This seems to be a perennial question. Answer it once and it dies down like a dandelion only to spring up in three new places in a week’s time. People seem terribly concerned that women should do anything so strange, and they offer explanations which to me seem stranger than the fact itself.
The latest of these concerned commentators surfaced recently on the ERWA ‘Smutters’ column here: http://www.erotica-readers.com/ERA/SL/JR-Turn-ons_and_Squicks.htm
If I’m reading this correctly it seems to conclude (it’s hard to say, because the reasoning is not exactly coherent throughout) that in this author’s opinion women write m/m because they dislike women. If they did not dislike women, she seems to think, then they would naturally want to write about women. They would not want to write a genre which by its very nature excludes the possibility of a woman being one of the two main characters.
This explanation sounds quite convincing until you start asking actual m/m writers why they write what they write. Once you do that, it rapidly becomes clear that the picture is more complicated and that one size very much does not fit all.
So, here is a quick summary of the reasons I personally write m/m, and the reasons I have heard other people give for why they write it.
First of all – why shouldn’t we write m/m?
Why do some people decide to write crime when others decide to write romance? Why do some desperately want to write science fiction, and some can’t imagine doing anything other than horror? What is it that draws some authors to chick lit and some to historicals? I venture to suggest that the same mechanism is in play with the m/m genre. This is simply what some people are wired up to write.
For my part, the stories which have come into my head have been m/m stories from the moment I started writing at age 11. I didn’t choose it – it’s just been the way my mind has always worked.
Surely the question ‘but why do you write m/m of all things?’ indicates more about the questioner’s attitude than the writer’s. Is there something wrong with m/m? Something more peculiar about it than other genres? Something that needs more justification than other genres? I don’t think so.
No one asks a crime writer to become a murderer in order to write about psychopaths, or insists that science fiction writers ought to be alien lifeforms before they can write about other species. Why should a woman not be perfectly capable of, and entitled to write about men?
But still, some reasons:
There are several different reasons I’m aware of for women to want to write m/m, and I’m sure there are other reasons I’m not aware of. This is a short list off the top of my head:
1. One man is sexy, two men doubly so.
Just as many men enjoy the thought of two women together, many women enjoy the thought of two men together. Why not? Men are sexy. If you’re reading a story in which they are both viewpoint characters you have the treat of being able to identify with whichever hero you find it easiest to empathise with and still be able to admire the other one through his eyes.
Rationalizing the appeal of two men together can probably be done, but why should we have to? Too many people have tried to tell women in the past what their sexuality should be. To them I say ‘tough’. I find this sexy. Whatever guilt trip you try to impose on me to try and ‘correct’ this kink, I’m not buying it. Why shouldn’t I write stories celebrating and enjoying something that I find very lovely?
2. M/M relationships are not plagued by the same gender stereotypes as m/f.
If we want to examine what a truly equal relationship feels like – a relationship without any of the inbuilt prejudices and assumptions which have dogged us as women for millennia – m/m is a good place to do that. We don’t have to struggle with or against the reader’s expectations. We don’t have the baggage of centuries to deal with. We can just put that all down and start off at a position of equality that in real life we still haven’t necessarily reached. It’s a refreshing imaginative break from a society that still at times treats us as second class citizens.
3. M/M fiction is edgy and transgressive and it makes the writer feel as though they’re doing something cool.
4. M/M fiction is an attempt to correct an overwhelming preponderance of heterosexual messages in the rest of the media, whether that’s movies, books or TV, and make sure that another segment of the population has romance novels which are relevant to them. The desire to examine and celebrate love is the same whether the love is m/m, f/f or m/f.
5. M/M fiction is a way to write about GBLT relationships without having to fit the story into the more constrained, domestic sphere which history has traditionally allotted to women. In other words, particularly if you’re writing historical fiction, it’s easier to believably add a mixture of action/adventure to m/m fiction than f/f fiction, simply because society made it all but impossible for women to be involved with the ‘outer’ world of politics, war, the professions etc.
6. M/M fiction is selling well, and to market-savvy writers it looks like the up and coming place to be.
I’m sure there are more reasons than this. If you have a different one, why not add it in the comments? J
To the question ‘can m/m fiction ever be motivated by misogyny?’ I’m sure the answer is ‘yes, at times it can’. I would be surprised if there was any genre of fiction where none of the writers were tainted by misogyny, if only because it’s such a staple of our culture that – like other sins – if we say we are without it, we deceive ourselves. But to tar the whole genre with the same brush is both unhelpful and unscholarly. It smacks of having come to the conclusion beforehand and bent the data to fit it.
