Thorn Wilde

Thank you!

I think that gender identity can be fluid in the same way that sexuality is. Thank you very much for reviewing, and for your kind words. I'm so glad you enjoyed the story!

Thank you! Thank you so much. This means a lot coming from you especially. I'm very glad you enjoyed the story. Thanks for reviewing.

Thank you! Thank you so much, I'm so glad you enjoyed it! And thanks a bunch for reviewing!

*flail* My first anthology! I am so nervous now, all of a sudden... But also so excited about reading everyone's stories!

I wouldn't know, I don't think I've ever watched a single episode of Dallas. I'm so glad you enjoyed the story! The significance or insignificance of gender is a topic of great importance to me. There is a story in the Hubris collection that deals with transgender issues as well, but I haven't posted it yet as I somehow can't seem to manage to be happy with it... It's not as positive as this one, one might say... Thank you, as ever, for reviewing! I always look forward to your comments.

Thank you so much. This is a story I've been wanting to write for a long time, so it means a lot to hear people say they enjoyed it. Thanks for reviewing!

‘Whoa! Is that a guy or a girl?’ Nathan looks up in the direction Gareth is nodding. ‘Who, Sam? He’s a guy, of course!’ ‘Are you sure?’ asks Tom, narrowing his eyes. ‘He’s awfully pretty. If that’s a guy, I may have to switch to your team.’ Nathan slaps Tom playfully upside the head. ‘Back off, you,’ he says. ‘If he’s gay, he’s mine.’ And I’m pretty sure he’s gay. Sam has seen them now, and gives Nathan a wave before jogging across the square towards them. He comes to a halt,

Nathan is utterly smitten with gorgeous first year art student Sam, but Sam has a secret that may ruin any ambitions either of them have of a relationship with each other.

Everything you've said in the last page of this discussion has seemed highly judgmental and deeply hurtful to people who have experience with shitty family. You've also made assumptions regarding the family lives of people you know that you frankly don't seem qualified to make (especially regarding your college friend who didn't get along with his dad; see my previous post). Of course people feel the need to defend themselves when when what you write can be so clearly interpreted as judgmental. If you care so much about introspection and admitting that you've wronged people, the least you can do is own that. Yes, we've all wronged people, and yes, sometimes there are things we could have done differently to save a family relation, but sometimes there really aren't, and nowhere is that as true as with family, precisely because walking away from a situation is so frowned upon. Sometimes trying to fix things will make them worse. Sometimes we should just leave things be and not push. That is almost impossible to do where family is concerned. So, once again, and this is an expression I rarely if ever use because I usually abhor it, but check your privilege. It's not your place to judge, and we have every right to react when you do.

I guess if I worked in a coffee shop and some guy came by every day for weeks and kept staring at my arse I might start freaking out, too.

I value family hugely. I just don't think that family is limited to blood relations, or that people are family just because they happen to be related to you. My brothers' brother is my brother. The fact that we're not related doesn't come into play. My step-dad's son is also my brother. I stopped thinking of him as my step-brother ages ago. And there are several people out there whom I consider my siblings who aren't even connected to my blood-family. I see all my cousins as family, but not necessarily their parents. On my mother's side, I'm good with all of them. On my father's side, however, I have an aunt who's extremely difficult to deal with, one uncle who's a massive, arrogant prick, and another uncle whom I don't even talk about for reasons which are nobody's business but my brothers' and mine. I don't care any more about these people than I would about any other acquaintance. I would like to add, regarding your friend from college and his dad, that if you think you could tell what his father was like from meeting him and talking to him a few times, you are really quite misguided. I find the idea that you would somehow know him better than your friend who's known him his entire life more than a little bit arrogant, or perhaps just naïve. Either way, you are clearly speaking from a position of privilege here. I'm glad that you have never felt that your blood relations were anything less than family, and I think it's great that you value them as highly as you do, but you'd do well to remember that not everyone is you. Many of us have far more complicated families, and some of us have blood relations who have hurt us or people we care about in one way or another. Lastly, I take issue with your use of the term 'obvious sociopaths'. There is no such thing. The mark of a sociopath is that he or she is able to manipulate the people around them so masterfully that no one else would be able to see that something was wrong.

I haven't spent Christmas with all my brothers (the biological/married in ones) in years. We're kind of spread to the four winds. I have two biological ones, one who lives here in Oslo and one who lives in Stockholm, and then they have a half brother who lives high up in the Swedish mountains. When I was a kid, we'd all spend Christmas together: My mum and dad and me, my dad's ex-wife and their two sons, and her son from after their marriage ended, whose dad fucked off when he was just a baby. As such, my dad was always his dad too, so I had no notion that we weren't blood relations until I was about 8. Before anyone asks, it wasn't awkward at all. There were never any hard feelings between my mother and my brothers' mother; my dad's first marriage happened because he knocked up his girlfriend, and they split up less than five years later, a decade before he even met my mum. My brothers are all much older than me, which has probably contributed to us never having much trouble getting along. I never even lived with any of them, except that the eldest (who's 19 years my senior) lived with us for a couple of years, until I was about 3. They used to babysit me when I was a kid. This year, my brother who lives in Oslo is spending Christmas with his girlfriend's family in Bergen, his mother is spending a quiet Christmas with her best friend who's ill, and the ones in Sweden are spending Christmas with their significant others' families. Magpie's working Christmas eve, so I'll be spending a quiet Christmas with my mum and her husband, and possibly my step-brother and his mother as well, we'll see. He's the only sibling I've ever had any sort of trouble with. Our parents got married when we were 14, and he had a hard time adjusting when we all moved in together. He's an only child, as is his father, so he's not used to having a big family or anything. We get along just fine now, though. He buggered off to Australia to go to university for three years and came home permanently this summer. It's only lately that he's actually felt like a brother to me and I have counted him as such. I'm accumulating a lot of brothers...

