/lit/ - Literature

Jeanette Winterson

there is some poppy z brite book 'bout chefs in new orleans. good too. me not know title.

Yukio Mishima's Confessions of a Mask and Forbidden Colors, I suppose.

The Immoralist by André Gide

The City and the Pillar by Gore Vidal

>>2034035

キタ━━━(゜∀゜)━━━!!!!!

Giovanni's Room by James Baldwin.

Proust is really gay. But you need to read around 500 pages of non-explicitly gay plot to get to the explicit gay stuff.

Worth it.

What would you think of a person who had their library full of nothing but stuff like this?

>>2034061
I would suspect that they might be homosexual, but would not be entirely certain.

>>2034061
I don't know what I'd think of the person, but I know I would whip out a notepad and start jotting down author names. If they had a library composed entirely of a specialty area like this, they'd surely know their stuff.

thanks a ton, looks like I have a bunch to read. I'll take any further comments to their appropriate boards.

what I don't get is why books about lesbians aren't selling like hotcakes. What's the deal, men who purportedly love lesbians and women who are considering being one?

Earthly Powers by Anthony Burgess. (All the more remarkable, and realistic, because Burgess himself was not gay----but the character is very loosely based on Somerset Maugham.)

>>2034093

Well I like lesbians and jerk of to lesbian porn a lot. But its a 'visual' thing. Wachting them doing stuff to each other is interesting and fucking hot (if the girls are hot). But reading something like that? That would probably be boring as hell.
Maybe some romance fags would read that stuff. But a guy interested in romance stuff would probably read a story about a guy falling in love with a girl or something he could relate to and not hundrets of pages about lesbians.

>>2034093
>>2034115
God shut the fuck up

The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas by Gertrude Stein

(get to fappin', >>2034093)

>>2034117
I can't imagine how your butt could be hurt, considering most lesbians tend to dislike analpain

>>2034117
why u mad tho?

the lord of the rings by j.r.r. tolkien (it's six books normally divided into three volumes)

Orlando by Woolf.
Nightwood - Djuna Barnes

We ought to make a chart.

>Lesbian bed death

Falconer by John Cheever.

>>2034198
? Is that like Korean fan death?

>>2034033
Where is that picture from?

>>2034224
lol

yes, if you lock a lesbian in an enclosed space with a futon she'll throw the tv through the window to get out

A'rebours
À la recherche du temps perdu

here you go OP http://www.putlocker.com/file/OSQJI884T9CGGO

>>2034232
What?

>>2034239
sorry i meant to respond to >>2034201

i second your request for a source on that pic, it's adorable

It's true, lesbians hate futons

>>2034243
Heh, yeah. Those two dykes are wrastlin' #^__^

Brett Easton Ellis books always have some gay/bi characters.

A Fairly Honourable Defeat by Iris Murdoch is pretty good.

Other Voices, Other Rooms by Capote. It's a...hmmm... a coming-of-age southern gothic novel? Not sure if it's what you're looking for.

Tipping the Velvet. No big shakes but worth a reading; it's basically the classic of the lesbian genre if such thing exists.

David Levithan's Boy Meets Boy is a decent reading.

Then there are some gay erotic novels: Genet, Jouhandeau and the likes; I can recommend a few if you're interested.

Why am I having this feeling that I'm forgetting an exceedingly obvious pick?

op is a faggot

Fight Club.

>>2034253
>Why am I having this feeling that I'm forgetting an exceedingly obvious pick?

Giovanni's Room.

The Hours and A Home at the End of the World by Michael Cunningham
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay and The Mysteries of Pittsburgh by Michael Chabon
The Master and The Blackwater Lightship by Colm Toibin

Seconding Genet, particularly Our Lady of the Flowers. It's amazing and beautifully written, and pretty much invented the "plastic" gay culture of the 60s and 70s, along with Burroughs.

Speaking of Burroughs, his Queer is an excellent portrayal of what it's like to suffer as a gay man in a straight society.

Also, Huysmans (along with any other of that decadent fin-de-siecle stuff) is always quality. Godspeed.

the charioteer by mary renault

Maurice - E.M. Forster

>>2034289
>>2034288
Seconding Burroughs and Chabon.

