Shane wrote:

But if they're presenting two characters in a gay relationship, then they _are_ writing about my lifestyle. I'm a gay man in a gay relationship.

Hence

my concern. If somebody, say, wrote a story about a Muslim character which totally misrepresented Islam, would you say to Muslims who objected: "Oh, they weren't writing about _your_ religion"?

Sorry, Shane, but I just can't see this one. Islam is a specific religion with a large set of specific written regulations which it's followers adhere to, and therefore there is a very definite 'right' and 'wrong' as far as writing about that religion goes. I just can't agree that sexual orientation falls into the same category; there are no written guidelines that all homosexuals must follow. While I don't deny that there is a definite gay lifestyle for some young gay men, I doubt it bears much resemblance to the lifestyle of gay men in their mid-to-late thirties, which is the age of the characters in most slash. I _don't_ believe that there's a specific lifestyle for gay men approaching middle age any more than I believe in a specific lifestyle for heterosexuals of the same age. Once people get past their twenties, they tend to do their own thing more than doing the trendy thing.

Now, that is a completely different argument from your earlier point that you don't like your life being used as the subject of people's sexual fantasies, and as Alison said, I don't think there's a resolution to that one.

Louise