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Gay, gay books, gay literature, LGBT, m/m, m/m books, m/m readers, m/m romance, queer readers, readers
This won’t be an easy post for me… After having argued that M/M romance is not gay fiction and that some of the perspectives in M/M romance are as remote from gay experience as lesbian porn for straight men is from lesbian life, a plea may seem to come for the wrong person.
However, I do trust that M/M readers will have the acumen to see that I am representing what has come to be a minority within the minority, and minorities need to say it as it is. I also trust that M/M readers are friends of the gay community, and in this, they shouldn’t just fantasise about gay men, but should also try to understand them with an open mind. And the only way to do so is by listening to them. Imagine we are all at a big Gay Pride demonstration, would you not listen to what an LGBT person has to say? Wouldn’t you find it interesting to find out what they have to say about themselves, even if what they have to say does not match your fantasies, even if their voices will sound, naturally, different from the ones you are used to hearing?
The truth is that there are many of you and fewer of us. The truth is that M/M romance sells by the bucketful, while gay fiction is struggling to get noticed. My plea is the plea of a friend to a friend, and I am not a fair weather friend, nor a friend that tells you what you want to hear, but a real friend, one who is ready to express opinions that may be unwelcome, one who brings issues to your attention, not sweep them under the carpet. The choice remains yours, whether to give my opinions a go, or decide that you prefer to disregard my points. But I believe that friends can get on well even having different tastes. Actually, I believe the world would be boring if we only had one point of view. Friends are meant to enrich your life, not stroke your ego.
Here is my plea: every now and then, try a gay book. I’m not asking you to stop reading M/M, but to try something different, yet something coming from the very people you fantasise about. It’s fine to read that we are sexually incredible, and I can read it as a compliment, but what we are is much more than sex machines: we are human beings, with a variety of facets, many different sides to our personality, sides that we would like you to know. maybe that could even enhance your appreciation of our now mythical sexual prowess? I take compliments with a bigger smile when I know it is based on a real acquaintance…
Now, look at my list of authors who are leading gay literature, which, please remember, is not comprehensive, and think, ‘Have I given this voice a second thought? Am I ready to listen to what they have to say?’ There’s one who offers adventures, one who offers subtle emotions, one who offers a personal journey to freedom, one who offers a completely new voice for the whole world, one who offers poetry, one who offers humour, one who offers the language of the younger generation. They don’t want to speak to gay men only; they want to speak to the world. But the world, even the world of readers, is full of homophobes who won’t listen. To make gay fiction and literature mainstream, we, gay men, need to start speaking to someone, and who better than one’s friends? It’s hard to go out and tell our story to people who hate us. Please help us have a voice for this world: read a gay book.
Thanks.
Here is a selection of really original and inspiring authors you could start with: https://martindavies90.wordpress.com/2014/05/02/contemporary-authors-to-look-out-for/
Altternatively, check out: http://www.gay-literature.com
Please note, there are a lot of comments still to be ‘approved’ on this post, I’ll try to catch up. The only reason why they need to be approved is for swear words, spam, insults. All opinions expressed with respect will be approved; just give me time to read them and check.
Gay Literature 
I have a friend who’s complained that MM characters read like women with penises. I wasn’t sure what he meant… until I perused a couple. Odd stuff. I’m a bit puzzled about the target readership.
Hello Robert,
Sorry, I’m going senile. I’ve just seen your post… I suppose you you write about someone for someone else and both of you have no real experience of the someone you are talking about, you are conditioned by your perspective. I wonder how far you can talk about someone with someone else before the person you are talking about turns round and says, ‘Hey, it’s me you are talking about, may I get a word in edge ways?’ I think we have reached a point where despite the sympathy towards us m/m romance readers and writers show, the issue has moved into the right of a person to define him or herself. It’s fine to say, ‘Look at gay men, they are cool,’ but then you also need to listen to what gay men have to say.
“…struggling to get noticed.” That’s well said. So many Gay-themed books deserve more readers from both the LGBTQ & straight communities. Completely by accident I stumbled upon Stories of The Boy with the Yellow Socks. It was mentioned in a comment posted on Youtube. No formula M/M writing here…well, let me leave a link and see for yourself. Read the first story for free as a “peek” into the book, “The Baseball Glove” is only four pages long. Trust me, you’ll like it. http://www.amazon.com/Stories-Boy-Yellow-Socks-Swift-ebook/dp/B00HE5ZXSS/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1408084611&sr=8-1&keywords=stories+of+the+boy+with+the+yellow+socks
Thanks, Stanley. It’s been a problem with real LGBT (especially gay, lesbian novels had a breakthrough with Alice Walker) ever since I can remember. What I wonder is why it appears most M/M readers, who profess to be LGBT friendly, don’t make the tiny effort to support LGBT books, at least try them.
Lots of LGBT people end up reading M/M novels (often because they are presented as LGBT) but not the other way round. I wonder if most books about women were written by men most of whom (by their own admission) don’t know any women, or if books on Black people were written by Whites who similarly have never met any non-whites, wouldn’t there be an outcry?
The gay literary community has kept quiet and polite about it, then, with the recent interview, I suppose it has become not just an issue, but (at least in the case of the M/M writers involved) an insult to LGBT books.
I just found & read your post today because someone I follow retweeted a link. It’s very interesting & I agree to an extent that those of us who read m/m romance should make an effort to support LGBT fiction not categorized as m/m. Though I would hesitate to tell anyone to read outside their genre of preference, so if that is romance, it’s very difficult to distinguish between gay romance & m/m romance. There *are* a number of gay, bisexual & trans men writing romance categorized as m/m, including Alexis Hall, BG Thomas, Brandon Shire, Edmond Manning, John Inman, Larry Benjamin, TJ Klune, Santino Hassell, Aleksandr Voinov & EE Ottoman, among others. And some excellent female authors of m/m who do not have the problematic attitudes you describe, in my opinion, including Vanessa North, KJ Charles, Jordan Castillo Price, Joanna Chambers, Jill Smith, Harper Fox, Ginn Hale, Jordan L. Hawke, to name a few .
