“Roaming the greenwood”
April 10, 2024 12:28 AM Subscribe
Now, the Boys are in Greece. It’s antiquity, but the emotions are American high school: The golden Boy is Achilles, essentially a Harvard-bound football senior, good at everything. He has curly hair and nice feet. He’s popular, in mythic proportions. He is a god training to be a killing machine in an epic war. The other Boy, Patroclus, averts his gaze when Achilles comes around. Patroclus is the narrator, and he is just a human, a curly-haired, olive-skinned boy (Achilles is, of course, blonde; the two genders of gay romance). He sees himself as weak and mortal. An exile with no family and no name. This is you, Patroclus, you worthless piece of shit. from Boy Meets Boy Meets Boys’ Love by Simon Wu [Spike]
“Neither Miller nor McQuiston write with the expectation that their stories are consumed entirely for women, but both TSoA and RWRB are extremely popular with women, sometimes more so than with actual gay men.”
…I’m pretty sure the “sometimes” there is, in actual fact, “almost always.” Romance novels about queer men are overwhelmingly written by and consumed by women. It’s kind of charming that this author appears unaware of this.
posted by showbiz_liz at 4:35 AM on April 10 [6 favorites]
…I’m pretty sure the “sometimes” there is, in actual fact, “almost always.” Romance novels about queer men are overwhelmingly written by and consumed by women. It’s kind of charming that this author appears unaware of this.
posted by showbiz_liz at 4:35 AM on April 10 [6 favorites]
im going to think about roaming the greenwood every time i read this type of book now, this was rlly nice
posted by _earwig_ at 4:40 AM on April 10 [1 favorite]
posted by _earwig_ at 4:40 AM on April 10 [1 favorite]
Yaoi / BL is too vast and multiversal a genre to summarize, but I did have the feeling of observing a distinctly female medium in those shows, in which Boys are a kind of platonic essence, to be molded into a fantasy of soft, effeminate, non-threatening romance.
Says someone who wasn't exposed to Gravitation doujinshi. (Don't look them up. They're done by the same author as the Gravi manga but they are 10000% pornier)
posted by sukeban at 4:44 AM on April 10 [1 favorite]
Says someone who wasn't exposed to Gravitation doujinshi. (Don't look them up. They're done by the same author as the Gravi manga but they are 10000% pornier)
posted by sukeban at 4:44 AM on April 10 [1 favorite]
This was fantastic and beautiful. And educational. (And--well, if you read yesterday's FPP that had the essay about tragedy, and have been thinking about mimesis, then the part about romance novels teaching you how to recognize feelings would seem very compelling!)
What I loved most was that it finally put in words a distinction I had not been able to describe myself. As showbiz_liz says, gay romance is a woman's game, dominated by women readers and women writers. And yet I know gay men who write it and gay men who read it, and I always want to know why. In my former life of trying to write the stuff, I never figured out the trick of it. It was always very unsatisfying. But here's Simon Wu: "'Fan' is a key descriptor here, because it mirrors the genre of fiction that speculates homoerotic relationships between male characters in pop media where the relationship is implicit or imagined. Gay fan fiction is distinct from gay fiction à la Chee, Vuong, or Greenwell because it’s explicitly fantasy; it’s concerned not with the realistic representation of gay life. It is heightened for salaciousness. It is the pleasure of gay love without the annoyances of lived, gay culture."
And I can't believe how quickly it snapped into focus once he'd said it. In every fantasy there is a conceit, a central core truth that is different than our world, and in gay romance the conceit is that guys can fall for each other in ways that are legible to straight women. Like, there has been debate about 'gay for you'--he's straight until he meets you, but you are so hot, he turns gay. Problematic! Hoo-boy! And yet very popular. And this helps it make sense--that particular fluidity, which is not something you see much of in real life, and which if encountered in real life would prompt discussions about bi erasure or whatever--that particular fluidity is legible in romance, because it is just another barrier between the lovers that must be overcome, and speaks to the power of this one true pairing. It's good stuff, this essay!
posted by mittens at 5:37 AM on April 10 [2 favorites]
What I loved most was that it finally put in words a distinction I had not been able to describe myself. As showbiz_liz says, gay romance is a woman's game, dominated by women readers and women writers. And yet I know gay men who write it and gay men who read it, and I always want to know why. In my former life of trying to write the stuff, I never figured out the trick of it. It was always very unsatisfying. But here's Simon Wu: "'Fan' is a key descriptor here, because it mirrors the genre of fiction that speculates homoerotic relationships between male characters in pop media where the relationship is implicit or imagined. Gay fan fiction is distinct from gay fiction à la Chee, Vuong, or Greenwell because it’s explicitly fantasy; it’s concerned not with the realistic representation of gay life. It is heightened for salaciousness. It is the pleasure of gay love without the annoyances of lived, gay culture."
