F/F?

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veinglory

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I think the F/F vs. lesbian/queer romance distinction is is a little sharper than the equivalent in M/M and polyamory. So there might be a stronger argument for thinking about target publishers early in the process.
 

Ehlionney

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But there also have been a lot of cases of fetishizing, so there is that.

M/F and M/M relationships do get more representation. However, that does not mean M/M relationship always get good representation. Though with M/F pairings there can be a bunch of unhealthy ones too.

I'm crazy about queer fiction, romance or not, (and definitely want to see more queer representation in non-romance stuff too!) but I will have to admit.........I avoid M/M like the plague because it's HIGHLY fetishized by the reader base and more and more commonly by the writers themselves. I've seen waaaay more extremely unhealthy relationships in M/M than any other sub-genre of romance. And even when the relationships aren't unhealthy, they're still rarely written by gay men, and and are rarely targeted at gay men. Which is, honestly, toxic as hell. If PoC fiction was dominated by white people, we'd instantly recognize that wasn't OK, so I'm really not sure what's going on there.

As for F/F, definitely go for it! There is a market for it, trust me! :) Also, the more we write it, the larger that market will grow as people realize that it is there to be found. A lot of queer folk don't get into certain genres because they don't expect to find representation, so if it becomes obvious that there is, more people will start looking for it.

Now if only we can start getting trans romance going... there's definitely a market for that as well, but most trans folks (myself included) are wary of building a reputation writing it because of "outing" unfortunately :(
 

veinglory

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I think there are some cartoonish elements to some M/M and of course outright fetishes. But I see it as more a matter of horse for courses than good versus bad. There are some erotica and romance tropes I love that are the opposite of authentic healthy relationships, but its fiction--not how I behave in real life.
 

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I do think it is important to potray a healthy relationship, even if it is fiction. There are young readers or younger tv viewers who may think, "Oh, I would want a relationship like Edward and Bella.", while no, it's unhealthy. Why should anyone want this sort of relationship? And fiction and media always can also have a bit of a influence how you percieve things? Of course you know it's not real. But fiction also often comes with telling a message. Draco has been horrible to Harry, bullied him, and I know this ship has been popular in tbe HP fandom but if thid was a relationship that actually had happened... What message xoes it give to readers? That bullying is love? Perpatuating the idea that someone picking on you means they like you and you should accept it because it's true love?

But I also have read a few healthy M/M relationships in books, only three that I can think of so it's not impossible to write healthy M/M relationships and not fetishize them. Though, in Simon vs. The Homo Sapiens Agenda , while the couple was healthy, some of the sexual implications were very forward!
 
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veinglory

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IMHO if an child or even adult cannot cope with fiction at all or of certain types, it is the job of them or their caretakers to prevent them reading it. I write some wildly inappropriate relationships because it is a valid interest for adult readers of fiction. I also read same, e.g. Bizzaro erotic fiction. It's great.
 
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Ehlionney

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I do think it is important to potray a healthy relationship, even if it is fiction. There are young readers or younger tv viewers who may think, "Oh, I would want a relationship like Edward and Bella.", while no, it's unhealthy. Why should anyone want this sort of relationship?

It's not even just kids, though. After Fifty Shades, the BDSM community started getting tons of adults (not even just young adults in their 20s, I'm talking all the way into the 40-50 range even) who tried to get into the scene with ridiculously skewed expectations. And hospitals started seeing lots more BDSM related injuries in adults.

My munch group had huge moral dilemmas of whether to completely put new memberships on hold for a while to fend off the REALLY disturbing numbers of older straight men that wanted to get into the scene because they thought it would give them an outlet for abuse and misogyny... or step UP recruitment so that we could find these wannabe predators and warn the rest of the community to stay the hell away. And especially to find the vulnerable newbie women who had no clue way they were getting into.

(For clarification: munch is community slang for a large-ish group of kinky folks that keep in touch and go out together for food/drinks/etc occasionally to keep up to date on what the other kinky folks are up to. One of the biggest purposes of such a group - besides social gathering - is to "police" the community for people who really don't belong in the scene, because contrary to Fifty Shades propaganda, continuous enthusiastic consent is a core component of BDSM)
 

CJSimone

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I think there are some cartoonish elements to some M/M and of course outright fetishes. But I see it as more a matter of horse for courses than good versus bad. There are some erotica and romance tropes I love that are the opposite of authentic healthy relationships, but its fiction--not how I behave in real life.

