From: thom@access.digex.com (The Elf-Lad)
Subject: Re: Diane Duane, _Door into Fire_
Organization: Express Access Online Communications Service, Greenbelt, Maryland USA
Date: Thu, 8 Oct 1992 14:15:14 GMT

st1rk@rosie.uh.edu (Maxwell, Darin) writes:

>My mother, in her infinite wisdom, told me she thought the books I read
>"made" me gay. Regardless of the wisdom, or lack thereof, in this state-
>ment, I did grow up reading science fiction and fantasy. Given the Baptist
>family I grew up with, and my rejection of their morality, my only recourse 
>for building a morality was those books. Thus, my reading did in some ways
>shape the person I am today. I am, however, in my own mind, much more than
>my morality. I picked and chose among the differing viewpoints in the
>books I read to adopt the ones I agreed with. I have ended up basically
>liberal in all my thinking. I have very few hang-ups about sexuality
>and I believe in every person's right to do anything as long as it does no
>harm to anyone else (yes, I'm aware one person's "harm" may not be another's).

Interesting. I've had some similar conversations with other people 
recently, dealing with several aspects of my life that I see in 
similar ways: to wit, my homosexuality, may polyamorous beliefs, my 
alternative religion, my intellect, and my sense of being somehow "Other"
than typical homo sapiens.

As a child, I knew from my earliest memories that I was "different"
from everyone else around me. I didn't let it bother me a great deal,
because I had my own world to live in. Science-fiction and fantasy
were an important part of that world. I made up stories back then
about being a changeling, or an alien visitor. But something in all
that rang true.

I grew up in a rural, extremely anti-intellectual environment. Despite
my success in school, and in testing, I was encouraged not to set my
signts on an Ivy college, to be "content" to go to the local community
college (I'm not making any implications about the value of one over
the other except as I viewed it at the time... some of the most
intelligent people I know now have no higher education at all). I thought,
gee, once I'm with other similarly intelligent people, I'll fit in.
So I went to Harvard. And I didn't fit in. Granted, it was a fine
experience, but I was still outside and alone. So I thought, maybe that's
because I'm gay. So I found a gay community, but even there I didn't
truly "belong" in the way I expected or hoped. 

Well, maybe that was because I was pagan. But even among pagan groups--
hell, even in gay intellectual pagan groups--I was still a misfit.
Eventually, I stopped looking for external verification of any of these
things that cause me to be who I am, even though I found a group of
Others who have experiences similar to mine and where I feel I belong.

My parents have had similar thoughts to your mother's. They blame
my sexual orientation, and my religion on all the time I spent at
"that Northern college," even though the roots were *obviously*
apparent in even my earliest childhood.

>My mother is correct in some ways, but I feel I would have become the person
>I am sooner or later anyway. Books help people along their life path, they
>don't create that life path, usually.

Oh, agreed. I tend to turn it around. I read (present and past tense) sf 
and fantasy *because* of my already present alternative beliefs; I don't 
believe the books were in any way causal, though they certanly helped me in 
accepting myself and others who are different more readily than I
might have otherwise.

--Thom
-- 
Thom Watson, the Elf-Lad         elf-lad@access.digex.com <-----preferred
                                 elflad0@aol.com         elf-lad@glib.org
                                 GEmail=T.WATSON7
"What sane person could live in this world and not be crazy?"--U.K.LeGuin