Oh Noes! Lesbians!

[Tang!]

+=YAWN=+

Just another one out of ten lesbian stories.   

I wrote a note weeks ago about how the last time I was in the car and playing a podcast, and the writer threw in some superfluous lesbian scene - and my passenger piped up immediately how this podcast was lesbian themed and just, "in the closet" (she even made up her own name which was pretty catchy and stuck in my head).

Now- *I* had been getting more and more tired of the lesbians as time had gone on, but until I had heard somebody else GO OFF on a rant.. I thought it was just me...

Later I wrote a note to the editors voicing just how tired I was of hearing about lesbian lovers seemingly constantly.   And I asked if they would count up just how many stories HAD to have some of this girl-on-girl action in it.  Now - don't get me wrong- I am not opposed to some hot lez action on its own.. but when it's coming to me in 1 out of every 10 podcasts... .. it really starts to taint the actual stories involved.  Yup-  the editors stepped up to the plate and did the work of counting.  And they came back saying that it was about 1 in ten of the past year or so had some good womanly loving in it.  And they saw nothing wrong with it.

Now - I just must not have articulated myself well enough (not a crazy thought there) but my point was that if one out of every ten stories had a T-Rex in it, I would feel the same.  It would be the same if one in ten had a touch of Zombie, or a touch of Robot.  It reminds me of those shameless product placements in some of the old movies like "Cannonball Run". They'd pretty much stop the scene, look into the camera and hold up the product, and then go back to the scene.   

Those Product Placements had their own comedic value at least, and the movie WAS A COMEDY.  But holding up a hot lesbian couple in every 10 episodes has a cumulative effect.  And this wasn't branded as a lesbian-centric podcast.

 

"God-  not ANOTHER damned T-Rex.... Do ALL of these stories HAVE to have a T-Rex in it to get into an episode?"

Like anyone I can and do brush off parts in any story that I really don't have much interest in, but this constant theme of superfluous lesbianism has gotten to the point with me that I just shut the podcast down.  The Product Placements come just too often for me these days.  It wasn't even noticeable at first, but maybe since I am a long time listener than it really IS the cumulative effect hitting me hard.

To quote a character in Jim Butcher's in Dead Beat:

"Exactly," Butters said. "Multiply that. These guys and other
athletes take a huge beating, right? They develop a mental and
physical toughness that lets them ignore a lot of pain and
overcome the damage, but the damage gets done to their bodies
nonetheless. And it's cumulative. That's why you see football
players, boxers, a lot of guys like that all beat to hell by the time
they're in their thirties. They regain most of the function after an
injury, but the damage is still there, and it adds up bit by bit."

It has turned into a joke with my friend and I (she has since unsubscribed over the repetition) whenever I bring up what I have listened to in the past.

The constant repetition of material just makes me stop listening as soon as the lady-love starts coming out. Either I switch it off in my head, or I do it physically more and more. Does it REALLY matter that the character is a lesbain and having sex?  Does it add anything to the story itself?  I know I am missing a good story by shutting off- but it's just not worth it to have the story intertwined yet again with some meaningless lesbian drivel.

Anyway - After I wrote the note and got the response I kept subscribed for those other 9 stories.  And the next podcast revolved around gay bears... Although I would have never had EVER guessed I would have said it, after the story I actually said aloud, "HOORAY FOR GAY BEAR-MEN!!"

I have all the respect in the world for the staff here - and this is their BABY.  They all bleed and breathe life into this podcast - nurture and care for it as a living thing.  They want it to be as big and as great and as wonderful as it can be - and I am all for that.  I don't write this just to rant and rave - but to bring to light that it's just not me getting tired and worn down by this recurring topic.  If the baby needs to come out of the closet - then please.. bring her out in full view and stand tall!  If not, then please.. PLEASE.. hear my plea.  Get off the broken lesbian record before you drive long-time listeners like me away.  I HAVE your t-shirt, I am a faithful listener - I have introduced at least 50 people to your show, and I've spoken good words, and sent good energies your way.  I want you to do well - and I want to enjoy your works.

I am just so tired.  I’m holding on for the other stories – really 10% shouldn’t be anything that drives me away… should it?  Every time I listen now, I am awaiting for that old lesbian shoe to drop - and for the disappointment to begin.