I have read several books by Brandon Shire & who is extremely good & have more on my TBR list. Based on your suggestions here, I did end up purchasing “Virgin to the Life”. But one thing I’d like to point out, which is a real problem: It is amazingly difficult to find LGBT fiction on Amazon that romance or erotica! Very frustrating. Previously I’ve depended on things like Lambda Literary nominees and a few things I’ve gotten on recommendations from friends in the LGBT community.
By the way, you might find these interesting, two recent & very thought provoking blog posts that touch on this subject & generated a lot of discussion: The first by author E.E. Ottoman here: http://thisjourneywithoutamap.blogspot.com/2014/08/on-presumed-heterosexual-cisgender.html?zx=e64227f7c0a1c04a
And the other by author Alexis Hall, sort of taking off from Ottoman’s post, here: http://www.quicunquevult.com/the-rest-is-drag
Thanks for your comment.
I totally agree that there is a big issue finding LGBT fiction on Amazon; their ‘categories’ seem to be a bit all over the place and it’s not helping readers at all. I wish Amazon employed some women and men of letters, not just technicians, who, great though they may be at their own job, may not have the expertise necessary to lead readers to the books they are really looking for.
Thanks again, and thanks for giving it a go a responding to my plea.
Martin
Thank you for taking up this baton as well as Ottoman. One person over on the entry that Pam mentions put it rather succinctly – authors who write about our lives (as gay men) need to be mindful that they are the guests in our literary house. They can write about us but the issue I take with it is that it is their voice that as completely railroaded (in my mind) our own. I have over 800 m/m novels and novellas in my ereader. After pouring over nearly half of them I find that beyond a first blush that none of them remotely speak to me as a gay man. Who are these men? They don’t reflect my reality. Just the fact that the genre demands and HEAFN or HEA is astounding to me. And yes, I get that it’s supposed to be romance. But it’s also supposed to be QUEER romance so ya know what goes along with that tag? NO GUARANTEES. NO auto-hea’s, not even a HEAFN. The stories might end badly – ya know why? Because sometimes (more often than not) our “romances” do. The cards are already stacked against us.
So when someone asks I can’t tell the difference between m/m romance and a gay romance – my first question out the gate? Did it end happily with a nice big bow and walking in the sunset with the orchestral music swelling by the last page? Yeah, not a given that it’s one of ours. And this from a VERY happily married man who will celebrate his 20 years with that legal hubby of mine. So yeah, I got my HEA. But I know it was because of a lot of grit and a helluva lot of luck. I was in the right place at the right time. But again, no guarantees.
Straight women or even gay men might write to that specific formula, but those works are NOT representational of our communities experiences. We are constantly swimming upstream in a stream of longing. Longing for acceptance, longing to be recognized and valued. I’ve read MANY of the m/m romance genre and I’ve yet to read one that hits it from the real angst and struggle we men go through to make it work. It’s one of the reasons why I have changed my view from a romance author to gay lit fic because my work doesn’t hold to those sellable formulaic novels. I may have to self pub. Primarily because my works are what they are because I will not compromise my story as it needs to be told. My world. It may not be a best seller but when I take my last breath on this Earth, I’ll know I did right by their story the way it needed to be told. No apologies, no regrets.
Thanks for your post and the link, Pam. And thanks for taking up my plea. ‘virgin to Life’ is full of slang, very modern in the language and characters; he’s a young author, so, if I can say this, don’t expect the great finesse and accomplishment Brandon’s books have, but he has great potential. I think just presenting gay men as non-stereotypical is an interesting move. I hope you like it, and remember that every author has their own totally different style, so many different genres are covered in gay books… There’s something for everybody (even for homophobes!).
Sorry about the late reply, I wanted to before, but my work has moments when I virtually disappear into the darkness of ‘if someone has seen my life, please phone, it’s been missing since last Tuesday and we don’t know where it is…’
Thanks for the link too. Interesting!
Martin: Please read Stories of The Boy with the Yellow Socks.
s.j.
Reviewers on Goodreads & Amazon write: “brilliantly and vividly told…one of the most endearing and remarkable novels I’ve ever read…the originality here is astonishing…the narrative is eloquent and precise…I went through the entire emotional spectrum while reading!”
Hi Stan,
I had it down to read already. Recommendations about this book have come to me from many readers. Including some great authors, and I do know that authors know their stuff, and I know that the ones I follow are honest (not recommending a book because a friend has written it).
Just give me a bit of time; sa I said, I’ll get to it. If you have a contact for the author, I’m happy to have guest posts… There’s room for everybody. I can trace him down anyway, just time is an issue at the moment.
I find the whole romance genre difficult to swallow – gay or straight, it isn’t a realistic way to look at the world, and doesn’t speak to me as a person. In real life HEA is so rare that it could well be a myth, when you add the other conventions that are so popular (love at first sight, complete and total instant fidelity) I find myself avoiding romance altogether. Well written gay fiction (erotic or not) on the other hand, is a delight to read. I’d love to see more separation in LGBT categories to hep us all sort the wheat from the chaff.
Romance was originally quite realistic actually. Realism reached maturity through romance. I am talking about Jane Austen of course. I am not sure that romance must have a HEA. Strictly speaking, romance should be leading to a ‘wedding’ or permanent relationship. Is that a HEA? Considering more than half of all weddings end in divorce, a good percentage ends in mutual hatred, some end in tragedy, others become a ‘cage for two’, there is a strange irony in the belief that wedding is a happy ending. Statistically, it’s the beginning of the most stressful years of your life. More likely that work pressure, children keeping you up at night and then getting into trouble, financial difficulties, boredom, keeping up with the jones etc are what is really in store for them. My experience is that most married couple shave away without a moment’s piece waiting to retire and finally enjoy themselves. Maybe the real HEA should be the story that leads to retirement.
Having said this, some purples are happy forever, my parents were a lucky and good match. I don’t fully understand what is the joy in escaping into a dream one has not achieved already, instead of escaping into a dream one still can. There’s a touch of melancholy, I think, when married people read romance. I also believe that one can turn one’s life and relationship into something closer to what one dreams by (I’m feeling posh today, I’ve been on the phone and in meetings with so many well-spoken people for work…) collaborating with one’s (posh) partner.
