Portraying characters' sexual orientation?

[Ireth]

There are two characters in a story of mine whose sexual orientations have been a matter of some confusion for a while now. In the first draft of the story, they seemed like no more than good friends, and it came as a great surprise to me when, at the climax, Character B said about Character A, "I love him." Both of the characters in question are male, and Character B was previously established to be a straight widower whose wife had died in childbirth. There had been exactly one hint at B's attraction to A in the previous 29 chapters, and I hadn't even meant it to be such. B was originally intended to fall in love with A's sister, and that backfired epically.

After the climax was over and the two had some time to sit down and talk, I had them discuss their feelings for each other, both in the story itself and in character "interviews" I conducted as a way of gaining insight into B's thoughts and feelings. They seemed to come to the conclusion that a romantic relationship wasn't the best thing for them, since B is many years older than A, and A sees B as more of a friend and mentor than a lover. To complicate things, both characters are adherents to belief in the old Celtic gods and goddesses in a world that's predominantly Christian (i.e. fourteenth-century Scotland). I don't know whether the Celts had a taboo on gay/bi relationships (anyone with the historical knowledge to inform me, please don't hesitate to do so), but Christians certainly did and still do.

I've been thinking a lot about how I want to have this play out in the second draft: whether to go into more detail about the possibility of a sexual relationship between the two or to downplay it. The romantic side of their relationship is doomed to failure however I choose to portray it, as the two will ultimately decide that a adoptive father/son relationship is the way to go, but it could still be interesting to show one or both of them struggling with those feelings on top of everything else they have to go through.

The trouble I have in showing the relationship most lies with character A. Character B could easily be handwaved as a bisexual who hid his desire for men from his wife throughout their marriage (or even a gay who married a woman out of necessity), but character A comes across as rather asexual throughout the whole first draft, as well as the beginning of the second draft as it stands so far. Due to an inherited physical deformity which gets his family shunned by many of their neighbors, he probably feels like he has little chance of finding a spouse anyway. The deformity comes from character A's mother, and his father is seen as very strange to have married her and fathered more deformed children. The deformity is quite minor -- just an extra finger on their right hands -- but even so, people are superstitious and mark them as cursed.

I'm going to stop here before I go off on a further tangent, and leave the floor open to you guys for discussion and advice.

 

[Mindfire]

As a rule, I don't inform on a character's sexual orientation unless its absolutely necessary to the plot, or if I want to frustrate potential shippers. In other words, almost never. I tend to deliberately avoid romantic subplots.

That said, have you considered that the love might be platonic? Father-son is definitely a viable option, as is brother-brother. I don't know much about your characters, but if they've been to hell and back together, it's not unreasonable to think, like soldiers who serve together, there's going to be a very special bond that's not necessarily romantic in nature. If Character A is asexual and there were no previous hints of romance before and no hints that Character B was gay or bi, I think you'd be better off portraying their relationship as platonic rather than shoehorning them into a gay relationship for the sake of being novel. Also, doing that would avoid any unnecessary political subtext.

 

[Ireth]

For context's sake, the characters in question are both vampires -- A is 23 and looks it (being newly turned at the start of the story), and B is 180 but looks 30. The big age difference is one of the two main reasons I want their relationship to fail (the other is a HUGE spoiler for the ending), mainly influenced by all the constant hullabaloo about Bella and Edward being respectively 17 and 107 when they fall in love. Plus, even if they don't get together in the end, there are probably going to be some shippers who will slash them together anyway. Along with every other character pair you can conceive of. :/ It's the risk we all take when showing our creations to the world.

The platonic love is how I'd initially envisioned it, but that all got screwed up when B made his not-very-timely confession and I realized there might be deeper layers to their relationship. Maybe I just over-thought it and read too far between the lines. XD

 

[Mindfire]

Over-thinking it can happen. I'd say step back from it for a bit, then return to it with a fresh perspective. And yeah a 180/23 relationship is kinda squicky.
(Personally I think any romantic relationship that involves a vampire is somewhat squicky, but with varying levels of squickiness.)