 

[Bdoomed]

Disclaimer: not speaking as a moderator here, don't take this as such, I am simply speaking as a fellow listener

I don't see anything wrong with 1 in 10 stories having gay/lesbian themes.  I feel like you find fault in this simply because you keep noticing it.  I would bet that there are many more themes that surface 1 in 10 times, themes that you haven't noticed and thus do not care about.  What are these themes?  I don't know, but I'm sure they are there.  It is quite possible that 1 in 10 stories have gratuitous space battles, or gratuitous heterosexual sex scenes, or gratuitous SF references, any number of things that don't matter simply because you haven't noticed them.

Or I could be completely wrong.  I honestly do not know, however I think the argument that 10% is a large number of stories to contain a small theme is ridiculous.  It is even more ridiculous to insinuate that this podcast is 'lesbian centered' by airing stories that contain that theme 10% of the time.  I don't believe 10% can ever constitute centrality.  I think this podcast might be better branded an SF centered podcast because... hmm well every story has an SF element in it!  That's 100%!

EP does not claim to cater to everyone's tastes all the time.  They sample from many different stories based on the editor's choice of what would be great and fun in audio.  If authors are writing good fiction with lesbian themes in them, then those stories are going to be picked just as frequently as well written stories without lesbian themes.  How is 10% "constant repetition of material"?  If there were 2 out of 10 stories with characters eating cheese in a scene or two, would that bother you?  "Does it REALLY matter that the character is a cheese lover and enjoying some cheese?"  No, not really, but it wouldn't bother me to read about cheese loving characters enjoying their cheese.  That just lets me know more about those characters.  (this is a dumb argument I know)

[Kanasta]

I've no particular interest in hearing lesbian stories either but on the other hand, lesbians are hardly like T Rexes or Zombies, are they (as in, they are real, and some of them probably listen to this podcast too)? As it is estimated that 10% of the population is gay, I suppose 10% of the stories matching that ratio means the podcast is merely representative of the human population?

I also got a bit bored with the endless ladytree sex in this though; I kind of felt like "Yeah, got the message.. tree people get you hot.. moving on". Although I did like the bit about her tweaking her own durian. I'm just puerile I guess.

[ElectricPaladin]

I wasn't going to say anything... but after Tang's post I have to. Sorry, Tang, I don't want to beat up on you... but I think I will.

Look, I don't want to accuse anyone of being homophobic, but it seems to me that almost every time there's a gay-themed episode - or even an episode with gay characters - the feedback is overwhelmingly negative. Especially if they dare to get it on gayly or - God help them - if they are lesbians. I don't know why lesbians are on this community's shit list, but they are.

Seriously, how many other stories get responses like "*YAWN*" or "Forty minutes of my life I can't have back" or rants about how terrible it is to liste to what turns someone else on. We aren't this rude to or dismissive of stories about straight sex.

What the hell? I didn't even like this story.

Anyway, I'm not going to dig into Tang's post and rip out all the homophobic and heteronormative stuff, because that probably would get the mods mad at me. What I am going to say is this: probably roughly one in ten people in the world are gay and about half of them are lesbians. That means that probably a little more than one in ten of Escape Pod's listenership is gay (I say more because of speculative fiction's long history of attracting members of other culturally marginalized and stigmatized groups). If one in ten Escape Pod listeners are gay and one in ten Escape Pod stories feature gay themes, well, that's about fair.

By the way, I'm pretty sure that one in ten Escape Pod stories are not gay-themed. I'm pretty sure the number is a lot lower.

I don't like stories that demonize religion, but I listen to them, comment on their merits and flaws as best I can, and don't demand that Escape Pod stop running them. I don't like flowery fantasies with weak plots, but when Podcastle runs one, I comment on it, look to itemize the good and the bad, and appreciate it as best I can. I don't like gross-out horror with gratuitously depressing endings, but I don't threaten to stop listening whenever one of those hits the feed.

I challenge the members of this community to examine their prejudices and preferences. Why can't we be as civil to gay-themed stories as we are to others? Why do we react to them dismissively and caustically? Why do we act as though the occasional gay story somehow ruins the rest of our fun? Why do we exaggerate their frequency so much?

I now return you to your regularly scheduled commentary.

[Tang!]

Guys-  the one in ten didn't come from me-  I didn't do the count.  The editors did.  I asked THEM to do the work - and they DID.  This IS their baby and they want the best for it.  I want the best for it too. 

