Gay Rights or Wrongs?

I was doing something earlier today that involved writing down information on some of my books and checking for reviews and ratings. I was curious on how many I had on a few books because I’m considering some advertising that requires minimum numbers of reviews and ratings on the books being listed. To that end, I’m also hoping to ramp up some reviews rather quickly on my next new release, Guardian.

And since I mentioned it, if you’re a fan of the Lost Girls series and want a pre-release copy of Guardian in exchange for a review being posted on Amazon’s US site when it launches, let me know. I’ll happily hook you up. This, however, is not the reason for my blog post.

So back to this morning when I was checking reviews on my Wanted series. Accidentally I happened to glance at a couple. Really, it was an accident – I didn’t mean to and I didn’t read the entire thing. But what I fixated on was someone bashing the book for the open minded attitude the characters had about sexuality at the end. Really. A novel that has practically nothing to do with sexual orientation gets picked on because a couple of characters in it happen to be confused about their own orientation and / or sexuality. Seriously, WTF?

It made me think though. Not about gay rights, straight rights, or any of that stuff. As far as I’m concerned people can do whatever the hell they want as long as they stay off my lawn when they’re doing it. Want to marry someone of the same sex? Good luck! Seems like half or more marriages don’t fare well these days, regardless of the plumbing (mine is doing awesome, by the way).

What it made me think about was whether a lot of the characters in my books are too open minded. Am I driving away readers because I have a subconscious agenda I’m not aware of? I think the world would be a lot better off if we stopped worrying about who was screwing who and what sort of positions and / or assistance they needed to do it. Just the same that I think we should stop worrying about which flavor of religion our neighbors follow (and they give us the same respect).

But have I pushed people away by hinting or mentioning these things in my books? Maybe. I have one series (The Lost Girls) where the main character starts out as the kind of lesbian you have nightmares about (except she’s short and cute, but she’ll still rip your nuts off if you look at her funny). Her sexuality is integral to the story, but it’s not something that I preached or flaunted in the books. Come to think about it, I’ve probably had less flack about that series than some of my others.

In my Vitalis books, particularly the second one (Resurrection), I’ve got two gay characters that almost get hot and steamy before disaster strikes. I put them in there to prove a point, I admit. I wanted to show that yes, homosexuality is one flavor of humanity and it happens in the future just like it happens now. In short, it’s not a big deal. But I had some very upset readers because of that scene. I say shame on them, not me, but I’m biased.

What’s my point? That this is a damn shame. What’s worse is that I’ll probably try to tone down any such relationships or details like that in future books to avoid pushing readers away. I’m not happy about it on one hand, but on the other hand it helps to teach me a lesson about focusing on the story and making sure I show the characters more than I show any subtle and unknown quirks I may have about convincing people to stop being judgmental dicks. Otherwise they might wield their power of judgment against me!

Some days the art of balancing freedom of speech and creativity with the need to sell books and make a buck is harder than others. I suppose if I can get the Westboro Baptist Church to picket my funeral when I die, at least I’ll have that going for me.

 

To learn more about Jason Halstead visit his website to read about him, sign up for his newsletter, or check out some free samples of his books at http://www.booksbyjason.com.