The One Called, No Black Men in BL?

You know, when I wrote Strange Fruit [un-produced], I didn’t think about the fact that I put two black men in space and made them gay for each other. I wrote Strange Fruit because I wanted to write sexy sci-fi–I’d been watching way too much of the Sci-Fi channel all week and just had to do it. I made the characters black because I saw some hot men on a sci-fi show that were black. I thought, man—they’re hot. I’m going to write a sexy sci-fi with some guys like that! Does that make me racist? I’ve done it to my own ethnic group [many times], and men from other groups, though I’m more comfortable making contemporary stories about men from my own culture [Slavic, Jewish].This was sci-fi—but not only that, anyone is fare game for my perversions! LOL! I constantly look at men, no matter what color or race, and wonder about what they look like naked…or how’d they look having sex with me. I’m an equal opportunity objectifier who still prefers ‘real flesh’ over ink and tone. Yes I know, this is such a rarity in BL creators, but I digress. Strange Fruit is about two men—one graduates at the bottom of his class at the Agricultural Academy and ends up with a cushy research job on a farming moon. Our self-centered graduate gets to the moon and finds it has one sexy but socially awkward occupant. Occupant is a hot dude who seems to be under the impression that since they’re both guys, and all alone on this big farming moon, it’s okay to ‘get it on’ whenever the mood strikes them–he’s not a lecherous sort; he’s quite childlike in his assumption that since the man has arrived on ‘his world’, then the man must be, ‘for him’. Now what’s different about this story is…both men are black.

When I pitched this to an agent, as part of my ‘unsold works’ repertoire, one did come back to me about this story in particular. She asked me—well, why are they in space? I misunderstood the question, and replied that, I clearly set up at the start of the story that it opens at a college on one of Saturn’s moons. Obviously Earth’s colonized the outer planets, it’s a simple set up–should I make it more clear? She mails back—I understood where they were, but why are these two men of color, in space? I think readers should have some explanation about why these men of color are in space. I was still confused. There was a white character in this story [classmate of graduate], but the story wasn’t about him…he had about one page of speech time. So I emailed back, because I got the distinct impression about what she was asking me–and I didn’t quite like it: Are you asking me to explain why there’s two ‘black men’ in space? First off, it was a completely stupid request, at least from my perspective, and I’d likely shot myself in the foot for sending the email. If you’re part of the human race, and humanity lives off-world, then I don’t care if you’re white, tan, black, or an albino…you’re going to be part of the human race living off world. No explanation is needed. Of course I insulted her. She mailed me back with a final response: Yes, I just don’t see readers buying into men and women of color in space, without some form of explanation as to how they got there. From your tone, I’m picking up that you feel my request indicates some bias and so I don’t think I can represent you. [yada yada yada]. So yeah, she felt I was calling her a racist. No offense, but suggesting that no one of color could make out into space without the help of some organization is the most lame thing I could possibly think of. If this wasn’t her intention to suggest this, then my radar must be way off. I did not need to write an exposition about how men of color made it into space, when the story was about two men who just hook up. That’s the purpose of the story…no deep philosophical ethnic message here–it’s porn.

Then I thought about it…why are there no black characters in BL? [Sorry, Mika Sadahiro’s Swordfish in the prison-yaoi UGH hardly qualifies as a man of color—let alone even an American man!] What, there’s no gay black men out there? I know damn well there’s plenty of black BL fans, I’ve met them at cons, along with the white ones, Jewish ones, Asian ones, etc. I figured I could find one in GloBL, right?

I wonder if it’s a fear of not ‘wanting to objectify’? I think that’s sort of pathetic–to me, all men are all men, just because one isn’t from the same ethnic group as me, doesn’t mean he can’t be the object of my lust. That’s stupid. Outside of porn, I’ve written characters of different ethnicity; Lost Angles contains a scene about a woman who loses her child one night, but it takes place at a get-together at her house, because her husband is getting out of jail in the morning, and she’s happy–she’s got friends over. She says the words ‘You know his ass punked out in prison.’ when talking about her spouse, who was getting out of jail in the morning. She’s smiling with her friends and laughing about it–but my proofer said, you don’t think that’s racist? I said, ‘you don’t think a white person has ever said the words ‘punked out in prison?’ It’s prison talk; there are white people in prison too, right? Prison terms derive from prison culture [families used to having the penal system as part of their lifestyle] that’s not something I consider native to one ethnic group…especially not growing up in Brighton Beach, where the cops were always busting somebody…and none of those bodies were black. 0_o.

My thoughts didn’t drift back to ethnic diversity in BL manga again…until last night.

There was a manga containing one of my short stories—despite the fact that my story squicked most readers out, it’s still a story I’m fond of–but while reading it, I went ahead and re-read the entire book, [I'd done so in the past, so I could review it] —one thing jumped right out at me, and in the weirdest way: the book takes place in some medieval setting, it’s not taken from actual history—it’s fictional land, fictional people, fictional timeline—one of those fantasy sword and action sort of things that doesn’t really take place on Earth [or there’s nothing to indicate that it does.] There’s one black guy in it. He has one speech balloon, and guess what it is? “Hey, where the hell you think you’re going? Fuckin’ punkass?”

So while everyone else in this fantasy world is acting like they’re in this fantasy world—the one man of color is obviously from the inner-city streets of America, where they’re down with using terms like punkass.

I have no more thoughts.  0__0