I think platonic love is your best bet. My best friends know I love them. It's kind of an unsaid thing, but in the heat of battle, it's not unbelievable that unsaid things might be said. As for slashfic-ers... I decided to pre-empt that by having all of my important characters end up either married, in a relationship, or dead. I leave no loose ends. MUHAHAHAHAHA!

 

[Ireth]

Over-thinking it can happen. I'd say step back from it for a bit, then return to it with a fresh perspective. And yeah a 180/23 relationship is kinda squicky.
(Personally I think any romantic relationship that involves a vampire is somewhat squicky, but with varying levels of squickiness.)

Well, since they're both vampires, *what* they are isn't really a problem; it's just like any other relationship between two members of the same species aside from the gender issue (or not, as many people and even some animals are homosexual). As for the age issue, at least I did better than the likes of SMeyer; both of my characters are physically and mentally adults from the very beginning, not eternally teenagers. And they take about two years to make friends and grow close, romantically or not.

I think platonic love is your best bet. My best friends know I love them. It's kind of an unsaid thing, but in the heat of battle, it's not unbelievable that unsaid things might be said. As for slashfic-ers... I decided to pre-empt that by having all of my important characters end up either married, in a relationship, or dead. I leave no loose ends. MUHAHAHAHAHA!

You'd be amazed how persistent slashfic writers are. Just look at the majority of Harry Potter fanfic out there -- there's a ton of Harry/Draco, Harry/Hermione, [insert author's most-loved character]/[author-insert Mary Sue], and that's just the start. And the LOTR slashfics I've seen and heard about... The less said about those, the better. As for me, I'll probably have to worry about Character A being slashed with Character B, the villain, various other male characters, even his own FATHER... *shudders*

 

[Kit]

at the climax, Character B said about Character A, "I love him."
--------------------------
Sorry, I am having a real junior high moment with this sentence. :bounce:

 

[Kit]

and I realized there might be deeper layers to their relationship.

Perhaps this right here is a good thing as is. Sometimes we don't need to explain, define, pigeonhole, and slap a label on everything- it might be interesting to let readers draw their own conclusions.

 

[Ireth]

at the climax, Character B said about Character A, "I love him."
--------------------------
Sorry, I am having a real junior high moment with this sentence. :bounce:

...*facepalm @ myself* Yeah, that sounded better in my head.

 

[Chilari]

Does it have to be a romantic relationship? I don't mean platonic like Mindfire suggested, but rather, sometimes people say things because they pop into their heads, which they don't really mean or later realise isn't true once they analyse their feelings. I've certainly thought I was in love with various individuals and later realised it was little more than friendship plus physical attraction - which is not the same thing as love.

As far as how I write about sexuality, I generally don't specify if the character isn't involved in a romantic relationship or political or arranged marriage. There are a few characters I specifically decide are either straight, gay, bi, asexual, aromantic, hypersexual (is that a word?) or something else, but in a lot of cases I just don't think of it if it's not relevant to the story.

On an unrelated note, where immortal unaging characters such as vampires are concerned, what is acceptable in terms of age differences? I'd certainly say that where anyone under 18, physically or in reality, becomes involved in a relationship with an older immortal, that would be a bit dodgy, but if you've got a character who is, say, 30, and an immortal character who is, say, 1000 but looks 30, I wouldn't say that is dodgy.

 

[JCFarnham]

I'd say any kind of squick goes out the window when you're immortal, but then it's not a bunch of immortals reading the books is it? haha.

The protagonist in my Faebound series is quite possibly gay. It's not really that important to the plot this early on in the series, but I estimate it'll take somewhere in the region of two or three more books for her to have any (real) romantic interest in someone. She's that kind of person... To this end I've begun seeding the idea for foreshadowing purposes. I played it as a really dull comment to make "the sexy nightshirt I brought to seduce that girl...". One sentence and move on. I'm writing in 1st person you see, and, well, she wouldn't see her sexuality as anything strange so she wouldn't necessarily make it out as such.

