from Jack Spade’s flickr: https://flic.kr/p/4fy9Je
In one of those weird coincidences, my tweetstream and my email box are full of the same thing today: discussions of relationships and sexuality.
It started with an article that was, I think, meant to be a puff piece to shine a light on women who write male/male romance. The article was a disaster and the quotations from the authors were..unreal. So unreal that many suggested that the authors had been misquoted.
But here’s the thing: as bad as the comments were, none of them surprised me. Let me sum up the reasons these women were quoted as saying they wrote m/m instead of heterosexual romance:
- In a m/m romance, both characters have equal power
- Women are nasty, game-playing, underhanded, and “bitchy”, whereas men are straightforward
There’s some other stuff, too, but those are the biggies. And no, neither of those surprised me because I’ve never actually made it through a male/male romance. I am pretty sure most of the ones I tried were written by women. One was written by a man—a man I know and like—but the writing was bad and I couldn’t get more than ten pages in.
The books that were written by women share one thing: they completely fetishize men’s bodies and men’s relationships. It gives me the same, skeevy feeling I get when men catcall women. There’s a peculiar insistence in them that all men are the same. They are more straightforward than women. They relate to each other a certain way. They are physically and emotionally strong, but always, always scarred. And once you get underneath that scarring, they’re mushy-centered. (I’ve solicited recommendations on Twitter from some people whose opinions I trust…if you’re looking for something to read, try this list at Dear Author for starters.)
In my conversation with my friends on Twitter about m/m romance, one of them mentioned that she found her cisgendered gay male friends still very “male.” I wouldn’t say that was my experience. And then, in an act of complete synchronicity, a couple of hours after that a friend emailed me with the following:
The funny thing about living where I am is that almost everyone around here thinks I’m straight. […] What’s interesting about this from a social science experiment perspective, is that I never realized how much men really ARE pigs! When they think you’re another straight guy, they talk to you much differently.
If I’m outside chatting with someone in the smoking corral, one of the guys will inevitably make some remark about a woman’s chest, legs, or ass after she walks by.
Now, I know a lot of guys. Both gay and straight. I know men deeply in denial about their own sexuality, and ones who put it all right out there, loud and proud about the number of partners—male or female—they’ve had. I know some guys who comment about women who pass by. They’re not my friends. They’re guys I’ve worked with or my husband works with. In the area my friend B is living, apparently a lot of guys behave like this. But not all of them.
So I asked B if he were out with a gay male friend and he saw a hot guy, would he comment? Here is his response:
No, and no one I know has ever done that, which is what makes this so interesting.
What I have done with others is usually have a chuckle because a gay guy who’s really cute will carry himself in a “yes, I know I’m beautiful” way in front of other gay guys.
It’s an entirely different social interaction.
But just before I hit ‘send’, I remembered years ago I was with a friend in a department store, and he commented “that one looks tossable, eh?”, after some cute guy had lingered for just a brief moment too long in the aisle where we were, so his comment had been precipitated by an action by the other guy.
Now, I imagine that despite my friend’s experience there must be some gay guys who look at others as objects. I’ve sat with gay male friends and had them go “hubba hubba” to me when a particularly hot guy walks by. But now I wonder…do they do that only with their straight female friends and not with other gay guys? These are things I’ve never wondered because…well…I don’t really think that much about my friends’ sexuality. (The one exception being those friends who were miserable due to denial of their own sexuality or unhappiness with their sexual preference.)
So I started thinking about how I would even begin to write a m/m—or, for that matter, f/f—romance. What did I think was fundamentally different about a relationship between two men or two women versus one between a man and a woman? And, really, I couldn’t wrap my head around internal political differences. That is, within the relationship, the lasting m/m and f/f relationships I’ve seen look pretty much the same as the relationship my husband and I have.
Externally, the pressures a same-sex couple face are definitely different. I recall, for example, my sister’s absolute panic when she had a gorgeous baby girl. “What am I going to do?” she wailed, “I have no idea how to help her deal with boys!” We live in New York, where it’s not such a big deal to be a same-sex couple, but even here it’s not the same experience as being in what is still considered more “normal.” So, yes, I can see how the external conflicts the couples might face could be different. But would the relationship itself be different? How would those external conflicts reflect into the relationship?
I went back to that article and saw that one of the authors had posted a reply on her own blog. I realize she was trying to make it better, but as far as I could see, she made it worse.