I have too many to count... Old-time favourites from my childhood and early teens include Harry Potter, The Chronicles of Narnia, The Crestomanci books by Diana Wynne Jones, the Earthsea books by Ursula LeGuin, His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman, and The Dark is Rising by Susan Cooper. Some of the more grown-up things I enjoy includes Neverwhere, American Gods and Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman, the Aeon's Gate trilogy by Sam Sykes, King Rat by China Mieville, The Dresden Files by Jim Butcher, and I could go on and on and on, but I think I should probably stop. I love fantasy.

Because they played it tonight and it was amazing, here's Placebo's cover of Running Up That Hill:

Never had a celebrity crush? It's like, I know that the celebrities I go gaga over are awesome people. I mean, I've watched interviews with Benedict Cumberbatch and Tom Hiddleston, and not only are they hotties, but they're also two of the nicest people on the planet. Not saying they necessarily show how they are on a super deep level in interviews, but you can still tell that they have these quirky, goofy personalities that are totally adorable.

I just think the press should stay out of people's relationships... The fact that people have to go to such great lengths to keep their private lives private just because they happen to be famous is very, very sad. By all means, have a go at celebrities for the stupid shit they say in public, but don't hurt the civilians. I feel really sorry for the non-famous significant others of famous people. I know if I was famous for something I would do everything I could to keep Magpie out of the spotlight. Poor guy doesn't even like taking the bus, let alone being recognised by strangers.

You are, of course, free to self identify however you want, and I'm certainly not judging anyone. Purely out of curiosity: You say that you can only be yourself with a man. Does that also mean that you cannot form lasting, honest friendships with women?

Not sure I'd use that particular word, but yes. I believe there are very few people in the world who are actually totally 100% on one end of the spectrum or the other. That is to say that I think there are about as many 100% straight people as there are 100% gay people. How often don't you hear straight people (at least the ones that are comfortable in their sexuality) say that they're totally gay for some celebrity? I also think that the reason why straight people seem to be in majority is that the vast majority of bisexuals, due to societal pressure, norms or conditioning, end up identifying as straight, not because they couldn't ever be with someone of the same sex, but simply because the thought hasn't really occurred to them, and when they do feel attracted to someone of the same sex they put it down to admiration and never explore the sexual possibilities. That's just a pet theory, though, of course. Add the factors of a non-binary spectrum of gender to the mix and it becomes even more complicated, but, TL;DR in essence, yes.

Probably not, but that doesn't mean we can't try and change that mentality.

That's exactly what I mean. It's much easier to just say you're gay if you usually like guys, but I've heard of people having to rephrase their sexual identity because they end up falling for someone of the gender they're not usually attracted to, and pretty much being ostracised for it. People say they 'turned straight' or 'turned gay', and it's like, no, I was like this all the time, I'm exactly the same as I used to be. It's whack.

That's a nice word. Thank you. I'm glad you liked the story.

I was browsing Tumblr the other day when I came across this quote: It's a quote by a woman named Amy André, from a speech on bisexual health. I was reminded of it when this thread emerged in The Lounge, regarding olympic diver Tom Daley. Now, Tom Daley has said that he's in a relationship with another guy. Good for him. I think this is awesome. He also says he still fancies girls. As far as I'm concerned, this places him pretty firmly in the bisexual category as far as labels go. Yet, some seem to feel that this means he's 'undecided'. I tend to lean towards the masculine, but if I were to categorise my sexual orientation (personally I prefer to just call myself queer), I would probably call myself pansexual. If someone asks and I don't feel like explaining what that means, I will say bisexual, because that's easier. But I like guys, and I like girls, and I like girls who look like guys and guys who look like girls, and I like non-op transpersons and genderqueer people who feel no need to label their gender, and I don't believe in the gender binary. Neither to I believe in monosexuality as some kind of default. I've always been of the opinion that people fall in love with people. That there are tastes and preferences that tend to make us more attracted to one sex than another, but that the starting point, the default state if you will, is that you can go either way. Dispute me on this if you like, my word isn't gospel. I'm not saying that no one is gay or straight, and I'm not saying that sexual orientation isn't innate, I just mean that as a species we can go either way. I'm convinced that if 'alternative' sexualities were more accepted, far more straight people would identify as bisexual. As it is, many people, on both ends of the spectrum, don't even consider bisexuality to be a real sexual orientation. We're told that we're confused or greedy, that we should make up our minds. We're told that if we're in same-sex relationships we're gay and if we're in opposite-sex relationships we're straight. Mental health professionals don't take us seriously. We have a hard time finding lasting relationships because if our partners identify as completely gay or completely straight, they'll want us to identify that way as well, and they'll feel insecure and worry that we really want someone of the other sex if we refuse to. This is probably part of the reason why far more bisexual people are depressed or suicidal. I think we're something like twice as likely as gay people and four times as likely as straight people to suffer from severe depressions and suicidal thoughts. Some will try to tell us to just choose, some will try to convince us we're really either gay or straight, and gay people aren't a bit better with regard to this than straight people. I'm not confused. I'm perfectly comfortable with my sexual orientation. I know what I like and what I don't like. I've identified as bisexual for over a decade and I've never faltered in this. But it hasn't been easy when I've constantly been made to feel like my sexual orientation is invalid. The B in LGBT is being ignored, but we do exist, and we're not confused or greedy or undecided. We're real.

If he says he likes girls too, how is that undecided? I'm sick of bisexuality being labeled the sexual orientation of the confused, greedy or undecided...

Happy Birthday, Lisa!!!