Hopefully you can pull something from that example. In summary, I guess I'm saying even if its not strictly important to the plot it could give a character a kind of depth, you know?

- They should feel like individuals who have a past outside the confines of the current story.

- There is no point making a big deal out of it. An LGBT reader who picks up your book on recommendation may get rather pissed off at you using sexuality as a cheap ploy for controversy.

- Especially in 1st person (if your character is already out) their sexuality is normal for them. Now I know there are certain loud individuals out there, but it's not typically going to be something that they'll tell everyone right of the bat and make a deal out of... unless the character is a bit attention seeking. (I would tread carefully there, could be misunderstood.)

 

[Kit]

An LGBT reader who picks up your book on recommendation may get rather pissed off at you using sexuality as a cheap ploy for controversy.

I just have to note- in relation to this and several other threads that have been going on these past two weeks- that I'm really impressed with how thoughtful many people in this forum are about trying to not offend people with either bigotry or insensitivity of any stripe in their WIPs. I know a bit of it may be self-interest (of course we don't want to alienate the future potential readers of our books), and at times I suspect a few people may be being a titch *too* paranoid... but it really does give me a warm fuzzy to see many people being thoughtful and considerate about that.

Uh oh, I think I feel a group hug coming on.

 

[Ireth]

- There is no point making a big deal out of it. An LGBT reader who picks up your book on recommendation may get rather pissed off at you using sexuality as a cheap ploy for controversy.

- Especially in 1st person (if your character is already out) their sexuality is normal for them. Now I know there are certain loud individuals out there, but it's not typically going to be something that they'll tell everyone right of the bat and make a deal out of... unless the character is a bit attention seeking. (I would tread carefully there, could be misunderstood.)

I wasn't intending the sexuality issue to be a "cheap ploy" for anything; that's just how I thought of the characters' affections playing out.

As of the first draft, my characters are not "out" in any sense of the word until the actual declaration of love thirty chapters into the story. I've touched on this in my original post, what with them living in a world that's steeped in Christianity, where homosexuality/bisexuality hasn't come close to being accepted as an alternate lifestyle. The characters themselves are not Christian, but whether or not the Celts had a gay taboo (again, if anyone knows the answer to this or can help me research it, please tell me), they would be afraid of "coming out" for fear of being ostracized by literally everyone. They both would have faced enough derision for still being pagan, much less being gay/bi pagans.

 

[Phin Scardaw]

Sex and sexuality seem to be dangerously tangential and almost out of place in most fantasy stories, and sometimes I wonder why that is. I can't really think of anything that can so easily break the tone and feel of a book than a gratuitous sex scene. I've tried writing them in, and end up omitting them or shaving them down (the scenes, not the characters - well, except for Horace the Hairy) to something that's just the bare skin and bones.

The only success I've found is when these subjects are glossed over very casually, almost cursory. The readers discover very naturally that this character likes both sexes, much in the same way that they might discover he had a previous marriage. If a character's sexuality becomes a sticky point in your story, I think it'll be harder to handle it with aplomb. If your character just says, "I love you," and that's the end of it, that might be all you need. Less is more, more often than not.

Also, remember Aragorn and Eowyn, when he says, "It is but a shadow and a thought that you love." There was a big age difference between these two as well, and he is far wiser. He knows that she's just infatuated, which is probably what your older vampire would see as well, I would think.

Apart from that, sexuality is very fluid. Straight guys can sleep with gay guys if the conditions are right, and there's a whole spectrum of other possibilities. Sexuality for humans is one thing, but it's very different for animals. It's possible that it's something completely different for vampires. I think Anne Rice explored that somewhat. I'd encourage you to brainstorm about how they might express themselves, when the bloodsuckers get hot-blooded.