The fact is, in an urban fantasy world or a fantasy world, heroines can have equal social heft with heroes, and they can look their heroes in the eyes and be taken as dead equals in any circumstance, because the rules of the fantasy world can give them that.
The same cannot be said for the rules of the modern world.
So the answer is not to write strong women? She goes on to assure us all that she’s not a normal woman in a normal relationship.
Now, when my husband made much more money than I did, it made sense for me to [be the primary caregiver for the children]. We both agreed. It only made sense. But now that we’re equal wage earners? He doesn’t let me freak out about the house. He spends as much time caring for the children as I do. Why? Because we both agree that we’re equals– not just as wage earners, but as life-partners. If I ever make enough money for him to quit his job or take fewer hours to take care of the kids, we’re both all over that.
Now imagine if I tried to write that female character into a romance. Or that male character. Selling that partnership to an agent or a publisher would probably get me kicked out of the romance department and right into literary fiction–but that’s not what I want to write!
Ummm…no. And not just no, but hell no. I disagree with this on just about every level. Every long-term relationship requires negotiation. And maybe if you hadn’t read a romance in 20 years, or if you only read a very specific subset of category romances, you might believe that none of that negotiation takes place between the pages of a romance novel. But right off the top of my head I can name half a dozen contemporary authors for whom these issues form some of the major points of their work. (Victoria Dahl, Roxanne St. Claire, Cara McKenna, Lisa Jackson, Molly O’Keefe, Suzanne Brockmann. Oh, right—and me.)
Do all romance writers write about the struggle to negotiate a happy place in a relationship? No. But I’ve said before that I find the ones who pay at least some attention to this more satisfying.
Here’s the thing: all relationships are unequal in one way or another. Even romantic relationships between men. For example, one couple I knew in grad school had incredibly disparate incomes, but J, who made considerably less money was completely out and no one in his chosen career cared. His partner, M, made a lot more money, but didn’t have nearly as much freedom, and referred to J as his “room-mate” when around colleagues from work.
So…were they “equal?” Because that’s the main thrust of why women seem to believe m/m romance is “better” or “more fun” to write. Because the characters are “equal.” (I would imagine that gay men write m/m romance for the same reason I write m/f romance—it’s what they know.)
I hate to break it to those female writers of m/m romance: no two people in this world are equal. Especially in a relationship, there is never true equality. And it has so very, very little to do with money. It often has very little to do with social position. In my own marriage, for example, though I make a good deal more than my husband does, my health is appallingly bad and he is often in the position of literally taking care of me. He is romantic; I am practical. He’s an idealist; I am a cynic. We negotiate every single thing. Home repairs? Negotiation. Vacations? Negotiation. Puppy care? Negotiation.
Every relationship is different. Every one. Think about how you relate to your parents versus how each of your siblings does. Or how your siblings relate to each other. Or how your children relate to you. Or to each other. Relationships are complex and constantly changing. The idea that this kind is better, inherently more interesting or more sexy or more honest than that kind is patronizing and flat out wrong.
So, what do you think? Are there internal differences in homosexual versus heterosexual relationships? Can you think of books that show them well?
Have no idea about same sex partnerships but I enjoyed your thoughtful exploration of their fictional counterparts. Lots of things here I hadn’t really thought much about. For one thing, part of the pleasure I have in reading romance is the strong female characters. Even the most alpha male in, for example, a Kristen Ashley novel, gives as good as she gets (in every sense of the phrase.) So not for nothing, the writer quoted in the article you mention is wrong, wrong, wrong if she’s suggesting that today’s heroines should be doormats waiting to be rescued.
I don’t think she’s suggesting that they *should be* so much as implying that they *are.*
I completely agree with your principle here – the idea that the only power relationship is male/female is absurd, ignoring class and age and wealth and physical strength and race and education and social context and and and. Of course every relationship is different because of all those factors. I’m confused by anyone suggesting otherwise.
However, I’m worried by “The books that were written by women share one thing: they completely fetishize men’s bodies and men’s relationships” and “that’s the main thrust of why women seem to believe m/m romance is ‘better’ or ‘more fun’ to write.” Yes, sure, there are female authors who believe that, or to put it another way, authors who aren’t very good. But this post veers towards categorising authors by gender, or suggesting that female authors shouldn’t write about some topics, and I wonder if that was your intention?
For the record, I’m a female author of m/m and m/f. I write the story in my head, whatever the sexuality of the protagonists may be, and I don’t accept that my gender imposes restrictions on that. My imagination and my empathy and my skill are the issue here, not my ovaries. I’d guess we’re on the same side here, I just wanted to raise that point, because, like many m/m authors and readers, I am very conscious of issues of appropriation and fetishisation in the genre.