I respect people who like to read romance, as I respect your view that if you think of it in terms of how it relates to the reality of most relationships, it doesn’t fit most people’s experiences. Here in the UK, especially in big cities, and this comes from statistics, gay men tend to have a rather more ‘liberal’ idea of relationship. Quite a lot find it hard to settle down, loads have an open relationship, some have a monogamous relationship. I can see that this is growing among straight and bi people too, not sure about lesbians and transgender. My point though is, who is happy? The monogamist couple, the one who counts an hour as a relationship? We can’t say that one is happy and the other not… So the reality is that for some people a monogamous relationship is no HEA at all, for them life is moving on and on to new adventures, and they are happy like that, so, isn’t that a HEA too? If we have learnt something about relationships, it’s that the canonical ‘married couple’ doesn’t fit everybody, that as we need to be open minded about sexual habits, so do we about relationships. Lady Chatterley’s Lover in this respect is more modern than a lot of contemporary love stories. I find it romantic in the most beautiful way, without smoochery, but with the great gift of happiness from a husband to his wife via ‘adultery’. That tells me Mr Chatterley loves his wife much more than a wedding ring will ever do. Wedding is only the start, it is not the end if the journey in my opinion.
This, to me, is why there are so many different kinds of books. You don’t dig on romance, but there are others, like myself, who finds them to be fun and an emotional lift.
I don’t read sci-fi or fantasy because I think they are realistic, I read them because they are fun. It’s interesting to read about worlds different from your own, to think about what could be as opposed to being mired in only what actually IS.
I know that people find Jodi Picault’s novels to be good reads but I, for one, am not interested in reading about people dying of cancer, of kidnapping, rape, and murder. To me it’s tragedy porn and not my wheelhouse.
The nice thing is that there are all these different types of books for all different types of readers. Self-publishing, e-publishing, and small presses make it even easier to get a wider variety of stories out into the world.
Thanks for your comment Miriad. I couldn’t agree more, in the end, doesn’t the rainbow stand for all colours? I love my pick and mix, for me, personally (please, this is my personal taste, not asking everybody to do the same, in case someone thought that). It think it spices up my life. Today roast, tomorrow paella, the day after sushi…
I’ve written several m/m romance books, but my latest is not romance, and I’m wondering if it will even find an audience. Readers of m/m romance want the fantasy, it seems. Reality is generally anathema to them.
The world is lately a cold and treacherous place, and if romance provides them the escape they need, good for them. I can’t read it anymore, and I don’t write the kind of story most of them are interested in. I’ve made my peace with that and will continue to write the kind of stories I want to read.
Thanks, Theo, for your comment. I agree, if people enjoy reading to fantasise, it’s absolutely ok. Mine’s an invitation to widen tastes. I read a lot of classics, historical fiction in particular, but if I smell a book is good, I’ll read any ‘genre’.
I think that there is a very wide readership for all good books. I hope and think you’ll find a readership. Books that are unconventional take much longer to get round, but once they start, they go on selling sometimes forever. Let’s not believe in the silly articles that say of books don’t sell in the first two weeks, they are not going to sell. The best selling books often take a long time to become popular. Unless you are a super famous writer like Dan Brown, the first two weeks are often the only two in many cases, and often one is a giveaway… I’m not keen on giveaways… What for? To get in one of the million Amazon charts because people download but then may not read? And I wonder what authors make out of super-discounted books.it must take a long time to write a novel and a lot of work. If we like an author, let’s remember they give us pleasure and sometimes more, but they also need to put food on the table… It may be hard to find readers for a less conventional book, but play it in the long run… People like unconventional books. We have seen many ‘waves’ of popular themes, genres, formats, whatever, coming and going. There seem to be readers who just love reading similar books one after the other; maybe they like to ‘live in that world’ for quite a long time, but then stop and move on. As soon as something else catches their imagination, what’s fashionable suddenly becomes ‘so yesterday’. These waves usually last only a few years, three to five, then go. I am quite sure the next wave is already on the way, I’m starting to see signs in one particular area that are typical of a coming surge. Some writers ride the waves, others sail the sea… You may have chosen to sail the sea, a longer distance, the destination seems far, but think about what a beautiful journey! And think about when you discover new places on the other shore! If you do that, then you really have achieved a lot, and very likely, you will have made it big!
I write in a variety of sub-categories in M/M, occasionally pandering to the romance genres requirement for a nominal HEA/HFN, but mostly I prefer to explore the world of homoeroticism via a transgressive approach, one that recognizes that boundaries exist only in the mind. I am humbled when gay reviewers and readers suggest I got it right, that my male characters are not chicks with dicks, filled with emo and a mad dash to forever after. Even in the het reading universe, that unrelenting demand for HEA is at best formulaic, and at worst it fosters unrealistic expectations about relationships. I prefer writing about real men, in real situations, whose sexual orientation informs only one part of what comprises the human experience. And while I am a female writing about a world not my own, what I can bring to the table is respect and another perspective for the gay experience. To do that I read extensively in the M/M genre, seeking out gay writers and developing a library of well-written, cutting-edge works. I did a blog post on gay writers of note: Brandon Shire, Edward Dutton, Rafe Haze, Marshall Thornton, Edmond Manning, Jake Biondi, Kol Anderson and Hank Edwards. Each man brought me their unique perspective on life and its trials and tribulations, they entertained and shocked, they made me laugh and cry and despair. Good writing is, after all, a portal into a larger universe. And good stories take us on universal journeys of discovery. As several commenters have noted, the M/M wave is a trend, a fashion statement of sorts. It will change and evolve. That’s neither good nor bad, it’s just the way of things. But what never changes is honesty and the power of words to alter perceptions, to share the joys and sorrows of living. M/M lit can be raw and ragged and ugly and mind-altering. It can open wounds that never close. It can twist my reality onto new paths, new directions.
But that’s the job of literature, isn’t it?
Thanks. I totally agree. I have a few ideas too to pass on to you, but forgive me, I’ve gone brain dead, I’m jet lagged and got home to find 20 comments in one day… So nag me in case.
I shall do that. And thank you for responding.