Thomas Mann.

>>2034577
Yeah, Burroughs gayness comes right out of nowhere so you just kind of sit with it like it was the most natural thing ever.

In Junky, that is. Haven't read Naked Lunch yet.

- good book
- about sex
Pick one.

If nobody has said Joey Comeau, then somebody shoulda fucking said Joey Comeau.

>Joey Comeau
>seriously

>>2034741
Against The Day, by Thomas Pynchon.

>>2034741
Lockpick Pornography

Burroughs' Cities of the red night. It made me gay for the book.

>>2034741
Or so a virgin would believe.

Boy Meets Boy.

Bumping for hurricane guy

As a lesbian I've gotta say it...as much as I love people's coming-out stories, not EVERY book with lesbians in it needs to be 300 pages of you parsing your understanding of your sexuality and obsessing about your best friend's hands or somesuch. I literally can't think of a novel with lesbian protagonists where pondering their sexuality wasn't the central focal point of the book. Books featuring gay men don't tend to have this issue, I noticed.

Correct me if I'm wrong. To remedy this I'm writing a novel which has lots of lesbians doing things other than sitting around thinking about being gay.

>>2035429

Not gay myself, but amen. At a certain point of cultural and (authorial) self-acceptance a character's homosexuality should simply be a facet of their personality (granted an important one, but still) rather than the driving force of the plot and the singular focus of the character's life.

>>2035429
Wanna read that book

Miche Tournier's Gemini (Les Météores). It's basically about gay twins and their faggot uncle.

>>2035429
> not EVERY book with lesbians in it needs to be 300 pages of you parsing your understanding of your sexuality and obsessing about your best friend's hands or somesuch.

Proust does that except it's 2000 pages. But otherwise, I completely agree.

Lesbians and Gays in this thread... do you believe people are born gay?

The Last Herald Mage trilogy
Magic's Pawn
Magic's Promise
Magic's Price
It was alright but wasn't all that great. About the last wizard being gay or something like that. Been a few years since I've heard them. It should take you that long to read if I remember correctly.

>non-trash fantasy
That doesn't exist.

While not about gay/lesbian I've heard Luna is pretty good. It's about a transgender brother and his sister have to hide his secret. Just to tell you I've never read it so I'm not sure how interesting it really is.

Memoirs of Hadrian by Marguerite Yourcenar.

>>2035745
>2011
>not believing people are born gay
I seriously hope etc etc

>>2035788
Agreed. They aren't the greatest books, but far from the worst. It's been one of my guilty-pleasure-favorites for years. They always make me cry.I'm so ashamed...

Anyone who has taken a decent psychology class knows that it's not easy enough to say that someone is "born gay".

Read some fucking Jean Genet. I suggest Miracle of The Rose. Fantastic book about growing up in the French prison system. Lots of man fucking all around. Beautiful prose.

>>2035860

Everyone who is gay will tell you that they were born gay.

>>2035848
While it was a fairly touching ending I never really had a great emotional tied to the character. Not to say I didn't enjoy the character but felt his character was a bit lacking. But I do have to say I've read worst LGBT books.

>>2035860
The whole debate about whether people are "born gay" confuses me to no end. It's a stupid argument because

a) just because someone's born a certain way doesn't mean that way is automatically 'right'. A psychopathic killer might be born with the mentality a psychopathic killer, but that wouldn't make psychopathic killing a-ok

and b) why does it matter? The end result is the same whether people were "born gay" or became gay at a later date, it's irrelevant. I don't want to sound like I'm arguing against gay rights (believe me, I'm not - for a start I'm bi myself), but that argument is dumb as fuck whether used to defend homosexuals or to persecute them.

>>2035878
>is gay
I was born gay. Well maybe 90% gay.
But really there's more to it then just "being born gay." While I believe that there's a biological part to it as the fetus is developing there's also other things to take into consideration.