For m/m with intelligent nuanced power relationships, I suggest Joanna Chambers’ Enlightenment trilogy, beginning with Provoked, which is about a struggling, independent lawyer and a wealthy nobleman, and is all about power relationships – between two men, between men and the State, between England and Scotland, between men and women, between classes. It’s also very well written. Try also Harper Fox and Alex Beecroft, both lovely writers. And (since I don’t believe in categorising authors by gender) the wonderful m/m Glitterland by Alexis Hall. Or his equally wonderful f/f urban fantasy Iron & Velve. which is not less because his genitalia and orientation don’t match those of his protagonist.
I am not suggesting that women shouldn’t write books about men. However, I *am* suggesting that for *straight* women to write about homosexual relationships might be problematic. And yet, that’s the way the vast majority of the genre is written—straight women writing for straight women about gay men.
I am willing to be convinced that some books by straight women accurately portray the relationships between gay men, but that hasn’t been my experience to this point. To this point, my experience of women writing male/male romance has not been a good one. I know nothing about the sexuality of the women who were writing. Would it make a difference if they were lesbians? Maybe. Maybe not. Since I am as yet unsure exactly what makes a homosexual relationship different from a heterosexual one, though intuitively I know there must be differences because outer stresses change people, and as people change, so do their relationships.
So I would ask you, when a story comes into your head that will me m/m, what is it *about* that story that makes it fundamentally m/m and not m/f?
I’m really, really unhappy with the idea that any book would be judged on the sexuality of its author, rather than its qualities. I know authors of m/m who are asexual, trans, genderqueer, bi, cis het and pretty much everything else on the spectrum. I don’t see that translating into their writing ability, for good or ill.
I write historical, with lots of adventure. And the restrictions on both women and gay men in, say, the Victorian period are massively different. There are different freedoms, risks, opportunities, threats. Different stories. (I feel much happier writing comtemp m/f because I get fed up with historical restrictions on women’s agency, for example.)
I’m not suggesting Sturgeon’s Law doesn’t apply to m/m. But in my experience it applies to everything.
I am not talking about writing ability. I am talking about the fact that when one is writing a romance, the whole focus of the book *is* the relationship. The progression, the starts and stops, the hurdles and tensions. It’s not about craft, or imagination. It’s about bone-deep knowledge of the subject matter.
When I put characters who have life experience beyond mine into books, I do the best I can to research them. That was, quite frankly, harder when I wrote mystery and easier when I wrote fantasy. When I write romance, the focus of the story is on something I do understand. Not only because of my own history, which presents me with several images of what a m/f serious relationship can look like, but also because my friends and family are very open about their own relationships and how they function.
Because I am as yet uncertain, as I have said over and over, what, precisely is different within a m/m romance, I would be extremely hesitant to attempt to write one. Not to write a m/m secondary romance or a homosexual character in a mystery where the romance *isn’t* the focus. But a m/m *romance* is something else. I have plenty of friends who are in such relationships, but I don’t ask them what they think is different about being in such a relationship. I’d have to do a LOT of research before I felt comfortable writing something that felt honest. And, yeah, the books I’ve read don’t appear to have done that. They read more as two men slotted into traditional romance roles. Like “this is how romance works, but I am more interested in writing men, so I am going to put in two guys instead of a guy and a woman.”
Well, I completely respect your approach and attitude, and vastly prefer that to the thoughtless and appropriative approach that does exist. I think you could find books that would demonstrate convincing m/m relationships and I’ve made some recs above, but it’s your reading time, your call. 🙂
It’s not clear to me that the vast majority of the genre is written by straight women, although I agree that a large majority of the readership of published novels appears to be straight women. There’s at least one survey of the AO3 writership and readership that suggests that fanfic is written by more bi- and pan- women than straight women. Whatever the proportions, I think there are plenty of non-straight writers of m/m.
That said, I don’t buy the argument that being queer gives you a huge advantage in writing m/m. Sure, you have insight into aspects of queerness and how they structure lives and relationships, but all queerness experiences are not the same, and there’s plenty that isn’t about queerness that has to be imagined and executed in the story.