And I can't believe how quickly it snapped into focus once he'd said it. In every fantasy there is a conceit, a central core truth that is different than our world, and in gay romance the conceit is that guys can fall for each other in ways that are legible to straight women. Like, there has been debate about 'gay for you'--he's straight until he meets you, but you are so hot, he turns gay. Problematic! Hoo-boy! And yet very popular. And this helps it make sense--that particular fluidity, which is not something you see much of in real life, and which if encountered in real life would prompt discussions about bi erasure or whatever--that particular fluidity is legible in romance, because it is just another barrier between the lovers that must be overcome, and speaks to the power of this one true pairing. It's good stuff, this essay!
posted by mittens at 5:37 AM on April 10 [2 favorites]
Sometimes I wonder if Dennis Cooper feels like a regency rake who has survived in the reign of Queen Victoria.
It feels churlish to critique an essay by someone so young and so enthusiastic, but at the same time, it’s apparently part of a collection that will be traditionally published. For the author’s sake, they need to take out the embarrassingly ignorant section on BL and fix that typo in the Tóibín quote.
posted by betweenthebars at 6:20 AM on April 10 [2 favorites]
It feels churlish to critique an essay by someone so young and so enthusiastic, but at the same time, it’s apparently part of a collection that will be traditionally published. For the author’s sake, they need to take out the embarrassingly ignorant section on BL and fix that typo in the Tóibín quote.
posted by betweenthebars at 6:20 AM on April 10 [2 favorites]
For women readers, m/m romance is appealing because the characters first see each other as people, fully realized human beings. It also allows the characters to take a large range of professions without the profession becoming a narrative obstacle in itself. This is generally absent in het romances and frequently in real life, especially for formative relationships in youth. A woman can never know if a man sees her as a person or an option, a machine he's pressing buttons on, until -- well, traditionally until they're married, but you better give it fifteen or twenty years then, too.
So it makes sense that women readers are drawn to romances where lovers are real people to each other. It also makes sense that the readers frequently have no investment in gay culture as such -- although they may do so as sympathetic readers or as lesbians themselves. Queer women are also voracious readers and writers in this genre.
posted by Countess Elena at 6:29 AM on April 10 [8 favorites]
So it makes sense that women readers are drawn to romances where lovers are real people to each other. It also makes sense that the readers frequently have no investment in gay culture as such -- although they may do so as sympathetic readers or as lesbians themselves. Queer women are also voracious readers and writers in this genre.
posted by Countess Elena at 6:29 AM on April 10 [8 favorites]
This essay is great and I'm not in a place to fully process it now, so I'll respond to the surface reaction I got. Which is the feelings of "cherish" or "yearning" he talks about. I'd also add "longing", the German word "Sehnsucht". Or "nostalgia for a past we did not experience", an emotion I'm still looking for a less clumsy expression for.
I'm 52, my partner is 77. We're gay, been gay our whole lives. But him in particular and me somewhat, we've lived American gay lives circumscribed by homophobia. Romance novels and uncomplicated crushes just didn't exist for us for most of our lives. Our romantic experiences have always been wrapped in the context of gay identity and anti-gay life. The fear that the boy you like isn't just going to like you back, but that he's going to smash his fist in your face for being a filthy queer. Or that he does like you back and you have to hide it from everyone.
So we've both been reading gay romance novels recently, starting with Red White & Royal Blue (a really fantastic book!). And it's been fun for me but is a whole revelation for him. He's absolutely obsessed with Heartstoppers, the closest I think we get in the US to yaoi or "boy love" stories. The core of its appeal is this sweet, pure love between two boys. Their romance has some mild challenges, for sure, but mostly the sweet teenage concerns of "do I say I like him? will he like me back? what will our first kiss be like?".
And that makes us nostalgic for being young and in love too. But a young love we never got to experience in such an uncomplicated way. The perfect feeling for a romance novel to capture.
posted by Nelson at 7:50 AM on April 10 [17 favorites]
I'm 52, my partner is 77. We're gay, been gay our whole lives. But him in particular and me somewhat, we've lived American gay lives circumscribed by homophobia. Romance novels and uncomplicated crushes just didn't exist for us for most of our lives. Our romantic experiences have always been wrapped in the context of gay identity and anti-gay life. The fear that the boy you like isn't just going to like you back, but that he's going to smash his fist in your face for being a filthy queer. Or that he does like you back and you have to hide it from everyone.
So we've both been reading gay romance novels recently, starting with Red White & Royal Blue (a really fantastic book!). And it's been fun for me but is a whole revelation for him. He's absolutely obsessed with Heartstoppers, the closest I think we get in the US to yaoi or "boy love" stories. The core of its appeal is this sweet, pure love between two boys. Their romance has some mild challenges, for sure, but mostly the sweet teenage concerns of "do I say I like him? will he like me back? what will our first kiss be like?".
