The 'alternative lifestyles' hall of shame.
Today and I am gay, tomorrow I will be straight and next week I will be a penguin. That's right people, didn't you realise that your sexuallity was a 'lifestyle choice'. Because like any sane person I am in a big hurry to choose to be in a minority that many of my neighbours would cross the street to spit on, I'm just that kind of masochist. So this thread will list a few publishers who think a person's basic sexual nature is a choice, and often compound this prejudice by excluding many of us from the romance genre altogether.

Quick off the marks, Inara press have yet to publish a single book but already showing their colors. "We prefer the sexual content of a story to fall into the sensual category; this means that there is heavy sexual tension and tasteful graphic detail. We also publish works which contain sweet, behind-closed-doors sex. Encounters should be sensual and sexy and enhance the relationship as well as further the story. We are not interested in books where the sex is the main focus of the story. We do not publish X-rated books, erotica, or manuscripts about alternative life styles." Is that quite clear? Graphic detail but no erotica, romance but no 'alternative lifestyles'? What do they mean by that? People who summer in Canada, or those who dress up like Vikings on the weekend? I think you know what they mean and more importantly how they mean it.

you think they'd get mad if I sent them the filthiest Vampire Bri BDSM orgy I can come up with? come to think of it, there's one already written and up in the Cheesecake archives for a while now... hmmmm... **evil pondering** remind to buy stuff from them when I want to BORE myself silly sorry if that offends anyone, but I just think that if you're gonna do sex, DO it, don't pretend it's possible to do it right without there being noises and sweat and smells and icky stuff. and by the same token, if you're gonna do "sweet" romance, don't try to put the sex in, it don't work.

For the record: "Homosexual Lifestyle, Alternative Lifestyle A number of years ago, same-sex-attracted people would commonly refer to the "homosexual lifestyle" or "being in the lifestyle." Today, such phrases are seldom used in the gay and lesbian community, and are often seen as offensive. Religious groups that continue to use these terms seldom define what they mean by them. As well, these terms do not differentiate between sexual attraction, fantasy, behaviour and identity, and thus it is often assumed that someone who is "in the lifestyle" is sexually active, which may or may not be the case. Accordingly, we recommend that they not be used. Examples of some possible alternatives include: He is gay. She is openly lesbian. He is very involved in the gay community." http://www.newdirection.ca/a_words.htm In the modern world 'alternative lifestyle' is a phrase used largely by ill-informed commercial endeavours and conservative religious groups (usually in a derogatory way). The use of this phrase is semantically dubious and immediately places the person using it in the framework of anti-gay rhetoric. A few groups do use 'alt. lifestyles' as a cover-all phrase to refer to sexual counter-cultures (punk, furry, swingin), not specifically to glbt identity. By contrast note: "I am not an alternative lifestyle. I am a lesbian, with a capital L, a natural born dyke. Queer to the bone and proud of it." (Joy Parks) "And it's not an "alternative lifestyle". It's my NORMAL lifestyle. This is me all day from now on, baby. I'm here, I'm NORMAL, get used to it ." (James Parry)

no just send them the sweet, sensual story of the het couple who like to dress us like raccoons and hump each others' fur

Re: Inara - I'm still trying to get my head round how you can have graphic sex without erotica. :shock: Ally - omg yes! Please submit that to them. I'm splitting my sides here. :twisted:

I've always found it a good policy in life not to get enraged with people until you discover whether the heinous error they've committed is due to ignorance rather than bigotry. That passage you posted above gives a sense of how confusing the term "alternative lifestyles" can seem to outsiders. As you note, some sexual groups *do* use the word lifestyle - I've heard it used quite a lot in the leather community. And the term "alternative sexuality" - which has no stigma attached to it - is so close to "alternative lifestyle" that someone who has not been reading a great deal of anti-gay rhetoric may think that "alternative lifestyle" is simply a variation on this. And then, as the passage notes, there is the problem of a time factor. Some people may have heard gays using the word lifestyle in the past and not yet clued in to the fact that the word has acquired a negative meaning since then. In this particular case, it's not clear to me whether Inara Press is saying that they won't publish gay books. They may simply be trying to say that they won't publish books on BDSM, fetish, and all of the other topics that fall under the category of alternative sexuality. If they do indeed mean gay books, they could be faulted for their choice of terminology, but I don't see any reason to get upset about the fact that they choose to publish heterosexual books only. Last time I looked, most GLBT presses don't publish het romances. Publishers can choose whatever category they wish to publish. I don't publish fluffy stories in my e-zine, and that doesn't mean I have a prejudice against fluff writers. I am impressed, though, that you quoted the meaning of alternative lifestyles from the New Direction site. That shows a lot of broadmindedness on your part. Now, as to the submission guidelines: Well, they're just plain silly. I take it that the press is trying to differentiate non-erotica stories with sex scenes from erotica stories, but the way they word themselves is far too humorous for me to take them seriously.

