Featured Posts

Licence To Queer
Licence to… chill?
Licence to… chill?

When someone says they meditate, what do you imagine them doing? Many of us picture someone in a lotus position listening to 'chillout' music. Not the sort of thing we associate with James Bond. However, there's both more - and less! - to meditation than this...

Book Review: Quantum of Menace
Book Review: Quantum of Menace

The announcement of Quantum of Menace put me in a quandry: I’d long desired a genre diversification of Bond but surely ‘cosy crime’ would be too quotidian for the exotic, fast-paced world of 007? And what of Q himself… how could a character whose page count has, to date, been barely quantifiable, sustain a whole novel? So, now that Vaseem Khan’s book is out in the open, have my qualms been qualified, or have they been rendered quiescent?

Queer re-view: GoldenEye
Queer re-view: GoldenEye

Brosnan’s opening mission ends with the death of his best buddy. But unbeknowst to him, the object of his bromantic affections isn’t really deceased: he’s just watching from the shadows. Will Bond manage to stay Onatopp of things? Will he leave it up to a Russian computer programmer to save the day while he runs off to have a messy break up with his best mate? And will we ever get to the bottom of why 007 spends so much time hanging around in men’s bathrooms?

No time to be discussing politics
No time to be discussing politics

Bond and politics don’t mix. So why, when Bond himself resists being drawn far along either end of the political spectrum, do both sides persist in wielding poor 007 like a blunt instrument?

Licence To Queer covers queer aspects of Bond books, video games and more. Search here for your favourite titles and characters or find content related to particular queer identities (lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, etc).

David Lowbridge-Ellis MBE David Lowbridge-Ellis MBE

“Sexuality, gender and James Bond are all very complex subjects…” Breaking binaries with Ben Williams

Bisexual Bond expert Ben Williams and I have been speaking for years behind the scenes, emboldening each other to be more openly queer. After they came out as non-binary, we thought it was about time we tackled The Big Stuff more publicly: gender binaries, putting who we’re attracted to into boxes and, perhaps most profoundly of all, what needs to be going down in our personal lives to make sense of Quantum of Solace.

Read More