 

[Ireth]

I think it depends on the vampire, honestly, much like it does for humans. The villain of the story, for example, is a nymphomaniac who specifically targets green-eyed, red-haired women to be his lovers, because of a misplaced obsession with his wives (the first of whom he accidentally killed the night he became a vampire, the second of whom he turned into a vampire in their wedding bed and then she walked out on him), who both bore those traits. His close brother-in-arms, by contrast, is asexual. I hadn't intended for the original two characters described above to engage in sexual acts, but merely entertain the idea of a romance.

 

[Phin Scardaw]

Probably the best thing to do would be to leave your characters muddled on the subject themselves. You can write about things they say or do, but I'd suggest not trying to make it all clear-cut. Most of us don't always know how to process our own feelings and actions when it comes to love or romance, after all.

Personally, I always thought vampires were rather asexual beings in general.

 

[Caged Maiden]

I vote vampires are sort of asexual as well. I think they can have deep respect, be awed by others, or feel love... but I just don't see it getting hot and heavy, you know? I mean, I can't imagine jumping on someone, ripping their clothes off, and they're not even breathing heavy (or at all). I think it's more likely a young vampire was still attached to his human needs, but an older vampire would probably see no use for sexuality at all.

Okay one thing about the Middle Ages. There's an unusual law which forbade priests from dancing in a cemetery after dark... What does this tell us? That it happened frequently enough they had to make it ILLEGAL!
Same thing with homosexual acts. There were so many people speaking out about it in Christian Europe, you know it had to be widespread. I found this link, it looks pretty well-researched, though I only skimmed. Hope it helps you get ideas. Internet History Sourcebooks Project

I still vote for the infatuation. I think it's wholly more believable, whether they were gay men while alive or not.

 

[grahamguitarman]

The pre Christian Celts were pretty Ok with homosexuality, apparently it was quite common for men to sleep together. but whether that persisted after the christians arrived is hard to say for sure. TBH the biggest issue for the church would be their vampirism rather than their sexual orientation. I'm pretty sure the Celts would be pretty upset about that too

 

[Steerpike]

The degree of sexuality of vampires rests within the creativity of the author. There is an entire sub-genre of romance that seems to be extremely popular with readers, and which presumes as a necessary part of the story that vampires are sexual creatures.

I prefer the more vicious, scary vampires myself, but since there is no real world example of a vampire I feel that an author is free to invent them as she wishes.

As for sexuality in the story - this also depends on what you're trying to accomplish. If you are trying to say something about sexuality, or hold this out as a key element of the story, then I think you give it the attention it deserves. If it is merely incidental to the story then I think you deal with it the same way you would heterosexual orientation in a story where sexuality is not important, which can be anything from not at all to depicting it as an unquestioned part of the character's life in situations where it arises.

The amount of time you expend on this can have a big impact on the story you are actually telling, so I think it is paramount to decide first what story you wish to tell. That will often tell you how much to spend on issues like this.

 

[Ireth]

Probably the best thing to do would be to leave your characters muddled on the subject themselves. You can write about things they say or do, but I'd suggest not trying to make it all clear-cut. Most of us don't always know how to process our own feelings and actions when it comes to love or romance, after all.

I think that's a good idea too.

Personally, I always thought vampires were rather asexual beings in general.

I vote vampires are sort of asexual as well. I think they can have deep respect, be awed by others, or feel love... but I just don't see it getting hot and heavy, you know? I mean, I can't imagine jumping on someone, ripping their clothes off, and they're not even breathing heavy (or at all). I think it's more likely a young vampire was still attached to his human needs, but an older vampire would probably see no use for sexuality at all.

I'm inclined to politely disagree on that point. Vampires have been portrayed as sexual beings for a long, long time; this was popularized by Dracula, and even more nowadays by recent novels (*coughTwilightcough*). The legends of the Baobhan Sidhe and Leannan Sidhe, two types of Fae, portray them as both sexual and vampiric. Those legends have been around since the ancient Celts.

