Bi/het/lesbian relationship - treading carefully

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onesecondglance

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Hello! I am a reader of this board, but not a contributor until now. I am a straight white middle-class cis man from the UK. Please let me know if anything here isn't okay.

I'm basically looking for some views on the relationships I'm developing in my current WIP. I'm not looking for cheers for including non-hetero sexuality - more, I don't know if I might be unknowingly tripping over issues, or if there are things I need to bear in mind when presenting this.


There are two leads in my WIP. Lead 1 is Lydia, a French-English cis woman living in Hong Kong. She is bisexual, and starts the story attracted to a male character who dies fairly early on. She's very private to the point of withdrawn, and hasn't entirely come to terms with her sexuality. She suffers badly with depression and anxiety for a variety of reasons, but her sexuality is not the main cause.

Lead 2 is an as-yet-unnamed Chinese Muslim cis woman also living in Hong Kong. She is a lesbian, but was married to a man for several years. Her husband became severely depressed when he found out about her sexuality, and committed suicide a few years prior to the story. She has reconciled her sexuality and her religion, and remains a practicing Muslim, but keeps her sexuality a secret because of prevailing cultural attitudes.

In the story, Lead 2 takes Lydia in when she is in a particularly bad place. Lydia comes close to committing suicide (for plot reasons not related to her sexuality), and Lead 2 shares the story of her husband, which she has never told anyone before. Later in the story, when external plot factors have brought the world to the edge of chaos, Lydia and Lead 2 comfort each other and end up sleeping together. From then until the end of the story, they are in a relationship.


There are some things here I'm not sure about.
- I'm uncertain how to express Lydia's sexuality, as I wouldn't want it to appear that she's hetero from the initial relationship, with her suddenly turning gay later on.
- I'm also uncertain whether the subplot of Lead 2's religion (and her husband committing suicide) is a powderkeg of offensiveness waiting to blow up in my face.
- Lastly, the scenario of the two leads falling into bed together would be a bit of a cliché in a M/F pairing, and I'm unsure if that cliché carries different connotations in F/F.

I'm also aware that there are big gaps in my knowledge. If anyone can offer any comments or advice on this at all, I'd be glad to listen.

Thank you in advance.
 

indwig

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1) you show her attraction to the guy, right? So show her being attracted to a girl or two.

2) any talk of religion can be offensive. Depends on how it's handled.

3) when it's M/F, I roll my eyes and say "of course they're falling into bed!". When it's F/F I'm more OK with it. I guess because I haven't seen it done thousands of times.
 

auzerais

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In general, people do not just "fall into bed." They have longer term attractions for one another, and this leads to sex. I think you can address your first question and therefore your third question in this manner. Lydia is attracted to Lead 2; Lead 2 is attracted to Lydia. They are going to become increasingly more intimate with each other, they are going to flirt and take liberties with each other, and this will lead to sex.
 

onesecondglance

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Thanks - appreciated.

It sounds like I may be all right with this at the broad strokes level, and it will come down to the detail of exactly how the story is written, so I'll reach out to some lesbian friends for beta reading to hopefully catch those details.

Thanks all for your help.
 

Julia Joy

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I don't know if you intend to have Lydia be out or sure of her own identity, but one way you could express her bisexuality is having her state explicitly that she is bisexual.

The word "bisexual" is implicitly taboo in a lot of media - I can think of countless examples of writers working hard to imply a character might be attracted to multiple genders, but there are very few examples of characters who openly state that that is their identity. As a bisexual woman myself, I would love to see more representation in concrete terms.
 
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