Okay, so my bookstore doesn't have a gay and lesbian section, and I know there are bookstores that do, I've seen them. That got me thinking, do we really need/want such a section? On the one hand, it has its convenience if you don't know what you want, but you know you want something LGBT. On the other hand, even if the store already organizes its books by genre and stuff, it does perpetuate the whole "gays are a whole nother species" thing. That, and, if you like your privacy or whatever, or just don't want people knowing your business, it's better to just be "mixed in with the straights". Anyway, what do you guys think of this sort of thing?
I used to manage a Borders Bookstore and I loved the fact that they had Gay and Lesbian Lit and Gay and Lesbian Studies sections, I also liked the fact that they had African-American Lit and African-American Studies sections. The point of sectioning in a bookstore is to allow ease of browsing and ultimately to increase sales. I know Borders looked at the question of whether to have these sections rather seriously and found that both G&L Lit and A-A lit sections (the studies sections were never seriously questioned) increased the sales of the involved titles substantially. I remember occasionally we would get people complaining about the ghettoization effect of the A-A lit section (I never fielded a complaint about the G&L Lit section). I fielded this complaint numerous times and I noticed a couple things--they were without exception white customers and generally liberal customers and the basis of the complaint seemed to be that they wouldn't find these books because they would never look in that particular section, to which I would always respond "why not?" which generally sort of ended the discussion. If it didn't I would point out that as a gay man I very much appreciated the G&L Lit section which tended to be enough to confound whatever straight white, liberal guilt they were expressing. Anyway, I like the separate sections.
Hm.. I never thought of it like that before. I guess you do have a point, that it's not really needed.. because if you're looking for something specific and it happens to be from the LGBTQ section of the store, you don't really need the section in the first place because you already know where to look.
I enjoy being able to have a whole section of books dedicated to us; it makes it easier to find things and shows that the bookstore probably isn't run by homophobes.
I know what you're saying but I wouldn't count on that. The CEO of the company may not be against it but the people working for it could possibly be. There have been incidences like this in the past.
In a local bookstore, there is a sexuality section, where books which have a heavier emphasis on orientation and what not go, whether it be straight, homo,or what have you. I think that's one of the best ways to handle these things, as if the story features an lgbt protagonist but that isnt explicitly about lgbt matters, i feel like it would be pointless for it to be in the lgbt section. If that makes any sense at all. *shrugs*
While I am not exactly a book junkie, it would kinda suck to have the books in the LGBT section mixed in with books possibly containing/condoning homophobia. Just my thoughts
Honestly this is one of the reasons that I fell in love with self publishing. It always bothered me how when I went to the bookstore it was filled with stories from a very narrow point of view, with only a tiny section dedicated to something broader. It is nice having an LGBT section, but it would be wonderful to have LGBT issues and views so widely accepted that all those different views could be mixed together without people even batting an eye.
Right now being in the closet, I do appreciate the queer books at Coles being mixed in with the regular books, but I don't know how I'd cope without the LGBT categories on Goodreads. Because when I want to read something with queer characters, I don't want to have to sort through all the straight books in my recommendations. Sometimes I just like to browse without a book/author in mind, you know?
I've never really noticed these sections to be honest, but I'm sure they are probably there in my local library and bookstores. Out of interest, what sort of books come under "gay and lesbian" sections? Is it like the Amazon section where its all gay sex manuals, half-baked sociology books and crappy gay-themed "Mills&Boon-esque" romance novels (complete with awkwardly posed naked dudes on the cover, of course!)? Or is there usually some decent stuff in there?
I think their necessary I rather know where the lesbian section is than search through a ton of books trying to find a book geared towards me . It's like how we have different types of book such as romance and misery sections , doesn't mean the misery section is some other species or weird , some people like it some don't . Personally I hate searching through other sections to find the book I want , so I don't mind signs saying this is here and this is there mistakes things easier . Why would you want a bunch of books lump together , and have the pain of searching tons of books to find what you want . In my store the lesbian books are lump in with the sexuality books and it's a pain to look through that stuff , sure it makes it really discreet if your still closeted but it's annoying . In how old barns and nobles the yuri manga was mixed in with the straight manga still is though and it's kinda annoying because you run into pissed off homophobes saying how they don't like and you get less books and on top of that you have to keep looking til you find one .
