Rating: WARTY!
Given the diversity sexual identities this purports to cover, Sapphic novel would not have identified it, so graphic novel it is! That said, there was an unwarranted bias towards bisexuality and people's confusion over it. I don't get that! People like what they like what's to confuse? This novel had an introduction which I skipped, and then also a graphic introduction. I don't know what that was all about. Finally we got onto the stories which is what interested me, and frankly, it was a mixed bag. Many were entertaining, but there were some oddities along the way, and I felt gender diversity was ill-served, which turned me off this overall.
The biggest problem was that this had a preachy tone to it, which wasn't appreciated, especially since this is more than likely going to be preaching to the choir, which begs the question of who this is expected to reach. But I wasn't going to worry about that since it's likely more aimed at reassurance than at reaching out to new pastures. Those pastures were sadly limited, though and largely populated with sheep.
The first one I really liked was Mango by Mari Naomi. I don't know exactly why I liked it so much. Maybe it was its brevity and simplicity, but it definitely spoke to me in some language. The slightly psychedelic artwork helped.
Some of the stories were rather trite and predictable, but then I'd happen upon one which came out of the blue (with the emphasis on coming out, obviously!). One which literally came out of the blue (it was set in the ocean) was Biped by Ashley Cook and Caroline Hobbs. I loved the play on bay for gay, although I was a bit surprised that bay-sexual never showed up! Bi-ped made up for that, though!
Comics Made me Queer by Lena Chandhok was fun, and got in a plug for Alison Bechdel, which is never a bad thing, and Erika Moen, who also has a story to tell here (LUG) which is awesome and does a better job of getting the point over than do half-a-dozen other stories on the same topic in this volume. Maurice Yellekoop's A Date with Gloria Badcock was a lot of fun, and a great choice of a character name there.
Kevin Boze's Platypus fell a bit flat for me. I take his point about humans obsessively categorizing things, but there's a reason for it in scientific endeavors. Although species, over time, are mutable, genus and species classification is very valid as a snapshot, and very useful. I can't say the same when people try to do it to music and novels and movies - and sexual identities! I wish he had chosen music rather than display some ignorance over evolution science to make his point.
Moen's second story, Queer left me with a less favorable impression. One of the big themes in this book, apart from its dedicated obsession with bisexuality and its neglect of other gender identities, is that of labeling, with which I can sympathize if not truly empathize. Based on what's related in this book, bisexuals evidently have a lot of jackasses who can't grasp that, just as gender identity is a sliding, and not a discrete digital scale, someone who is bisexual is also on a sliding scale from almost 100% gay all the way to almost 100% hetero (no one is actually 100% either way, let's face it!).
Somehow people can't cope with that, and think that when they're dating someone of the same (or more accurately, similar!) gender, then they must be gay and when they date someone of a different gender then they must be straight. I have this same kind of a problem when people learn I'm vegetarian! They ask, "What do you eat?" like, if you don't eat meat, then there's nothing else. They can't see an alternative. Horse shit! And no, that's not my diet, it's my comment on their being horse's asses.
My problem with Moen's story here though has to do with the labeling. She complains about the labeling of gender preferences, but then proudly identifies as queer! What's that if not yet another label? I can't see that as a very wise solution. It's her choice, of course: she can identify as whatever she wants, and I'm good with whatever she (or anyone else) choses for her or himself, but it felt like her approach was somewhat lacking in logic. OTOH, it's gender preference, and I'm not sure logic even applies. It is what it is.
Some of the other stories were nonsensical or too scrambled to attract my attention, much less my approval. Some were not appealing. Others, like Roberta Gregory's Queer Career, were far too much text and far too little variety of image and I hadn't the patience to plow through them, especially given that they were really repeating the same thing far too many other stories had already done to death. At least I think the title was Queer Career. This was another problem in that there was no title page for the individual stories - they ran into one another and on a couple of occasions, I had to back pedal to discover I'd started on a different story. While I appreciate saving trees by not adding superfluous pages, The titles were not at all well defined in many cases, so I wasn't actually sure what the story was called. Some help there would have been appreciated.
Given the focus on labels here, I was astounded to see one story where an example of a woman wearing a dress and sporting leg hair was seemingly held up as a problem, but when I later went back to find this (and had a hard time doing so), I wasn't so sure looking at it the second time that it really was doing what I thought it had been the first time I saw it, so maybe this wasn't a problem! LOL! Talk about confusion....
Jason Quest's Scout was the first story featuring people of color, and I was almost half-way through this book by then. A little more representation would have been better appreciated. This one made up in quality what was sorely lacking in quantity, fortunately. It was followed by the long and excellent Swimming Pool Suitor by Leanne Franson (Leanne, I'd be your platonic date if I were not married and not living miles away!).
One problem is that while some stories went on way too long and contributed little beyond killing a few extra trees - which as you know are very bad for preventing climate change - others such as Leanne Franson's could have stood to be longer, but the biggest problem was that, as I've mentioned, the book is obsessed with bisexuality, which isn't what the front cover misleads us to expect. I think it could have used a much better editing job and a lot more diversity and subtlety.
Far too much of this book was focused on sex rather than love which, given the title, is a complete betrayal. Yes, there were delightfully many stories about companionship and caring, and friendship and love, but there were also stories which had people jumping into bed on the first date, having picked up a stranger in a bar or somewhere, yet there was nary a word about safe sex. I think it was mentioned twice in this entire book. That's shameful. If you want to promote understanding of gender queer people and relationships, then the last thing you want to do is play into the absurd religiously-fueled stereotype that all gays are sexually obsessed and that's all there is to it. I was expecting better from a book like this and writers like these.
The biggest betrayal, however, is that while the cover subtitle is "Beyond 'gay' and 'straight'", these authors can see only minor variations on bisexuality, so despite all this blather about labels and gender preference fluidity, there was no dance party here. There were only three relatively rigid labels - gay, straight, and bi, and this is bullshit. It's for this reason that I cannot recommend this, although your mileage will more than likely differ. At least I hope it does, otherwise all those trees died for nothing.
