Women Writing Tons of Gay Novels

M/M romance in itself closets the term "gay."

These hordes of women writers used to live under a massive rock, using pen names like AJ Whit or CJ Fake.

Most of it was slash fiction-type stuff, but now there are thousands. They even have conferences where they all hang out and give each other awards.

I actually find a few of them amusing, but most of them are basically treacly cutesie Harlequin romances with gays.

The vast majority of these writers know absolutely nothing about the gay experience, and cordone their narratives off into fictional cardboard midwestern towns where no other gays, AIDS, or any semblance of reality exists.

Imagine if hundreds of straight men started writing Black lesbian romances. There'd be no end to the protests!

But straight women flooding the market with cutesie "M/M" romances are okay, it seems.

The audience for these books are women.

Most of them don't really capture gay men, but that's fine, because the people reading it don't even necessarily want a real man's characterization.

With the admission that 95% of are crap and written by women who know nothing about gay men, there is still 5% that's halfway decent.

It's always the same thing : a man tries to make another man his bitch

The sex from the stuff that I've read wasn't realistic at all. Clearly they have no clue.

[quote]Imagine if hundreds of straight men started writing Black lesbian romances. There'd be no end to the protests!

Why introduce race into the equation?

Straight men have been writing about lesbians for many years, and no protests. Gay men write about straight couples and to my knowledge, no one objects much.

I'm guessing they are playing out fantasies that they don't want to portray women as desiring. Women are already thought of as subservient to men so they enjoy writing a male character that enjoys being the bitch in order not to betray their own sex.

When straight women do get something right, it wounds.

[quote]I'm guessing they are playing out fantasies that they don't want to portray women as desiring. Women are already thought of as subservient to men so they enjoy writing a male character that enjoys being the bitch in order not to betray their own sex.

I think it's partly that, but I think quite a bit more of it has to do with the complete elimination of male objectification of women. I can't say that I've read a lot of Harlequin romances, but I imagine there are still a lot of heaving bosoms to be had, and when you're writing about two men, no one is looking at the women.

[quote]Gay men write about straight couples and to my knowledge, no one objects much

Not always true. A lot of times gay men write straight women as if they were gay men. Wasn't that a big complaint about Sex and the City?

I swear Jessica Lange plays a drag queen diva for Ryan Murphy on AHS more than she plays a real women.

^ huh? No one is "looking" at a woman in any fiction... what does that mean?

You don't have to be a thing to write about a thing. There's nothing so unfathomable about the gay male experience that it can't be researched, and written well by a competent author.

I'm not saying that people are literally looking with their eyes. I'm saying that there's no objectification of women's bodies going on.

R9, I agree about Sex and the City, but I've never heard anyone complain about that in particular.

Male writers rarely get women right. It has nothing to do with being straight or gay.

[quote]Male writers rarely get women right. It has nothing to do with being straight or gay.

Your lead lady was running all over town wearing a scrunchie!

[quote]There's nothing so unfathomable about the gay male experience that it can't be researched, and written well by a competent author.

Researched? Where? In the gay section of the Human Behaviour library?

Women should NOT be writing gay male romance/sex stories. Be different if they were good at it.

[quote]The sex from the stuff that I've read wasn't realistic at all. Clearly they have no clue.

Then why don't you queens write some slash. There is an insatiable market for it. You'd clean up.

Some m/m novels by women are fantastic. I especially love the Cut & Run series by Abigail Roux and Madeleine Urban. It's about two alpha male cops having a relationship. Books are funny and sexy and the characters are very likable. Obviously the books are sort of pulp/romance stuff but I just love listening to them as audiobooks.

I remember finishing one from the series and starting almost immediately after David Leavitt's The Two Hotel Francforts. Bloody hell what a difference. As a writer Leavitt is more nuanced but the Roux/Urban books are just so much more fun in the m/m romance/buddy department. (And yes, I'd rather watch a good action film than some arthouse cinema, not that I don't enjoy that as well.)

