Me, then Shane:
But to continue this analogy, since Muslims cannot agree amongst
themselves
what their religion entails, then isn't whatever I write going to be considered wrong by somebody? And since I cannot write about it at all without causing someone to object, should that take away my right to
write
it?
No, definitely not! But it does say to me that if you're going to write about Muslims, you should learn a bit about what the different groups are, and make sure that the descriptions you've got for them are right for the group you're writing about. Or to make the decision to throw all that information to one side, if you feel the story justifies it. But you
should
have the information to begin with.
And this is where the problem occurs. I don't currently have any close gay friends, having lost track of the ones I knew at college. So how am I supposed to find out? Gay literature, even that written by gay men, is itself likely to be an unreliable source since it will presumably also be designed to titillate and/or be interesting and exciting rather than explain dull everyday life. How are the majority of gay men going to react to being asked about the intricate details of their daily personal by those white middle class women that Neil was talking about?
What I meant is that it's a very different thing to share your house and life with a man than with a woman, and
some
of these differences are really very subtle.
And on this subject I haven't enough knowledge to comment
But there are ways of finding out if you want to...
I think Tom might object :-)
Louise