And that makes us nostalgic for being young and in love too. But a young love we never got to experience in such an uncomplicated way. The perfect feeling for a romance novel to capture.
posted by Nelson at 7:50 AM on April 10 [17 favorites]
This was an odd read, as if the author had never heard of the extensive criticism and scholarship around ordinary (straight) romance novels, a genre that has existed for decades, or the reams or slash and fanfiction written mostly by women for other women which float around the internet. He might find that many of his questions and observations have been already been answered, explored, thoroughly thought about and rethought again by the vast number of women who read romances and those who only study them in an academic sense. This lack may be charming, as noted above, but there's definitely an sense of him reinventing the wheel here, and it's a bit annoying to think of the troves of criticism he might have found just by looking a bit father. I hope it's just ignorance rather than the dismissal of standard romance, which is, you know, boring simply because of being a women's thing.
posted by jokeefe at 8:21 AM on April 10 [8 favorites]
posted by jokeefe at 8:21 AM on April 10 [8 favorites]
Oh, and an afterthought-- the appeal of slash, or m/m love stories, I always thought, are that they erase the female body from the story, with all its complications and its situation within power relations. Two men are two human beings; a man and a woman are tangled in social dynamics. Also, straight women tend to find men desirable, and two men is more of good thing. Etc.
posted by jokeefe at 8:24 AM on April 10 [5 favorites]
posted by jokeefe at 8:24 AM on April 10 [5 favorites]
I’ve read slash fanfiction for decades, and a big factor was often that the shows and movies simply didn’t have many engaging female characters (if any at all). Genre shows like The Sentinel would have multiple well-developed male characters and maybe one woman, often underwritten or just there to be the love interest. If I was reading/writing fanfiction to spend time with the interesting characters and explore their relationships, it was probably gonna be men.
posted by cadge at 12:30 PM on April 10 [2 favorites]
posted by cadge at 12:30 PM on April 10 [2 favorites]
I don't think it's required for a gay person writing an article about how gay romance books have personally affected them to be familiar with scholarship around straight romance or fanfiction. It's a unique situation to be reading a story about you but not necessarily by people like you, and I thought it was a good and interesting article. I do think straight women can be responsible readers of queer fiction, but that probably includes not dictating how gay people interact with it.
On the other side, I'm often jealous that there are so many of these wish-fulfillment m/m romance books out there, and relatively few f/f stories. But then I think - if the price for having more f/f stories was more f/f stories written by straight men - would I still want it? My first instinct is no, BUT I just started playing Honkai: Star Rail because there are some lesbians in it, lol, sigh.
posted by catcafe at 1:54 PM on April 10 [3 favorites]
On the other side, I'm often jealous that there are so many of these wish-fulfillment m/m romance books out there, and relatively few f/f stories. But then I think - if the price for having more f/f stories was more f/f stories written by straight men - would I still want it? My first instinct is no, BUT I just started playing Honkai: Star Rail because there are some lesbians in it, lol, sigh.
posted by catcafe at 1:54 PM on April 10 [3 favorites]
From Wu’s article:
posted by mbrubeck at 2:22 PM on April 10 [4 favorites]
It is the pleasure of gay love without the annoyances of lived, gay culture.Romance author Nathan Burgoine has talked about this a few times, including The Shoulder Check Problem. In that same post, he also talks about the problem of m/m romance being dominated and defined by female authors and readers, which is relevant to the discussion here. For example:
There was the year where the finalists for the Lambda Literary Gay Romance category didn’t have a single gay man romance author in the mix, and I can pretty confidently say that’s a problem: not even one of us? That can’t be too high a goal to reach. It’s a literal “not zero” minimum.A commenter on Burgoine’s blog adds:
Looking at the Lambda awards for gay romance – it looks like the winners were exclusively male up until 2015, from which point all but one of the winners have been women. It feels extremely odd that women would submit their books for this award. If I wrote a book with lead characters who were lesbian, or Black, or Hispanic, I can’t imagine putting myself in the running for awards that celebrated those identities/backgrounds/categories. Why is it an accepted thing in gay romance?In light of that, saying that a gay male writer should pay more attention to straight fiction and to slash fiction “written mostly by women for other women” is already troubling to me. But to follow it up with this comment…
Oh, and an afterthought-- the appeal of slash, or m/m love stories, I always thought, are that they erase the female body from the story, with all its complications and its situation within power relations. Two men are two human beings; a man and a woman are tangled in social dynamics. Also, straight women tend to find men desirable, and two men is more of good thing. Etc.Really, that’s the appeal of m/m romance? Don’t you think, for gay male authors and readers like Wu, that the appeal of gay romance might be about something other than “the female body… with all its complications,” or the desires of straight women? This is a curious thing to say on a post about a queer reader’s experience of queer fiction.
