GFY: My share of the blame

The best thing about self publishing is that it’s quite easy to revise, and that’s what I’m going to do. Over the next year or so, I’m going to go over my back catalogue and change a thing here, clarify a thing there. Especially anything that might be construed as GFY.

Because I never meant it as GFY. When I first encountered m/m, I was mystified by it. (“But… but… isn’t that, like, bi?”) Since then, I’ve read a few GFY’s, and sort of cringed and skimmed over the moment when they say those words. Just a personal reaction, so I’m living and letting live here.

And yet a few of my stories can probably be read as GFY. Why? Because age of consent. Of course there is such a thing as a “late bloomer” where self discovery is concerned, but for the kind of stories I write, it’s just not doable to have fifteen year old characters. And I do love self discovery in my plots, I won’t lie, so I’ve been “forced” to set them all at or over eighteen years of age.

Which means that it can look like that trope. And I don’t want it to, so I’m going to go back and add mentions of bisexuality or whatever else is pertinent, republish and let this post be my apology for any erasure (as a token of my good will – no pun intended – there is Rival Poet, which is slightly more explicit about it). You could say that I should leave the past in the past and simply do better next time, but it’s been bugging me for days, because I know just how it feels to be hurt by something you love.

There’s a Swedish genius of a cartoonist who makes excellent commentary on all things political and social justice, and I’ve read and loved her for years. And then one day, I came across a cartoon that smacked me in the face. She probably didn’t mean it the way I took it, but my feeling was that if you were a bullied middle class intellectual in high school, you should just suck it up, because the rest of your life is going to be a breeze, and you’re just sulking because you didn’t get laid.

Like, whoa. What just happened? I got hit by a truck, driven by someone I admired.

And since then, I sort of can’t love the rest of her stuff anymore. I know that sounds petty, but I sort of thought she was on my side, and it turns out she wasn’t, or at least that’s not how I’m reading it anymore. In fact, it feels like I’ve been constructed as The Enemy. So there’s a sour taste in my mouth every time someone mentions her, and that makes me so sad, because it used to be something I loved.

So that’s a long explanation for why I don’t want to be that person, and why I’m going to do my best to change what I already put out there so that no one will ever have to feel slapped in the face by something I wrote. If it’s already happened, or if it happens in the future, I’m sincerely sorry! (And please tell me.)