In my experience, most people write not because they have an agenda but because they have stories to tell. If you have an explanation for why some stories turn up in your head and others don’t – why some are impossible to write and some can’t be stopped – you’re doing a great deal better than I can. Do comment! I’d love to hear it.
August 15, 2008 at 3:24 pm
“Surely the question ‘but why do you write m/m of all things?’ indicates more about the questioner’s attitude than the writer’s.”
Yup. Anytime I ask myself, “Why did s/he do that?” it is NEVER because I thought ‘that’ was a good idea.
I’ve seen some horrible misogyny in fan fiction–writers attacking female characters who ‘interefere’ with their One True Pair, or who criticize stories that have women treated fairly. That kind of animosity … well, it also says more about the writers than the characters, and I just don’t read the stuff those folks write.
Your second reason is closest to my motivation, I think. 3 and 6, meh. Writing to be ‘cool’ or writing solely to a market is, to me, not worth the effort. I’ve written ad copy for a business I had no interest in–and it was hackwork. For me, writing is too much work to tell a story that doesn’t have some sort of inner truth that I want to express.
I write m/m because the rightness of a same-sex partnership of equals is my inner truth. I don’t see myself as a gender; I see myself as a human being, and I see my characters the same way. But within the range of human activity… I have read all of Patrick O’Brian’s Aubrey-Maturin series, several times. I have tried to sit down and read the work of another great writer, contemporary to that period (and O’Brian’s literary idol), Jane Austen. And I cannot force myself to read more than a dozen pages, no matter what book, no matter where in the book I start.
The reason for this has nothing to do with her ability as a writer. Her writing is superb–she creates a very real universe, brings the period alive and clearly delineates the social structure… to the point where I realize that if I had been a woman in that era, I’d have either run away disguised as a boy or gone quietly (or perhaps noisily) nuts. Life wasn’t easy for anyone then–except perhaps for a lucky few born into wealth without also being born into family responsibilities. Things were tough for everyone, but from where I stand, they were damned near unendurable for women.
Your Reason #5 is part of my motivation. To set my muse, such as it is, to work in the “women’s sphere” of interests in some historical periods would be the creative equivalent of joining a homophobic fundamentalist sect. It’s not where I belong.
This is not a criticism of those who can write in this setting. There are people who have taken those difficulties and written terrific stories around them. But those are not my stories to tell. I enjoy writing what is sometimes disparagingly referred to as “escapist” fiction–stories that let me travel to places and times that are outside the limits of reality, to take risks I’d be crazy to take in reality (particularly since I’m no longer a kid) and triumph.
Life in our own era is damned difficult at times, too, and creating an imaginary world that can provide the R&R that people need to maintain sanity is, I think, a job worth doing. I received a letter from a reader who is in a difficult situation and feels, at this point in her life, that reading m/m romance is all the Happy Ever After she’s going to get. I hope she’s mistaken in that, but the fact that she has to sneak it in in e-books doesn’t sound encouraging.
There’s another thing–I see so much kink and ‘edgy’ and ‘dark’ that I like the idea of writing plain old love stories with happy sex, where the characters are honest, honorable people who are genuinely concerned about their lovers.
If that sounds corny, old-fashioned, or too easy… I suggest that having and acting on a personal code of honor is in fact considerably more difficult than always taking the easy way out. Going by the feedback I’ve received, there are at least some readers who enjoy that, too.
In the end, I write what I write because those are the stories I want to read. That ties in to your #4, a bit. It isn’t so much about correcting the imbalance as it is demonstrating that the need to love and be loved, and the validity of the bond, is not so different, whatever the physical configuration. I think we can spotlight and highlight the differences between people–the ever-increasing subsets of gender identity/gender orientation–or we can do what the Dalai Lama frequently suggests and consider how we are alike: we all want to live in safety, we want health, food, purpose.. and we want to love and be loved. That holds for m/m, f/f, f/m, or any combination of sentient beings. And how much explanation does that really need?
August 15, 2008 at 3:53 pm
*g* Yes, the ‘transgressive’ thing is something that I’ve heard rather than something that has any resonance with me. The same goes for writing anything because it seems to be a good sell on the market. I can’t force myself to write what’s popular. I find it almost impossible to write to order at all, in fact. I don’t have a lot of control over what ideas come, what wants to be written and what doesn’t.
