Do you think it is possible to create a fictional world totally free of homophobia?

Discussion in 'Setting Development' started by Drusilla, Mar 16, 2013.

  1. mbinks89

    mbinks89 Active Member

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    It's totally possible.
     
  2. Devlin Blake

    Devlin Blake New Member

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    You ARE God when you write. You're the god for your world. You control your characters destinies. And if you want a world without Homophobia, then you can have that in your world. I've lived places where it's seen as 'just another couple'. Women introduce people to their 'wives' and men to their 'husbands'.

    It's just like having a world without sexism, classicism, racism, agism or any other 'ism'.

    Also true in ancient Japan. If you've ever read the code of Bushido (not sure if I'm spelling that right,) it treated homosexuality as more than normal, almost as something to be encouraged in certain situations.
     
  3. elynne

    elynne Active Member

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    I'm writing a story in which the main character is from a race of shapeshifters. their species doesn't have fixed genders; it's expected that a person will transition between the five (technically six) options available at various points during their lifetime, though there's no set schedule or value judgement attached to changing or not changing one's gender. some combinations can produce offspring, and some can't, but there's no population shortage or imperative to reproduce. given that background, homophobia is completely nonsensical. a person is who they are, regardless of what the current configuration of their genitalia is.
     
  4. Devlin Blake

    Devlin Blake New Member

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    people are scared of 'different' That's universal. However, in your story, it sounds like it's not different. So why be scared?
     
  5. A.M.P.

    A.M.P. People Buy My Books for the Bio Photo Contributor

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    Edit: I just noticed, who keeps necroposting lately? lol

    In my current work, homophobia doesn't really exist.
    People are too busy working, surviving, and making sure they don't get killed by some angry idiot to care or risk making fun of another.
    It's a luxury, being homophobic, lol.

    But a few real world cultures did accept homosexuality or even praised it (Such as certain american natives) and homosexual relationships were considered healthy and expected in Ancient Greece (Though, it was expected you'd marry and have kids)
     
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  6. AlannaHart

    AlannaHart Senior Member

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    Just write your story, write the homosexual relationships, and never mention homophobia. There needn't be any effort from you to portray how accepting or unwitting of homophobia your characters are. It's just not a thing.
     
  7. Wreybies

    Wreybies Thrice Retired Supporter Contributor

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    This line shall find much use in the future portion of my life. ;)
     
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  8. Gigi_GNR

    Gigi_GNR Guys, come on. WAFFLE-O. Contributor

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    Of course it's possible. For one, like people have said, you're God when you write. Write whatever.

    Not only that, but the way this question is asked seems to wonder if it's possible that a world without bigotry can exist, as if bigotry is a necessary function in the world, which is really cynical. I'd say it's absolutely possible - if you're writing in the future even more so, and even if you're writing in the past, you can have a circle around your characters that are accepting even if your overall world is not so.
     
  9. DeadMoon

    DeadMoon The light side of the dark side Contributor

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    Poppy Z Brite wrote a lot about Gay or bi characters, until some of her later books there wasn't much in the way of conflict or anyone even bring up the subject ( that I remember)
     
  10. HelloThere

    HelloThere Senior Member

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    it's fictional, you can do what you want
     
  11. jannert

    jannert Retired Mod Supporter Contributor

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    It sticks in my mind that Iain M Banks did this, in his 'Culture' series—to the extent that people could swap genders at will (and back again), and be with anyone they wanted at any time. In a sense, it was a genderless world. He always said that his 'Culture' was his own far-future view of what he'd want society to be like. His stories came from things in that world going askew. Nobody would ever believe in a perfect world, would they?
     
  12. Some_Bloke

    Some_Bloke Active Member

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    If this world has the same religions and cultures that exist in our world, then no. However as it's your own world, you can make up whatever cultures or religions you want.
     
  13. Wreybies

    Wreybies Thrice Retired Supporter Contributor

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    True. I remember watching the little sci-fi film Battle for Terra where at one point, while flying in their little version of ultra-lights, the intelligent beings of the world in which the film takes place have these huge creatures fly up to them out of the clouds and one of the characters calls it a "sky whale". Why would he need to modify whale with sky if his world has no whales of the kind you and I know? What other kind of whale is there for him? He should have just called it a whale. He makes a distinction that should technically not exist in his world, so why would he make it? It's an anachronism coming from the world of the viewer and the hand of the writer.

