Attitudes in the M/M community

I'm not easily offended

This has been a topic in the m/m community ever since I can remember. I stick to the authors I think do a good job and the rest I do not buy.


What bothers me more is when certain authors get on with this authenticity crap. What exactly is authentic? Should an author write only what they know? That very idea is silly. Do horror, fantasy, science fiction writers only write what they know? Of course not.

A long time ago I read a novella about a MTF transsexual. The author made her into a total needy skeeze bag with low self-esteem who wasn't happy until she had a man controlling her life. All of that characters self value was locked up in having a man. So yeah, I am not happy with that type of man needing character in any romance hetero or otherwise.

A little research would have made the story much better and a stronger character, but saying that, I have met other trans women who do place a lot of self value in having a man in their lives. So... And I know I am getting off track, there are all types of people in this world. I stopped buying that author

My experience as a gay male up to the age of thirty and after that as a MTF TS are my own. Nobody else will have that experience. Others have other experiences.

brainstorm77 said:

Do horror, fantasy, science fiction writers only write what they know? Of course not.

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It's always kind of funny to me when people say this.

Because I'm a speculative fiction writer, and I would say "yes, I only write what I know".

Lol.

@Kate: I suspect we don't disagree all that much. Thanks for sharing your POV. I get what you're saying.

Same to you, @Lillith.

It's important to listen to each other's point of view. But at the end of the day, each individual has to make their own decisions based on what they've heard. I know we talked about that during the Josh Lanyon debate.

If a gay guy writes a book and he bashes effeminate men, I'm going to call him on that. If he writes a book and he makes transphobic remarks, I'm going to call him on that. If all of his female characters are two-dimensional bitches, I'm going to call him on that. I don't care if this is supposed to be his sandbox. It isn't his sandbox. It's everybody's sandbox, and the #1 rule of Sandbox Land is "Don't Be a Dick."

There are problems in the m/m community. But ultimately, I don't feel like m/m is a space for gay men. It's a space for everyone involved.

A person's real-life experiences matter. I think we all agree on that. A gay man is going to have experiences that women don't. But in this case, what we're talking about specifically is not just how fictional homosexuality is handled -- we're also talking about how female sexuality is policed. Just as a woman might lack the experiences of a gay man, a gay man is going to lack perspective on sexism. And because of that, I don't feel inclined to give gay men deference in this particular debate. Because they don't have more experience. They just have different experience with different things.

(Every time I read your responses and type up a post, it takes me like an hour. I spend ages thinking it over and perfecting my reply. So I might stop soon. Thanks for chatting, though.)

oceansoul said:

There is a bit of a stigma that LGBTQ romances (not just M/M) are somehow more erotically charged than heterosexual books. When I was querying my YA f/f, I definitely encountered that, as one publisher told me directly that they only published 'sweet YA romances with a low heat level, not lgbtq' ... my book has a low heat level with a sweet HEA, but by the fact that it was two girls made it 'erotic' in that publisher's mind.

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OMFG.

I've come across that attitude before as well. I remember seeing one publisher who automatically classifies any m/m romance as having a high heat level.

Another only welcomes m/m and f/f in their erotic romance line. They had the gall to refer to it as "being inclusive."

I agree the covers don't do the genre any favors. Not because of the heat necessarily but because how they all seem to blend together even if the stories are different.

It's no secret that most(Not all) publishers of m/m like a high level of heat. I was told once to sex up a novella I had subbed. It already had two sex scenes in it, and adding more would have been way too much! I politely refused. They came back saying they would publish it as is, but I declined since the owner/editor was kind of nasty in her emails to me. They shut down a while after.

Sex sells. I suspect that is why many publishers want it and not only publishers of m/m. I personally do like sweet romance or romance that is less erotic. I even read Christian romance at times(Shocker). I have also been know to skim sex scenes.

My biggest pet peeves in m/m are: Characters who cry in every scene and stories where all the women are evil.

Lillith1991 said:

Bolded addition is mine. I found the phrasing a bit problematic and you seemed to be implying it wasn't just for them, which I agree with wholeheartedly.

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Sorry if I was unclear. What I mean is: m/m belongs to anyone who chooses to be included.

See I can get behind what you're saying, but a lot female writers for better or worse tend to treat even gay men who write this genre too and fully accept them like crap if they even mention what they find problematic about the treatement of gay men as characters. And that isn't ok, no matter how opressed we've been in the past it isn't ok to do that. Not to me at least. Because not only is turn about not fair play, but it makes M/M a lot less inclusive than we as writers and readers want to claim it is. If it isn't meant to be inclusive then the community needs to just admit it. There's no shame in a M/M Romance evolving further subgenres based on audience imo, but there is shame in saying one thing and acting a different way.

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Yeah, I agree. I pick where I spend my time very carefully, so I avoid a lot of that. But I recently joined an author loop on yahoo, and recently I've been seeing more of it.

There's both damn good and bad writers on all sides of the gender fence; in an ideal world it's all that should count. But I've seen enough female readers state they won't touch m/m female writers because they're not a gay male. I've seen a few male readers read a book, love it, then realise the author is female (even where clearly stated) and they've pulled a face. I've seen male authors post pics outside of writing that are there to please the eye, and yes, I've done it as female author. But if I join a m/m BDSM group, I'm not joining it to go talk and look at pictures of Tofu. I want the visual stimulation in with everything else. Do people do it the extreme? In my humbles, not that I've seen in fb groups I've joined.

The guy's post and the reaction on fb does highlight a difference, though: how a gay guy's opinion caught more attention and was argued down more than the likes of Jaid Black's, who made it more explicit she was blaming 90% of female authors as being misogynistic. Maybe its because Black focuses on female authorship with writing, whereas this gay guy's post focuses more on female readers/writers (with a slight hint of men) both within writing/reading and beyond of that. Maybe it simply came down to a gay guy v the owner of a publishing compnay. If it's the latter, it's a sad state of affairs how some can have a voice and others can't.

I was actually shocked by at least one of the replies to the original post. Not just made to roll my eyes or think "that's not helpful", but actually shocked. The original post was harsh in tone, so in a way invites replies in the same tone. But there's being harsh and there's being arrogant and entitled.

I haven't stuck my oar into this. Too busy with NaNoWriMo to get involved in kerfuffles. They're always very time consuming and distracting and soon degenerate into "someone is wrong on the internet" levels of pointlessness. When I see opinion pieces like the original one I try to take what I can from it, ask myself if there are things I need to change. There might be, there might not be. But there's always something to think about and check myself about.