I admit I wouldn’t be able to read Jane Austen either if it wasn’t that I find her wicked wit funny. Otherwise, yes, her heroines are trapped in almost suffocating circumstances, and it can become almost too oppressive to carry on reading.
There are some things I see in m/m – particularly the ubiquitous ‘no woman could ever… like this’ (where …. is usually ‘give a hand job’ but occasionally something different) which annoy me, as they seem to have no point other than to establish that women are no good for anything. I also get a bit worried at the convenient pregnant relative who you just know is going to die before the end of the book, leaving our heroes with a baby to adopt. But that’s just in one or two books, it’s not a feature of the whole genre.
I like the idea of writing plain old love stories with happy sex, where the characters are honest, honorable people who are genuinely concerned about their lovers.
Absolutely! Me too 🙂
August 15, 2008 at 3:55 pm
Excellent, thought provoking post, Alex.
I just started writing stories with gays as the main characters, but they almost always appeared in my stories as secondary characters. Then I realized that some of my favorite scenes and people were gay. Didn’t matter what genre.
Earlier this year a story popped into my head and no matter what I did the characters insisted that they were gay. The story flowed once I stopped fighting.
However I can’t entirely agree with the following:
2. M/M relationships are not plagued by the same gender stereotypes as m/f.
If we want to examine what a truly “equal relationship feels like – a relationship without any of the inbuilt prejudices and assumptions which have dogged us as women for millennia – m/m is a good place to do that.”
* I don’t think that we should assume that just because the couple is the same gender, that the relationship is *truly equal*. Two people, no matter what gender, will almost naturally have different levels of participation, dominance, investment in the relationship, otherwise where’s the conflict or motivation for a good story. Where’s the often stereotypical, but too true sometimes, *penis* wars? You men gay men don’t compare size? ANd within the gay community there are some prejudicial attitudes towards some “types”.
Yes, we might not have gender prejudices with our characters, but we may certainly have class prejudice, education prejudice, religion and racial prejudice, especially in historical fiction.
“We don’t have to struggle with or against the reader’s expectations.”
*True. We have different expectations now*
“We don’t have the baggage of centuries to deal with. We can just put that all down and start off at a position of equality that in real life we still haven’t necessarily reached.”
*Addressed above
“It’s a refreshing imaginative break from a society that still at times treats us as second class citizens.”
*So then we have a society that still treats gay men as second class ciizens. And remember, unless you’re writing about a make believe world and deciding not to be “pilloried by reality” – to quote from that ERWA piece – History more often than not treated gays even more negatively than females. After all, the ruling patriarchal class still needed us for procreation. They didn’t need to make allowances for gays.
So, the question remains why do women write m/m romances?
Because we can.
August 15, 2008 at 4:42 pm
Thanks Jeanne!
I don’t think that we should assume that just because the couple is the same gender, that the relationship is *truly equal*. Two people, no matter what gender, will almost naturally have different levels of participation,
Oh yes, I’m not denying that there are all different kinds of pressure on gay relationships, and really throughout history where they were accepted at all they tended to fit into the m/f pattern with the penetrated partner being seen as lesser, whether he was a boy or a foreigner. But I think that in cases where the relationship is forbidden *in any form* the inequality is less ironed in, if you know what I mean? Relationships can be more defined by the personalities involved and less by the expectations of society.
As a matter of fact I tend to introduce inequalities of rank or race because I am interested in how a relationship can overcome them. I suppose I find it refreshing to be able to deal with *different* inequalities than the one which is most inescapable in my life. A change is as good as a rest!
And remember, unless you’re writing about a make believe world and deciding not to be “pilloried by reality” – to quote from that ERWA piece – History more often than not treated gays even more negatively than females.
True, but only if they were found out. Unless you’re writing your female character as dressing and passing for a man, in general prejudice is more operative on a woman because she is *visibly* a woman all the time. Terrible things would happen to gay men if they were found out, but until that point – which if they’re clever and cautious will never come – they have all the advantages that a straight man would have.
Because we can.
*g* I think it probably does come down to that. And why shouldn’t we?
August 15, 2008 at 4:50 pm
Unless you’re writing your female character as dressing and passing for a man, in general prejudice is more operative on a woman because she is *visibly* a woman all the time.