My opinion is that we see the lesbian thing too much.  Stephen King wrote that when he was doing a story - "When in Doubt, go for the Gross-out" and he admitted to falling back on it time and time again.  Again, I have nothing against a good mutilation now and again in a story - but do it too often, and the effects get blunted, and then it just gets routine.  Which- a on in ten constant occurrence  IS routine.  Lesbianism is DULL now.  There isn't any value in it for me.  If one in every ten was a classic "Bodice Ripper" variety  I would write the same. 

I come for escape and fantasy - not for lesbian eroticism.  There ARE podcasts for that out there.  Yes- it may very well be part of things sometimes - and that's fine.  I would just feel less bored if it was more of a one in twenty.  Maybe they could try some other sexually explicit thing for a while...masturbation, man-on-man, man-on-machine, Hell get farmyard animals and robots involved... What happened to sexual creativity?!?

Please re-read my previous post a time or two. 

Again - it's more a matter of repetition than it is content.  So I will put it back into your court.  Do the looking and find another theme that is 1 and 10 in the 'casts.  I have not noticed one.  I didn't have a issue with the gay bears - it was REFRESHING DIFFERENT.

No, one in ten stories by themselves do not make it a "centric" theme - but when put in relation with all other variety of themes that do not appear to come close to that 10%  - it DOES make one raise an eyebrow.  And it's boring me to death.

[ElectricPaladin]

Again - it's more a matter of repetition than it is content.  So I will put it back into your court.  Do the looking and find another theme that is 1 and 10 in the 'casts.  I have not noticed one.  I didn't have a issue with the gay bears - it was REFRESHING DIFFERENT.

No, one in ten stories by themselves do not make it a "centric" theme - but when put in relation with all other variety of themes that do not appear to come close to that 10%  - it DOES make one raise an eyebrow.  And it's boring me to death.

See, here's what bugs me. Here's what I find homophobic about your comments: what the heck was lesbian themed about The Notebook of my Favorite Skin-Trees? There was a lesbian character, and she sometimes had lesbian sex. Ok. Does that mean that every story that features a straight character who has straight sex is a "straight-themed" story? Absolutely not. We take straightness for granted, we allow it to exist in the backdrop, and we don't obsess over it.

Christmas Wedding was lesbian themed. The Bear in the Cable-Knit Sweater was gay-themed. Both stories focused on gay issues - on the challenges of being homosexual in the modern (future) world (uh... faerie).

The Notebook of my Favorite Skin-Trees contained a variety of themes: posthumanism, advertising, globalism, economics, subcultures... and all it took was some gay sex and a double-headed dildo and commenters are running for the hills and talking about how boring the preponderance of lesbianism is. That's what bugs me.

[Tang!]

The theme is not within THIS singular story - I am talking OVERALL stuff here. 

And - of course you are entitled to your own opinion- as I am entitled to mine.

Let me put it THIS way - if you did notice that eat cheese sandwiches was in 1 out of every 10 podcasts... wouldn't you at least raise an eyebrow?

When the next story came.. and the characters were going to eat.. would you eventually think, "Here come the cheese sandwiches AGAIN...  What is wrong with PB and J's?"

THAT is where I am at.

More Variety PLEASE

[Tang!]

Eroticism is is just one form of graphic theme that is commonly used to grab a readers attention.  Gay, Lesbian, straight - whatever.. but at LEAST if we are going to have eroticism - lets not have most of it focus on lesbians.  Split up up more- like they did with the Bears - I was HAPPY that they did that because it did show a difference.  True - it was still gay - but at least it was gay men this time out. 

Again- I have nothing against the erotic - but most of us don't tune in for all the "juicy bits" we tune in for the rest.  They have relied on lesbian "Juicy Bits" in 10 percent of their stories.  It's not become tiring for you - but it has for me.  We gotta have some eroticism, I think is realistic in anything human - I just want a wider and more creative variety. 

[Bdoomed]

And what if there are no authors submitting to Escape Pod writing creative juicy bits?  Stories are chosen for their merit not for the fact that they have creatively crafted lesbian sex.  There was a very small amount of lesbian sex in this story.  It was more just description of why she was infatuated with each woman.  And I would say that this story's lesbianism was pretty damn creative.  How many stories feature lesbian plant sex?  But, as ElectricPaladin said, this story had a great variety of other themes.

And first of all, you wouldn't notice the frequency of cheese as easily as you would homosexuality, it's not as big of a deal, but even so it would not be "wow why all the cheese sandwiches", rather "hmm authors sure are loving these cheese sandwiches these days."  (at least for me it would be).

