The Importance of Bad Gays in Literature

In which I recommend books about terrible queer folk and explain why I think you should read them...

Hi, Y’all! Glad You’re Here—

Over the last two weeks, I’ve been a part of a few different bookish events, one of which was a panel discussing queer literature. When it came to the Q&A portion, someone in the audience asked, “Do you ever feel like you have a responsibility as someone with a ‘large’ platform, to be careful with which queer stories you get people to read—specifically straight people, who might use these books in the argument for book banning?” At first, I didn’t really have a solid answer—we were running short on time, and I thought it was part of a much larger conversation that needed more than just my little sound bite comment.

For some added context, this question came after I’d discussed books like The Sluts by Dennis Cooper, and how I loved books that let queer people be absolutely despicable. If you haven’t read The Sluts, the story is told through various online reviews of an escort named Brad. There’s a lot of violence in the book, a lot of torture and discussions of some sexual activities that are clearly not okay, but that’s kind of the point. The person who posed the above question wanted to know if I had any fear that by suggesting a book like this to the wrong reader, it could give them the wrong impression of queer people. The concern was that, if a cishet person read a book like The Sluts, Some Hell, In The Dream House, or Detransition, Baby, it might make the straights think we were all just as depraved or terrible as conservative media sometimes makes us out to be.

There are several parts to my answer, but the first one is about the idea of the “good queer book” or the queer books you feel safe giving to your moms or co-workers, when trying to ease them out of their bigotry towards the queer community. The majority of the books that these people feel comfortable reading center around gay white men living out a straight person’s romance. I’m guessing it’s because its too much mental gymnastics for a person to consider experiences too far outside of their own, and so by taking away any cultural differences, it makes the work more palatable. There are also the books where the queer person is suffering but hasn’t done anything wrong, and the point of the book is to say that queer people are human so let’s be nice to them. I don’t necessarily have any issues with these types of books, I’ve even enjoyed some of them, but they’re not really for me as a queer reader. I don’t need someone to argue a case for my existence or to show me that gay people can have relationships just like straight people can. These books are often written with cishet people in mind. But the issue becomes when cishet people decide that those are the only ways they’ll accept a queer person, or they’ll begin to label queer people as good or bad depending on whether or not they’re buying into heteronormativity or suffering.

The truth is, if someone’s acceptance or tolerance for another person is conditioned on certain normalized behaviors, based on their heteronormative comfort, then they aren’t really accepting anyone. By only offering bigoted minds literary works that cater to their own bigotry—even under the guise of being a stepping stone to greater understanding—we’re just allowing these people to lie to themselves (and others) that they’re more open and accepting than they actually are. It’s the same way that we see people who say they’re accepting of gay people, but not trans people, or they’re accepting of gay men and women as long as they “act like their own gender”. If you’re against one member of the queer community, you’re against us all—and queer people who shrug off bigotry towards our fellow queers are basically crossing the picket lines demanding equality, but that’s a separate conversation. My point is, I’m not going to pander to certain readers or hand certain books to them that reshape the idea of what queerness is. They can either get it or go away.

Also, the reality is, I don’t have any major concern over this with most of the people who follow me. If you are on social media, you know that people don’t typically follow people who they don’t agree with on most things. The vast majority of my following are either queer or are committed to their allyship, and so they’re already reading pretty diversely. Trying to cater to this non-existent conservative audience would, at this point, just feel performative.

When it comes to conservative people reading certain books, getting into the idea of banning certain books, it doesn’t matter how well behaved a queer person is, if they’re already against you, they’re going to ban these stories either way. I know many queer readers who have made the argument that it’s bad to have queer stories with queer characters who are really terrible people, because it sets a bad example to the straight people who already hate us. But cis, straight people get to murder each other in fiction, they get to cheat, they get to be terrible, awful people…so why can’t queer people have that? Some of these arguments are intentionally obtuse, we know this, and I guess I’m just tired of having these same conversations.

