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aston martin

Queering James Bond

I’ve just got back from watching Skyfall. Twice. I was kinda double-booked this weekend. There’s a great scene in it where the villain, Silva, captures Bond. He ties him to a chair in a pose painfully reminiscent of his unforgettable encounter with Le Chiffre in Casino Royale, and proceeds to examine the scar of a bullet wound on Bond’s shoulder. But then the mood changes, his touch turns lingering, he undoes a button too many on his shirt. He trails his fingers delicately over Bond’s skin. He leans in close, hands on Bond’s thighs, and tells him, There must be a first time for everything…

Deadpan, Bond looks back. What makes you think this is my first time?

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By Kate Aaron, ago

Heteronormativity and the Myth of the ‘Gay Lifestyle’

How many times have we heard the expression, the “gay lifestyle”. What, exactly, is it? We know what our detractors say, we’re promiscuous and immoral and obsessed with sex and youth. We’re all fundamentally flawed, broken; the gay lifestyle is incompatible with happiness. We’re deeply, deeply miserable (excuses for) human beings who adopt a happy, campy air in order to sucker the next generation into our vast whirlpool of misery and self-loathing. The gay lifestyle is nothing if not self-propagating. (more…)

By Kate Aaron, ago
drag queens

Morality in Fiction

There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written or badly written, that is all.

So said Oscar Wilde during his trial in 1895. Of course, he’s right. A book is fiction, it’s not real. It’s no indication of the real life intent or lifestyle of either the reader or the author.

Except that it is.

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By Kate Aaron, ago
books
love is love

Perpetuating the Myths

I’m talking gay stereotypes. The bulldyke, the screaming queen. You know them, I know them. Heaven forbid anyone should write about them. Because, y’know, they’re stereotypical. Most gay people aren’t like that. Most gay people hate to be associated with people like that. Most gay people are ordinary men and women just like you and me who feel no particular urge to fill their lives with glitter and sparkles.

How dull for them.

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By Kate Aaron, ago

Queering Sherlock Holmes

I know, right? I can practically see the eyes rolling. “Pick something difficult!” the people cry. “Set yourself a challenge.”

Face it, Holmes and Watson have been done to death. I know it, you know it, we all know it. ‘Nuff said, right? Wrong. Because I was involved in a discussion on a forum recently that suggests that actually most people don’t know what’s queer about them at all. (more…)

By Kate Aaron, ago
sherlock holmes
protest

Casual Homophobia

There’s been enough talk in the media this month about people wanting to round us gays up, put us in camps, beat us straight, take our rights away and otherwise treat us worse than animals. That’s not what this post is about. Instead, I want to think about the casual, everyday homophobia ingrained in our culture. Behaviour people don’t even realise is homophobic. Behaviour by people who, if you called them homophobes, would argue vehemently they are pro-gay and support equal rights.

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By Kate Aaron, ago