Hm, I’ve realized that this comes across as if I’m dismissing the psychological trauma of prejudice. That’s not something I meant to do. I wouldn’t want to deny the internal misery of having to live in a society which thought you were an abomination. What I mean is just that men’s career opportunities, chances of getting involved in politics/war/adventure/exploration etc – the sort of thing that (IMO) makes for interesting stories – are not affected by them being gay so long as no-one knows about it.
August 15, 2008 at 5:39 pm
I think what it boils down to is that if you make your characters and stories believeable, it doesn’t matter what their gender or sexual orientation is.
My first story and the ones that will follow reflect more than just the reaction of society to gays. I don’t plan on them being dry or tragic polemics, but to deny the tension of being found out by your community, peers, authorities, is to ignore a facet of every day life.
One of the reasons I didn’t care that much for the TV show, “Friends” was the complete absence of black characters. This wasn’t Manhattan in a parallel universe. I didn’t expect them to go out of their way, but seriously…
So, should the fact that your characters are gay in a society that condemns them affect their every waking moment?
No.
But every now and then reality should knock on the door.
August 15, 2008 at 6:02 pm
I don’t plan on them being dry or tragic polemics, but to deny the tension of being found out by your community, peers, authorities, is to ignore a facet of every day life.
Oh I quite agree! I’m not in any way suggesting that gay characters don’t have massive problems of their own to deal with. They do. To suggest otherwise would be to misrepresent the facts. As a matter of fact the tension and danger that this love has to surmount in order to survive is another of the things which makes writing m/m fiction so attractive.
I’m sorry if I’ve given the impression that I don’t think gay people have it hard and had it even worse in the past. That wasn’t an impression that I meant to give.
What I mean is that male characters can do things that female characters couldn’t in the past – such as Captain a ship of the line, enter Parliament, become a doctor or a general or a priest or a scientist etc. The threat of discovery still hangs over them invisibly, affecting their lives, but they aren’t disqualified from these roles right from the start by virtue of their gender.
August 15, 2008 at 9:28 pm
I admit that this was my beginning – as I started with Lucius Malfoy/Severus Snape fanfic (actually I started with Sirius/Remus but don’t tell anyone) but once I started-and got some of the sex out of my system I started to investigate their characters – WHY Lucius was so in love with Severus, despite being married, how that affected his relationship with his father, his wife and Voldemort.
Which sort of led on to point 2
I loved the fact that both Lucius and Severus were “alpha” males. And the clash of personalities that involved was delicious to write.
3 & 4 – not for me, but I agree there are valid reasons.
This wasn’t a reason why I ventured into historical, but it’s the reason I stay in it, and the reason I find it so fascinating. My next book will be about a solicitors clerk and a bloke who runs a pub. Granted, I could make it a woman who ran a pub, bit it would immediately comment on the sort of woman she was – and the company she kept. Standish’s main protags are a deliberate experiment to use the romance mores, Ambrose could easily have been substituted for a woman – but as I move on with my writing it becomes less so. Neither David or Jonathan in Transgressions could be a woman, because of the things they were able to do in the 17th century.
Point six?
I think this is definitely happening. I admit that I did look at the market before I started Standish – back then I couldn’t see a great proportion of m/m – it was probably about, but I was specifically looking for gay historical ROMANCE – and there simply wasn’t any. So I aimed my canon (pun intended) squarely at what I perceived to be a gap in the market.
I’ll be a little sorry when the bandwagon gets well and truly jumped and any tom dick and Suzy starts writing “The Regency Rake’s Boyfriend” and “The Shah’s Captive Count” because that will mean that there will be a large amount of tripe being pumped out in the same way that there are in the hetero market. BUT – if more people are writing it, there will be good ones too.
Erastes
(sort of rambling from the point, but well meaning…)
August 16, 2008 at 2:31 am
What I mean is that male characters can do things that female characters couldn’t in the past – such as Captain a ship of the line, enter Parliament, become a doctor or a general or a priest or a scientist etc. The threat of discovery still hangs over them invisibly, affecting their lives, but they aren’t disqualified from these roles right from the start by virtue of their gender.
What comic was it who said it’s better to be Black than gay because when you’re Black, you don’t have to tell your parents…?
August 16, 2008 at 4:53 pm
Love that last quip!
I right m/m for a few reasons, mostly because two men are hot.
Another is that I’ve always had gay men in my life and have seen them go thru their lives falling in love, having their hearts broken, struggling with who they were and ultimately being the stuff of romantic heros.
Combine that with hot, and you’ve got me hooked.
