on making standards in gay culture (art) and a tired paradigm

...this is particularly urgent where fiction and poetry are concerned and where it is most tempting to assume that the autobiography of Difference will be enough.
Let me put it another way: if I am in love with Peggy and I am a composer I can express that love in a ensemble or a symphony. If I am in love with Peggy and I am a painter, I need not paint her portrait, I am free to express my passion in splendid harmonies of colour and line. If I am a writer, I will have to be careful, I must not fall into the trap of believing that my passion, of itself, is art. As a composer or a painter I know that it is not. I know that I shall have to find a translation of form to make myself clear. I know that the language of my passion and the language of my art are not the same thing.

- Jeanette Winterson, "The Semiotics of Sex" pg 105, Art Objects: Essays on Ecstasy and Effontery.