posted by mbrubeck at 2:22 PM on April 10 [4 favorites]
Wow, that Burgoine blog was really really good! Except by "good" I mean "hopeless and bleak." But in a good way!
posted by mittens at 3:32 PM on April 10 [1 favorite]
posted by mittens at 3:32 PM on April 10 [1 favorite]
I should maybe clarify that I (a queer woman who reads and writes this stuff) didn’t have a negative reaction to this at all, apart from finding it somewhat surprising. I think it’s great that he’s discovered this genre.
Also as a general note: despite some confident declarations in this thread, there is no one single reason women read m/m, and many people get things out of it that are diametrically opposed to what other people get out of it. I’ve had many discussions about this and people come at it from radically different perspectives - not the least of which is the simple fact that there’s a huge existing community around it.
posted by showbiz_liz at 4:19 PM on April 10 [5 favorites]
Also as a general note: despite some confident declarations in this thread, there is no one single reason women read m/m, and many people get things out of it that are diametrically opposed to what other people get out of it. I’ve had many discussions about this and people come at it from radically different perspectives - not the least of which is the simple fact that there’s a huge existing community around it.
posted by showbiz_liz at 4:19 PM on April 10 [5 favorites]
Ah, I remember when I first got into M/M romance, before I knew about all the drama and the sociological context and the controversy and...
And you know what? I still don't care about all that. I blow through gay romance novels at a concerning pace, and I love them all. I don't particularly care who wrote them. First of all, everyone's using a pseudonym, so I really have no idea. Secondly, I've met gay men who have really weird ideas about what it means to be a gay man, what gay men are like, and what gay sex is like; not all gay men are fonts of wisdom about all things gay. Similarly, not all women are fonts of misinformation about gay men; some really do their research.
I know one of the complaints about non-gay-males writing M/M romance is that they rarely ever touch on the reality of the contemporary gay social scene. And I agree, there are very few books that seem to use the context of normal gay social life for a setting. But as a gay guy who never, ever fit into any gay social scenes, may I say, I'm okay with that. It takes a certain level of sociability to fit into gay spaces, and I just don't like being around people that much. Having a whole genre of fiction that tends to have an outsider's perspective on gay culture but offers up happy endings for queer people who don't necessarily fit the scene... well, that's like catnip for me.
The Burgoine blog has a lot of great points, but realism about the problems facing gay males in the context of 21st century America really isn't what I'm reading the genre for. And maybe I really want to read about a world where gay men don't have to check over the shoulder before they kiss to avoid being the victims of violence.
Anyway, on to the recommendations. Isabel Murray's Gary Of A Hundred Days is one of the funniest things I've ever read. T. J. Klune's How To Be A Normal Person includes a ferret named Harry S Truman. Roommate by Sara Bowen includes a sourdough starter named William Butler Yeast. The Necessary Evils series by Onley James is the most deranged, violent bit of romance you'll ever feel really weird about enjoying. The Spires series by Alexis Hall will do things to your heart and you won't be sure if they qualify as violence or repair. The 5th Gender by G. L. Carriger is a hilarious alien perspective on human sex and murder investigations. And the Woodbury Boys series by Sidney Bell has one of the tightest plots I've ever read.
Mostly, just know that there's a whole genre of literature out there that doesn't take itself too seriously and where gay people get to love each other. And it's amazing. Go read, dive in, have a blast, it's great.
posted by MrVisible at 6:06 PM on April 10 [8 favorites]
And you know what? I still don't care about all that. I blow through gay romance novels at a concerning pace, and I love them all. I don't particularly care who wrote them. First of all, everyone's using a pseudonym, so I really have no idea. Secondly, I've met gay men who have really weird ideas about what it means to be a gay man, what gay men are like, and what gay sex is like; not all gay men are fonts of wisdom about all things gay. Similarly, not all women are fonts of misinformation about gay men; some really do their research.
I know one of the complaints about non-gay-males writing M/M romance is that they rarely ever touch on the reality of the contemporary gay social scene. And I agree, there are very few books that seem to use the context of normal gay social life for a setting. But as a gay guy who never, ever fit into any gay social scenes, may I say, I'm okay with that. It takes a certain level of sociability to fit into gay spaces, and I just don't like being around people that much. Having a whole genre of fiction that tends to have an outsider's perspective on gay culture but offers up happy endings for queer people who don't necessarily fit the scene... well, that's like catnip for me.
