Her coded-as-gay characters are much, much more realistic than her ham-handed attempt to write an actual gay man.
Seconded. My memories of the detective novels by now are patchy at best, and I'll take your word for how a deliberately-shown gay character appears; it would be consistent with (many of) her contemporaries, after all. However, the romances frequently contain male characters who seem to be "not the marrying kind," sometimes well after they *are* married to the heroine, even. I have a theory that many Heyer heroes spent their teens and 20s in such all-male company *cough* that when social pressure to marry got heavy they'd look for a companion-in-adventure person, i.e., a Spunky, Smart-mouthed Girl, instead of conventional beauty. (Spunky Girl who dresses as a boy, extra points.) Thus, the plot of most Heyer Regencies.
Female characters are likewise prone to bosom friendships and whatnot, but it's hard to tell if the more or less universal desire to marry is economic or hormonal in any given case.
Also, she appears to have believed, in all seriousness, that homosexuality could be caused by childhood asthma.
Pace any hideous pronouncements à la Anne McCaffrey, I'm pretty sure it's correlation, not causation, literarily speaking. A sickly boy grows up to be a well-read, fashion-conscious young man instead of a huntin' fightin' rakin' guy. Sounds like the effect of a primarily indoor environment where library and sisters are more prominent than horses and brothers.
Dorothy Sayers included several fairly obvious female couples, and even a fairly obvious lesbian-friendly Bohemian lifestyle in at least one book, but no likely m/m couples I can recall. Perhaps the coding was too subtle for me. (It so often is, as post-Stonewall lit has sadly blunted my sensibilities.) Do you have any suggestions on that?
On Heyer and Sayers
Seconded. My memories of the detective novels by now are patchy at best, and I'll take your word for how a deliberately-shown gay character appears; it would be consistent with (many of) her contemporaries, after all. However, the romances frequently contain male characters who seem to be "not the marrying kind," sometimes well after they *are* married to the heroine, even. I have a theory that many Heyer heroes spent their teens and 20s in such all-male company *cough* that when social pressure to marry got heavy they'd look for a companion-in-adventure person, i.e., a Spunky, Smart-mouthed Girl, instead of conventional beauty. (Spunky Girl who dresses as a boy, extra points.) Thus, the plot of most Heyer Regencies.
Female characters are likewise prone to bosom friendships and whatnot, but it's hard to tell if the more or less universal desire to marry is economic or hormonal in any given case.
Also, she appears to have believed, in all seriousness, that homosexuality could be caused by childhood asthma.
Pace any hideous pronouncements à la Anne McCaffrey, I'm pretty sure it's correlation, not causation, literarily speaking. A sickly boy grows up to be a well-read, fashion-conscious young man instead of a huntin' fightin' rakin' guy. Sounds like the effect of a primarily indoor environment where library and sisters are more prominent than horses and brothers.
Dorothy Sayers included several fairly obvious female couples, and even a fairly obvious lesbian-friendly Bohemian lifestyle in at least one book, but no likely m/m couples I can recall. Perhaps the coding was too subtle for me. (It so often is, as post-Stonewall lit has sadly blunted my sensibilities.) Do you have any suggestions on that?