And about older vampires having no need for sexuality... just look at the villain, Conall. He's the first and therefore oldest of the vampires, and he's the one who probably has sex the most. As a human he had a very deep, loving, and also very sexual relationship with his wife Aerona, and when he became a vampire and accidentally murdered her, that passion turned into an obsession with regaining the life he had lost. He eventually married a human woman named Sheona, who bore a great resemblance to his first wife, and in the heat of passion on their wedding night, he lost control and turned her into a vampire. He started to lose his mind a bit out of grief for what he'd done, and she walked out on him as soon as she rose from the dead. From then on Conall slipped slowly into madness, murder and nymphomania, determined to never lose another lover again. He targeted human women who looked like his wives, wooed and made love to them, and then turned them into vampires to be his eternal lovers if they satisfied him.

Okay one thing about the Middle Ages. There's an unusual law which forbade priests from dancing in a cemetery after dark... What does this tell us? That it happened frequently enough they had to make it ILLEGAL!
Same thing with homosexual acts. There were so many people speaking out about it in Christian Europe, you know it had to be widespread. I found this link, it looks pretty well-researched, though I only skimmed. Hope it helps you get ideas. Internet History Sourcebooks Project

I still vote for the infatuation. I think it's wholly more believable, whether they were gay men while alive or not.

That law is just bizarre. ; I'll definitely take a look at that link though, it seems like it'd be helpful.

The pre Christian Celts were pretty Ok with homosexuality, apparently it was quite common for men to sleep together. but whether that persisted after the christians arrived is hard to say for sure. TBH the biggest issue for the church would be their vampirism rather than their sexual orientation. I'm pretty sure the Celts would be pretty upset about that too

Thanks, that's what I've been wondering for a while. My vampires are Celtic in origin, but that's because the Celtic belief is the one that "works" in the story -- we get actual appearances from the Crone Goddess, their creator, rather than the Judeo-Christian God. The first vampires were pagans, and it would make sense that they would pass that belief down to their fellow vampires as their numbers started to grow, even while the world around them grew more Christianized.

The degree of sexuality of vampires rests within the creativity of the author. There is an entire sub-genre of romance that seems to be extremely popular with readers, and which presumes as a necessary part of the story that vampires are sexual creatures.

I prefer the more vicious, scary vampires myself, but since there is no real world example of a vampire I feel that an author is free to invent them as she wishes.

A lot of the vampires in my story are vicious and scary as well as sexual. XD Conall scared the daylights out of his second wife for a long time before she finally warmed up to him and they fell in love and got married. And that was when he'd only turned one other person into a vampire, so his physical corruption was at a minimum. She always knew something was "off" about him -- he was always cold to the touch, went hunting often but she never saw him eat, that kind of thing.

As for sexuality in the story - this also depends on what you're trying to accomplish. If you are trying to say something about sexuality, or hold this out as a key element of the story, then I think you give it the attention it deserves. If it is merely incidental to the story then I think you deal with it the same way you would heterosexual orientation in a story where sexuality is not important, which can be anything from not at all to depicting it as an unquestioned part of the character's life in situations where it arises.

The amount of time you expend on this can have a big impact on the story you are actually telling, so I think it is paramount to decide first what story you wish to tell. That will often tell you how much to spend on issues like this.

*nodnod* The sexuality issue wasn't a huge deal in the first draft; it just kinda came about incidentally. I'll definitely be rethinking it as I rewrite.

 

[Phin Scardaw]

If we can have gay cowboys, I think we should have gay vampires!

Just imagine the market you could corner if you publish a gay vampire novel.

BiteBack Mountain?

Also, I want to know, anihow - Why were priests dancing at night in the graveyards? Was that just the place to get done and boogie back then?