My head and your heart

I keep an eye out for new queer nonfiction on Libro.fm, and there are so many cool ones coming out soon, so I wanted to share them here. I haven't read any of them, I'm just hyped for their release and want to encourage pre-orders. Some of the links below are affiliate links and the profits go to Making Queer History research.

The Queer Thing About Sin

by Harry Tanner

September 25, 2025

Queer Enlightenments

Hidden History of Lovers, Lawbreakers, and Homemakers

by Anthony Delaney

October 14, 2025

Sick and Dirty

Hollywood’s Gay Golden Age and the Making of Modern Queerness

by Michael Koresky

June 3, 2025

Before Gender

Lost Stories from Trans History, 1850-1950

by Eli Erlick

May 27, 2025

Hick

The trailblazing journalist who captured Eleanor Roosevelt's heart

by Sarah Miller

May 27, 2025

In Theory, Darling

Searching for José Esteban Muñoz and the Queer Imagination

by Marcos Gonsalez

May 20, 2025

Gay Berlin

Birthplace of a Modern Identity

by Robert Beachy

May 13, 2025

Trans History

From Ancient Times to Present Day

by Alex L. Combs & Andrew Eakett

May 13, 2025

So Many Stars

An Oral History of Trans, Nonbinary, Genderqueer, and Two-Spirit People of Color

by Caro De Robertis

A Texas judge last month ordered Dr. Margaret Carpenter, who practices north of New York City, to pay the penalty for allegedly breaking that state’s law by prescribing abortion medication via telemedicine. The Texas attorney general’s office followed up last week by asking a New York court to enforce the default civil judgment, which is $113,000 with attorney and filing fees. The acting Ulster County clerk refused. “In accordance with the New York State Shield Law, I have refused this filing and will refuse any similar filings that may come to our office. Since this decision is likely to result in further litigation, I must refrain from discussing specific details about the situation,” Acting Clerk Taylor Bruck said in a prepared statement.

This is what we're talking about. This is the resistance someone can do in their everyday job. Judgement gets passed down and you're just supposed to dot the i's and cross the t's? Don't. Just refuse.

They also have some SERIOUSLY inventive ones:

(High and Low Tide ^)

We are so used to the Disney imagery of the fairy godmother conjuring up the slippers. But that's not what happens in Perrault's text.

I was reading an analysis of the fairytale by Constance Cagnat-Deboeuf, a very thorough thing, and she pointed out why the slippers do not disappear. It is right there in the text, but one might miss it due to how we are used to modern turns of phrase and outside images. That's the trick with Perrault's stories, you have to read them carefully not to miss anything.

Right after the fairy godmother turns Cinderella's rags into a beautiful gown, it is said that she gives Cinderella the glass slippers. She gives them to her. It isn't something transformed like the carriage or the gown. And the fairy doesn't just invoke them magically on Cinderella's feet. The fairy just hands her the beautiful pair of shoes. As Constance Cagnat explains, it is just a gift from a godmother to a goddaughter. And that's why it doesn't disappear after midnight.

On a more serious note, she couldn't have gotten it by a furrier because the "vair" thing has been debunked. It was a wildly popular theory of the 19th authors that stuck in popular culture, but 17th century research proved that Perrault intended to write "glass" not "fur" (verre, not vair).

That being said, Constance Cagnat also has a theory as to why it is made of glass - a detail that Perrault invented and clearly doesn't come from folklore... And it is a really beautiful thing.

The analysis in which she says all of that can be found here if you are interested (in French of couse), but here's the core.

There was a cultural and religious perception of the glass being an admirable material because it as the beautiful transformation of sand, or dust... or ashes.

That Cinderella (Cendrillon, the girl of "cendres", the girl of "ashes" - Cendrillon really should be translated as Asherella), the girl covered in ashes by the chimney, goes to the ball to become queen in slippers of glass would symbolize her transformation from domestic slave to beautiful princes - the ashes turned into glass...

This isn't going to get particularly graphic, but I know there are a lot of people who follow me who might not want to read about this, so this is my warning right now that this post will be a fairly blunt discussion of writing sex scenes and (some of) my thoughts on how to make them sexy.

Writing sex scenes can be complicated and awkward, and lots of people have lots of feelings on what makes a good sex scene (or sexy scene) in a story. Here are a few of my thoughts on them.

Figure out how graphic you want to make the scene. Sex in books can range anywhere from closed door (it's just implied that they had sex) to fully explicit detailed descriptions of what's happening, and everything in between.

But even if you don't want to write closed door, you can write fairly sexy/sensual scenes without actually mentioning most body parts. This is where you want to rely on a combination of senses and emotions. You can describe what a character is feeling, seeing, tasting, etc. and their emotions without every describing at Tab A into Slot B situation.

Avoid overly technical language unless that is your goal. One thing that can make sex scenes feel awkward or stilted is when they fall into very technical descriptions of what's going on. Some of this comes down to the language you use for specific body parts ("cock" is often seen as sexier than "penis," for example) but it can also be about the level of description you go into for how they're moving. If you start describing every time they shift a body part or change position, it can start feeling more like a list of actions than a sexy or sensual moment. It also feels extremely in the character's head to the point where it can feel like overthinking as opposed to being more of an indulgent or fun experience.

