The Radical Nature of Queer Sentient Object Romances
These lamps are gay and they have something to say!
By Graciella Delgado
As I celebrate Pride month in a country spiraling further and further into fascism, my mind bounces back and forth between the desire to escape into pure absurdity and the responsibility to remain critically engaged with the ever-shifting world around me.
And so here lies the clash, as I realize there is an undeniable pattern that is common amongst gay sentient object romances: queer joy as something feared as we watch it overcome the odds.
Help, I Fell In Love with a Pair of Crocs!
Help, I Fell In Love with a Pair of Crocs! by Ingeborg Sem is one of those silly-on-the-surface sentient object romances that comes to mind for depicting real-world bigotry as the villain that must be defeated to achieve a happy ending. This novella isn’t one for sale but was a freebie sent through email via the author’s newsletter. The story follows a young woman who runs and lives above a secondhand store. She has just come across a donated pair of purple crocs in weirdly pristine condition and decides to take them for herself, only to be woken up in the middle of the night to strange noises down in the shop.
There she finds two naked men embracing on a couch, and her draw to these men is the only thing stopping her from calling the police. After the initial shock of recognizing the men, one of which was her childhood ex-boyfriend, as missing persons from a 20-year-old cold case, we come to learn of the magical nature of them turning into crocs. Apparently, one of the crocs belongs to a family of homophobic wizards. As punishment for them being openly queer and together, they were cursed to be a pair of crocs and must have sex with a woman in order to break their curse. These two men, however, haven’t bothered to seek out a woman to break their curse for 20 years. When they do get the chance to be temporarily transformed back into their human state, they spend that time together, overwhelmed by their unwavering passion for one another. Our main character’s inclusion in the relationship is a natural transition into polyamory, breaking their croc curse and giving them their lives back to carry on being happy together in spite of the deranged lengths that evil wizard grandpa went to.
Pounded by Produce by G.M. Fairy
Pounded by Produce by G. M. Fairy is a full length novel that is similar to our crocs adventure in that we have another two queer men cursed to be temporarily transformed into sentient objects and have their curse broken by the new women in their lives. The difference this time is that the homophobia is internal and fueled by Catholic priests. This journey through conflict is introspective from start-to-finish in that there isn’t really a villain. The woman that casts a spell to turn our priests into a cucumber and tomato is a neutral/positive character pushing our leads to live honestly and with care for their own happiness.
It’s heavy and intricately crafted as we watch our main three characters struggle through developing this forbidden relationship for a variety of reasons and at wildly different paces. It packs a punch in its themes that ask the tough questions. Is it better to keep an oath to your God if it means destroying yourself from the inside and living in misery? Can true happiness and peace ever be achieved if one remains stagnant and in fear of change? Are the potential consequences of betraying your God equal to the consequences of remaining loyal to Him?
Happiness here is not only radical, but liberating on a multitude of levels.
And in Glazed By The Gay Living Donuts by our lord and savior, Chuck Tingle, this story goes even further with the villain being fascist government intervention. This Tingler takes place in a version of the United States where sentient donuts exist and have been banned from existing in the country whether they are U.S.-born or not. Citizenship for these living donuts is irrelevant and any of them will be subject to deportation if found. The right-wing lawmakers’ justification is that these donuts are born (baked and fried?? made????) inherently hedonistic and are a corrupting force. Despite all of this, the donuts live, party, and work in secret clubs that can only exist with the assistance of human allies keeping them protected from threats on the outside. We, the reader, catch a glimpse into the underground world of sexual donut rebellion when the main character, a human who has always been curious about these taboo living donuts, gains access to a club and…well…experiences the title of the book.
Featured in a dystopian anti-donut world that is all too familiar, radical queer donut joy is made possible through radical allyship and community.
Through times of great distress, humans have been turning to creation as an outlet and great communicator as we seek community, understanding, and a better sense of our circumstances. Many of these creations lean into surrealist, absurdist, and nonsensical tales to reflect the sheer absurdity of the horrors that surround them. It is unsurprising, then, that American authors are using their humor and skills to explore queerness at odds with increasingly powerful systems of homophobia as we bear witness to the rise of fascism in our country. These stories, though, are insistent on the power of love overcoming bigotry and it’s in these moments of reading deeply unserious romances and erotica that messages of hope aim to inspire us all.
