Misuse of words, or Did she really out him?

[karmyn75.livejournal.com]

As we all know, LKH has a strange way with words and misusing them in amusing ways. There's the infamous lose/loose, the new air/err, and my new favorite, the overuse and abuse of 'homophobe'.
I'm the first to admit I have no sort of gaydar at all. I mean, even after I saw a photo of a friend in a newspaper story about the university glbt club I still wasn't sure he was gay. Now he's in the middle of a sex change.
Anyway, it seems to me that LKH is misusing the word homophobe. When Richard is uncomfortable at seeing JC naked, Anita says he's homophobic. Maybe he just doesn't like seeing other men naked all the time. Nothing homophobic about that. The use of the word homophobe heavily implies that JC is totally and completely gay. Of course the readers know he and the other men are, but LKH has been denying this all along. Now she outs him.

Comments

[foxfire74.livejournal.com]

I can't decide if she does this on purpose, to get people riled and to delineate the sides. Or she's just stupid.

Seriously, all snark aside, I vote for "stupid". When OB and NiC came out, I noticed that OB was all violence and NiC was all sex (well, by my sadly naive standards, before I saw the dreck that LKH could churn out when she really tried). I figured that LKH was a reasonably intelligent businesswoman seeing if the violence sold better than the sex or vice versa. Then the sex kept getting worse in every conceivable sense, and that plus her own self-wank has me convinced that she's dumb. Or at least has Serious Issues that I do not want to be privy to.

[windiain.livejournal.com]

But you would NEVER EVER expect some random guy who works as a school teacher to jump in the sack with a guy if he's NEVER been interested in men before.

Yes, you wouldn't think that was a hard concept to grasp. I'm a slasher, and I'll willingly put random hot guys in the sack together, BUT even I can recognise that in reality that's just not going to happen.

I dunno, the fact that Richard is around naked people and wears the ridiculous bondage crap that JC makes everyone wear does suggest to me that he's more open-minded than people give him credit for. Homophobic is not a label I'd stick on him.

On the other hand, this is me reading behind the lines. LKH clearly has her own issues with the subject, so for all we know Richard IS homophobic in her mind, he just hides it. The problem there is that she's written stuff about him that doesn't say 'homophobic', it just says 'closeted'. ;)

[windiain.livejournal.com]

For that matter, I'd be uncomfortable in ANY sexual situation, and in the company of people I didn't know being naked (I hate group changing rooms). If someone called me homophobic for that, they'd get a swift whacking with a cluebat. Clearly to people who know me, the issue is my own, with my own body, and nothing to do with homophobia. So how in the hell does anyone know what Richard's reasons to be uncomfortable have to do with homophobia?

Bigotry is when you cling to prejudiced beliefs, despite evidence that those beliefs are wrong. Personally, I agree - Anita can display bigoted behaviour. At the beginning of the series she clung to the belief the 'monsters' were bad, despite evidence to the contrary. I liked that, because it was realistic. Now... it seems to be insidious things here and there that have the scent of homophobia and sexism, and that makes me uncomfortable. So where I started out thinking that LKH was exploring an interesting subject intelligently, I now wonder if it wasn't deliberate, and just an expression of her own hangups.

[kerame.livejournal.com]

LKH likes to slap a label onto anyone who inconveniences Anita. Richard doesn't like to share a bed with other men so he's "homophobic", Ronnie and Dolph disapprove of Anita so they need therapy.

The men also exist for the sole purpose of gratifying Anita. Micah and Nathaniel are (supposedly) straight but have three-ways all the time and because Richard won't Micah says he has "issues". She also has sex with JC and Asher at the same time without allowing them to touch each other. Can you imagine? These two characters are in love with each other, are close together in a sexual situation, but are too afraid to touch each other because of what monkey-in-the-middle might do.

Yeah. Richard's the one with "issues"

[jycaegima.livejournal.com]

I think it is the Ronnie thing that confuses me the most, if only because it illustrates how incredibly one-note her characters are.

The woman has been Anita's best friend for years and knows her crap inside out and somehow, magically, their argument has Anita winning without Ronnie putting up much of a fight.
Maybe it is just my screwed up friends and I, but you start to have a fight like that, it is going to get dirty pretty quickly. The idea that Ronnie could not illuminate Anita as the worst kind of hypocrite is laughable.

Anita calling anybody homophobic is painful--especially, in light of how much she has tortured Asher and Jean-Claude.

[witchwillow.livejournal.com]

Hey, just because he likes to wear strippy pieces of leather, and has long hair, and occasionally eyes other guys dangly bits and often times seems to want to pick Anita up and throw her out of the room, when he's her, him and JC....

Oh wait. Never mind.

Although...dude! In the comics, given how alike JC and Anita are, do you think Richard's subconscious attraction to JC will be more obvious????

[windiain.livejournal.com]

Ohgod - LKH had to approve the character designs, too. Do you think she's aware of just how narcissistic it makes Anita (and herself, for that matter) look that JC is practically her clone?! :D

If Richard starts obviously ogling JC in the comics, I'll buy them just for that. :D

[witchwillow.livejournal.com]

If there's a scene of JC with his body fronting Anita's but his face looking over her shoulder or off to the side towards Richard and saying 'Ma petite!' - I'd buy that one issue!

And perhaps frame it!

[windiain.livejournal.com]

Framing it would be going a little too far. You'd have to look at the artwork, after all. Though if you hung it behind the guest room door...