The Burgoine blog has a lot of great points, but realism about the problems facing gay males in the context of 21st century America really isn't what I'm reading the genre for. And maybe I really want to read about a world where gay men don't have to check over the shoulder before they kiss to avoid being the victims of violence.
Anyway, on to the recommendations. Isabel Murray's Gary Of A Hundred Days is one of the funniest things I've ever read. T. J. Klune's How To Be A Normal Person includes a ferret named Harry S Truman. Roommate by Sara Bowen includes a sourdough starter named William Butler Yeast. The Necessary Evils series by Onley James is the most deranged, violent bit of romance you'll ever feel really weird about enjoying. The Spires series by Alexis Hall will do things to your heart and you won't be sure if they qualify as violence or repair. The 5th Gender by G. L. Carriger is a hilarious alien perspective on human sex and murder investigations. And the Woodbury Boys series by Sidney Bell has one of the tightest plots I've ever read.
Mostly, just know that there's a whole genre of literature out there that doesn't take itself too seriously and where gay people get to love each other. And it's amazing. Go read, dive in, have a blast, it's great.
posted by MrVisible at 6:06 PM on April 10 [8 favorites]
You know what would be fantastic? If folks could stop assuming that "women" who read m/m romance (or slash fan fiction, from which community it developed) are straight.
We're not, thanks.
Case in point, Casey McQuiston (author of Red, White, and Royal Blue, you know, the book the article starts with) uses they/them pronouns and is queer.
posted by lysimache at 6:46 PM on April 10 [3 favorites]
We're not, thanks.
Case in point, Casey McQuiston (author of Red, White, and Royal Blue, you know, the book the article starts with) uses they/them pronouns and is queer.
posted by lysimache at 6:46 PM on April 10 [3 favorites]
This topic is so full of landmines that I'm not sure I can engage carefully enough to respond to lysimache's point, but since I was around for Nora's survey, and I know the readership that would have responded to that survey, and basically at this point all my best online friends are writers in this genre, I do feel like I have to push back very lightly against the idea that there's is a large queer population reading, writing, and influencing MM.
Romance is absolutely driven by straight women. M/M is absolutely driven by straight women. Their needs, concerns and desires are central to the genre. Part of that--and I think this is one of Burgoine's points--is just the numbers. There aren't a lot of queer people out there. There isn't a lot of queer money, not enough to drive the market--if there weren't straight spectators to queer experience, there wouldn't be much representation at all. (Ask trans romance writers who want to write trans romance, how much money they're making.)
I don't want to get too deeply into a discussion of the difference between identity and social impact, but I think it's also true that readers who may identify as queer in some way, can also pressure the market like straight women, resulting in some of the same erasures.
Clearly those erasures are a point of contention. I was happy to see MrVisible's response--that it's possible for him to just kick back and enjoy a gay romance that doesn't have all the real-world angst. I'm glad for that! It's a pleasure I was never able to feel, reading the genre. (One weird thing was, nobody ever really captured the feel of a club?) And we can ask ourselves, you know, what are the politics and pleasures of that erasure. And what is the source of it? And if there is a significant queer woman readership, why doesn't the work feel more queer?
The point being, I don't think we can bring the analysis to a crashing halt because Casey McQuiston uses they/them pronouns, or because 12.86% of Facebook-using MM readers who happened to see Nora's survey, checked the 'bisexual' box. To do so isn't only to silence gay and bisexual men's concerns about the genre, but, oddly, to erase the years of feminist research and critique of the romance genre as a whole.
posted by mittens at 6:04 AM on April 11 [4 favorites]
Romance is absolutely driven by straight women. M/M is absolutely driven by straight women. Their needs, concerns and desires are central to the genre. Part of that--and I think this is one of Burgoine's points--is just the numbers. There aren't a lot of queer people out there. There isn't a lot of queer money, not enough to drive the market--if there weren't straight spectators to queer experience, there wouldn't be much representation at all. (Ask trans romance writers who want to write trans romance, how much money they're making.)
I don't want to get too deeply into a discussion of the difference between identity and social impact, but I think it's also true that readers who may identify as queer in some way, can also pressure the market like straight women, resulting in some of the same erasures.
Clearly those erasures are a point of contention. I was happy to see MrVisible's response--that it's possible for him to just kick back and enjoy a gay romance that doesn't have all the real-world angst. I'm glad for that! It's a pleasure I was never able to feel, reading the genre. (One weird thing was, nobody ever really captured the feel of a club?) And we can ask ourselves, you know, what are the politics and pleasures of that erasure. And what is the source of it? And if there is a significant queer woman readership, why doesn't the work feel more queer?
