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From: dalton@gladys.UUCP (David Dalton)
Newsgroups: net.motss,net.sf-lovers
Subject: Re: Sexual Slant in Novels - "Stars in My Pocket..."
Message-ID: <163@gladys.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 31-Dec-85 06:23:51 EST
Article-I.D.: gladys.163
Posted: Tue Dec 31 06:23:51 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 2-Jan-86 04:49:05 EST
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Organization: SFWN at Tobaccoville, NC
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Xref: linus net.motss:2138 net.sf-lovers:10591

> Recently I bought an sf novel from the Quality Paperback
> Book Club, Samuel R. Delany's "Stars in My Pocket Like Grains
> of Sand."  The book club's blurb had read something like:
> "drama of life, death and sexuality in the distant future."
> The problem I have with this is that the ad didn't disclose
> that the "sexuality" was predominantly gay sexuality.
> Despite some features of interest, I stopped reading the 
> book about half way through, when it became evident that just
> about all the romance and sex was to be gay.

I too bought this book from Quality Paperback Book Club after I read
the blurb. I knew something about Delaney, but there's another clue. If
the blurb were referring to straight sex, it would say "life, death
and sex." Straight sex is sex, I guess, and gay sex is sexuality.

Now that I've been flippant, I also have a more serious point: Why
do you read? Especially, why do you read speculative fiction? As someone
else mentioned, the point of sex in fiction is not sexual stimulation
of the reader, except in pornography. If a character in fiction is a whole
character, then the character probably has a sexuality. If our reading is
diverse, and if our writers are diverse, then surely we will find diverse
sexualties. It seems odd to me that a reader of science fiction would accept
aliens of every stripe and color and yet balk at a gay human. "Warning: Some
characters are gay" is every bit as silly as "Warning: Some characters are
green."

I was acutely bored by "Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand" and put it
down after about 100 pages. Other science fiction/fantasy writers have done
better with gay characters, particularly Elizabeth Lynn. Gay characters are
amazingly prevalent in science fiction/fantasy. I recommend for those
interested a book by Eric Garber and Lyn Paleo, "Uranian Worlds: A Reader's
Guide to Alternative Sexuality in Science Fiction and Fantasy," G.K. Hall &
Co., Boston.