I'm not gonna lie: I'm into straight men and basically Cut & Run books are about your traditional kind of super masculine het action stars that are gay now. Is it realistic? Probably not for the most gay men but there are loads of gay manly men out there. I don't really care if it is realistic or not. It's just fun to read those super cops getting dick up their asses AND being buddies and lovers. BTW, those guys are pretty much equal and neither is the other one's bitch.

I have read some more poorly written m/m stuff from women and once again the main guys were quite masculine. I view the thing as female writers playing with dolls: handsome guys are made to do stuff with each other. It is quite peculiar why some women love to write m/m stuff but I'm not really complaining because first of all if it's well written I enjoy it and secondly I think it's positive thing for gays overall to be fantasized about. I mean I rather they write books about gay men loving each other than about gays being killed.

I have to point out that I love gay pulpy novels from the likes of Josh Lanyon as well. I'm glad we're getting more and more gay fiction even if some of it is coming from the ladies.

It's just about $$$$$$$.

I think they are writing Young Adult trans novels too

which is disturbing

I had no idea.

We really should leave them by rivers at birth like they do in China.

Would solve so many problems.

Probably 90% of the "gay" fiction available on Amazon is written by women. You read their bios and they're all housewives from the burbs with a ranch house full of pets. When you look through the gay horror and fantasy fiction the number climbs to close to 100%. Apparently, straight housewives who fancy themselves novelists are obsessed with supernatural beings of homosexual orientation.

[quote]straight housewives who fancy themselves novelists are obsessed with supernatural beings of homosexual orientation.

I'm sorry.

Actually, there is a lot of bad gay fiction written by gay men. An example of something like that is linked below. My partner knows this hack (they are from the same town) who asks him to read his self-published garbage as soon as it becomes available. At some point, it turns into a mini book club of sorts where we both read that crap and recite the most inept passages aloud in funny voices. Honestly, I find it hard to believe that whatever those lonely fraus write can be so much worse.

Poppy Z. Brite did an entertaining job of this back in the day before it really took off.. not sure what she's up to these days.

R24, you joke, but Anne Rice was monumental in my YA development. I learned what it meant to fly through the air, engage in hours of philosophical banter, kiss the PRETERNATURAL lips of my undead same sex lovers and mourn the state of my withered genitals.

I just read one that was m/m steampunk. I'll just say that I don't think that woman has ever seen a naked man before, nor had she ever watched any gay porn.

It all started with slash.

About 5% of them get it right, the other 95% forget the basics, like you need lube of some sort (spit, KY, Swiss Navy) to get the penis into the anus.

Check out Queer As Folk fan fiction for a prime example of the latter.

They really want to love and empathize with "the gays" but they just don't know any and it all reads like a badly done research paper.

This isn't new its been going on since about the mid to late sixties it's just more prevalent and open then in the past. now

Honorable mention to Patricia Highsmith --- ironically, a lesbian --- for writing some of the most intriguing gay male literature of the 20th century. I often wondered if she was not really a gay man trapped in a lesbian's body.

"Don't a majority of writers tend to write about things they are at least somewhat familiar with? "

Do you object to historical fiction as well? No author is directly familiar with life in Elizabethan England or Ancient Rome, but that doesn't mean they don't get to write about it.

About once a week, I have to tell some idiot here "For fuck's sake, stop complaining about women doing it wrong and do it yourself!".

Write your own damn books and send them to the publishers of these things, if it bothers you so damn much.

"Write what you know" is shitty, myopic writing advice, but so is "Write what you have absolutely no clue about." Guides written by gay men to help women write about gay sex more realistically have existed online for at least a decade.

Comparing Highsmith, a real author, to these trashy 'authors'? Ok.

The basis of most of these stories is plain homophobia. Some of it is quite insulting. I've read one where the protagonist kept having nightmares of being penetrated and woke up before getting an orgasm. The main character was complained repeatedly at how sick those dreams were, using crude (ie homophobic) words to describe what he was going through. I knew where it was going: he'll be another man's bitch by the end of the book. It's the usual cycle of degradation in these books. It was the most ridiculous thing I've ever read. I don't mind nasty stuff but this was clearly coming from a Frau who had no clue whatsoever.

If you look at the reviews of gay fiction at Amazon few women read novels written by gay men. Almost all the reviews of novels written by gay men are made by men while it's the opposite with 'gay fiction' written by women.

