Do Hetrosexuals read Gay Fiction ?

Do Lesbians lick their own stamps? First Class answers only, please.

lab tests would indicate they do not.......

Tales of the City. I'm straight but it's a fantastic read. I would never let an itsy bitsy issue of sexuality cloud my judgement.

I can recommend Alan Hollinghurst. He writes superb prose. The Folding Star is my favourite. It was shortlisted for the 1994 Booker Prize. Not being heterosexual I cannot answer the other part of your query (pun regarding one's own sexuality intended) but I believe literature would be poorer without gay authors and gay fiction. Will be interested to follow this thread.

It might be worth listing some of the great gay writers. Some who I can think of immediately are Jean Genet, Frank O'Hara, WH Auden (no relation), Allen Ginsberg, Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson, Virginia Woolf, excluding the more obvious ones. We may be in for a few surprises... Now, where's the bottle of port... Can't get a decent Butler these days...

would you like a fag with your port sir?

I didn't know there was gay fiction! do you mean fiction about gay people or fiction written by gays? If the latter then I would not give a toss (so to speak) but if the former it would depend on how the subject was treated I suppose. I dunno. A books a book isn't it? It's either crap, MOR, or good no matter what the subject, the author's gender or their sexual persuasion. Does gay fiction get sub-divided into genre? Gay horror for example.

Instead of quibbling about the actual question....try answering it. I guess it means fiction about gay lifestyles, whether straight people can relate to such lifestyles and whether they read about them or not.

Never read a lesbian vampire story stormy? Its a massive cult *ahem* Pagans daughter, is an excellent book, that appealed to me, l loved it (yes, lm hetero) and also was loved by the gay man l passed it onto. Cant remember the author though, but I'm sure a search on Amazon or The Book Place would show it.

1) was not a quibble. was perfectly serious 2) I did answer both questions. since I hadn't heard of gay fiction , clearly I have not read any and the reason why? .... because I hadn't heard of it. 3) thankyou for answering my quibble

I can also recommend Joe Orton. He went down well. Read his diaries for the full details. ;-)

I will rejoin this thread tomorrow. Last fag before bedtime now........well maybe

yes, even by the high standards of writers who hail from the leicester area, orton was excellent. shame about his grisly end [again, check diary for full details]

are we back into the 'one mans meat' argument again?

I wonder what Gloria Hunniford reads?

ok l lied.... 2 fags later .....and I wonder could someone enlighten me if this thread is connected to the A Bone Of Contention thread?

hope you used filters Dave?

l only ever role my own my butler isn't indecent

careful stormy, the censors evidently do not allow any reference to g****a h*******d. and quite right too

just noticed I missed an apostrophe off books (sic) in my first post. Now bloody Eric will be here to hi-jack the thread tomorrow with his heteropostrophe moaning. shouldn't that be G***** S******d Robert?

I hear Eric's a pedant. Don't think I like the sound of that!!!!!!!!

oh honestly! anyway, i expect it would be more of a torrent...now where were we?

I couldn't sleep. it's so HOT! Not only that Dave, I hear he likes mountain elephants on his foreign travels. and..... he plays the bongos.

Aren't bongo playing and mountain elephants part of the indigenous pedant culture?

God ya got me thinking now, how much work have I read that might have been wrote by Gay people? I don't recall it being on the front cover or anything. Hi i'm muzzy by the way i'm not Gay.

Dont worry Muzz Its not catching. You mustve read some hans christian anderson, surely?

but possibly not any Lorca ...

For those interested. Any decent bookshop will have a section for gay fiction. This is usually a mixed bag of work containing some excellent novels, a lot of anthologies containing poetry and short stories and the mildly pornographic novel of extremely poor quality. Novels such as Oranges are not the Only Fruit, The Swimmimg Pool Library etc sit alongside pulp soft porn. Gay authors who write gay fiction will be found in this section. Gay authors who do not will appear in other sections and will not have gay fiction attributed to it anywhere on the cover or sleeve. Two arguments with this. Firstly the spines of the cheap porno stuff will dominate the eye when someone browses the section possibly putting some people off finding some truly excellent work. Secondly, it gives the impression that gay fiction does not belong alongside more mainstream work. This when many excellent novels today include gay characters, their loves and lives. In the same way, gay fiction will have one or two gay central characters but the other characters are very rarely exclusively gay. The only argument I can see in favour of bookstores doing this is when someone does not know the author or wants to read this type of novel and would not know wherelse to start looking without reading every rear cover in the shop. Perhaps it could be sectionalised further. Gay crime stories etc. Someone asked me privately last night if it was true that gay horror writers put the willies up you? :-))))

NAAAAAAH was he?

My flatmates read gay fiction. (hey, he's not called Spaghetti Bi for nothing) :) - Jake the joker

Jake , go stick your head in an oven. I hate you so much. Just go and die :-) Reading gay fiction doesn't make you gay. People like you give them a bad name. *back but only briefly*

Come on spag get that fag out of your mouth.

Stamps are self-adhesive these days. So lesbians don't have to lick any more. Unless they want to. But The sticky stuff doesn't taste the best.

Is there a connection here with the Gulp - that's a lot of cash thread?

'them' ? Martians? *** good explanatory post Dave.

I saw a documentary about Martians once. They were being taught to "fit in" with British society. I remember one scene where a man was explaining that standing with one's hand on one's hip whilst wearing a flowery shirt would signify immediately to any passerby that they were one of them. Yours trying to get myself and others a good name. ;-)

How did you know I like a fag in my mouth? * Back to my hide out*

Of course, in my day 'Gay' meant something completely different. Buggered if I can remember what it was, though. I've given my Butler, Yeats, a few days off. He's gone cottaging in Looe. Lovely place, Cornwall.

thatched?

*in a 'eavy frrrrench accent* I like ze mouldy bits of ze cheesey scent. I meant, duz zat make me gay or am I made backwards?

I may have a vacancy for your butler if he's looking for a new opening?

posts other than butler considered

oooh that quite reminds me of when i went to the theatre in northampton with two of my gay bloke friends to see "The Woman In Black" and there was a line in it ... "surely in this whole town there is an opening for a boy!" rest of audience apparently perplexed as gales of laughter and much consequent tittering issued from the centre circle ... still wasn't able to secure my 15 yr old son a work experience placement by employing same phrase ...

really Fish!!!!! l'm sure most fifteen yr old boys are able to find their own post without their mother's interference.

But have any homosexuals written the Poem of the Gay? Perhaps ABC need a new category?

How about poet of the geek?

Background info: I get lots of letters from people demanding I do my job a LOT better. I received this letter today. I had been dealing with a guy called Gary. I read down this stupid letter and it really made me laugh. He signed it Gay Moorcock ceo of Man Sacks I still laughing three hours later

frankly, i don't give a damn

Big ears

i am hetero, i read books. some of them i enjoy.