Homosexual issues are a hot topic these days, it's only natural for our contemporary literature to reflect that to some degree.  This story didn't really feature any 'issues' per se, however it did allow for that type of relationship to exist, and tied it into how relationships are constructed within this new development in human cohabitation with plants.  Sure it could have been straight plant sex, but this was a story about women.  There are plenty of straight relationships in many of the episodes in this podcast, yet the odd homosexual one has you riled up enough to post about it and yet posting about how bored you are with it?  That doesn't make sense to me.  1 in 10 is not a lot at all.

[Unblinking]

I find it odd to compare lesbians to speculative elements like robots and t-rexes, because one is an actual aspect of humanity regardless of time period, setting, or events, while the other is future or past speculation that depends entirely on setting and events.  Any story that has people can have lesbians and still make sense.  But plopping a t-rex or a robot down changes everything.  It's not an apples-apples comparison.  More like comparing the color of an apple to the feeling of grief, or the density of the atmosphere to IGN's rating of Halo 3.

It doesn't compare particularly well to cheese sandwiches either, because the existence of cheese and the existence of sandwiches does depend on setting.  And I think you'd be hard pressed to come up with a story where a cheese sandwich was an important detail to character or plot, while sexual preference is certainly an important part of a character, and may often be an important part of the plot--in many stories a character's sexual orientation is not spelled out in the story, but it is no less important because of that.

Anyway, regarding this story, I didn't have a problem with the lesbian sex.  It was the lack of anything else happening that got under my skin.  The scenes describing her sexual exploits were not divergent because they were lesbian sexual exploits, they were divergent because they slowed down the plot movement of finding the cure for the disease, what was presumably the central tension of the piece.  And not only that, but all of those scenes were based heavily on finding tree roots digging into flesh sexy instead of creepy and masochistic.  So I wouldn't say that this story didn't work because it had lesbian sex.  I'd say the story didn't work because it didn't use sex well, lesbian or otherwise.  

Regarding ElectricPaladin's concerns about large apparent amounts of dislike towards a story with lesbian sex:
1.  I think that might be more of an aspect of what moves people to comment.  I don't necessarily think that any larger a percentage dislike stories with a lesbian than other ones.  It's just that those who dislike it are more likely to feel moved to comment because of religious, cultural, or literary discussions about it.
2.  On the flip side of the perceived dislike of stories that involve lesbians, I don't think that people should be discouraged to voice dislike if they disliked it.  You know I'm not bashful about stating my dislike of any given story, but I try to be specific in my response, as I was with this one.  Just so that we don't push over to the opposite side, where anyone who voices dislike of a story with homosexuality is accused of homophobia.

[stePH]

Let me put it THIS way - if you did notice that eat cheese sandwiches was in 1 out of every 10 podcasts... wouldn't you at least raise an eyebrow?

When the next story came.. and the characters were going to eat.. would you eventually think, "Here come the cheese sandwiches AGAIN...  What is wrong with PB and J's?"

No.

[ElectricPaladin]

Regarding ElectricPaladin's concerns about large apparent amounts of dislike towards a story with lesbian sex:
1.  I think that might be more of an aspect of what moves people to comment.  I don't necessarily think that any larger a percentage dislike stories with a lesbian than other ones.  It's just that those who dislike it are more likely to feel moved to comment because of religious, cultural, or literary discussions about it.

Well, we may have to just agree to disagree here. The trend is one that I am very confident saying that I've noticed, but I'm comfortable conceding that this is pretty subjective. Different people have different thresholds for pattern recognition in different arenas. I see a pattern and you may not. If we both keep our eyes open, we may both find our opinions changing over time.

2.  On the flip side of the perceived dislike of stories that involve lesbians, I don't think that people should be discouraged to voice dislike if they disliked it.  You know I'm not bashful about stating my dislike of any given story, but I try to be specific in my response, as I was with this one.  Just so that we don't push over to the opposite side, where anyone who voices dislike of a story with homosexuality is accused of homophobia.

I agree 100%. The last thing I want is an environment where people can't voice dislike for a story because of its content.

That said, as I asserted above, it is a pattern I see, and as a member of this community it concerns me.

[ElectricPaladin]

Seriously, how many other stories get responses like "*YAWN*" or "Forty minutes of my life I can't have back" or rants about how terrible it is to liste to what turns someone else on. We aren't this rude to or dismissive of stories about straight sex.