The point being, I don't think we can bring the analysis to a crashing halt because Casey McQuiston uses they/them pronouns, or because 12.86% of Facebook-using MM readers who happened to see Nora's survey, checked the 'bisexual' box. To do so isn't only to silence gay and bisexual men's concerns about the genre, but, oddly, to erase the years of feminist research and critique of the romance genre as a whole.
posted by mittens at 6:04 AM on April 11 [4 favorites]
One way to avoid the landmines in this discussion is positive action. Anyone, please recommend interesting writing about M/M romance! I would love to read some feminist critique that helped me better understand the books I'm enjoying and what they are saying. Or gay male critique specifically on the history of so many "gay novels" being written by and for women.
What I like about this essay in the post is that it captures what M/M romance means to the author, a gay man like me. But I can well imagine there's lots of other perspectives and 40+ years of interesting writing from other perspectives. This discussion got off to a bad start with a scolding comment about "as if the author had never heard of...". I would welcome the positive version of that comment, "this reminds me of something I read in this essay..."
posted by Nelson at 7:25 AM on April 11 [2 favorites]
What I like about this essay in the post is that it captures what M/M romance means to the author, a gay man like me. But I can well imagine there's lots of other perspectives and 40+ years of interesting writing from other perspectives. This discussion got off to a bad start with a scolding comment about "as if the author had never heard of...". I would welcome the positive version of that comment, "this reminds me of something I read in this essay..."
posted by Nelson at 7:25 AM on April 11 [2 favorites]
(One weird thing was, nobody ever really captured the feel of a club?) And we can ask ourselves, you know, what are the politics and pleasures of that erasure. And what is the source of it?
For me, as a gay man who never really fit into the club scene, the lack of an emphasis on what's usually seen as gay culture is actually one of the things that's kept me coming back to the M/M genre.
What's usually seen as mainstream gay culture alienates a lot of gay people. There are an infinite number of ways to be queer, and it's been wonderful to see authors exploring men who are exploring their sexualities in a vast variety of different ways. I understand that mainstream club-going gay culture is important and valuable and provides an irreplaceable safety net for a lot of people, but not everyone fits in there.
I think it's vitally important to have examples of gay men being happy in a lot of different contexts, and I think M/M romance is doing an amazing job of broadening peoples' understanding of what being gay can mean.
posted by MrVisible at 8:27 AM on April 11 [5 favorites]
For me, as a gay man who never really fit into the club scene, the lack of an emphasis on what's usually seen as gay culture is actually one of the things that's kept me coming back to the M/M genre.
What's usually seen as mainstream gay culture alienates a lot of gay people. There are an infinite number of ways to be queer, and it's been wonderful to see authors exploring men who are exploring their sexualities in a vast variety of different ways. I understand that mainstream club-going gay culture is important and valuable and provides an irreplaceable safety net for a lot of people, but not everyone fits in there.
I think it's vitally important to have examples of gay men being happy in a lot of different contexts, and I think M/M romance is doing an amazing job of broadening peoples' understanding of what being gay can mean.
posted by MrVisible at 8:27 AM on April 11 [5 favorites]
There are an infinite number of ways to be queer
I don't mean to suggest that the only way to be gay is to be one of the two or three mainstream portrayals of gayness. You don't have to be snorting xylazine on the dance floor or whatever it is the twinks are up to these days. I think my criticism in that regard is actually the opposite, that the heteronormativity at the core of straight-focused MM forecloses a lot of possibilities for ways of being gay. That what is being created is a way of being gay where the only difference between a gay character and a straight one, is that one is going after guys, the other after girls. To me that feels dangerous, a limitation of gayness, of queerness, to one's choice of partner. Surely that cannot be all there is to being gay.
(I'm talking too much in this thread!)
posted by mittens at 8:57 AM on April 11 [2 favorites]
I don't mean to suggest that the only way to be gay is to be one of the two or three mainstream portrayals of gayness. You don't have to be snorting xylazine on the dance floor or whatever it is the twinks are up to these days. I think my criticism in that regard is actually the opposite, that the heteronormativity at the core of straight-focused MM forecloses a lot of possibilities for ways of being gay. That what is being created is a way of being gay where the only difference between a gay character and a straight one, is that one is going after guys, the other after girls. To me that feels dangerous, a limitation of gayness, of queerness, to one's choice of partner. Surely that cannot be all there is to being gay.
(I'm talking too much in this thread!)
posted by mittens at 8:57 AM on April 11 [2 favorites]
I never figured out how to consume long-form romance literature after my voracious ADHD reading tendency hopped over from SF/F books to forum threads, but nonetheless I want to give a big shoutout to all the trans women who spent time in mlm cultures, spaces, dates, and bedrooms before coming out as women (to others or to themselves), and likewise to all the trans men who spent time reading, watching, relating to, and being told to feel bad about enjoying mlm fiction before coming out as men.
