Character sexuality

I just finished watching an excellent documentary called The Celluloid Closet. It traces the history of the portrayal of homosexuality (and bisexuality, and transvestism, etc.) in Hollywood films.

For a moment, this movie made me question whether I should make one or more of my characters engage in homosexuality. It's much more of a controversial subject these days, and considered a Very Bad Thing by many religious groups.

The reason why I quickly decided not to do this is not that I don't think it's worth writing about. It's that given this history, I refuse to even imply that homosexuality could be a bad, dirty thing. I don't want any of my characters to be punished for it -- even if they are forgiven or vindicated in the end.

This isn't the right time for that. Two of the main characters in this novel die. One of the survivors is in love with a dead character. One isn't in love with anyone. The other two end up together, but it's important that it be a heterosexual couple because there's an accidental pregnancy.

If and when I write something with a homosexual character, I'm determined to portray that character as a normal human being. Nothing more, and nothing less. There's a long history of homosexual characters being skirted around or passed over because they end up dead. If my homosexual characters don't end up with their love interests, it won't be because one of them is dead. It will be because they're both people, and people don't always end up together, for a variety of reasons.

And that's that.