Sometimes, though, the point of a sex scene is actually about the technical aspect of it. This may be one character teaching another about sex, about characters exploring sex after a trauma or other reluctance, or about a kink exploration. In those cases, having more technical details can make it feel more real and grounded and can give you a way to provide clear insight into a character's experience with it. It allows you to show that this touch is the good or bad one, as opposed to the general experience of having sex.

Pick a couple of words for things and stick to them. You don't need seven euphemisms for a body part. You can leave "throbbing manhood" behind. If you stick to one to two words for each thing, it can help the word fade to the background in the same way that a dialogue tag does, making it easier for the reader for focus on the emotions or experience you're trying to describe, rather than being jarred every time a new euphemism for clitoris pops up.

Know how you're approaching consent. This is not to say that every sex scene needs to start with a negotiation or even an explicit yes, but you as the author should know whether the characters have consented to the sex, what it means if they haven't, and what impacts that might have. And if a sex scene is consensual or nonconsensual, we as the reader should be able to tell.

For example, I've read a ton of sex scenes where one of the characters (usually a female character) will say no at the start, sometimes more than once. But the other character(s) progresses with the sex they've initiated, and in the end, nobody seems to remember that it started with a no. Often it leaves me wondering whether I'm supposed to take that as having been consensual sex. And it leaves me wondering if the author thinks it was consensual sex.

Characters can be messy, and we don't need perfect characters who are perfect at consent. But at least for me personally, I find it really hard to root for a romance where it feels like one of the characters has sexually assaulted the other one.

So if you're writing sexual assault, you should know that you're writing sexual assault--and do it on purpose.

If you want to write kinky stuff, you should read kinky stuff. Real kinky stuff. Sometimes I read sex in stories, where it feels like Baby's First Foray Into Kink--but the author has clearly only read kink in other stories that were also Baby's First Foray Into Kink. It will be random spanking that's never really addressed, or he will choke her and then never talk about it (please for the love of everything that is good do not do this in real life), or she will inexplicably call him Daddy once. It will often feel either random and disjointed or extremely unnegoatiated (or both). And again, your characters don't need to Be Good At Kink, but if you want to write kink, you should at least know what you're intentionally leaving out. And to do that, you need to read things by actual kinky people.

Be specific. One of the biggest pitfalls that I see in a lot of sex scenes, especially but in no way exclusively in straight romances, is that they feel very generic. We are cycling through the same five pieces of dirty talk that every one of these stories uses, with the same three mild kinks. Someone says "say you're mine." She calls him Daddy. He spanks her. He comments on her mouth when she says a a sexual word.

But consider what these characters are into. Characters shouldn't lose their personality or interests simply because they're having sex, and they shouldn't all be the same. Are they interested in touching? Being touched? What body parts are they into on other people, and what of theirs do they like being focused on? Is there anything they're not into?

Do they make jokes during sex? Are they competitive? Do they want it slow? Fast? Are there toys that they like? Scents? Music? Do they make noise or are they quiet?

How would they talk? You don't need to default to Daddy/good girl if you're writing M/F romance. How do they feel about someone commenting on their body during sex?

How long have they been together? Sex between people who have been together for twenty years will look and feel different than a first-time hookup.

Are their restrictions (self-imposed or otherwise) on how they can have sex? How does that change how they talk to each other?

10 years ago, I was watching my Potential and Opportunities dissolve and evaporate in an ocean of cheap gin and expensive whiskey.

But 5 years ago, I was in Rehab.

One of the exercises they had us perform was to imagine ourselves happy, 5 years in the future.

Many of us in that room had forgotten how to imagine nice things happening to them. A few snorted (well, I snorted), finding the notion that we’d even still be around in 5 years grimly humorous.

For about half of us, it was the last stop on the way down.

But I indulged the therapist. I was there, after all, because I did not want to die. So, I imagined myself, 5 years hence.

Happy.

It came to me all at once; an artistic remix on Norman Rockwell’s Freedom From Want, reframed with myself placing food at the table.

Sunday Dinner At My Place, I answered, when it came my turn to share my fantasy. I was asked what food I imagined eating.

It’s not the meal itself, I said, it’s the implications framed around it. Sunday Dinner At My Place means that I have a Place. It means that I have Family that will actually speak to me and friends who actually want to see me. It means money enough not just to feed myself but others too. It means having the time to spare to take the time preparing the meal.

A lot of nodding heads all around me. A struck chord. Many people with no Place, in that place. Nowhere that would lament their leaving.

5 years hence, as I lay down to sleep in my Home, with my Wife and my Son, surrounded by my Art and my Flowers, I reflect.

It was a long road. It was hard. We lost people. So many people. There were long days and long nights and hospital stays. Angry arguments with ghosts. I changed, in ways I never hoped for, or expected. Good ways, finally, for once. Slowly, against the backdrop of a world in chaos, I found my mind.

Sometimes, My Wife wondered aloud, what she did to deserve me. After some stumbling with my feelings, I eventually settled on an answer.

I’m a Rescue.

She gave me a Home.

And, so, I gave her a Family.

It seemed fair

This Sunday, my folks, which whom I have not had a shouting match in years, will come over for dinner. We will cook and eat together. My Friend became My Wife, and she took a piece of me and with it she made Our Son. There will be many hugs, and no violence. Good Things Happened.

I don’t know who needs to hear this, but you don’t know what the future holds.

don’t give up yet, ok?