Word: venusized
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...Brown resents an attempt to pin her down. "I know you don't like being called a lesbian author," I said tentatively. (On the back flap of Venus Envy, she remarks that if anyone tries to define her as such again, she will "knock their teeth in.") "If you're going to label me, then you have to label everyone," Brown replied reasonably. "Then Norman Mailer has to be a Jewish heterosexual writer. See what I mean...
Even when Brown of the characters in the book do express a decided opinion on an issue, it is not likely to be what you would expect. For example, Venus provides a rather odd rationale for having gays in the military: these are the people who are most expendable in a world "developed to protect the children." But Brown denied that she was depicting gay people as irrelevant to society. "Can you imagine what life would be like without gay people? There'd be no medicine, there'd be no arts, the school system would fall apart. It would...
...goddess Venus notes: "I think if Michelangelo were straight, the Sistine Chapel would have been painted basic white with a roller...
Which leads naturally to the main point of Venus Envy, the importance of coming out of the closet. "Tell the truth. Be who you are. I can't ever know you and love you until I know who you are," she told me. And later, when a member of the audience asked her for her opinion of media outings (adding, "I'm not talking about picnics, of course"), Brown said: "There is a part of me that leaps for joy every time one of those liars is yanked out of the closet." But she added regretfully: "I don't think...
...individual, Brown pointedly refuses to accept the usual burden of political correctness that comes with being a "gay author." With enormous relish, she has her characters tell stories of sniffing cocaine from an erect black penis ("It doesn't look as good on a white cock.") Nor does Venus shy away from the reputation of promiscuity enjoyed by the gay community. As she tells Frazier: "We shared our bodies. We gloried in the experience. I go my way and you go yours far richer than before we met. If I sleep with someone else, how can that take anything away...