Reblogged this on Love's Last Refuge and commented:
Thoughtful and insightful.
I’m a 33 year old bi-female who’s been married for 10 years, to a man. I read 600-700 books a year and truth be told, almost all of them are M/M romance. Throw in a couple of M/M mysteries and horror and you have my Kindle library. My friends are almost all gay men. I have a couple of straight and bi friends and a handful of lesbian. I may not be a gay man, but having been told by most of the ones I hang out with if I had a dick I’d be more gay than they were, I’m pretty familiar with the everyday life. You’re human, just like me. You wake up, go to work, come home, eat dinner, maybe watch the tube or read a book, then go to bed. Amazing, huh?! But, the thing is for me, I have so much stuff going on in my life, I want that HEA fantasy in my head. I want to escape realism. It’s why I read. If I wanted real, I would take a look at my life. I have made a couple of my friends read some of my books and they call me up gagging. I laugh. I know a lot of it is pretty far fetched, but man, isn’t it nice to dream? To believe in that fantasy that everyone will get their HEA and not have a care in the world? I know it’s not for everyone, but it works for me.
I will check out your list of authors to look out for, because my TBR can always grow 🙂
Hello Candice,
I can see a pattern here. I mean your post and others’ stress the HEA… What I gather, and maybe I should make a specific post on it, but it takes me time to really study these things out, is that there seems to be the idea that gay novels end in tragedy. True, if you read romance, you are guaranteed that it ends with a HEA (or a union), but there’s also the idea (and that’s from another comment as well, I’ll publish it ASP, there have been 16 today alone… And I’m jet lagged!) that ONLY romance ends with HEA. I blame a bit the books that are taught in schools, if I can… I’m just thinking. This is not a fully formed though, but you made me think, and maybe I am onto something h, so, thanks. I really like that. I can see that on one side the argument of a gay author, that ‘gay’ looks like ‘read ONLY if you are gay’, on the other that it reads like and they will all die in the most horrible way. So, it makes me even more determined o keep going, because things have changed and are changing in the gay book world. Lots have happy endings…. thinking…mumble…thanks, you and others have actually shown where some of the issues are… That’s why I like honest conversations; it’s important that we present our experience from ‘within’ but also understand the perception that people have of gay books…
Thanks.
Reblogged this on Rawiya Erotica and commented:
Wonderful post and I do need to start reading more gay fiction! ❤
Thanks, and, let me add, good erotica should be celebrated and not looked down on.
I gotta say as a reader of m/m romance after reading some of these comments I feel almost like I should be ashamed or something for wanting to read something that ends happy. I’m well aware that that is not “real life” but I read about “real life” all the time in the news – I can read all about prejudice and discrimination and teens committing suicide and couples getting bashed and teachers getting fired and bloggers being let go because they write a blog with a word that starts with “homo” and it makes my heart hurt and my head spin and so when I’m reading at night for pleasure, I want to read about happy ever after. I know its not real, but I sure wish it could be, and I don’t really see what’s wrong with that. Also, I’ve only been reading m/m romance for about 8 months or so and I have encountered more “real” in those books than in any m/f romance. Kids being kicked out of their houses and disowned by their parents, and living on the streets and hustling to survive…seems like a whole lot of real life to me. And also stories where there weren’t those extremes, but just a daily struggle of trying to live in the closet and having to deal with never being able to completely be yourself and always afraid of someone finding out…or just being in a relationship and having to worry about where you are and if its okay to show affection in public. While these things maybe be overly exaggerated in some instances or overly dramatic, or maybe not going far enough, at the very least it has opened my eyes to some of the things gay men and women experience on a daily basis…its a start. It has made me much more empathetic, and made me much more vocal in trying to support gay rights etc. So while they may not be exactly perfect representations of what its really like to be a gay man or woman etc, its a good place to start at least, isn’t it??
Hello Jessica,
Please don’t feel guilty. We all come from different paths in life, through different doors and the important thing, for me, is that we keep an open mind and get to know each other better. Yes, it’s a very good point to start in my opinion. Whether it’s a poem, a diary, a romance, it doesn’t matter in the end.
There is this idea that gay novels always end in tragedy, and this is changing a lot. It’s a bit of ‘stigma’ from, well, basically when every gay man in the world thought he was going to die very soon. I was still youngish at the time, just getting to terms with my sexuality, and I basically became a man thinking I had just a few years to live, if I was lucky. Those were the times when gay books about HIV were popular and grabbing the attention because of the great tragedy that was HIV, and unfortunately still is in many countries. I portmanteau though it was to chronicle and express the utter fear, loss of hope, sense of doom that the gay community had at the time, gay fiction has moved into different directions. I think even a very dark contemporary novel out now which is about the angst of growing up and pain of love to the point of considering death ends in a very positive way.
So, you made my day with your comment. But you shouldn’t feel guilty at all in my opinion… I really apologise if my post made you feel guilty; it wasn’t meant to.
I’d like to point out that straight romance outsells straight “Literature” by quite a bit. Genre novels in general sell better than what is considered “Literature”. So I would say this is less an interest in LGBTQ Literature and characters written by and for LGBTQ individuals, and more a lack of interest in the types of books that are considered Big L literature in general.
I read both LGBTQ and straight romances because I want a happy ending. I avoid much of what is considered Big L literature because it depresses me. I find that many main characters in Big L literature are characters that I don’t want to spend any time with, let alone the hours it would take to read a novel. I have found this to be true for both LGBTQ and straight Big L literature novels.
So, I think that FOR ME, this has less to do with the sex, gender, or sexual preference of the characters in the novel or the author, and more to do with the kind of emotional experience that the book promises me based on genre.
