To be struggling to think of well known books or films featuring homosexuality

[haphazardbystarlight]

Can only think of Oranges.

I'm sure there must be others - any others??

I don't think cheese is being ignorant that's rather harsh. Plenty of entertainment / characters where relationships / romance / parters just aren't talked about or mentioned. Much of Hollywood fare seems to have to involve some romance / sex for some reason, but that's not the case all the time.

In The Flesh on BBC Three.
Bisexual zombies.
And it is excellent.

Oh yes definitely In The Flesh (but not for a 7 year old!)

I agree that it isn't the case all the time Omnipotent but does it honestly take that much imagination to work out the sort of thing the OP means? Otherwise, it sounds like homosexuals are almost literally kept in the closet - "That Sort Of Thing Does Not Need To Be Mentioned."

Yes, Dumbledore was gay but IIRC this was implicit nor explicitly mentioned. One of the major (not necessarily main) characters could have been gay Dudley would have been GREAT!

Any text featuring a wedding, or unrequited love, or a relationship, could feature gay characters - but they rarely do, unless it is the focus of the story.

To say "Oh well, it doesn't need to be mentioned!" is a bit of a cop out I think - it DOES need to be mentioned. Because when it isn't, it's just saying "heterosexuality is the "norm" and homosexuality is the deviation from that." So large numbers of texts feature weddings and relationships and break ups and so on - but rarely between characters who are the same sex. It's an interesting point.

Sucking Sherbert Lemons by Alan Hollingshurst. Anything by him, in fact.

oh yes Stripping Penguins Bare

only they were both by Michael Carson

The go between as I remember it www.theguardian.com/books/2011/jun/17/lp-hartley-go-between-ali-smith

DD says Malinda Lo has written a few books with homosexual characters whose sexuality is incidental.

She didn't say it never needs to be mentioned. She just said (as someone else did) that loads of characters never have anything mentioned around their sexuality / partners etc and so they could be gay, straight, bisexual, asexual, pansexual or anything really.

And I think that is a reasonable point I think.

Many characters / stories the sexuality / relationship status or whatever doesn't matter and isn't mentioned and isn't important and that's fine too. And if it's never mentioned then it doesn't mean they default to straight except in the mind of the person viewing it if that is their default. Some people have a default in their heads of gay (slash fic fans looking at you ).

I've heard that frozen has a character that is the closest it has ever come to acknowledging homosexuality not that I've seen it-probably the only person on the planet who hasn't

Disney I mean

Willow and Tara in Buffy, and Andrew in the last couple of seasons.

And there is a gay character in The Wedding Crashers, but very negatively portrayed. Well, that's a whole other can of worms...

The Secret History

Omnipotent sometimes someone's sexuality is completely, utterly irrelevant, I agree.

But since that wasn't what the OP was asking - she didn't say - "can anyone think of any texts where no one has a sexual relationship" I do think it was a bit ignorant to be so dismissive especially when kim has been very clear and, I think, brave.

WRT Harry Potter - I think a lot of people read Dumbledore as gay/bi after the flashback talking about his youth and the death of his sister and his relationship with Gellert Grindelwald. I know I read it as they were in, or on the verge of a relationship or at the very least Dumbledore had a massive crush on him. JK was only confirming what a lot of people assumed anyway. Slightly more explict within the text would have been good though...

There's ways and ways of not mentioning it explictly, though, I think.

Someone on the 'things you hate in novels' thread was objecting to the way some authors think they're being really PC by not mentioning a character is black, but just referring to 'corkscrew curls, shining white teeth and a carmel-filled laugh' or somesuch bollocks. It's the same thing here - for example, male characters whose sexuality is never mentioned, but who spend their entire screen/page time jumping around cooing about fashion or kissing everyone on both cheeks, are pretty lazy writing.

Another thing that annoys me is authors/writers claiming they 'knew' the character was gay but somehow never bothered to write anything to let us know. Battlestar Gallactica is bad for this - apparently, it's canon that several (minor) characters are gay, but since they never bother to show this, it's not exactly that helpful.

Most of Anne Rice's books. Especially The Vampire Armand.

The Birdcage

Often someone's sexuality is completely utterly irrelevant IMO.

I suppose if you like a lot of mainstream hollywood type stuff then it seems important for some reason. I like sci fi myself and stories about things other than who is doing who, or is the girl going to get her wedding, and without the distraction of will they/won't they.

I still think it was out of order to accuse her of ignorance for pointing out that a lot of the time you have no idea. I'd think it more ignorant to say that unless a character is shown to be gay by dint of their relationship or something then they must be straight, personally

Bend It Like Beckham has a BritisH Asian character who comes out.

I've not seen Neighbours for years but they had a gay character in that when I last did...!!!!!!!!!

Yes the Dumbledore thing strikes me like that. I didn't read him as gay (but then I mostly read his as an inexplicably irritating plot device!).

OP I'd not worry too much, my dd is probably bi-sexual (she's not completely sure yet) and has no problems finding books that include homosexual characters, sometimes it's important to the plot and other times fairly incidental. She is a teenager so the books she likes aren't likely to be appropriate for your seven year old, but I'll ask her later when she gets up (we are in Canada so an 8hr time difference) for recommendations.

Tamora Pierce might be worth looking at, she is writes about strong characters who don't quite fit in to their worlds and has some younger fiction as well as the YA stuff.