Back when I was a wee nerd (as opposed to an ye olde nerd) in high school, I used to read a lot of horror. I also read a lot of gay porn. This was a by-product of a little bit of terror and wide-eyed curiosity.

Even though I figured out that I was bi by sophomore year in high school, I was still extremely uncomfortable with sexuality in general. I have, at periodic points in my life, considered that perhaps I was actually asexual, though bi-romantic.

By my early 20s, sexuality had simmered down to something that was only vaguely uncomfortable, kind of boring, and mostly discomfiting. I didn’t react well to people touching me, and I thought many sexual encounters felt disingenuous. I didn’t understand the appeal of people secreting on each other. 

Horror and sexuality have always met at a weird intersection, usually involving boobs and misogyny, which made it difficult for me to stomach. And yet, despite my misgivings about bodily fluids, I do love my decomposition and homoerotica. I don’t question it, though maybe I should?  

One author whom I was a big fan of was Poppy Z. Brite.

(Aside: Brite identifies as a transgendered man, so I will be referring to him with a male pronoun.)

I don’t know if Brite’s writing has aged well; maybe if I went back to read his stories, I’d hate them now that I’m no longer 15. But at the time, they were a revelation. Zombies and gay romance? What’s there not to love? I do recall a bit of weird orientalism in one of his stories about a prostitute in Chinatown, but I could forgive it at the time.

Brite is big into New Orleans the way John Waters is big into Baltimore. I have a total soft spot for the South (though also a healthy dose of fear), so I appreciate his highlighting his own little eccentric corner of the U.S.

Though I generally prefer to read short fiction — and Brite does have some entertaining short fiction — Drawing Blood is what I think of when I think of Brite.

Set in the fictional town of Missing Mile, Drawing Blood is a gothic horror novel about comic book artist Trevor revisiting the site of a grisly murder-suicide that left him the sole survivor of his family. Part haunted house story, part murder-mystery, and part romance (featuring nerdy hacker Zachary), Drawing Blood was the perfect page-turner for mini-me who, at the time, was transitioning from the classics to Murakami and his obsession with sexy ears and women in pink suits.

Sci-fi, fantasy, and horror, it seems to me, make the perfect backdrops for exploring LGBT characters (not themes; I’ll get to that in a moment). We have to be careful, of course, since those genres also tend to be exploitative — often featuring a Euro-centric view of the world with flairs of Orientalism and Magical Negroes running amok, not to mention a whole host of breathlessly unnamed cultural appropriations. 

And yet, I think particularly in horror, despite all the super macho “this is my boomstick!” kind of attitude that some people have, there’s great opportunity to play with LGBT characters in a way that we don’t normally get to. 

I feel that when writing about any kind of “Marginalized Topic” such as women’s rights, minorities’ rights, LGBT rights, we often get caught up and make it a Big Deal. When you’re writing about a lesbian character in the real world, you have to discuss the usual relevant topics: When did she come out? What about the trials and tribulations of dating? When she walks down the street with her girlfriend, what corner stores does she avoid? 

There’s a time and place for literature exploring the real world issues we face, but sometimes you just want to read about a gay dude running from bloody ghosts. Sometimes you don’t want it to be a Big Deal — you just want a good ol’ fashioned horror movie, except that stereotypical shower scene isn’t between the blonde cheerleader and the quarterback; it’s between the quarterback and the tight end.

Anyway, if there’s a gay character in a horror novel, why would the reader take the time to question his/her sexuality when there are zombies and elder gods to pay attention to?

Eventually, Brite began turning his attention to more realistic fiction; his most recent series of novels followed two characters, Rickey and G-man, as they open and run a restaurant in New Orleans. I admit to not having read these books, partly out of forgetfulness, and partly because I never had the time to pick them up.

There’s also a part of me that just wants to think of monsters and romance when I think of Brite: a period of my life where the sultry air of Calcutta and the sound of zombies slowly shuffling at the bottom of a set of stairs are mingled with the love story of an angst-ridden artist and his gay lover as they deal with an inexplicably haunted house in a little town in North Carolina.

Astute observers may wonder where Day 1 of the LGBT Blogathon went. Good question! I am not worthy ;_; Real-life stuff culminated with me being a bum yesterday. But I’m here now, so let’s get this party started. 

I’d like to write about a short film that I’ve kind of been mulling over in the back of my head: “돌 (Dol - First Birthday).”

“Dol” is written, directed, produced, and edited by Andrew Ahn, a gay Korean-American filmmaker. When I originally saw it, I wasn’t sure what to think of it. As a story, it felt somehow incomplete in a troubling way. However, the more I think about it, the more this seems intentional. 

The story of “Dol” is a simple one: A gay Korean-American man goes to attend his nephew’s dol, an occasion when the whole family gathers to celebrate the first year of a child’s life. A super awesome birthday party, as it were. Less super awesome because our hero has to lead a double life; as a closeted gay man, he doesn’t bring along his boyfriend to the shindig, and his parents, presumably, don’t know about that particular facet of his life. His sister-in-law scolds him for leaving his boyfriend out of such an important family event.

“Dol” packs a lot of emotion into 11 minutes, offering a glimpse into Korean culture and a struggle with identity (Asian-American, LGBT, to name two that come immediately to the forefront) that many people can relate to.

When I started researching the short film, I realized there was yet another layer of  meaning that I hadn’t been privy to on my first view: the meaning it had to Andrew Ahn himself.

In his blog for The Huffington Post, he explains:

I made this film to come out to my parents.

“Dol” isn’t just symbolic of the struggle and journey of many LGBT Asian-Americans; it’s literally a piece of the puzzle for Ahn. The family in the film is his family. The story he’s telling is both plural and singular. He’s that kid in the stage spotlight, singing to an audience, but looking only at his parents. Fingers crossed.

Even after he cast his parents in the film and finished cutting everything together, he was still hesitant about stepping out of the closet:

Throughout the next five months, my parents hounded me to see a cut of the film. They were curious to know how they looked on screen. And every time they asked, I simply told them I wasn’t ready.

It’s incredible to me that Ahn took this amazingly personal moment in his own life and put it to film. The open-ended nature of the film began making sense to me. In the same blog post, he says that he realized that “coming out is not an event. It’s a process.”

Similarly, “Dol” isn’t finished. It’s not meant to be finished. It’s supposed to capture a moment in this man’s life, a struggle during an event where he feels like an outsider, a moment of yearning for something that he may never have — acceptance, “normal”ness, a chance to participate in an important cultural milestone.

Ahn was lucky; once he finally showed the film to his parents and they understood all its implications, they were kind and loving. His father told him that he wouldn’t ask him to change. His mother worried about his career. And needlessly so, because soon after that, Sundance gave him two big thumbs up.

“Dol” is many things. It’s a look at the intersection between identities, because it’s necessary for all of us to have several. It’s about culture and the many generations of family. It’s about belonging. More than anything, it’s about searching, though for what, we aren’t always certain.

The uncertainty can be daunting, but maybe we should keep in mind the words of encouragement and faith that Ahn’s father offered to his son:

 I know you will do good and find the right way for you. Appa.