Hi. Yes, straight outsells LGBT. I think we do need to get to the stage when the sexuality of the characters is not a defining factor: that would be equality. I don’t mean that people should be choosing blindfolded, but I would like to see people at least having the open mind to choose a book, whether the characters are gay or not, according to the style, the story, the characterisation, the themes (not just related to sexuality) etc… Then, of course, some may prefer LGBT characters, some may prefer straight, some may prefer tall protagonists, others may prefer protagonists with freckles… you know what I mean… The thing is that I believe at least in the Western World, and in great parts of the whole world too, most readers are very liberal minded, don’t make me tell you how many straight men have been ‘liberal minded’ with me after a few pints… I read somewhere that 60% of straight men are willing to have experiences with gay men, but very few will pick up a book with LGBT content. Yet a few of the new books AE bucking the trend… One in particular, from the long emails I’ve had in these few days with the author. What I see is the light of the end of literary segregation, not far, but we NEED. A concerted effort: that’s why I am so keen to ask our nearest neighbours, M/M readers to give us a hand. But we also need to get rid of the image of gay novels as depressing and soul-destroying. And the day I see straight men going to a butch event, say a football match (come on, throw me your footy boots now, but put rainbow laces on them) with an LGBT book in their pockets… That’s the day!
Hey Martin, last time, I promise, & sorry if I’m misunderstanding – but I think you may have misread Myriad79’s comment above-? I think they were not saying straight outsells LGBT, (though that is undoubtedly true) but that genre fiction, romance in this case, outsells Literature-with-capital-L, & that this is true across the board, regardless of whether you are talking books about LGBT or straight characters.
Thanks. That was exactly my point. I appreciate the assist!
Thanks for the link to your list of approved authors. I’ve already sampled some of them but will definitely check out Roger M Kean.
You’re right about HEAs. There’s no such thing. In any relationship, LGBTTQ or straight, they either part or one of them dies. But I have to admit that I like a book that ends with at least some kind of hope of happiness for the protagonists.
Hello Elin,
I hope you’ll like the mixture of adventure and history (with romance) in Roger’s novel.
I don’t have the power to ‘approve’, just on the lookout for talent. Just a light joke 🙂
Maybe I should not say this, but I too prefer endings with a hope. This is maybe because I am an optimist.lots of LGBT fiction books have a positive ending nowadays. I think it reflects the change in the ‘general feel’ of the LGBT and in particular gay community in the west from the times when HIV was casting doom on all our lives, but I keep in mind it still is in other countries.
Not really a romance reader :). I’ve never read straight romance and read MM because I can pick the mysteries (with a bit of romance), sci fi (with a bit of romance) police procedural, thrillers, military adventures, historicals and gay lit rather than the contemporary romances. Sure the romances are most popular and most numerous, but their presence has broadened the audience and has made it possible for authors to write books of more general interest. More choice, more possibilities, more readers, more authors, books with LGBTTQ protagonists in every library, on every best seller list – it’ll happen.
I want to weigh in again on one thing: The idea that HEA is unrealistic in books because it does not exist in life, for LGBTQI or straight couples.
I think that depends on your definition of HEA. If you define it literally, as meaning you will be happy until the end of time, then, no, obviously that doesn’t exist.
But for me, HEA in a book & in life, just means finding a life partner, someone you love & who loves you, someone you would choose to be with until the end of time if such a thing were possible, someone you make a commitment to loving & standing by even if things aren’t easy. Someone you would probably step into the path of an oncoming truck to protect.
And by commitment I don’t mean marriage, with or without children, I don’t mean signing a legal document or even exchanging rings. It can be no more than your own intention, a promise you make in your heart to be there & support & protect this person you love to the best of your ability, for as long as you can. It doesn’t mean you won’t have problems. It doesn’t mean one of you won’t die tomorrow. It doesn’t even mean something might not change in the relationship one day & it will end. It’s just about the intention to stay & love. Whereas, the more open ended HFN (happy for now) ending may be more literally accurate, to me that means this attitude: “Hey, makin’ no promises, I’ll stay as long as it’s fun, then I’m outta here.” And yet, for others, that’s not what HFN means at all.
This exact discussion came up a while ago among a group of friends, in a group I belong to on Goodreads. And by the conclusion, what we figured out was that it was almost a matter of semantics. One person’s HFN was another person’s HEA. People who resist the HEA label often want the same things, in books & life, as those who embrace it, they just want the label to reflect the uncertainty of life. Whereas those, like me, who like to call it HEA, just assume those uncertainties are understood & included in the HEA label, maybe like fine print next to an asterisk.
HEA, with regard to books, is about a snapshot in time. The book ends at that moment of intention, of acknowledgment of the enormity of love these characters feel for each other & lets the beauty of that moment hang there in the reader’s mind. It’s not a denial that other things that are not so beautiful won’t happen after. It’s just that the a romance chooses not to show them to us. Kind of like the way someone’s wedding album photos end on the wedding day, at the beginning of their lives, People don’t go on to later add photos of arguments or of hospitals or nursing homes & gravestones.
Sorry, bit of a tangent, but I wanted to put that out there, hope you don’t mind 😉
I don’t mind at all. I’m not a romance reader by choice so a lot of romance tropes baffle me. Until I discovered MM, or books that are labelled MM but should really be labelled by genre, I’d never read anything much where the focus of the book was solely on the relationship. I prefer books where the romance, if any, is a subplot that impacts upon and is affected by the main plot. If I accidentally buy a book that is purely a romance I often fail to finish it because I know more or less how it will end and can usually guess what will comprise the angsty middle.
The MM label does no favours to a lot of books/authors. Some publishers insist on labelling anything with gay protagonists as MM while some readers buy expecting very clearly defined content – a focus on romance and usually a considerable erotic vibe plus explicit sex scenes. It can be very difficult to find books that suit and I regret the demise of the Amazon tagging system. That was so useful.
I read both gay fiction and M/M, and both are usually disappointing – for different reasons. M/M tends to be formulaic, but at the same time, there are many gems, usually in the self-pub departament. The gay fiction that I read is either sex-focused or literary and dramatic, frequently very pretentious and formulaic in its own way. There was a time when I found the latter extremely interesting, but that was before I actually got to know real life gay men and was surprised how normal their lives were. I know that isn’t true for everyone, and maybe the circles I’m in are more accepting of gay people (even though I live in a country that isn’t known for its tolerance) than others, but none of the gay guys I know reads anything that would qualify as literary gay fiction. In fact, some read m/m, as well as some of the lighter books written by gay men.
