An organized rant about the Lambda Awards

Brief break from wedding posts to rant. We'll go back to wedding posts and other things of interest next, I promise.

This is an expanded version of my post to the Erotic Author's Association list. The context for this is the recent announcement/clarification that the Lambda Awards were actually intended as awards for GLBTQ work by GLBTQ authors (I'm adding the "Q"). The phrases in question deal with the shocking notion that if you or your publisher nominate your book for the Awards, you're considered to be identifying as an actual member of our rainbow of GLBTQ communities. Oooh, scary. Consequently, there's a big kerfuffle online, most of it on the part of some authors who write and/or publish primarily m/m (note: not the same as "gay") romance and erotica but do not identify as a member of a G, L, B, T or Q community. Let's tackle the responses in order, shall we?

1. Sense of entitlement and privilege. The Lambdas have never been about "Hey, I wrote a story with gay men in it so I should get a cookie." They were started as an award for GLBTQ writers and literature because GLBTQ writers and stories with GLBTQ characters were (and frankly, still are) shut out of mainstream awards. Since their inception, they have been, with a few exceptions, actually been given to GLBTQ writers. I cannot recall an instance where the gay romance or gay erotica or lesbian romance or lesbian erotica awards have not gone to a G, L, B, T or Q identified author. Mysteries and lit fiction, yes, but not these categories. In short, they were never intended to be a prize for allies.

2. There's gonna be an awesome straight backlash and we're gonna call in the flying monkeys to put you and your mean awards out of business. The awards and Lambda Lit are, in general, funded by queer-identified writers, queer-identified businesses like presses and bookstores, and organizations, including presses, that publish a sizable number of GLBTQ authors. While there are certainly heterosexual donors, there is unlikely to be a meaningful "straight backlash" because that's not where the majority of money or the support for either the organization or the Awards is coming from. I know this because I am a longtime supporter and member of Lambda Lit and they include a list of quarterly donors in each issue of the Book Report. No big secret here.

3. I would never write/read any books with eeewww! lesbian sex or romance or even women in them! Only able-bodied, hunky, young gay men are cool! Girls are boring and have cooties! I'm practically a gay man myself! What do you mean, I have girl cooties too? My personal fav. Okay, I'm down with writers wanting to write about what they want to write about: write what you love is the whole of the law. What I'm not okay with is the way in which a vocal minority of m/m writers dis writing about queer women and use this to justify their particular fetishes. Newsflash: this makes you not an ally to me or to a whole lot of other people.Sorry, you don't get to fetishize one part of our particular population, then dismiss the others because they're not hunky enough for you. You don't have to write it or read if you don't want to, but you do have to stop spewing shit about the rest of us if you want a gold star. And no, you're not an "honorary gay man."

4. We're doing you a favor by writing m/m fiction. It's fighting homophobia and raising awareness. Maybe. Here's the thing though: m/m is primarily written by women and geared toward women. It doesn't read like or sell through the same channels that gay fiction, romantic or otherwise, does. So while it benefits some authors and presses, it doesn't provide much of a lift for presses run by LGBTQ folks or many of the authors who write for them unless they mimic the m/m style. Most of the m/m books also get sold online so they don't go through the traditional bookstores and such that have sustained queer communities since Stonewall. Does it get straight women to read things they otherwise might not and view the rainbow of "us" differently? I hope so. It's just that I don't see it as much as advertised on the ground level.

When all is said and done, all awards have their biases and limits. The Lambdas were started in response to queer writers and their work being shut out of other awards. The Goldies (for lesbian lit) were started in part because lesbian writers and publishers felt that their work wasn't being given serious consideration in some of the Lambda categories. The Spectrums (for sf/f/h with positive portrayals of LGBTQ characters) were started in part because queer-identified science fiction fans and writers felt that the full range of science fiction and fantasy works weren't being represented by the Lambda sf/f/h award. If what this is really about is m/m authors wanting an award for their work, why not start one? It's not as if there isn't plenty of precedent.