Also, relating to this idea of the “good queer person”, I actually see a lot of readers on social media talking about how they just don’t understand the need for queer stories to feature terrible queer people, and sometimes these readers say we shouldn’t even read these types of books ourselves. I saw someone the other day mention how a book had a really problematic queer character and they said nobody should read the book, but I feel like that’s kind of buying into a similar mindset as the people who are trying to ban books. I think we should read all sorts of books—the issue isn’t what we read, it’s more that we aren’t having conversations around certain subject matter. We don’t talk about these books as much, because we avoid them in order to avoid the harder conversations. I don’t think there’s any real reason for that.

It’s important that we have literature where queer characters do terrible things. When I first read Some Hell by Patrick Nathan, I was taken about by how cruel the protagonist, Colin, was towards his brother, Paul, who is autistic—this particular moment in the book is startling, but makes sense within the context of the story, and it’s the kind of thing that reminds us that we’re all capable of certain cruelties. Peter Kispert’s short story collection I Know You Know Who I Am features all sorts of queer folks who are deceptive in some form or fashion, which often feels like a way of being for a group of people who have spent most of their early years having to hide themselves as a form of survival. Is it okay to lie to people, to manipulate, to deceive? Maybe not, but it’s something many of us have been forced to do at a certain point. I’ve seen people who’ve taken issue with the trans literature that’s come out over the last few years, particularly Detransition, Baby by Torrey Peters, Fairest by Meredith Talisman, The Natural Mother of The Child by Krys Malcolm Belc, or Dear Senthuran by Akwaeke Emezi, because none of these books offer easy considerations of gender, and all of these books have shown people who are fully realized and with stories that are not just centering on their transness. Meredith Talisman talks about being cruel to other trans people who didn’t pass, Krys Malcolm Belc discusses being somewhat abusive to their partner at times, and Torrey Peters wrote about a trans person who detransitions, gets someone pregnant, and then selfishly tries to manipulate the whole situation to benefit them. Being queer doesn’t mean we’re any less messy, any less hateful, any less judgmental to others.

Depending on who you are, all of this I’ve written might seem like common sense. But when I thought about the question the person asked me at this event, I realized that I didn’t really start pursuing queer literature myself until a few years ago. There was a part of me that was so scared to discover too much. I also thought maybe I was selfish for wanting to be seen or represented in books I read. When I first started reading all of these books, it was the queer literature that pandered to cishet people I initially picked up. So, yeah, if you’re open and seeking these things out, sometimes those stepping stone books are good. They may not change the minds of people who aren’t trying to learn, but I do think they become a good pathway for people who don’t know where to start. I even know people who are like the characters represented in those books—not that many, but some.

I guess the point I’m trying to make is that I am not concerned with which books I influence other people to read, because the only thing I’m trying to do is get people to read good books and engage with them in thoughtful ways.

Thanks for indulging today’s ramblings. As a treat, I wanted to share some of my favorite books featuring “bad” queers:

With Teeth by Kristen Arnott

Bath Haus by P.J. Vernon

Brother and Sister Enter The Forest by Richard Mirabella

Filthy Animals by Brandon Taylor

I Know You Know Who I Am by Peter Disport

Tweakerworld by Jason Yamas

The Town of Babylon by Alejandro Varela

We Do What We Do In The Dark by Michelle Hart

The Natural Mother of The Child by Krys Malcolm Belc

Detransition, Baby by Torrey Peters

Some Hell by Patrick Nathan

Naamah by Sarah Blake

Lets Get Back To The Party by Zak Salih

Big Swiss by Jen Beagin

All This Could Be Different by Sarah Thankam Mathews

The Sluts by Dennis Cooper

So Happy For You by Celia Lackey

These Violent Delights by Micah Nemerever

***

I have plenty of other queer book recommendations, but figured these fit with the “theme” of today—also, to be clear, I don’t actually think many of these people/characters are bad—I feel like that’s obvious, but wanted to make the clarification in case of emergency haha

Anyway, thanks for reading. Hope you enjoyed—more bookish content coming soon.

Until then,

XOXO