I do think it is important to potray a healthy relationship, even if it is fiction. There are young readers or younger tv viewers who may think, "Oh, I would want a relationship like Edward and Bella.", while no, it's unhealthy. Why should anyone want this sort of relationship? And fiction and media always can also have a bit of a influence how you percieve things? Of course you know it's not real. But fiction also often comes with telling a message. Draco has been horrible to Harry, bullied him, and I know this ship has been popular in tbe HP fandom but if thid was a relationship that actually had happened... What message xoes it give to readers? That bullying is love? Perpatuating the idea that someone picking on you means they like you and you should accept it because it's true love?

But I also have read a few healthy M/M relationships in books, only three that I can think of so it's not impossible to write healthy M/M relationships and not fetishize them. Though, in Simon vs. The Homo Sapiens Agenda , while the couple was healthy, some of the sexual implications were very forward!

IMHO if an child or even adult cannot cope with fiction at all or of certain types, it is the job of them or their caretakers to prevent them reading it. I write some wildly inappropriate relationships because it is a valid interest for adult readers of fiction. I also read same, e.g. Bizzaro erotic fiction. It's great.

It's not even just kids, though. After Fifty Shades, the BDSM community started getting tons of adults (not even just young adults in their 20s, I'm talking all the way into the 40-50 range even) who tried to get into the scene with ridiculously skewed expectations. And hospitals started seeing lots more BDSM related injuries in adults.

This is a hard one for me and maybe raises more questions than it answers. It's hard to know how much self-censoring to do, what's ok, how accountable we are for any influence we have. The dream is to be read, but if/once we are, I guess we're responsible for whatever comes about from it. If a book does more harm than good in some way probably unmeasurable to us, is it really a success, regardless of how popular? I'd say no.

Gatekeepers draw some lines (which I guess can be viewed favorably or unfavorably and probably involves both good and bad); with self-publishing it's even more on us.

Course the debate's nothing new and extends beyond romance/erotica to how healthy/unhealthy it is to indulge in more and more violence and such in mainstream media, and whose responsible for what. We are now almost all of us indulgent, for sure, and I guess there have to be costs to that. We enjoy what's unhealthy, whether it's food or entertainment, and we're probably not as healthy as we could be because of it.

It's just really hard to know where to draw any lines (even for ourselves). Something as simple as very popular horror films can cause troubles for some. Actual experience: We had a teenage boy in juvie who was mentally retarded and had no history of any violence. He and his older sister binged through the night on very popular horror films and during one of the films, he suddenly attacked her with a knife.

I guess I just have questions. Do we consider things like the messages about relationships we're sending in our works, for example, or do we just write uncensored? There's something about creativity and censorship (including self-censorship) that are so at odds with each other. But I think people do tend to censor themselves (even subconsciously) along whatever the current mainstream acceptable/not acceptable consensus is, so there's probably more going on than we realize. But how far do we go with it? And is the current consensus (which is always changing) a good basis for it?

I put some things in my works where I'm just not sure if I should go there or not. But I also avoid certain things or take things out (especially writing YA) because I'm thinking they're probably inappropriate / too unhealthy. I don't really know if the works are better with or without them.

Maybe creativity is our greatest gift and our greatest responsibility.
 
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edutton

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Jade,
You've already been rec'd some good publishers (Riptide, Bold Strokes, Bella, LT3)...
If you want a look at the market from a couple of different angles, here are some additional resources:

The Hopeless Romantic podcast is specifically focused on the queer romance world (one of the hosts is an editor for LT3, and the other just published the wonderful book PETER DARLING). Like the market, MM gets more airtime than FF, but it's definitely worth your time

The Lesbrary book blog

The Lesbian Review

The Lesbian Talkshow pod channel does a lot of shows about books

Clare Lydon, herself a popular FF writer, does a monthly-ish lesbian book club podcast, which always starts with a rundown of the Amazon lesfic top sellers (US and UK), so you can see what's doing well right now.
 
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