do know what it is to be have a medical lightening bolt dropped on me, to be told I’m in the early stages of a disease that could kill me if we don’t treat it. Maybe Alley and I should double team this one. 8)
In fiction, I like my BDSM safe sane and consensual or so extreme it can’t be done at home. Because there are a lot of idiots, including me, who will TRY shit they’ve only read about or seen in a movie.
The problem with going more sophisticated is the editors not getting it and the readers not getting. When a certain publishing house won’t even let a gay man self-reference as “queer” in his dialogue, you expect them to grok HIV+ characters?
Teddy, of course you’re one of the monsters. You’re over forty and still getting naked. Ewww. Don’t you know that’s just tacky? (says she who is almost 42)
Link | November 4th, 2009 at 7:30 pm
TeddyPig wrote,
But you see that’s what I am getting at I and many others don’t have health issues I have HIV that is all. Been the same way for almost 20 years now. I don’t even take meds but even those who do really have no symptoms.
It’s not that much of a stretch medically or physically just the fact I do have something negative people could catch if I were irresponsible. That really is the only mind fuck you have to deal with… oh well along with the “you’re gonna die in 5 years!” holding pattern the ever so expert doctors had me in for years and years.
Heaven does not want me. Hell thinks I’m gonna take over… So what do I do with the rest of my life?
But I do not consider myself anything special not with watching so many friends and lovers die of AIDS.
Link | November 4th, 2009 at 7:45 pm
Angelia Sparrow wrote,
But see, Teddy, that’s my experience to a degree. I don’t think about the squamous cells growing in me all the time. They lurk in the back of my mind, like a toad in a pond, but aside from my semi-annual checkup, they don’t affect too much, except for one aspect of my politics. [I'm a huge advocate of Gardasil and have a tendency to lose my temper with the "oh my daughter will never NEED it (unlike your sluts)" types.]
I didn’t know if that was normal for folks who are mostly symptomless. Just “I have it. Now what.”
What do you do with the rest of your life? Live love and laugh. What else is there?
(and you know I’m teasing about the naked=eww part)
Link | November 4th, 2009 at 8:18 pm
kirsten saell wrote,
Sorry, but the fantasy’s been there forever and a day, it’s. It’s not going away because some people new to the genre don’t like it. Maybe it needs to be updated or written better, but it’s not going away.
It’s not going away, but I’d guess it’s maybe changing for a lot of women. Women are under more and more stress these days. The rape fantasies I had when I was a young SAHM with realistic burdens I could easily bear were much much different from the ones I have today, now that I’m juggling work and kids and have finally conceded defeat on the marriage front.
The place in my reptilian brain that generates those fantasies is no longer the one that wants to be so desired a man loses control and has his wicked way with me. Nope. Now it’s the place that sees myself struggling for everything, always compromising, often failing. No fantasy rapist ever spit on me and walked away when he was done when I was only a wife and mother. Now that I’m sole providor, mother, father and single, and unable to do a great job at any of it, well, my fantsies reflect those failures.
So no, the rape fantasy may not be going away, but the uncomplicated, sexually empowering rape fantasy of old is getting harder and harder for me to find in my repertoire at night.
Link | November 4th, 2009 at 10:36 pm
Tymber wrote,
I love that, that the academics (asshats) have “discovered” us and are basically trying to take it over and morph it into something that’s more palatable for them and more PC.
OMG. That is sooo SPOT-ON.
If they like it, they should read it. If they don’t like it, they should not read it, or write their own to reflect what they want to read.
They should NOT, however, be telling us how to do it if they aren’t willing to put up or shut up and do it themselves. Nice they can toss the slings and arrows at us, but they would prefer to sit safe in their gilded cages and not put themselves out there at risk.
And Teddy, you really hit a point for me too, in your comments with Ally, about an HIV+ character. Honestly, I’d never thought about writing one because I also didn’t think I could ever do them justice.
And as she also said, you only have yourself to blame if I start bugging you with questions too. LOL
Another point, the SSC argument, a lot of vanilla/kink-friendly writers who aren’t in the lifestyle seem to have little or no knowledge of RACK play. They all seem to work from the same basic Wikipedia page. LOL I’ve seen implements break, glass cupping cups get dropped, etc. And a lot of people who’ve played together for a while don’t use safewords because they know when there’s a problem they stop, they don’t need an elaborate system other than, “Hey, my foot’s falling asleep/cramping, fix it please.” LOL
Link | November 10th, 2009 at 7:58 am
So, I’ve been thinking… | Fiction With Friction wrote,
[...] this month about the whole safe sex (as in, all of it must BE, for some reason) in gay romance. Read it, it’s an interesting post. But, yeah, I’ve had this bug in my brain ever since, to [...]
Link | November 10th, 2009 at 8:53 pm