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Announcement: Stowaway, by Elliot Cooper

Stowaway

QSFer Elliot Cooper has a new book out –  a sci fi erotic romance menage featuring two bi heroes and one heroine who won’t stop until she has what she wants: Thalia dreams of being rescued and claimed by handsome Alphan warriors. But her Xyran captor sets terrible traps for her potential saviors. When she takes matters into her own hands by stowing away on an Alphan ship, Thalia doesn’t expect her welcome on Alpha to be contested by anti-human Purists or come with a deadline. Despite the help of her new friends, if she can’t secure a bond in … Read more

Creator of Steven Universe Comes Out as Bi

Steven Universe

Steven Universe creator Rebecca Sugar just gave an amazing speech when coming out as bisexual at Comic-Con in San Diego. To eventual rapturous applause, Sugar came out after a question from a fan on why Steven Universe touches on LGBT+ issues so often. Sugar comes out, simply saying: “Well, in large part it’s based on my experience as a bisexual woman,” but then she goes on to say a whole lot more. Discussing the importance of speaking to kids about LGBT+ issues, Sugar says not seeing oneself reflected in the stories we are told “changes who you are”. She ends … Read more

For Writers: Bisexual Erasure

Bisexuals

Today’s writer topic comes from QSFer Brian Cherry: Gay for you, bisexual erasure and gay romance with only one or no actual gay or bi character in the relationship. We have a long history of trying to make things black or white in our society – we like people to fit into either/or boxes. Even in the LGBTIQA community, this has been a problem. This has manifested itself in various ways over the years, many of them affecting our bisexual friends. For instance, for a long time, many gay men who fought hard to be open and proud about their … Read more

How to Write Bisexual Characters

bisexual

Today’s writer topic comes from QSFer Kathy Griffith: How about treatments of bisexuality that don’t involve threesomes or open relationships? Kathy gets at a good point here. The lazy way to show someone being bisexual is to show them having sex with men and with women, either at the same time or serially. But there must be better ways that don’t rely on the physical act of sex. After all, I can write a perfectly good gay character who never does the dirty in the book. And there are tons of straight stories that don’t feature sex, and yet we … Read more

For Writers: Writing Bi Characters

bisexual

Today’s writer topic comes from QSFer Amelia Bishop: I’d like to ask about bisexual romance. One issue is, when the characters are in a different gender pairing, the readership for m/m is not interested. I’ve written bisexual characters plenty of times, but I always skip the m/f scenes, and I tend to focus on the m/m. Part of that is just that I know my readers are primarily m/m readers. But obviously, the characters are still bisexual no matter what type of relationship they’re currently in. So I’d like to talk about exploring what makes something bisexual, in terms of … Read more

Announcement: The Dangerous Type, by Loren Rhoads

The Dangerous Type

QSFer Loren Rhoads has a new bi sci fi book out: Entombed for twenty years, Raena Zacari — one of the galaxy’s most dangerous assassins — has been freed. The first thing on her mind is revenge against Thallian, the insane war criminal who enslaved Raena, turned her into a killing machine, then left her for dead. When Thallian discovers she has escaped, he’s willing to risk everything — including his army of cloned sons — to bring her back under his control. Gavin Sloane saved Raena once, only to lose her to Thallian. Since then he’s been desperately searching … Read more

Getting the Guy (or Girl)

bisexual

In honor of Bisexual Awareness Week, we have a topic from QSFer Freddy MacKay: From a reader perspective, if an author’s character is bi, and actively dates both sexes during a series, but ends up with an opposite sex partner, how would that make you feel? Why? It’s an interesting question – whatever your orientation, there’s a natural desire to see things work out the way you hope they would in your own life. But we also open ourselves up to the experiences of others. As a gay man, I’ve been exposed to heterosexual romance my entire life – and … Read more

Reflections on *The Great Mirror of Male Love*

Gomen nasai! I’m Jim Comer and I read, edit, and post on QueerSF. This is the third of an irregular series of dispatches from the front: I read very widely across the fields of history, science, language and religion, and want to make sure that the QUILTBAGs back home are suitably informed. For writers and readers, here is the third in a series of book reviews, on tales of same-sex love (“nanshoku”) in Japan. I hope that you enjoy it. Reflections on The Great Mirror of Male Love, by Ihara Saikaku J. Comer Reading a text from another place, and … Read more

Guest Post: Avoiding Bisexual Stereotypes, by Vance Bastian

Bisexuality

We’re thrilled to have Vance Bastian contributing a post for our discussion today: Bisexual characters bring a very dynamic element to a story. Writers who challenge themselves to go beyond the stereotype of wanton promiscuity, abuse, or mental disorders find their stories wrapping around this individual who is a living catalyst. At their hearts, a bisexual character can be attracted to either gender. That does not mean the character wants to have sex with anything that moves. In fact, how open-hearted and rich is a bisexual character who wants a family, but sees the beauty in everyone? How complex is … Read more

Article: Celebrate Marriage Equality with these 12 Beloved LGBT Characters from Geek Culture

Family and Reflection

Article: Celebrate Marriage Equality with these 12 Beloved LGBT Characters from Geek Culture Sci-fi tends to explore themes of identity, tolerance of differences, and true expression of the self, so many stories have served as allegories for the oppression of homosexuals in society, most notably X-Men. But in spite of this, geek culture hasn’t historically been the most diverse, with sci-fi TV and comics just recently taking some baby steps towards representation (there are no sci-fi movie franchises on this list). And the real world is catching up, as SCOTUS just ruled that gay marriage is legal in all 50 … Read more