>>2035883
"right" is more of a moral thing then a science thing. To some "right" is a husband wife and a son and a daughter in a nice house. I'm gay and would love gay marriage to be legal in the US I'm never plan on getting married. I never really care for that word. I actually have a co-worker (seems to be the only co-worker that actually reads sadly) and while he calls her his wife they are not really married and raising a kid. To some they are "wrong" but to them they didn't want to be married. People try to say people are born gay to try to defend their right to live their lives. It's easier to back someone who is born gay then someone that just "turned" gay.

Read about 100 pages of Confessions of a Mask today.

god damn.

>>2035883
Lesbian here, (sometimes bi) I feel like I was more "born gay" or "raised gay."

When I think about it I see some good reasoning for both and if I were to choose I'd probably say 51% raised gay. There's always those weird tests that claim you can tell by someones finger ratios if they're gay or not and what not. Well, I have some of that but when I think of my childhood it seems like it set me up for being the carpet munching I indulge in today. The real dilemma is that if people accept that homosexuality is not innate, they the heteros get really insecure and start thinking about maybe sucking a dick and this scares the shit out of them.

While I don't think sexuality is much of a choice, I think being born gay is more of that early period in your life (age 0-5 or so) which will set you up for the rest of your life. I have had crushes on a couple guys (not a lot at all but it's happened) which ended up being kind of distressing in that I thought I was going to stop liking girls but once I got over that anxiety it was a pretty interesting experience. The fact that I've had sex with guys makes me think that it can be a choice, sex with guys is a pretty rare thing and not something I think I could stick with for life.

>>2036228

I really like the idea of gays that will have that one straight partner in their life, like Norman Bates and Hart Crane. I'm not sure where I'm going with all of this, but I think it's a lot more helpful to not think about being born gay vs being raised gay but rather not seeing sexuality as straight or gay.

In Proust's questionnaire he said that the qualities he looks for most in men are feminine qualities, and in women, masculine qualities and I think he hit the nail on the head. It's at least the way I've experienced sexuality and desire and I think the way most in heterosexual relationships do. Of all my guy friends (and I have a lot of them) they all want a girl that they can play videogames with, act like idiots, swear around, etc...in short, they want a girl who can act like one of their own, hence why I'm friends with so many of them. So if you look at it this way, there is no pure heterosexuality or homosexuality, everything is bisexual in varying degrees.

Not sure if this went anywhere and I probably contradicted myself. Whatever, I'm large and contain multitudes.

>>2036228
But vaginas taste and smell so gross. How do you deal with that?

DO BOOKS HELP.

>>2034741
This. Too narrow, too poorly represented by most art as a bullshit in-the-moment ideal.

At least you don't have to taken a big penis everywhere inside your mouth.

Assuming you're having intercourse with someone who is not a disgusting vagrant, the lingering odour of vagina on your upper lip is really quite pleasurable.

The kind of thing that will give a big grin as you walk down the street.

>>2036237
> hasn't read the entirety of Proust

Are you even trying?

>>2034289
>what it's like to suffer as a gay man in a straight society.
oh, my sides!

>>2035899
>I'm gay and would love gay marriage to be legal in the US I'm never plan on getting married.
then why would you support it? its not like homosexuals are first in line for deserving that right, there's probably few or no examples of societies other than our own that have ever allowed it. also doesn't marriage imply they get other rights such as being able to adopt children? that's perverted. it's part of your biology to need both a mom and a dad(or similar figures for each), mass gay-parenting could easily result in a total breakdown of The Family™

>>2036245
It exists. It's even rarer than good fantasy, though.

Most women have no real sexual orientation. Butch lesbians are the only exception, owing to their masculine brain. The rest is a social charade.

>>2036242
>the lingering odour of vagina on your upper lip is really quite pleasurable.
>criticise people for being disgusting
>wat

>>2036247
The question of gay marriage, I think, has more to do with employment/medical/insurance rights and what not, more than all the gays wanting to start up a nice gay family.

I don't think same-sex parents are any worse than a high divorce rate. But I wouldn't want to never know my father/mother.

>>2036252
I smiled.

It's not like I don't shower or wash my face afterwards. But I'm talking about that trek home after a nice romp. It's a pleasant memory, that odour.