I also write m/f romance, and it’s the story and the characters that dictates whether it winds up m/m or m/f.
I’m frequently asked “How do you know what they do?” meaning, how sex works between men. I just say that love is the same for all beings and that the sex just involves more lube.
What I think they really want to ask is why do you write gay romance? Same answer – because everyone alive is a creature who craves to love and be loved.
Why can’t I write about that between m/m/ or m/f or even f/f?
If fantasy writers can write about aliens falling in love, tentacles writhing, shapeshifting, why not? It’s a bigger stretch for me to write that than love between two men.
August 16, 2008 at 6:39 pm
I think the ‘two men are hot’ thing is a very basic thing, and doesn’t have to be as ‘crude’ as it sounds. It’s like seeing a good looking couple on the street and smiling because the fact that they exist, and they’re happy together, makes you happy.
once I started-and got some of the sex out of my system I started to investigate their characters – WHY Lucius was so in love with Severus, despite being married, how that affected his relationship with his father, his wife and Voldemort.
Which sort of led on to point 2
2. M/M relationships are not plagued by the same gender stereotypes as m/f.
I loved the fact that both Lucius and Severus were “alpha” males. And the clash of personalities that involved was delicious to write.
I wonder sometimes if everything I write is motivated from the desire to try new things; being a 21st century straight married woman – done that. Now lets try something else. Writing is the only way we have to try on different personalities and attitudes and see how they fit, and that is great fun 🙂
This wasn’t a reason why I ventured into historical, but it’s the reason I stay in it, and the reason I find it so fascinating. My next book will be about a solicitors clerk and a bloke who runs a pub. Granted, I could make it a woman who ran a pub, bit it would immediately comment on the sort of woman she was – and the company she kept.
I think the key is that although you could write historical m/f or f/f, the nature of the society at the time will dictate that each of those stories has their own different shape. To ask you to change the gender of the protagonists is to ask you to write a different story altogether. Even in Standish, Ambrose wouldn’t have ended up in Newgate if he’d been a woman.
I’ll be a little sorry when the bandwagon gets well and truly jumped and any tom dick and Suzy starts writing “The Regency Rake’s Boyfriend” and “The Shah’s Captive Count” because that will mean that there will be a large amount of tripe being pumped out in the same way that there are in the hetero market. BUT – if more people are writing it, there will be good ones too.
LOL! I rather fancy reading both of those! But yes, all genres have their share of less than brilliant books 😉 and the bigger m/m gets the likelier it is to have some really excellent stuff floating to the top 🙂
August 16, 2008 at 6:46 pm
Thanks for the comment, Lynn!
Another is that I’ve always had gay men in my life and have seen them go thru their lives falling in love, having their hearts broken, struggling with who they were and ultimately being the stuff of romantic heros.
Oh yes, a lot of the inspiration, I think, is the admiration in an all round sense for people who have run terrible risks, had everything stacked against them and yet have still managed to overcome all that and find someone to love. I mean how can that not be the epitome of romantic?!
What I think they really want to ask is why do you write gay romance? Same answer – because everyone alive is a creature who craves to love and be loved.
Why can’t I write about that between m/m/ or m/f or even f/f?
If fantasy writers can write about aliens falling in love, tentacles writhing, shapeshifting, why not? It’s a bigger stretch for me to write that than love between two men.
That’s it really, isn’t it? Why does it need explaining at all? We’re romance writers writing about people falling in love – it seems fairly self explanatory to me! ;D
August 17, 2008 at 1:29 am
I find m/m intriguing to write mostly as you cited in your #2. I relate to all of the reasons you gave, but I think that one is the most relevant for me. It’s difficult to find appealing literature based in het relationships dynamics that is relatable to me, and such dynamics are abysmal for me to write. I just don’t find the creative range or strength in het characters that I do in queer and poly ones.
Thanks for interesting commentary!
August 17, 2008 at 6:02 pm
Thanks for the comment, Kelley!
It’s difficult to find appealing literature based in het relationships dynamics that is relatable to me, and such dynamics are abysmal for me to write.
Yes, I agree. Whether you’re setting your heroine up in contrast to ‘traditional’ expectations, or you aren’t, those expectations are still there all the time, and they can feel like a real straightjacket. It’s nice to be able to occasionally just sidestep them all and do something more freeing.
