erastes

You'll see a lot from me today, I'm afraid as I have about three days of stuff to catch up with...

Just been reading this thread over at Dear Author. It starts off as the (Yawn Yawn) subject of "does a writer have to had experienced love to be able to convince the reader of it." and then very quickly descends into a dissection of whether female authors of m/m romance can write gay romance (or indeed lit - "no" says Anne Sommerville - well, she should know.) and for some bizarre reason, almost becomes a witchhunt as to "IS JOSH LANYON A *SHOCK* GIRL?"

Oh for fuck's sake.

1. Haven't we had enough of this subject? It seems to pop up, like mushrooms on a regular basis.
2. As to Lanyon - WHY (to quote that wonderful video on Prop8) does it matter TO YOU?
3. Why is it so important to know what gender an author is? It didn't matter so much before the internet when we could find this information out immediately. We took for granted that the author bio in the book (because that's all we had) was right. There have been many men writing lesbian stories and romance stories, men write Mills and Boons and romance. Why do we NEED to know what gender they are? As I said in my comment on that thread - I find this OBSESSION to know what a writer has between their legs (and yes- just stop and think about that concept for a moment, do you grasp new acquaintances between the legs to ascertain their sex?) as offensive as if my employer asked me at an interview "What sexual persuasion are you?"

Grow up, people.

But the best thing on the ENTIRE thread. Teddypig used my phrase "OK Homo" *dies*