    To the original question:

    Ask yourself how much this homophobialessness is a part of the greater story. Even renowned homophobe Orson Scott Card managed to write an entire series of science fiction books that are surprisingly lacking in homophobic content by dint of utterly chaste story lines. No one in his Enders Game universe has a seemingly functional sex drive despite the leads all being at the age where they should be walking sex drives. *shrug* If it's just something you wish to include, then it's inclusion should be felt in its unobtrusiveness. Arthur C. Clarke has numerous stories where the shedding of homophobia by our own future society is made known by simply including LGBT characters without preaching to the reader. If there is a relationship, it is had in the same way as any relationship, without any more narrative decoration than any other relationship would receive. It's normalized in treatment, not just by the characters for whom it has become a thing that doesn't evoke a second thought, but also by the writer in his/her narrative.
     
  14. Abethedemon

    Abethedemon New Member

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    It would depend on the cultural norms in each society. Obviously there are going to be some societies for and some against. You may want to add some sort of mechanic that makes it so that mating with the same gender causes offspring, because homophobic texts like the Bible were written in times where they wanted to "be fruitful and multiply". You should have some diversity in fiction instead of making it an idealized world.
     
  15. Selbbin

    Selbbin The Moderating Cat Staff Contributor Contest Winner 2023

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    Why would it NOT be possible? Fiction means you can do what you like.

    Besides, homophobia has it's basis in conservative Christian and Muslim cultures. There was no such thing in ancient Rome, or Greece, or many other nations and city states where people could openly have relationships with people of either sex. It was normal. A modern day or futuristic version of such a culture would be totally believable if it is not built on the foundation of an ultra-conservative and dogmatic religion.
     
  16. CedricMiddorick

    CedricMiddorick New Member

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    Depends who's writing it. If the author is someone who accepts lgbt people 100%, then yes they could create that world. If the author is slightly homophobic, then no.
     
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  17. Bryan Romer

    Bryan Romer Contributor Contributor

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    In a society were bisexuality is the norm, a homophobe would be an aberration, a despised minority, a freak even. So it is all relative to what is the "norm".

    There were many tribal societies where wife stealing (from other tribes) was the norm. So in effect, rape was not only condoned, but the accepted way of doing things.

    The Aztecs considered human sacrifice to be a good thing. Anyone objecting to it would be offending against the gods and probably killed.
     
  18. DaveOlden

    DaveOlden Member

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    I think it's very possible.

    You mentioned your world is xenophobic. What if... a citizen of your world (which I'm assuming is a singular culture), met up an outsider that was a homophobe?
     
    Last edited: Feb 4, 2015
  19. Sarah Everheart

    Sarah Everheart New Member

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    Basically I would say, yes. Homophobia isn't a needed condition for existence and in fact in the fictional sense, nothing is really. You could create a world freed from anything really. A world without religion. A world without death. a world without humans. A world without government. There's never really a question of, can I, it's more so, can I do it properly. In a world without death, you would run into other problems from the lack of death. overpopulation, despair, boredom.
    I would ask more, what's replaced it. Yes, we're without homophobia, but now what's the petty mindless selfish ignorant reason we argue with everyone else? Is it race, religion, perhaps government or origin, or if you're going with a world without mindless squabble altogether and not just homophobia , then how do people get along?
     
  20. Nilfiry

    Nilfiry Senior Member

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    The truth of the matter is that whether or not your world can be free of homophobia is irrelevant. Even if it is rampant in your world, if you choose not to write about it, then it would seem nonexistent.

    You can make a bad world sound like a sanctuary by only talking about the good things, and you can make a good world sound like a hellish place by mentioning only the bad things. It is up to you how you want to write the story.
     
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  21. Gladiatrix

    Gladiatrix Member

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    Yeah I think that is possible!
     
  22. Lilith_Duat

    Lilith_Duat Member

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    I think it's quite possible, yes.
     
  23. superllama

    superllama New Member

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    who says that your story and the world you create around it has to be based on things in this world? there are as many worlds out there as you want to create, it's just up to you to make it believable and "real" to the reader. if the point of your story is to show that homophobia is bad, then you'll have to arrange things in your world to show how they overcame it and prospered, right? i admit, the idea of doing such a thing is nice, but tough at the same time. are the inhabitants of said world rebounding from such a thing as world wide homophobia? is there an underground homosexual population trying to save the world by promoting same sex unions? was a religion involved? was it culturally based? was it perhaps as in russia today, where the birth rate is declining worse than in america, so that they have to have govt programs promoting having lots of kids and demonizing gay folks? is the planet too populated, encouraging people to become homosexual? are the people in said world even vaguely human? or are they a race that has three or four sexes?

    you have, at your mind's grasp, everything you want your world to be. it's up to you to decide the whys and hows of it, though.
     
  24. Sipsik

    Sipsik Member

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    I have one advice only: free your mind from influences. That´s all.
     
  25. Boger

    Boger Senior Member

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    You make it sound like it's almost something you can't get around.

    Name a few fiction titles that had to portray a society with a certain way to have developed full acceptance of LGBT.

    Name a few fiction titles that don't include the subject at all.
     

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