Re your comment to KJ Charles below, I can understand not wanting to ask personal, invasive questions of your friends. But there are plenty of accounts of gay male relationships out there to draw on, quite apart from m/m. In terms of m/m, I think KA Mitchell’s Regularly Scheduled LIfe is pretty good at depicting a contemporary relationship, as are Kennedy’s Tigers duology and Josh Lanyon’s standalone, Come Unto These Yellow Sands.
Good grief, I don’t know what happened to that last sentence, sorry about that. The book is Iron & Velvet, and I meant it wasn’t less *good, convincing or valid* because of those things. It’s a lesbian noir/urban fantasy with plenty of affectionate spoof, hilarious book.
Other thread went down too far ;D I absolutely will take your recommendations. In the post I mentioned some other books that had been recommended to me on that Dear Author list, and Chambers is a name that comes up over and over, so I will probably start with her :>
Great, thought-provoking post, Laura. It was an interesting day yesterday; the one upside of bad posts and discussions is that sometimes they can lead to good posts and discussions.
To expand on what I said on Twitter, I think there are definitely issues internal to gay relationships that are different from those in straight relationships, and there are differences in the way similar issues are experienced. I liken it to the way interracial and multicultural relationships have their own issues. I wrote about the latter here . I think it’s hard for outsiders to realize where the differences and similarities are, unless they spend a lot of time with the people and/or talk to them at a fairly intimate level. And of courses these differences are going to vary across individual cases, based on the personalities of the partners.
What I meant when I said that my (cis-gendered) gay male friends are very “male” is that they share a lot of characteristics with straight men. Most of the ones I know not only ogle other men (gay or straight), they do it with straight men *if* they know the latter are comfortable with it. But they definitely do it with each other; they objectify every bit as much as straight guys objectify women. Not all of them, obviously. Gay men aren’t a monolithic identity, but then not all straight men I know do it either.
So yes, I think there are differences in relationships, in personality, that may recur systematically thanks to socialization. But there are also similarities. In m/m romance I am most interested in reading elucidates these similarities and differences and does interesting things with them. The m/m romances I avoid features characters who resemble no gay men I’ve ever met. My rule of thumb to tell the difference is: would I recommend this to my straight husband or one of my gay friends who reads a lot of genre fiction?
Oops, the html I inserted didn’t show up. I wondered if that might happen. Here’s the post I was trying to link to:
http://vacuousminx.wordpress.com/2014/03/06/love-color-and-blindness/
This brings up a question…*can* a het woman write convincingly and…well…truthfully(?) about a homosexual man? Can people who have never had an IR relationship write about one? I can see doing it as a secondary couple, and I had no problem writing a gay man into my cozy mystery series, because in each of those cases the thing I don’t have personal experience of, the thing I have to imagine in its entirety, is not the focus of the story. I have to get it *right*, but I don’t have to get it *detailed,* if that makes sense.
I guess I understand, but I’m not sure what details are present in IR/MC or same-sex relationships that are not accessible by the same methods writers use for everything else: imagination, research, and feedback from knowledgeable people once they have a draft. There is no one relationship, so there are a multitude of ways to write it convincingly. You have to turn yourself into a kind of insider, but it doesn’t require occupying that identity category, in my opinion.
But I’m not a fiction writer and I don’t know how your imaginative process and writing process work. It might not be something you can do in a way that feels comfortable and convincing. But that’s a different question from whether it can be done at all.
I am sure there are people who can do it. I would like to find them because I would like to see what the reality is. I got your rec list from Dear Author and the ones from Twitter and from the reactions to this post, so I will read those and see. 🙂
If it’s fiction, I don’t see why it matters. Character is made up, authors can write their characters however they see fit.
By the logic that het women shouldn’t or can’t write homosexual men, then women shouldn’t be writing from male character POV at all. Or anything you haven’t experienced.
Romance novels are caricatures of real life. If life and relationships were as drama filled as romance novels (or genre fiction in general), we’d be too exhausted to work jobs or raise children. And in the same way, the characters are not real either. They are what women would imagine they want from men. I suspect if a character from a contemporary romance novel approached you in real life, you’d run screaming.
i love reading and writing romance, but looking at them under the magnifying glass of realism is unrealistic. I don’t want real when I read a book. I want the fantasy.
WHich is why I find it funny when romance novels are criticized for setting women up for unrealistic expectations of relationships.
Women can separate fiction from reality.
I don’t read a mystery and want to kill someone or solve a crime, I don’t read fantasy and expect to cast magic, and I don’t read a romance and expect my husband to look at me with desire in his eyes and kiss me like he was a starving man. He just worked all day, he just wants a meal and the remote.