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ysabetwordsmith ([personal profile] ysabetwordsmith) wrote2025-05-31 02:53 am

Queernorm

Linkspam: Metas on SFFsetting Queernormativity and D/s (Reply)

My feelings about queernormative worlds in SFF is that I can often enjoy it, but I rarely believe it.


These two entries talk about settings in which queer (of various styles) is considered normal. I find it perfectly plausible -- because, in fact, local-Earth HAS cultures with that feature. It's just not currently popular in big, powerful, mainstream cultures because they are stupid. Yet another case where foreign cultures can be stranger than most aliens.

So of course, I write settings that are queernorm fairly often. Some are human, like Eloquent Souls. Some are alien, like Feathered Nests. Some have parameters that are just totally different from ours, like Beneath the Family Tree, where you can more-or-less see what modern culture would probably think of the characters but they have different views of themselves. Then you have to stop and think, what is queerness? It is transgression across the lines drawn by a culture for sex/romance. So in a culture that expects everyone to be bisexual, that would not be queer by its standards, whereas monosexuality would be; but to mainstream American perspective, that's backwards.

Don't look at me, I think the prejudice is stupid and I'm culturally eclectic anyhow. Queer is normal and queerphobia is a mental illness.

Anyhow, people are talking about favorite queernorm canons, so pitch in what you like.

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