I understand that the world is not perfect, that LGBT people face many problems straight people don’t have to deal with. I have watched some of my gay friends struggling for acceptance of their families, co-workers, etc, but at the end of the day, all of them are happy individuals, who don’t want to read about sad endings and failure (just like my cancer survivor friend doesn’t want to read about cancer patients). And I completely understand that because for the most part, they live exactly like my straight friends – they date, fall in love, sometimes break up. And yes, many of them are adult gay men who like to read romance books with a HEA. Because many of them too want a HEA in their own life. What I want to say is that the typical themes of serious gay fiction are not everyone’s experience, and I think they shouldn’t be presented that way. Gay men with one type of experiences aren’t entitled to speak for all gay men – just like no woman should talk for “all women”. No one is representative for an entire group of people.
At the end of the day, the reason why certain genres of fiction are less popular is because there is not enough demand – literary fiction of all kinds is usually struggling, unless the author is extremely popular, and that’s because most people enjoy ‘light’ books. In this case, there isn’t enough demand for certain types of ‘gay themed’ books. And it’s not because straight people don’t read them, it’s mostly because many LGBT people don’t want to read them. Appealing to M/M readers to read gay fiction is fine – getting to know something new broadens your horizons, but I don’t like the arguments above. Readers read what they enjoy, and they don’t owe anything to any genre. Asking fans of M/M to read a different genre by telling them that ‘they shouldn’t just fantasize’ is very condescending, but it also doesn’t make sense. It’s like telling the average romance reader to go and read Anna Karenina for the real experience of love, or suggest that a straight romance fan should read M/M to see what it means to struggle for a happy ending, or even asking a Star Wars fan to read fantasy because fantasy is actually better without being tainted by a science fiction setting.
I could make a list of things people should substitute with something better once in a while, but at the end of the day, everyone knows what they actually want to read, and whether they want to read about HEA fantasies, gritty realities, positive realities, or dramatic fantasies is up to them. They shouldn’t be guilt-tripped into reading something they don’t want to.
I can see you are very disapponted about ‘both’. I can’t speak for M/M, because I have read some good books, but it’s not my specialism, so, speaking of gay, I’d agree that in the past, there have been phases of ‘somber’ novels: there was a time when it was all about HIV. We know. The point is that now, just now, at this very comjunction, there are some very innovative and creative voices in the gay literature world, some, by non LGBT concerned at all reviewers seen as more original than mainstream fiction. I’m not making names in this post, as I like to keep things tidy, and I don’t wish the conversation to end up on side lines on this or that author in this post. But the irony is that because they are gay, people expect the disappointment you had, this is starting not to be the case any more. And that’s why I put my post ‘Gay Authors to Look Out For’. These are, I think, at the cutting edge of innovation, and not only within gay literature, but in some cases beyond, far beyond. I believe we do have the talent in our midst to make the leap now. My job is to get them heard, even get then to know each other, mix and create, if that’s possible (I know two if them are in love with each other’s work, I’m really looking forward to see how they influence each other). The day the leap has been made, this will become a celebratory site, and just chronicle how gay (LGBT) literature ceased to exist in the ghetto and became simply literature. I can clearly see where it’s heading.
As to lit fic, maybe this is not the right place to discuss it. A lit fic novel takes long to establish itself, maybe because they are up against the classics or the monsters of literature like McEwan (in a nice way, monster), but they go for decades once they are out. It is also true that lit fic is struggling mainly in the US, not so much in other countries. True, they share with Dickens, but in some major markets lit fic is very substantial slice… As I said, the market doesn’t think and changes, I remain gay…
I don’t think that asking to be heard is a guilt trip: guilty about what? About liking LGBT people? About having fantasies? I can’t see any guilt in it, more the normal rapport adult people have: if we are friends, as I believe most people would agree, why not get to know each other? Is that guilt? Yes, friends tell it as it is, sometimes with no frills, but I prefer my friends to put their points, agenda, ideas, questions and requests across to me in a straightforward, even provocative, but open way, rather than pretending they see exactly eye-to-eye or just tell me how gorgeous I am. I like my friends to bring something to me, not just humour me.
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Hello Ashlyn,
Thanks for your comment. I think it appears now. I’ve made sure it did.
I am sorry if you took offence, but where exactly is the offence in saying that gay men have a right to present themselves ALSO as they wish to? I’m not asking any M/M reader to stop reading M/M romance, I’m asking, now you have met us, to see what we think about ourselves AS WELL. Mine is a rainbow world, a world of alternatives. I have read some M/M romance, some U actually enjoyed.
In your post you say ‘a dirty woman’… No way. That’s not the issue. Did I say that? No. I don’t believe in a world where only one thing, one version, one perspective exists, and I will stick to inviting as many people as possible to get to know as many different versions of the world, of human identity, of life experiences as possible, if you find that offensive, I can’t help, sorry.
This is exactly the attitude, though, which is creating controversy when we raise a point: instead of discussing it, agreeing, or disagreeing, someone (a few) have to take it personally or misread what is said.
As to fantasy, you can describe real experience through fantasy, and quite a few of the gay authors featured here do that, so, maybe you would find something in common. This is not a matter of ‘realism’ against ‘fiction’. All books are fiction and realism is just a technique, the creation of an impression that things really happened (unless you are writing a biography, in which case, things might really have happened). None of the stories presented in the ‘Gay Authors to Look Put For’ is a real story. Gay literature is not about recording down facts.
You know though, that every individual experiences life in a different way, make this into groups, and you’ll find that groups of people experience parts of their lives (not the whole) in similar ways. The point here is not that romance is unrealistic, who cares? The point is that there are gay men who are saying ‘we FEEL like this, we SEE the world like this, this is our LIFE EXPERIENCE’, and what I am saying us, try to look at them from the inside point of view. If you don’t want to be my guest, but what’s wrong with asking you to see us from inside? Other people would be pleased to see that a friend wants to en up to them and tell them what they really feel inside. You are offended. Thanks!
Martin, you are making a lot of assumptions here, most of them about MM readers. I don’t particularly like the label, but hey, it’s here for a reason and many gay writers use it because it helps differentiate within the LGBTQ genre.
