When I think about my favorite romances in recent years,
there is one interesting element that keeps returning:
almost all of them are LGBT love stories.
There have been acclaimed films like Portrait of a Lady on Fire, Call Me By Your Name, and Carol,
but also beyond the world of cinema, there are beautiful stories to be found.
On television for example I’ve highly enjoyed Sense8, and that San Junipero episode of Black Mirror.
And when I think about some of the highlights of romantic journeys in recent video games,
the first that come to mind are that of Ellie in The Last of Us,
and that of Parvati in The Outer Worlds.
Does she think I'm as pretty as I think she is handsome?
What if she doesn't like me? What if she does?
What is interesting about this is that, as a straight guy,
these stories do not directly reflect my own experiences,
and yet they still tend to feel more relatable to me than the average Hollywood romance that supposedly does.
One explanation for this is that Hollywood films are often bogged down by clichés,
though of course there exceptions to this.
I know.
But more importantly,
I think it is because LGBT love stories have their own set of storytelling characteristics that,
besides representing the particular experiences of specific groups of people,
also communicate a unique reflection of love that is relatable to all.
And so today, aside from the merits that are usually attributed to LGBT stories,
like giving voice to the historically voiceless, and legitimizing and normalizing LGBT experiences,
I want to approach these stories as a genre of storytelling,
decipher their distinctive language and traits on a metaphorical level,
and uncover the fundamental human experience contained within:
a universal message about what it means to love and to be loved.
Let’s begin with the moment of attraction.
In a lot of Hollywood romances, it is often quickly revealed that one character feels drawn to another.
Whether this is done directly by having them engage the person they like,
Hannah, you'r really wearing that dress like you're doing it a favor.
That's a line. Me sitting there for the past two hours not being able to take my eyes off of you is a fact.
or indirectly by having them awkwardly stumble in front of them,
there almost always is an explicit expression of inner desire.
In LGBT love stories however, this often plays out very differently.
It means we can't talk about those kinds of things.
Generally, these characters exist in spaces that do not support their sexual orientation,
thereby making any expression of their inner desire an act of extreme caution,
and one that comes with real danger.
Bottom line is, this thing grabs hold of us again, at the wrong place, at the wrong time, and we're dead.
Even when their immediate environment is more supportive, like that of Elio in Call My Be Your Name,
In my place, most parents would hope the whole thing goes away.
Pray their sons land on their feet, but...
I am not such a parent.
revealing one’s sexuality, especially for the first time, is still a highly significant moment.
At least there's some pretty country around where I live.
Would you like to come visit me this Sunday?
From a metaphorical point of view,
these specific barriers experienced by LGBT people communicate that expressing your feelings to someone
is not about clever lines, witty banter or awkward charms,
it is about revealing a part of your inner self.
It is a moment of extreme vulnerability, one that always feels consequential, and scary.
Much of it goes unspoken;
a process of coming to terms with your own feelings,
of trying to sense those of the other person,
and of finding a way to carefully convey your intentions
while continuously assessing the risk of making a decisive move.
I'd like to talk with you.
I mean, I'd like to really talk with you.
It is an internal struggle that always feels like a high stakes situation,
regardless of the actual possible consequences.
Perhaps therefore it is also one that can consume you to the point when nothing else seems to matter,
when there is nothing more than the other person.
The first kiss then also becomes a moment of special significance,
which in LGBT stories is not really a moment of love reaching its grand crescendo,
rather it is a moment of fear and hesitation finally accumulating into a breaking point,
a moment that is ultimately followed by total surrender.
For philosopher Alan Watts, such an experience comes much closer to what it really means to love.
See, you have given yourself up.
But this is the most powerful thing that can be done.
Surrender, see? And love is an act of surrender to another person.
Total abandonment.
I give myself to you.
Take me. Do anything you like with me.
Note that this surrender doesn’t necessarily have to mean a surrender into physical love.
Like Parvati in The Outer Worlds,
one does not have to engage in sex in order to give oneself to another person.
You know I’m not interested in physical affection.
That’s, well, it’s tripped some folks up in the past.
Though still much underrepresented,
I think that asexuality actually emphasizes
that romance is not just about your connection to your significant other,
and all the physical acts that come with that,
it is much more so about your connection to yourself.
To love is to lose yourself, as well as to actualize it.
For many characters in LGBT stories, love is the only space where they can be naked and vulnerable,
where they can be who they really are.
Where all else vanishes, and only beauty remains.
I don't want you to go.
But, as these stories so often show us, this beauty is not made to last.
Much more so than the average non-LGBT romance, most LGBT romances eventually end tragically.
Their stories rarely end with them living happily ever after.
While this of course is mostly because of explicit external forces that do not allow or support LGBT love
outside of a few safe spaces narrowly defined by time and place,
the almost inherent tragedy to their stories also invokes a deeper awareness about our mortality,
and the fundamental temporality of love itself.
I miss you.
As such, romance is placed within a greater existential context,
and it is within that context, that LGBT love stories show us the absolute necessity of love,
not just as a way to enrich our lives, but rather as a vital ingredient to it.
After all, with love being so closely connected to the notion of being,
its experience, or the lack thereof, defines much of who we end up becoming.
Don't look at me!
For many LGBT characters,
the outside world that does not accept their sexuality is above all a world without love,
one that subsequently tears away at their sense of self, and their dignity,
leaving them to suffer in a state of pain, loneliness, and alienation.
Why don't you just let me be? It's because of you Jack, that I'm like this.
I'm nothing, I'm nowhere.
Right now you may not want to feel anything. Maybe you never wanted to feel anything.
Maybe it's not to me you'll want to speak about these things. But feel something you obviously did.
However, I don’t believe this sorrow only serves to bring us down,
for it always reminds us that even in a cruel and unloving environment,
there was a brief moment of real beauty.
And there is something strangely uplifting about that, if only as a bittersweet consolation.
He had some half-baked notion the two of you was gonna move up here. Build a cabin, help run the place.
It emphasizes that love is not about the length of a relationship,
but about the depth and intensity of the experience,
an experience that is better to have known and lost, than to have never known at all.
Right now, there's sorrow, pain.
Don't kill it.
And with it the joy you've felt.
And this, perhaps more than anything, is the universal beauty of LGBT love stories.
They reflect the sheer transformative power of love,
a force that is so fulfilling, so nourishing,
that even the smallest experience of it can change our entire lives.
They help us to recognize that love is not bound by the narrow boundaries that our society,
and we ourselves, so often place upon it.
That it is deserved, needed, by all.
Ultimately, there is a deeply humanizing quality to love.
It creates virtue out of vulnerability.
It tells us that real courage is about surrender, about opening yourself up,
to see beyond our self-imposed limitations,
so that we can free ourselves to love, and to be loved.
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