>>2036247
ohboyherwego.jpg

>>2036258
if you've got something to say, say it. otherwise i assume you can't refute anything that i said.

>>2036253
>The question of gay marriage, I think, has more to do with employment/medical/insurance rights and what not, more than all the gays wanting to start up a nice gay family.
i don't care what it has 'more to do with' if granting them that still allows them to parent, whether most want to or not.


Also Jennie-Odorline please shut the fuck up with your irrelevant personal anecdotes. just posting a link to the wikipedia page for kinsey scale would have been a lot more informative and less of an eye sore.

>>2036250
Is this true?

>Jennie-Odorline

>>2036272
thx bro

>>2036272
that photo scares me deep&edgy

http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&v=075ihanquVg

>>2036272
Reduced to only being able to post reaction images. Such a tragic state.

>>2036269
You should have stayed gone, or at least not using your tripcode.

>>2036250
sigh

the sad part is that you think you're being intellectually daring by saying something like this when what you are actually saying is that you've totally bought into porno culture

>>2036290
>that vid
sure is str8boi

>>2035819
>>2035860

That's my opinion. Your personality isn't biologically determined nor is it a conscious choice. But people really like the idea of biological determinism and of mind over matter/the power of will/positive visualization. People can't stand the idea of personality traits/defects, they want it to either be something they can Self Help out of, something they can take pills for, or something they can blame on genetics.

People grasping in the dark wondering why they are strange, because a whole generation has taken the trite "everyone is special" to be meaningless, when it was actually true: everyone is different, no two people are exactly the like. But society's current memeplexes reject that thinking.

As for gays in literature: Son of a Witch has the protagonist Liir involved sexually and then emotionally with a nun and then emotionally and then sexually with a fellow soldier; and a sort of unexplored trio kind of thing suggested, with a neolithic tribe referring to them as his "wife" and "husband" respectively.

There's also a free to read online Afro-Caribbean Lesbian Steampunk story if you want the link...

>>2036303
>the sad part is that you think you're being intellectually daring by saying something like this when what you are actually saying is that you've totally bought into porno culture

Angry dyke detected. Maybe if you didn't have a manbrain you'd understand the female condition. Here, use your masculine reasoning skills to parse this science stuff:

http://www.goofyfootpress.com/links/pdfs/Bailey.pdf

(Spoilers: only men and dykes like you have category-specific arousal patterns.)

>>2035683
>>2035679
Well, it's a sci-fi espionage novel (about 25% of the way through so far, it's hella long.) As much as the plot isn't about the characters' sexuality, it's far from being in the subtext, and sometimes I worry it'll be known for just how queer most of the cast is. Not my intention, but as I've no guarantee it'll ever see publication I'm sure I'm making a big deal out of nothing.

>>2035745
They can be born with tendencies, but experience cements those tendencies. My two cents.

>>2036314
>>Afro-Caribbean Lesbian Steampunk story
All different kinds of want.

>>2036349

http://nkjemisin.com/2010/01/a-story-for-haiti-the-effluent-engine/#more-261

tl,dr: a generation or two after the Hatian rebels use the noxious vapors generated by the sugar refineries to put airships afloft and sink the French fleet, a Hatian spy infiltrates the Confederate city of Louisiana seeking to get a creole scientist to defect.

>I'm not talking Oscar Wilde "burying his head in lilacs" kind of gay, I mean a major plot point about or prominently featured same-sex relationship.
Get the uncensored edition of Dorian Gray that Harvard (finally) published this year.
Also, Orlando by Virginia Woolf

>>2036330
lol j. michael bailey

>>2035745
I don't feel like I was "born gay" yet I certainly never experienced any other kind of sexual attraction, so. It just felt like a cruel trick nature pulled on me in eighth grade.

>>2036330
>Maybe if you didn't have a manbrain you'd understand the female condition.
>being stupid enough to think we understand the female condition
>calling femininity "the female condition"
>being a dumbass
>2011
>fuck your mother

>>2034033
The Iliad.
Achilles and Patoclus are totally an egalitarian gay couple, and Achilles' love for him actually does end up being pretty important.