Not straight books
I want to talk about labeling, because I am annoyed. Sometimes I wake up and I don’t want to call my book gay or queer or lesbian or whatever. I get the ick.
I talked about it before here and defended queer labeling as just a useful category. And I still mean that. But today is just one of those days where I feel especially annoyed about it.
Even for me, who prefers lesbian stories, all this labeling sometimes feels too much into my face. It’s everywhere, which I should be happy about, but something about it makes me cringe sometimes. Maybe the reason is that I don’t like the sexual vibe that it’s giving, some books are not even romantic like that.
And I want and need labels to find movies and books that I like, but I also hate it a bit. I hate that it is the exclusive, the other thing, like a special interest.
Straight books don’t need a heterosexual label. You assume things are straight until proven otherwise. Like it’s often the case with people in real life, too. And I am tired.
I guess I just wish we wouldn’t need labels like that.
Sometimes I think myself into a parallel universe, where a woman and a man walk into a hotel and the service person says: “Ohh, we don’t have separate beds available, sorry. Is that ok? Are you guys brother and sister? You seem so close.”
I think it makes sense this way around and I am not offended by the logic that hetero stuff is the norm (I mean it just is.).
And I am not mad at people. It’s ok. But sometimes I am just tired of it.
(Ok that took a bit of a personal turn now...)