The Art of Faking Straight

Warnings for The Art of Faking Straight

[updated January of 2021]

Hi friends, thank you for checking out this work! Although this was originally posted on Wattpad in 2012, it means a lot to me that you are still enjoying it all these years later.

However, over the last few months, I have noticed an extensive amount of discourse occurring within the comment section and I felt it was necessary to expand upon the warning that is posted at the beginning of the first chapter. This story was developed/written over a summer when I was around fourteen years old. I discovered Wattpad sometime afterward and decided to share it online.

In its current state, The Art of Faking Straight is a poor example of progressive writing. This is because it features homophobic and sexist language, and it has some problematic storylines/themes portrayed throughout the work. One of the most prominent examples of this is that the lead character sometimes shares misogynistic and hypocritical views of others as well as exhibits internalized homophobia; I was a queer black female growing up in the rural south, a lot of how Liam views himself and his sexuality is how I internally felt about myself back then. The second example of a problematic storyline is that two background characters are involved in a romantic/sexual relationship while one is sixteen and the other is eighteen. While this is now more appropriate, in its original edition, this was between a fifteen and an eighteen-year-old. At age fourteen when I wrote TAoFS, I saw many of the people around me in similar relationships in real life, so I did not understand the heaviness of the subject matter nor how inappropriate/illegal it was. These characters are now aged sixteen and eighteen as the age of consent is sixteen here in the United States. However, please remember that situations such as this can still be considered imbalanced depending upon the individuals involved and how they interact with one another. 

Almost a decade after this was written, I recognize that fourteen-year-old me did not possess the capabilities nor experiences to carefully address many of the intricate issues that were attempted in this story. While I have full intentions to come back to TAoFS one day, it is currently 120k+ words and would need to undergo a major rewrite for it to be the story it was intended to be. Rather than delete this work, I am leaving it up for those readers who have liked it—despite its flaws—and want to continue to have access to it. Please keep in mind that you are allowed to read problematic fiction and enjoy it, but it is important that you are also able to be critical of it and engage in any necessary dialogue surrounding its core issues.

Warnings for—swearing, internalized homophobia, blatant homophobia by background characters, sexist language, ableist language (most of this has been removed, please feel free to let me know in a DM if you see any additional examples of it), and sexual content in later chapters. This is and has always been rated "M" on Wattpad for these very reasons.

Thank you for reading!

Des.