Interested parties may take note that I also called Pseudopod's "Set Down This" a waste of my time, and there was like NO sex in it, lesbian or otherwise. So don't be lumping me in with Tang there... I can't recall offhand any other gay-theme stories I came down hard on.

...perhaps I need to rephrase that last sentence... nah, fuckit. 

I gotta admit, I've never been a fan of your commenting style. Nothing personal, it takes all kinds, etc etc etc. But I also totally agree that you are quite consistent in your taciturn and sharp dismissal of stories you don't like. You're not among the individuals I'm talking about.

[H. Bergeron]

My opinion is that we see the lesbian thing too much.  Stephen King wrote that when he was doing a story - "When in Doubt, go for the Gross-out" and he admitted to falling back on it time and time again.  Again, I have nothing against a good mutilation now and again in a story - but do it too often, and the effects get blunted, and then it just gets routine.  Which- a on in ten constant occurrence  IS routine.  Lesbianism is DULL now.  There isn't any value in it for me.  If one in every ten was a classic "Bodice Ripper" variety  I would write the same. 

I'm surprised to see no one addressing this. The sexual themes in any given episode do nothing for me - lesbian, gay, straight, dendrophiliac - and I have never seen them as being put there specifically to 'push the envelope.' I don't think that the editors of any of Escape Artists' podcasts go out of their way to choose stories that DO push the envelope in terms of sexual escapism or exoticism. It seems to me more like you're projecting your own opinion of lesbianism onto these stories.

To my mind, what SHOULD BE the relevant part of a character being a lesbian (or a gay man, or a straight person, or a dendrophiliac, or a sado-masochist, or... you get the point) is how it influences their relationships with other people around them, the way it influences situations in their every-day lives, and the way it influences their relationship with society at large. It's not about pushing the envelope - it's not about X sexual preference or fantasy being boring or new and exciting. It's just who that character IS.

If you're listening to these stories and expecting that every detail about the protagonists is going to be some sort of scintillating, titillating look at some hidden element of society, I think you're missing something.

[alllie]

So lesbian sex scenes in 10% of Escape Pod episdoes is reasonable since 1 out of 10 Americans might have had a sexual encounter with someone of the same gender? But shouldn't the count be what percentage of lesbian sex scenes appear out of the total number of sex scenes in Escape Pod episodes? Most Escape Pod episodes don't have sex scenes but I guesstimate that probably half of the episodes with sex scenes, especially explicit scenes, are lesbian sex scenes. Such scenes are getting to be very common on Escape Pod and I wonder if a lesbian loving heterosexual guy is responsible for the product placement.

It does seem to me that there are lots of lesbian characters in Escape Pod episodes of late. Way more than homosexual characters. Maybe more than heterosexual characters, at least heterosexual characters whose sexuality is identified and repeatedly referred to in the story.

I think you're overdoing the "put a lesbian in every story you can" thing.

[Talia]

This seems like a good time to remind everyone of The Rules regarding forum postings. Thanks.

[DKT]

I wrote a note weeks ago about how the last time I was in the car and playing a podcast, and the writer threw in some superfluous lesbian scene - and my passenger piped up immediately how this podcast was lesbian themed and just, "in the closet" (she even made up her own name which was pretty catchy and stuck in my head).

Now- *I* had been getting more and more tired of the lesbians as time had gone on, but until I had heard somebody else GO OFF on a rant.. I thought it was just me...

Later I wrote a note to the editors voicing just how tired I was of hearing about lesbian lovers seemingly constantly.   And I asked if they would count up just how many stories HAD to have some of this girl-on-girl action in it.  Now - don't get me wrong- I am not opposed to some hot lez action on its own.. but when it's coming to me in 1 out of every 10 podcasts... .. it really starts to taint the actual stories involved.  Yup-  the editors stepped up to the plate and did the work of counting.  And they came back saying that it was about 1 in ten of the past year or so had some good womanly loving in it.  And they saw nothing wrong with it.

Now - I just must not have articulated myself well enough (not a crazy thought there) but my point was that if one out of every ten stories had a T-Rex in it, I would feel the same.  It would be the same if one in ten had a touch of Zombie, or a touch of Robot.  It reminds me of those shameless product placements in some of the old movies like "Cannonball Run". They'd pretty much stop the scene, look into the camera and hold up the product, and then go back to the scene.   