I am sure that the use of the specific term is largely a lack of info on PV vocab, nor is it clear if they mean just GL or GL-furry-bloodfetsih-and-all-the-rest-of-you-freask but they definitely include GL in the term. The rather fine and ambiguous distinction beteen graphic sex (good) and erotica (bad) may have pushed me over the edge. I would admit that some general goss about these people inclined me to take their website in a mean-sprited way ;) I don't do that very often. In fact I am not sure I have ever done it before this.

Dunno why, but when I visited the site, the word "posers" just leapt into my mind, unbidden... And I don't mean the graphics program, either. 8)

Perhaps in the spirit of the season we should be nicer *<|:)

Ok, since we are on this topic, I was wondering how the GLBT Writers would like their work advertised? At Chippewa Publishing, we do not set it apart from our other erotic romances as we do not see it in any different light than so called 'straight' erotic romances. They involve two or more people who are in a romantic sexual relationship with each other, period. We do, however, post this little 'warning' on our erotic romance area: Erotic Romance - Not Your Average Romantic Read! Tired of the long kiss without the reward? Well now you've found erotic romance! This growing genre of fiction will give you a new look at how men and women fall in love. Although all of these stories are explicit, there are different ratings of sensuality. Please be sure to read the blurb and the warning before purchasing a book as you might be surprised at the contents! The excerpts in this section are for those 18 years old or older. Please exit if you are younger than 18. Thank you. Are you looking for something a little less romantic with a bit of a swinging side? Come see our Erotica category. 18 and over only, please. ~~~~~~~~~ We do list "Alternative Lifestyles" in our EROTICA area. If we published a sweet romance M/M or F/F story that had no erotic elements in it at all, we would place right next to any other sweet romance story we publish. There is no difference to us, they both contain stories that involve people who love each other. We would, however, have to put a disclaimer that it is a M/M or F/F sweet romance, which sucks in my opinion, but we do not want backlash from readers telling us we should have told them it was not a 'straight' sweet romance. *sigh* Love is love; it is color blind and not gender specific. BTW, I have never seen or read a M/M or F/F sweet romance story, so if there are any writers out there that do write this, please concider submitting your work to Chippewa Publishing. Sometimes, people just want something sweet and romantic without the sex. I know, it is hard to believe, but it is true. LOL You know, something just to make you sigh... As a matter of fact, ANY genre that has people that are NOT 'straight' (they can be of any mixture of people) in it, I would love for those authors to submit--be it horror, mystery, crime, etc. It can be erotic in nature or not; it does not matter. I just want to read it, and hopefully, contract some of them for publication. lol So, I ask this: Is there something Chippewa Publishing is doing or saying on our catalog site, or our promotional pieces, that we could be putting forth in a more enlightening or correct way? I am always open to suggestions. If this is something you would rather discuss off the boards, you can always email me at kimberlyb@chippewapublishing.com and I will try to respond to your email within twenty-four hours. Usually, it is within a couple of hours as I always seem to be online. LOL ANY insight on the correct way to promote the GLBT community, one that would not only showcase the author, but one that might possibly encourage one to learn more about GLBT literature of all forms would be greatly appreciated.

Personally, Kim, for myself, I think the way Chippy does the listings/warnings is fine. LOL

"We would, however, have to put a disclaimer that it is a M/M or F/F sweet romance, which sucks in my opinion, but we do not want backlash from readers telling us we should have told them it was not a 'straight' sweet romance." I don't think you need to think about this in terms of prejudice. The fact is that any publisher that publishes predominantly in a certain genre has to warn readers if they're about to encounter a work that is in a different genre. If, for example, you published mainly thrillers, then you'd have to tell readers, "Oh, by the way, this is one of the few mystery novels we've published." Likewise, if you were a predominantly GLBT publisher and you decided, for whatever reason, to publish a straight romance, you'd need to warn your readers of that fact. The ideal way to do this is to tag *both* categories, so there isn't any feeling of favoritism of one over the other. But if you're publishing 99% heterosexual sweet romance stories and only 1% GLBT sweet romance stories, I can see why you'd want to tag only the minority genre. So, like iosamie, it sounds to me as though you're proceeding fine as far as the sweet romance is concerned. As far as the erotica section is concerned, I think it all depends on your readership. If your readers are strongly divided between straight erotica readers and gay erotica readers, then having the gay stories in a separate section makes sense. If, on the other hand, there's a strong overlap in readership, it would make more sense to place them in the proper genre category (Action, Erotic Dark Romance, etc.) and tag whether the story is het or GLBT. That way, readers who wanted to find GLBT science fiction erotica stories could easily locate them. So I think this is a case where market research comes into play. :) I'm glad to see you're so encouraging of the m/m and f/f sweet romance field. There aren't enough publishing venues for that type of story.