And an especially big shoutout to all those who persisted in writing mlm or wlw fiction before they transitioned to, or after they transitioned away from, the gender centred in their works.
(I would also like to shower with undying affection all the nonbinary people who wrote nonbinary characters, portrayed them on stage or screen, illustrated them, or recorded their own experiences, before finding places for themselves outside the gender binary)
posted by polytope subirb enby-of-piano-dice at 9:23 AM on April 11 [1 favorite]
And an especially big shoutout to all those who persisted in writing mlm or wlw fiction before they transitioned to, or after they transitioned away from, the gender centred in their works.
(I would also like to shower with undying affection all the nonbinary people who wrote nonbinary characters, portrayed them on stage or screen, illustrated them, or recorded their own experiences, before finding places for themselves outside the gender binary)
posted by polytope subirb enby-of-piano-dice at 9:23 AM on April 11 [1 favorite]
In my view, one's choice of partner really is all there is to being gay.
It's wonderful that cultures have coalesced in which gay people feel safe and comfortable. It's marvelous that a lot of us have styles and tastes in common. But there are people outside of those communities, who don't share those styles and tastes, and they're no less gay.
Don't they deserve representation too?
There are gay men in full-on Leave It To Beaver style marriages. There are suburban gay men, rural gay men, gay men in every profession and every life stage. And the only thing I can guarantee that they have in common is that they're attracted to other men.
To me, that's not limiting, that's liberating.
posted by MrVisible at 9:24 AM on April 11 [2 favorites]
It's wonderful that cultures have coalesced in which gay people feel safe and comfortable. It's marvelous that a lot of us have styles and tastes in common. But there are people outside of those communities, who don't share those styles and tastes, and they're no less gay.
Don't they deserve representation too?
There are gay men in full-on Leave It To Beaver style marriages. There are suburban gay men, rural gay men, gay men in every profession and every life stage. And the only thing I can guarantee that they have in common is that they're attracted to other men.
To me, that's not limiting, that's liberating.
posted by MrVisible at 9:24 AM on April 11 [2 favorites]
Anyone, please recommend interesting writing about M/M romance! I would love to read some feminist critique that helped me better understand the books I'm enjoying and what they are saying.
Pornography by Women For Women, With Love is a 1985 essay by lesbian sci-fi writer Joanna Russ about the thriving Kirk/Spock slash community of the time. It's absolutely fascinating.
posted by showbiz_liz at 11:08 AM on April 11 [2 favorites]
Pornography by Women For Women, With Love is a 1985 essay by lesbian sci-fi writer Joanna Russ about the thriving Kirk/Spock slash community of the time. It's absolutely fascinating.
posted by showbiz_liz at 11:08 AM on April 11 [2 favorites]
'Yaoi / BL is too vast and multiversal a genre to summarize, but I did have the feeling of observing a distinctly female medium in those shows, in which Boys are a kind of platonic essence, to be molded into a fantasy of soft, effeminate, non-threatening romance.'
Sigh, as a voracious reader of primarily Chinese BL since the Pandemic, I so disagree with this impression. One of the early popular sub-genres of BL is gangster (黑道) fiction, and one of the best-known BL novels 杀戮秀 (The Killing Show) by 'fox' is set in a Hunger Games style world with buckets of blood and gore. BL stories set in the military were popular too until the government banned this type of 'affront to our heroes.' As for 'non-threatening', I guess the writer hasn't run into any 'crazy-head' leads in his Asian foray, but if he ever looks up titles with the keyword '疯批' on jjwxc.net, the biggest female-oriented web fiction hosting site in China, I think he will change his mind. BL as a female creator dominated genre is a space for women to explore many different kinds of fantasies, including violent ones.
There's a long-standing debate among Chinese BL readers whether they even welcome actual gay writers in the genre. The militant faction considers real-life gay men in China, especially those who have sham marriages with straight women and those who use surrogate mothers to produce offspring to be part of the oppressive force against women in China. Another faction (a very wince-inducing one to old-timers like me) prefers the romantic leads to be virgins with no prior romantic involvement with anybody before each other, (they call that '双洁',）and the more permissive sexual practices of gay men are anathema to them, so any whiff of such realities in BL stories turns them off completely. On the other hand, one of the most famous and successful BL writer 非天夜翔 is an openly gay man.