Those Product Placements had their own comedic value at least, and the movie WAS A COMEDY.  But holding up a hot lesbian couple in every 10 episodes has a cumulative effect.  And this wasn't branded as a lesbian-centric podcast.

 

"God-  not ANOTHER damned T-Rex.... Do ALL of these stories HAVE to have a T-Rex in it to get into an episode?"

Like anyone I can and do brush off parts in any story that I really don't have much interest in, but this constant theme of superfluous lesbianism has gotten to the point with me that I just shut the podcast down.  The Product Placements come just too often for me these days.  It wasn't even noticeable at first, but maybe since I am a long time listener than it really IS the cumulative effect hitting me hard.

-SNIP-

Tang!, the letter you mentioned was actually to the editors of PodCastle, which is me (or, at least, half me, and half Anarkey). Just to be clear, EP and PC are under the same banner of EA, and Mur's my friend, but all the EA podcasts are different ships, and don't consult each other regarding story selection.

Yes, I counted the stories when you wrote into us. It was actually less than 1 of 10 - coming in at eight percent. What I didn't explicity state (because I thought it was rather obvious) that while 8% of our stories featured lesbians (note: not necesarilly lesbians having sex), it meant that the rest of our stories - 92% - featured either straight or gay characters. (Unfortunately - at PodCastle, we only ran two stories that feature gay characters in the past year.)

So my question is: at what point would you feel comfortable listening to stories featuring lesbian characters? 5%? 3%? 1%? Less than 1%?

Additionally, I'm also disturbed that you compare stories featuring lesbians to stories featuring zombies, or stories that feature T-rexes. I don't think that you mean to equate lesbians to monsters (or dinosaurs), but regardless: it's very, very bad taste. Lesbians, like you, are people, not a genre.

I do appreciate that you like the 92% of the stories, and that you even dug the gay bears, and I do hope you continue to listen to our podcasts. But while I haven't yet had the oppurtunity to listen to this particular story yet, I can tell you that at PodCastle we'll continue to run stories with lesbian protagonists - especially when they're as strong as the one you initially complained about. And I have no doubt Mur will continue to do the same at EP.

I'm on my way out the door, otherwise I'd split this off. Hopefully, eytanz or another mod will be around soon to take care of it, and we can get back to talking about the story in question, and continue this discussion elsewhere if necessary.

[Anarkey]

Yes, I counted the stories when you wrote into us. It was actually less than 1 of 10 - coming in at eight percent. What I didn't explicity state (because I thought it was rather obvious) that while 8% of our stories featured lesbians (note: not necesarilly lesbians having sex), it meant that the rest of our stories - 92% - featured either straight or gay characters. (Unfortunately - at PodCastle, we only ran two stories that feature gay characters in the past year.)

During the same time period, 6% of our stories were by some guy named Tim Pratt, 8% of our stories were chosen by Ann Leckie,  8% of our stories were narrated by Wilson Fowlie, 14% of our stories prominently featured dreams, and 6% of our stories were about goats (though not all the goats were literal goats, some were of people with goat parts).

I eagerly await complaint letters about our goat-centric podcast.

[Bdoomed]

I eagerly await complaint letters about our goat-centric podcast.

Yes but can't they be more creatively placed goats?

[Heradel]

I'm busy putting the finishing touches on Soundproof so I don't really have time to fully respond on behalf of Escape Pod, but if I did, it would look very much like DKT's response. We buy stories because they're good, not because of the sexual orientation of the characters. I don't have time to run the stats on how many GLBT characters we've had in the last few dozen episodes, but I'm sure that whatever number it is is a fine number, and not one I would look to change, no matter how high it is. The deciding factor is the quality of the story, not if the main character is trying to get into pants or skirts.

We should probably run more goat stories though.

[Scattercat]

Remember, everyone: Lesbians are a spec-fic element equivalent to tyrannosauruses or robots, and their mere existence is weird and unusual and worthy of reacting with shock.  It's also very suspicious when they make up a tiny visible percentage of the characters in a body of work, since in nature all lesbians are invisible, and if you catch a lesbian with a silver lasso, she will whisper to you the secret location of her pot of lesbian gold.

Do not attempt to catch a gay man with a silver lasso. 

If you spot a lesbian in a story, be sure to ring the Lesbian Alarm to alert everyone to this development.  Lesbians bear close watching, as they are wont to evaporate and turn into raspberry asbestos at the slightest mention of the classic 2005 movie, Stealth.