First assumption is that we can’t tell the difference between romance and other types of stories. MM romance reads as it does SOMETIMES, just as mainstream M/F romance reads. It’s romance as a genre that has a few issues to tackle and chooses to stick to some patterns.
Then you assume MM readers don’t support LGBTQ authors. As I have Dan Skinner, Jacob Flores, and Algenon Lusch among my all time favorites, I take offense 😀 Also, I know a looooot of readers who support them just as much as I do.
The thing you are dealing with here is that anything but romance, with maybe the exception of paranormal, is a hard thing to sell, especially if it does not have at least a touch of romance. I am talking from the perspective of someone who writes, reads across all genres, and has promoted other authors (including the gay writers who write straight couples but somehow I don’t have a problem with that, even if a lot of people tell me women should not write gay men). I know sci-fi, fantasy, thrillers, and anything without a happy ending is harder to promote. I know most self appointed book worms limit themselves to romance. That goes across genres, it does not only affect LGBTQ books.
A story and its characters are either bad or good, regardless of the gender of who writes them. Being gay when writing gay fiction does not automatically make you a better writer. A good friend of mine took this to extreme saying that if women should not write gay characters, no white person should ever write a main character of a different ethnicity and only cyborgs from the future should write science fiction.
As for the part about gay characters reading like females with penises, I agree and not really. I’ve seen gay couple acting more lovey-dovey and sweet to the point of my getting a dizzy spell. I could never really write that or act like that. And I can bet ai can get excerpts written by gay men that read like that. Unless you knew beforehand, you could not guess the gender of the writer. My point is that we all have preferences, personalities, and act a certain way. In the end, what matters is if people enjoy a story. That is what will get them to buy it.
Shunning MM and with it, the very readers you try to attract, well maybe it just isn’t the best approach. Also, hate to break it to you, the majority of readers in ANY genre.. is women. So maybe telling women what they can and can’t do as readers and writers is again not the best approach. That said, I still am looking forward to the next releases for my favorite authors regardless of their gender and the genre they write in. And I still always try to give a chance to new authors, discover new books, and share what I love with everyone I know.
I saw someone commenting about a HEA or HFN being a requirement as the reason why these books don’t speak to them. That is certainly not an LGBTQ aspect of the genre. Straight relationships don’t come with guarantees. Just look at divorce rates! That is an issue we all struggle with. You want the real deal, don’t read romance. Of any kind. The HEA or HFN is supposed to give people hope. Much like the success stories of our friends and families. Just as a side note, at this point in time I know of more LGBTQ HEAs in my close circle of friends than straight ones. Yeah, and if they read my comment, the should give Dan Skinner’s Memorizing You a try.
This is, of course, only my opinion, longer than a comment should be 🙂
I agree Alina. Romance in general is often looked down on my many because its typical need for happy endings and yes… very unrealistic sex scenes. I think it’s good to open our minds to other genres, but it’s disappointing that romance both gay and straight is looked down on and not considered “real” literature.
Hello Alina,
Thanks for your post. Don’t worry about the length… An articulate conversation is indeed what we need.
You talk about my ‘assumptions’, and bring yourself as an example, taking a smiley offence… The pleas is to ‘M/M readers’ not to ‘ALL M/M readers’, and there has already been a post by a kind reader who basically said, ‘fair enough, I’ll give it a go.’ That is one reader who hadn’t tried what goes down as ‘LGBT fiction’ before. I am grateful, and I am not at all pointing fingers. There remains a huge issue here, which is merely statistical: with the huge interest in LGBT issues around the world, especially in western countries and in the US, with gay marriage, that we have seen recently, most areas of the LGBT community have gained in popularity…apart from one: literature. While M/M books have soared, LGBT books haven’t (to keep the distinction for the sake of argument, more later).
As I said in a previous post, there is no doubt that M/M has done good to the LGBT community. For one thing, it has made popular what once was taboo; it has also brought people who maybe, because of no fault of their own, but just because they had not come into contact with the LGBT community, much closer to us. For this we have to be grateful to M/M romance.
We can’t deny though that there are M/M readers who have not yet tried an LGBT book. The plea goes out to them. If a conversation has to go on, nice though it is on blogs, it is by reading the books that the real conversation goes on…
The other ‘assumption’ and I think you may be referring to another post of mine, is that M/M romance readers or romance readers in general know exactly what they are looking for. The great majority, maybe yes, but having been in the minority all my life, I must say hat my ‘assumption’ is actually the voice of a minority. I agree that women who read romance and M/M romance are quite skilful at choosing their books and keep up to date with all the new developments. The point of view missing here is, sorry to point out, that of gay men… There are quite a few, especially young, gay men who have started trying to read books with an LGBT content… D you know how many have told me that they don’t understand what’s going on? That every time they read a ‘gay’ book they think writers have been in a different world from their own? Do you know how many have given up on books with a gay content and read only straight books now? I’m having problems conning my own partner to try a ‘gay’ book. He used to… He read a few back in the 90s, loved a couple, he now refuses to.
Moving back to your point, I have been stalking a gay writer recently on other matters, when I say stalking is that I had to talk to him a lot on an issue, till I think he became annoyed with me, one of the authors featured here… He then put a post on his blog saying, just to give the gist of it: ‘There’s no such thing as a ‘gay’ book, just books with gay characters and that’s a theme, not a genre.’ I had a chat with Michael Brooks on it as well: he too is of the same mind. The funny thing is, I too am fairly in agreement with them. But there’s a problem: books with a gay theme, as he called them, are in what the author himself calls ‘not a niche but a ghetto’ (not exact quote but the meaning is there).
If this site has a purpose at all, it is to get them out of the ghetto. I can’t do what he is doing, why? Because this blog is called ‘gay’ literature. He is actually, from what I understand, making the big leap… Emailing hi recently on an issue, he told me ‘80% of my readers had never read a gay or m/m book before’ with an expletive which I am leaving out. This is why, for me, we are at a very big junction… Some gay authors are moving into the mainstream readership. This is when we need our friends the most. If lesbians, or women hadn’t backed up The Color Purple, lesbian literature would still be in the ghetto. A plea us a request for help. Not an order, not an imposition. Maybe worded strongly, but if I hadn’t this post wouldn’t have been as popular as it is… Dabbling in journalism myself, I think I know that if I used guided words, the plea would have been unheard and lost in cyberspace.
