Regarding queer-unfriendly markets September 9, 2009
Posted by mbranesf in : Uncategorized , trackbackAfter much discussion within the Outer Alliance, a consensus has been reached that when our writers or publishers encounter a market that is specifically unwelcoming to queer content, that we ought to make sure our membership is aware of it so that they may decide individually whether or not they wish to try to conduct business with such a market.
It is adamantly not the function of the Outer Alliance to tell its members how to behave nor to police the world of speculative fiction publishing. We do, however, believe that our membership, and many more people outside the Alliance, would prefer to have the information when it becomes known that a publisher is specifically opposed to the things we stand for.
The following is excerpted from the website of Crossed Genres magazine, edited by Bart Leib and Kay Holt:
“While advertising Crossed Genres through Project Wonderful, I’ve been placing a number of ads specifically calling for submissions to our upcoming LGBTQ issue.
On September 1, I placed an ad bid on Flash Fiction Online, figuring it was an appropriate site for a call for writing submissions…
The next day (9/2) I received an email notification that the bid had been rejected. The owner offered only this short message as explanation: “’Sorry, I don’t accept sexually themed ads.’”
Please click here to read the remainder of this item at the Crossed Genres site.
Also, this is the ad that Crossed Genres attempted to place.
Comments»
Really nice looking ad. Not sure where the sex is, but I’m sure it’s there. Maybe that fairly salamander is a little phallic or something.
Good luck with this and the issue.
I clicked through to read the full post, and his logic is flawed. He appears to want it both ways, i.e. against gay marriage but gays are ok.
Thanks for getting the word out.
I would like to clear up one aspect of my post.
Brandon Bell says here:
http://nithska.blogspot.com/2009/09/crossed-flash-affair.html
…that I used a “familiar tactic” when I said, “men can love men, women can love women, even men can love little boys[*] if that’s where their emotions and desires lead.” But the quoted email was a private communication between Bart and me, not a blog post. I wasn’t employing rhetorical tricks trying to convert the undecided or to rile the faithful.
In other words, I wasn’t using “tactics”. If I had wanted to, I certainly wouldn’t have chosen that one.
I should be sensitive to the fact that GLBTs often feel under attack. I thought my disclaimer was sufficient to let Bart know that I was not “stat[ing] directly or imply[ing] that m/m love is tantamount to raping kids” (a reaction from an OA member blog), but apparently it wasn’t, and I apologize to the GLBT community for making you feel that way.
Similarly, Bell says, “Here we see the casual listing of homosexual relationships with polyamory. Becuase we all know the Gay sleep around.” Again, this isn’t a tactic. I was talking about “different sexual relationships”; I can think of at least one well-known polyamorous figure in science fiction, one whom I respect: I don’t think it impugns homosexuals or him to mention the two arrangements together. Perhaps if any GLBT people think it does, they could explain to me why. (Again, that’s not rhetoric: I simply don’t know why you’d feel that way.)
I’m not saying these things because people have attacked my intellectual honesty, but because I don’t want people whom I respect to think that I equate them with child rapists.
Thank you.
If you didn’t want to equate homosexuality with paedophilia you wouldn’t have put them together.
In the original email, Bart said that this wasn’t about marriage, but about being able to choose whom you love. My point was that you can’t necessarily choose whom you love. That’s true regardless of whether you’re straight, gay, or even otherwise inclined.
You can accept my explanation or not, but that was the intent.
There are just some things you shouldn’t mention in the same breath. Doing so groups them in the speaker’s mind and in the reader’s; as an editor, I’m surprised that you wouldn’t know that. I teach Freshman Comp, and it’s the sort of thing I tell my eighteen year olds.
Also, I’m not sure that describing your editorial policies to a possible advertiser counts as a “private” conversation. It’s definitely not in the same category as something said to a friend in confidence. At my former job, *anything* I sent from my work e-mail was public record. People have different standards about that sort of thing.
…Pedophilia isn’t love, any more than rape or a stalkerish obsession is love. It’s a sexual compulsion tied to a pathology, not an emotive state. It is absolutely not in the same category as adult emotional bonding of any sort. Insinuating otherwise is both insulting and, frankly, rather creepy.
Perhaps ‘semantic construct’ would be more accurate. Regardless of the, ah, semantics, I stand by the criticism.
Bbell
[...] Another $%^ing one, what are they, breeding? September 9th, 2009 I posted last week in solidarity with the Outer Alliance, a spanking-new group of GLBTQI writers and straight/cisgendered allies. Lo and behold, within a week of its formation the OA has encountered its first incidence of homophobic discrimination. More on this there. [...]
I totally agree with Sara
Jarla Tangh is an African Descended writer who would like to be the literary equivalent of Margaret Cho whenever she grows up.
She’s delighted that writers inside and outside the LGBT community have been letting her know about this particular piece of folderol. She doesn’t yet tweet, but she’s heard from separate Facebook sources about Crossed Genres’s plight. Knowledge is definitely power and thanks for sharing the saga. In her lifetime, she’d loooove to see this kind of close-mindedness go by the wayside.
Howdy! I’m collecting commentary here, and am linking to this (if you want me to remove your link, just respond to this comment and tell me so).
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