August 18, 2008 at 3:46 pm
You and Gehayi both put into words just exactly how I feel about writing m/m, too. You did a beautiful job of it. I hope it is read far and wide, and especially by those who need a good “hey, you, pay attention!”
🙂 Thank you.
August 18, 2008 at 5:56 pm
*g* Thanks Tamara! I’m all for living and letting live, and assuming that all genres have something of worth in them for the people who read and write them. It would be nice if others would do the same for us 🙂
March 16, 2009 at 8:41 pm
Just found this piece and I think you’ve said everything I was hoping to read on this subject. Have been writing m/m for a while and was sort of looking to see if there were opinions out there. For me, it is never out of misogyny, etc. #1 – definitely true for me. #3 – this genre works well for the fanfic I write (Batman/Joker) because I can also explore the facets of good vs. evil – they just happen to be two men. Thanks for the interesting insight into this lesser talked about topic in the fiction realm.
March 16, 2009 at 10:11 pm
Thanks Allstarme 🙂 I have seen some misogyny around in the genre, but then there’s misogyny around in all genres. It’s so deeply ingrained in society that a lot of the time I think it’s invisible to its perpetrators. But having said that I absolutely deny that it’s anything like the only or even a major reason for women writing m/m fiction. I agree, it’s a great place for examining factors that you can’t get at around the gender politics of f/m relationships. And really, the question ought not to be ‘why do women write about men’ but ‘why do so few men write about women’? How come none of the interest is coming the other way? 😉
May 1, 2009 at 9:35 pm
Some very interesting points. I think m/m is about seeing the vulnerability in males. When people watch those stories where het couples meet and fall in love and the man does something so beautifully romantic, and all the females in the room go “aawwww”; all the men go “like that would happen”. I know I love BFF relationships, and my love of m/m is partly to do with that. It’s about seeing the emotional side of men and maybe something about removing the idea of people as objects. If a man loves another man when he’s not normally gay, it’s not about sex, it’s about love and emotion. It’s such a girly thing to do, but I reckon that’s why it happens. And I think it “doesn’t happen the other way” (men writing f/f) because there are fewer men willing to write in the first place. Anyway, they want pictures, not plot. For me, m/m is about story and emotion, not about sex.
May 3, 2009 at 7:34 pm
Thanks for the comment Laura! Yes, I’ve heard from several women who say it’s partly a wish to read stories in which men are more emotionally open in a way normally restricted to women. I think there must be several different reasons why different women enjoy m/m fiction, because for me I’ve always thought that it went without saying that men were emotional too – but then I think I come from a much less macho culture.
I completely agree with you that the story is the important thing. I can live without explicit sex in a novel, but not without the emotion and drama.
May 5, 2009 at 1:16 pm
It’s not trying to reassess the idea that men *have* emotions, but, for me at least, reinterpreting such emotions in a way that women can comprehend. I’m not suggesting in any way that women can’t understand things if it’s not ‘in their own language’, although that probably helps, but I think it’s more about confirming men as emotional creatures and not the emotionally distanced people they can be seen as. Seeing two guys get it on is hot – probably due to the whole ‘forbidden’ nature of it – but seeing them LOVE is even hotter, in a way. That’s what I enjoy reading and watching the most. My favourite canon involves two males who fall unexpectedly in love with eachother, and yes, the kissing is hot, but it’s the falling in love bit – the story – I watch for, that makes me enjoy it so much. It follows that my favourite stories about them are the ones where they’re all loved-up and vulnerable – sex is a secondary thing that happens because of how much they care for each other. I’ve got male (straight) friends who aren’t macho at all, and I know that they’re capable of emotions and love and everything; it’s not about that. It’s about seeing men be helpless to their emotions and being allowed to act on them. f/f fic (“femslash”) just isn’t as revolutionary as m/m is: if two women what eachother like that, it’s probably more to do with lust than with love, which isn’t romantic. It’s ironic when I think about it, that liking m/m (as a female) makes you more straight.
May 8, 2009 at 9:58 am
Thanks for clarifying that, Laura. I know that is a big factor for a lot of women who enjoy m/m romance. I don’t think it’s a factor for me personally, but like I say there are lots of different reasons why women like m/m romance. I don’t think there needs to be, or can be, one answer that fits all, given the fact that women are all individuals 🙂
But yes, I’ve heard from a lot of women that part of the attraction of m/m romance is the lure of seeing male characters who are more vulnerable, more open to their emotions than society allows men to be; the power of a love that can make that change must be pretty significant 🙂