[NoraReed]

Just another heterosexual story.

Last time I was driving in a car and listening to Escape Pod my passenger noted that Escape Pod is heterosexual and just "in the closet" about it.

Now, don't get me wrong, I'm totally okay with having some hot straight action on it's own, but it seems absurd how many podcasts have boy-on-girl action in them. I can't believe the editors think that there's nothing wrong with the fact that so many Escape Pod stories are straight.

Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not heterophobic, but if one in ten stories had a family, food or clothes in them, I'd feel the same. I feel like Escape Pod is actually putting in "product placement" for heterosexuality because it is impossible for me to see a story with heterosexual characters without their heterosexuality overriding every other element of their characterization and the rest of the story. For example, I found the relationship between Marie and her husband in "Advertising At The End of the World" so overwhelming that I was unable to pay attention to the themes of consumerism, loss, loneliness and obsolete technology.

Having heterosexuality so common in a podcast that ISN'T STRAIGHT-THEMED really bothers me. Do all these stories HAVE to have straight people in them?

Of course I can ignore pieces of the story that I don't care about, but I feel like the constant addition of heterosexual elements bother me so much that I might have to stop listening. I know I'll miss good stories by doing this, but I just can't stand listening to more mindless heterosexual drivel.

[Mur Lafferty]

1) I will check slush for goat stories.  

2) Also, what DKT said was right. We are sister podcasts, Escape Pod, Pseudopod, and Podcastle, but we are individually run and if you have issues, please address the editor of each podcast and do not blame (or praise) one of us for the others' actions.  

3) I recently listened to book 4 of the Dexter series. I enjoy the Dexter books like I like corn chips. They do me no good but they make passing the time while traveling easier. But one thing that really hit me about book 4 was the antagonist was gay.

Why did it hit me? It was not because he was gay. It was because the story made no big deal out of it other than the character was "mad because [Dexter] killed his boyfriend." The cops hunting this guy did not say "that sick fag" or "that homo killer." He was a gay man. In a story. He wasn't walking around getting GAY all over the walls and floors, like the GAYS tend to do. He had a role to play. His sexuality was not an issue, just who he was. They were more concerned with the fact that he was, you know, killing people, than who he slept with.

When we're writing the Other (a common term for someone differently -abled -gendered -sexuality -racial than the author,) we tend to write people who are Gay or Black or A Woman In A Man's World. And that is their character. When you actually have someone who is a carpenter, and a libertarian, and a sardonic asshole, and homosexual, people wonder when the GAY will get all over everything, because suddenly it is a GAY story. Not a carpenter's story, or a political story, or a satire.

So if 10% gay is bad, is 10% female protagonist bad? 10% Jewish? 10% Asian? 10% non-American? If you're counting the straight vs. gay, are you also counting the white vs non-white? The WASP vs non-Christian? The male protag vs female? Is the default protag white, male, straight, Christian, American?

If we have stories about someone who is not like you, it's going to stand out as NOT LIKE YOU. Of course I notice when a protag is not a white, female, straight, American. And believe it or not, that's OK, because the story is likely to focus on someone who IS like someone else who has been desperate to find SF that concerns people JUST LIKE THEM. For what it's worth, many SF stories are about aliens...who by definition are not like any of us. And yet no one complains about that.

Yes, I will continue to buy stories with gays and lesbians in them. If the stories are well-written SF, I don't care of the protag is gay, a gay T-rex, a gay T-rex who's fucking a goat, or a gay T-rex Jewish republican Eskimo who is fucking a goat. I want good SF. I don't actually go through the percentages and think, "oh, no, sorry, we already hit our listener-approved 8% TEH GAY stories this month. I must reject your story about singularities and soup cans, even though it's brilliant and worthy of the Hugo and Nebula and whatever awards TEH GAY community gives out. This story simply has too many of TEH GAY in it."

If you do not enjoy the free story, turn it off. Delete it. No one will think any less of you.

And if you still feel as if you are not getting your money's worth from this free podcast, please email me, tell me exactly how much you donated to support the podcast, and I will refund all of your money.

[Mur Lafferty]

I wonder if Charlie Stross or Cory Doctorow has any stories about gay characters, singularities, and soup cans.

[NoraReed]

I wonder if Charlie Stross or Cory Doctorow has any stories about gay characters, singularities, and soup cans.

I want this story. I want it to be co-written by Benjamin Rosenbaum and Joey Comeau and I want Norm to narrate it.