Whenever someone asks me what I write, I usually reply ‘queer fiction’ and people usually nod politely and leave it at that. But it sometimes leaves me wondering what I mean by it, and whether it’s how I actually want to be considered as a writer.

I’m a gay man, so one could argue that everything I write that isn’t factual or biographical is ‘queer fiction’. That thought leads me to remember other queer writers of the past. Oscar Wilde, we remember as a gay man, although I doubt he would have used that description of himself, wrote extensively, but only his open letter to Lord Alfred Douglas has an openly queer theme, and the letter is a bitter offloading of their relationship, so it isn’t fiction. A Picture of Dorian Grey obviously is fiction, but its gay undercurrent is never spoken aloud. Allowing straight critics to deny that it has anything to do with homosexuality at all. How often have we heard the ‘Oh, they were just good friends!’ argument? Nothing queer about it at all.

What I have chosen to write up until now has always featured a gay male protagonist, because there are very few of those in mainstream fiction, and I write what I want to read.

The second thought I have is what distinguishes queer fiction from mainstream fiction unless the main characters are engaged in same sex relationships? How do we know the characters are gay or lesbian if they’re not having sex with each other? It’s always bugged me in ‘straight’ fiction that when gay or lesbian characters appear at all, they never have sex, which effectively neuters them as characters, and is one of the main drivers of why I write at all.

In my published works, my main characters do occasionally have sex with each other, but the question that occurs to me is that if I left out the sex scenes, would the story still qualify as ‘queer fiction?’ I have no wish to write porn. The sex scenes I have written concentrate on the banality of it, rather than as a means of getting my readers off. But it bothers me: if I let the sex take place off stage, I’d be wimping out, and there’d be nothing to mark the story as queer. But on the other hand, including sex scenes, just because I feel it’s necessary, is putting artificial constraints on my writing.

Perhaps it doesn’t matter, and I should just concentrate on the telling of the story. I have always intended my stories to have strong female characters as well. I want to write queer fiction with a mix of LGBTQ characters. I don’t want my writing to be regarded as a gay male ghetto.

This is not an issue I feel I’ve resolved. I’d be interested to hear what other people think. Are sex scenes something that you expect to see in queer fiction?

Whenever someone asks me what I write, I usually reply ‘queer fiction’ and people generally nod politely and leave it at that. But it sometimes leaves me wondering what I mean by it, and whether it’s how I actually want to be considered as a writer.

I’m a gay man, so one could argue that everything I write that isn’t factual or biographical is ‘queer fiction’. That thought leads me to remember other queer writers of the past. Oscar Wilde, we remember as a gay man, although I doubt he would have used that description of himself, wrote extensively, but only his open letter to Lord Alfred Douglas has an openly queer theme, and the letter is a bitter offloading of their relationship, so it isn’t fiction. A Picture of Dorian Grey obviously is fiction, but its gay undercurrent is never spoken aloud. Allowing straight critics to deny that it has anything to do with homosexuality at all. How often have we heard the ‘Oh, they were just good friends!’ argument? Nothing queer about it at all.

What I have chosen to write up until now has always featured a gay male protagonist, because there are very few of those in mainstream fiction, and I write what I want to read.

The second thought I have is what distinguishes queer fiction from mainstream fiction unless the main characters are engaged in same sex relationships? How do we know the characters are gay or lesbian if they’re not having sex with each other? It’s always bugged me in ‘straight’ fiction that when gay or lesbian characters appear at all, they never have sex, which effectively neuters them as characters, and is one of the main drivers of why I write at all.

In my published works, my main characters do occasionally have sex with each other, but the question that occurs to me is that if I left out the sex scenes, would the story still qualify as ‘queer fiction?’ I have no wish to write porn. The sex scenes I have written concentrate on the banality of it, rather than as a means of getting my readers off. But it bothers me: if I let the sex take place off stage, I’d be wimping out, and there’d be nothing to mark the story as ‘queer’. But on the other hand, including sex scenes, just because I feel it’s necessary, is putting artificial constraints on my writing and leads me to think I’m writing to a formula.

Perhaps it doesn’t matter, and I should just concentrate on the telling of the story. I have always intended my stories to have strong female characters as well. I want to write queer fiction with a mix of LGBTQ characters. I don’t want my writing to be regarded as a gay male ghetto.

This is not an issue I feel I’ve resolved. I’d be interested to hear what other people think. Are sex scenes something that you expect to see in queer fiction? or is it enough that we’re told the characters are gay, lesbian or trans. Something that we might be less likely to accept if it wasn’t from a queer author.