You can see that just before the plea, I had put another post with a similar agenda… Try a different book every now and then. I have no problems whatsoever if people don’t take it up. I think they are missing out, but it’s their life, their bookcase, their wallet. But would I be a friend of readers if, having read some wonderful, incredible books, and seeing that my friends don’t read them because it’s not what they usually read, would I be a real friend if I didn’t invite them (not force them) to share my experience? They may hate me for the rest of their lives if they don’t like it, but I did my job as a friend. Even a cantankerous friend. But don’t you need the one in life? Going back to my food analogy, if a friend only eats, say, French food, but I find an India restaurant that I think is superb, shouldn’t I invite my friend along?
So, I know, readers of romance know exactly what they look for, and are not used to having that many men discussing books with them (sorry straight guys, not all of you, I know, I said NOT THAT MANY), now many readers of romance have met gay men, the chat and sharing is inevitable.
M/M romance talks about us. Expect us too, to tell you about us as well: we want a dialogue, we are saying, ‘fine, you see us that way, blush blush, now, try to hear how we see ourselves…’ Is that out of order?
I think it’s my responsibility if I talk about someone who, let’s say, is not Welsh (I am) but from Scotland, to hear what he or she has to say about his or her identity. We’re not even talking ‘responsibility’ with M/M reads, it’s an invitation…you can take it or leave it…
If I have to close on a sad note, is that if you leave it, then, hopefully not, but in the future, if something then goes wrong in the friendship (and a few tiffs have already surfaced, let’s learn from them), then there is little point in getting the hump if some gay men say, ‘well, you didn’t make an effort, why should I now?’
Back on a good note, maybe that author is right, maybe we should just all go for ‘books with a…..theme’.
As to only women being allowed to write books on women, or only gay men being allowed to write about gay men, we are in total agreement. Of course women can write books about men, black bisexual men can write books about white heterosexual women… There remains an issue of balance though… Imagine if 90% of books about black women were written by white men… Mmm I think we would have demonstrations in the streets… And it’s not a matter of the market… The market doesn’t think, we do. It’s a matter of people, and the duty of books to represent the community they talk about. Sod the market. The market changes, I stay gay…
I appreciate your post. I have recently started reviewing LGBT books for a blog. Most are romance, possibly because there are a large amount of those books being published at this time. I have reviewed a few gay fiction books for the site though. It was a step out of my comfort zone, I won’t lie, but I appreciate books and the various genres. My preferred genre is romance though. If I hadn’t started reading m/m romance, I would still be reading New Adult romances and m/f historical romances. I love love and that’s just me. And I’m sure that romances aren’t necessarily realistic, but I think that they are a wonderful way of allowing readers like me to become supportive of equal rights and the LGBT community. Especially when you are dealing with the issue of acceptance in society and the right to marry and love who you want to love. That being said I encourage people to try new things, to read a book from a genre they normally wouldn’t. It’s not good for any person, any reader, to live their life with blinders on and miss out on a good book or good thing that doesn’t fit into their set notions.
Thanks for commenting. In all this, you point out a very important thing: there is no doubt whatsoever that M/M romance, though not ‘gay’ literature in the strict sense, for sure has helped a lot of people who maybe were not homophobes, but maybe had not given a second thought about gay love, or had never come across it, a chance to embrace and support the LGBT community.
I often say that a lot of M/M books are unrealistic. The sex in them is totally unbelievable.
I had one reviewer complain about my book First Impressions Don’t Count because there is no anal sex in it. She’d better not read See You in the Morning because all of the sex is behind the bedroom door.
I try to make my situations believable. I know there is no such thing as a shifter, but the situations my character found himself in are real.
Thanks for your comment. How odd is it to complain for lack of anal sex… Times have changed… It sort if corroborates my suspicion in the post ‘The Romance of the Washing Machine’ that what is now called romance is often erotica. Nothing against erotica, at all, but calling things by their names may make it easier to understand each other?
Sorry for jumping all over your blog, but I keep seeing comments that make me want to say things! I think demand for anal sex in m/m is really more about an attitude that, as a friend recently stated, penetration is the “gold standard” & nothing else “counts” as “real sex”. This is both prevalent & problematic in het as well as m/m romance. I don’t think it equates to erotica though; in my mind erotica is a story that is all about sex for sex, as opposed to sex as a part of love & relationships. There is a presumption that romance includes sex, which may itself be problematic (ignores asexuality). But with that as a given, the insistence on anal in m/m reflects a sort of “inside the box” definition of sex, in general, as being about penetration. And I would say it might reflect a kind of heteronormativity too, only that presumes it’s ok to define het sex in terms of penetration too, which it really isn’t.
I really appreciate this post. I’ve been looking everywhere for this! Thank goodness I found it on Bing. You’ve made my day! Thanks again!
Thanks!
You have remarked very interesting points! ps nice site.
Thanks!
Hey, you used to write great, but the last several posts have been kinda boring?I miss your tremendous writings. Past few posts are just a little bit out of track! come on!
Hello,
I’m sorry. I’ll try to get back into fighting mode.
I’ve had so much work (the one that pays the bills) that I must have got sloppy…
This is a fascinating discussion, Martin, and I’ve been enjoying your posts. The Amazon distinctions really irk me. I’m a writer, mainly lit fic, and my protagonists vary, depending on the character who drops into my head and wants to tell a story. Because my latest protag is gay, I keep getting put in with M/M. And that’s not what I write. Readers are sometimes disappointed because there isn’t more sex. I do not pretend to know what it feels like to be a gay man. Henry James didn’t know what it felt like to be a straight woman, either. Neither does Wally Lamb, John Irving, or any other male author, gay or straight, who writes from a female character’s POV. I just try to honor the character and be respectful and empathic. But that could be a VERY long blog post for another time. Anyway, thank you for airing this out.
Hello Laurie,
Sorry about the delay; I’ve been ill…
It’s interesting how Amazon put books under very specific genres that they don’t belong to, which can mislead and ultimately disappoint readers…