A World Full of Gay

This is a sequel to an also-as-of-this-posting unwritten story (and this is not the real title of the story).

In the future, a man working at a city air filtration plant introduces a Love Potion into the filter that psychologically changes everyone's sexual orientation to gay (It Makes Sense in Context). Eventually the potion is carried on wind currents all over the globe so that you eventually come up with a World Full Of Gay.

There are still a few individuals not affected by the potion, the main subject being my heroine Allie who wants to get pregnant but can't find a willing father. (cause they're all gay :P)

She meets a stock boy in a sperm bank who used to work at the plant and tells her he could sneak her into it so they can stop the potion, but I can't give her any good motivation for doing so. Because:

• People can still have babies, but they're more likely to get them through artificial insemination (which is now a booming business)
• Allie's grown up in a homonormative world all her life, and having her stop the potion might make her look homophobic to the readers.

Any way to work this?

Try to make her seem sympathetic enough.

Even though she could get pregnant threw insemination, she wants the closeness and bond of a family with a husband. While she could feel just as close with her child, she would feel like she's missing something extremely important in her life. The passionate love of another person.

Huh. I think that was my initial thought on it but I hadn't thought about how easy it'd be.

I kinda want her to fail though...can books have Alternate Endings?

edited 18th Jan '11 3:42:42 PM by Keybreak

OK, I'm confused. was she born into this world? Is she gay, herself? If so, where did the idea that she wants her child to have a father rather than another mother come from? Why is she the only person who has this desire? If she knows of people who were raised by parents of different genders, why hasn't anyone else also decided that they want a bi-gendered family unit? If she found out about it by reading old books or watching old movies, why has no one else thought, "Hey, I'd like that"?

Well, potentially you've got all manner of sentiments about a member of a minority not wanting to be overwhelmed by a particularly large majority, but probably the key thing is this: the world's unbalanced. It's almost utterly reliant on artificial insemination in order to avoid a [[Children of Men]] style scenario, and so if society regresses technologically, even just back to a 1950s level, it'll fade away, as opposed to heteronormativity, which is much more secure. Like, say, a society that won't do anything about fossil fuel consumption, you've got a disaster waiting to happen.

She was born into the world and isn't gay.

"There are still a few individuals not affected by the potion, the main subject being my heroine Allie..."

She's one of the only people who isn't gay because she had an immunity to the potion and by now, she gets as much heterophobia as some people have had homophobia.

Think "lesbian in a small town," but inverted.

Ok, sorry. I missed that. But if there are others who aren't gay, why doesn't she look for a male partner among them?

Because she hasn't had any luck up until meeting this stockboy, and when he suggests raiding the plant she decides to join him in order to get back at all the people who've hassled her oh my gosh that makes sense. O_O

*Laughs delightedly*

Ask yourself the hard questions — you'll find all sorts of answers when you do that...

Another thing to consider is freedom. People should be able to decide what kind of sexuality they are. From the sounds of it this potion made everyone's choice for them.

People should be able to decide what kind of sexuality they are.

I get what you're trying to say here — I think — but you should be aware that sexuality does not work that way. Which, I believe, is the point of the story in the first place.

Whether it is or not, it is science fiction...pheromone in the air, makes you go for your own team.

...aight, I think I made this easier to work than I thought I could now.

I love this idea and think it has great comedy potential.

I agree with the above poster. Please let us know when you're done if there's anywhere we can read it.

Is she going to find the love of her life in the form of the stockboy?

Wuv, twue wuv. Mawaige...

Or, she's falling in love with him, but even after the potion wears off he's all like "Sorry dude, I'm still gay."

edited 20th Jan '11 9:27:01 PM by Deathonabun

I had sorta planned for her to fall for him, that would be the obvious choice...

Though her not getting with him was a twist I had been contemplating.

Which was why I wondered if books are allowed Multiple Endings. ;P

Sorry if this has been covered already, but why can't a gay man be a willing father once she's preggers via artificial or natural means? Why can only a straight man help raise the kid? Is there an outstanding bigotry on the part of the gays against "breeders"?

There is a lot of bigotry, but why raise a baby with a person of Incompatible Orientation? Now that they're all out there they would want to be with other men.

Sure, books can have multiple endings. You could try naming the last few chapters "ending #1", "ending #2", etc.

My question is why the pfargtle would this hormone be out there in the first place? -_-

Because the villain in the previous book was getting revenge for a reason which you conveniently don't need to know to read this book.

Oh, ok. I'll have to warn you, though, you'll have to work pret-ty hard to keep this from seeming homophobic...

I can play with it. ;P The first book was mostly homophilic, so I can mix em.

^^^^^ There is a lot of bigotry, but why raise a baby with a person of Incompatible Orientation?

It somewhat disturbs me that you appear to be presenting this as a rhetorical question.

Now that they're all out there they would want to be with other men.

Because gay guys make friends w/straight women all the time. I've met many gay guys who treat women as comrades, not the Other. Anecdotal evidence is anecdotal, I know, but not every guy goes that way, and in this society there's heavy bigotry as you've said. Not everyone will be bigoted, or equally bigoted anyways.

I guess my question, as a reader, would be: What does she have against getting help from a gay man? Does she have a reason to reject a gay man as a father figure for her child? Why does she adhere to the "traditional" view of a nuclear family as opposed to a tribe of friends or some other such model? Is it simply that she meets the hetero guy before having to seriously consider other options?

You don't have to provide concrete answers to these questions to the readers, but it might help to know what your character's answers would be.

Out of curiosity, does Homosexual Reproduction exist in your story? It seems that it would be possible considering the boom in artificial insemination and that in Real Life, we've gotten close to it on some occasions. If I recall correctly, they are working on Male/Male and Female/Female births, both of which could be done by extracting eggs from male bone marrow and sperm from female bone marrow. I think with artificial wombs, in the future, gay couples regardless of sex could have children of their own.

But even if the technology hasn't been perfected yet, you could probably use it in your story.

edited 23rd Jan '11 8:43:09 AM by darkclaw

I think it's that I've made her as sort of a loner now...any women she'd meet would mostly want to date her, and she doesn't want to have a man help raise her child unless he loves her.

And no, there wasn't meant to be any homosexual reproduction...:/ Truly I had never been aware of any theoretical method by which it could happen.

Um...I had wanted to make sperm donation and surrogacy hot commodities, but with letting couples make their own children I don't know if it could work.