In summary, gender politics among BL readership in China is very complex and I spend way too much time on online BL discussion forums.
posted by of strange foe at 2:45 PM on April 11 [4 favorites]
Sigh, as a voracious reader of primarily Chinese BL since the Pandemic, I so disagree with this impression. One of the early popular sub-genres of BL is gangster (黑道) fiction, and one of the best-known BL novels 杀戮秀 (The Killing Show) by 'fox' is set in a Hunger Games style world with buckets of blood and gore. BL stories set in the military were popular too until the government banned this type of 'affront to our heroes.' As for 'non-threatening', I guess the writer hasn't run into any 'crazy-head' leads in his Asian foray, but if he ever looks up titles with the keyword '疯批' on jjwxc.net, the biggest female-oriented web fiction hosting site in China, I think he will change his mind. BL as a female creator dominated genre is a space for women to explore many different kinds of fantasies, including violent ones.
There's a long-standing debate among Chinese BL readers whether they even welcome actual gay writers in the genre. The militant faction considers real-life gay men in China, especially those who have sham marriages with straight women and those who use surrogate mothers to produce offspring to be part of the oppressive force against women in China. Another faction (a very wince-inducing one to old-timers like me) prefers the romantic leads to be virgins with no prior romantic involvement with anybody before each other, (they call that '双洁',）and the more permissive sexual practices of gay men are anathema to them, so any whiff of such realities in BL stories turns them off completely. On the other hand, one of the most famous and successful BL writer 非天夜翔 is an openly gay man.
In summary, gender politics among BL readership in China is very complex and I spend way too much time on online BL discussion forums.
posted by of strange foe at 2:45 PM on April 11 [4 favorites]
of strange foe, that's super interesting, I've been learning Chinese and have read a few BL/GL novels, but social media (including jjwxc reviews) has too much slang for me to easily understand. I'm so curious about how the popularity of BL affects acceptance of irl lgbtq folks, especially given the fact that it seems like a tricky time for activism in mainland China at the moment. On one hand, if it had no impact, why bother banning TV adaptations? On the other hand, uh, all of the examples you listed above. So yeah, very complicated.
非天夜翔 is so great! I've learned so much about war and corruption in ancient China from his books. If anyone is interested, I recommend his book Joyful Reunion - there's an excellent translation posted on tumblr.
posted by catcafe at 3:34 PM on April 11 [1 favorite]
非天夜翔 is so great! I've learned so much about war and corruption in ancient China from his books. If anyone is interested, I recommend his book Joyful Reunion - there's an excellent translation posted on tumblr.
posted by catcafe at 3:34 PM on April 11 [1 favorite]
Hi catcafe, I haven't read Joyful Reunion yet, but loved 非天夜翔's historical fantasy 天宝伏妖录 Legend of Exorcism. (As you may well already know, it's also been adapted into an anime series.) Hats off to the tumblr translator, that looks like a tremendous job!
About effects of BL's popularity... I would say that certainly that raises the visibility of lgbtq folks greatly, and helps with acceptance with a good portion of BL readers -- I'm thinking of priest's Going Through the Door (过门)，and how many of her fans cite 'A homosexual's toast to health and freedom 同性恋敬健康和自由' (spoken by the protagonist after he made peace with his sexuality) as their favorite line from the book. There are also plenty of well-respected BL authors who try to present a fuller rainbow (so to speak) in their novels, like the cross-dressing protagonist in 吃素's At The Center of the Universe (在宇宙的中心), a trans friend (and her plight) in 蕉三根's 竖子, and a secondary GL couple in 唐酒卿's Let's Imbibe（将进酒）. BL is such a big tent that it contains multitudes, including a multitude of political stances. But one worrisome trend is that as BL readers become younger and censorship on various web-fictions platforms becomes more strict, the stories you see are becoming blander and more conservative. Pretty much everyone laments that the great flowering is now over, and there have been preciously few breakout works or authors in the last couple of years.
posted by of strange foe at 7:25 PM on April 11 [1 favorite]
About effects of BL's popularity... I would say that certainly that raises the visibility of lgbtq folks greatly, and helps with acceptance with a good portion of BL readers -- I'm thinking of priest's Going Through the Door (过门)，and how many of her fans cite 'A homosexual's toast to health and freedom 同性恋敬健康和自由' (spoken by the protagonist after he made peace with his sexuality) as their favorite line from the book. There are also plenty of well-respected BL authors who try to present a fuller rainbow (so to speak) in their novels, like the cross-dressing protagonist in 吃素's At The Center of the Universe (在宇宙的中心), a trans friend (and her plight) in 蕉三根's 竖子, and a secondary GL couple in 唐酒卿's Let's Imbibe（将进酒）. BL is such a big tent that it contains multitudes, including a multitude of political stances. But one worrisome trend is that as BL readers become younger and censorship on various web-fictions platforms becomes more strict, the stories you see are becoming blander and more conservative. Pretty much everyone laments that the great flowering is now over, and there have been preciously few breakout works or authors in the last couple of years.
posted by of strange foe at 7:25 PM on April 11 [1 favorite]
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posted by parmanparman at 12:31 AM on April 10 [1 favorite]