OK, Ms. Professional Victim at R35. The thread title is "women writing tons of gay novels." Highsmith wrote a ton of stories/books with gay-male themes (as did Anne Rice, Poppy Z. Brite), and therefore fits the criteria for being discussed here.

Although it is clear from your post that you are equally as sensitive about these "triggering," wounding novels as the much-maligned fraus are about so many things.

One of the best novels by a woman, writing from a gay male perspective (and an adolescent one at that--though it is not a YA novel) is Jane Hamilton's "The Short History of a Prince." Not as well known as her Oprah books "The Book of Ruth" and "A Map of the World," but a more courageous and risky one.

R31, R35 Hit a nerve there, right?

Highsmith didn't write trashy sex filled novels, numbnuts. This thread is about women writing trashy sex filled 'romance' novel. Bringing her in the discussion was stupid.

Her acumen was psychological not genital or romantic. If that's too hard for you to grasp than clearly you didn't get Highsmith.

It allows them to objectify men without seeing them in relation to women. If a female character was getting that turned on by male body parts she'd seem slutty and unsympathetic. But having another male admire a penis or a bubble butt is acceptable because men are supposed to view their sex partner that way, e.g. if a hetero male was admiring a woman's breasts or legs it wouldn't seem strange. Having a gay male in place allows them to look at male body parts the same way.

That's the appeal of shows like Queer As Folk and why DL is inundated with ladies crushing on the eminently crushable Gale Harold.

R15, even a simple internet search will give you the basic mechanics, but that's really a minor thing. Romances are all about love, and relationships and their conflicts.

You still have to write well, while realizing that gay men bring their own perspective to the genre, but the real meat of the romance story is universal.

Aren't a lot of Harlequin romances written by men?

And, R41?

Men have relationships with women. Some of the great romantics in the world are men. So it's normal for men to write about love with women.

So what's your point?

"I view the thing as female writers playing with dolls: handsome guys are made to do stuff with each other."

Exactly. It's one big quilting bee, with cocks. They're playing and they write for each other, but turn gay relationships into fantasy hetero-monogamous tripe.

The other thing you may notice is all the cutesie bios that reveal this truth, as mentioned: ranch house, five cats, hubby and kids, and oh, yeah, she writes bad porn.

And many of them "beta" each other, i.e. read and edit each others' books, so they all end up the same.

Agree that bad porn is the least of it and easy to fix since all it takes is a little research on the mechanics. If you don't get that right, you're just lazy.

What makes bad slash much worse IMO is that a lot of the authors don't know how men relate to each other. They put words in men's mouths that they would NEVER say and they make the characters talk, talk, TALK about their feelings until everyone wants to puke. So much angsty hand wringing and pearl clutching over every little thing.

But the absolute worst is when you can tell the author is some sheltered, flyover grandma because she makes modern day male characters sound like Jimmy Stewart circa 1945. Or she makes them remain virgins until marriage. It's so cringe inducing.

R18, you know that Josh Lanyon is actually a woman, right? She's taken the leap of actually taking a male pseudonym, unlike A.J. Dingleberry, et al.

I absolutely hate the female-authored gay fiction. It always gets the tone wrong for the sex, and the writing just grates.

I've read a few of Lanyon's books, and I thought they were fine. She doesn't write her men as "women with dicks" though they're still romances and not high literature.

Now if Michael Nava turns out to be a woman I might actually be a little upset. I loved his Henry Rios mysteries.

[quote][R18], you know that Josh Lanyon is actually a woman, right?

He is? Wow, must say I had no idea although I have thought sex scenes are certainly not his strong point. But I've read so much bad porn stories from gay men that I just don't expect too much of them.

I'm actually a bit disappointed with this news. I very rarely seek out info on authors I read so I stay in the dark easily. I shouldn't really care, especially since so many authors use pseudonyms, but still sometimes it's nice to think I'm reading stuff from fellow gay men.

Quick googling tells that Josh Lanyon actively represents himself as male. I sort of don't care and sort of find it insulting. The reality is, though, that I've enjoyed reading his/her stuff so maybe I just try to not care. I wish that I just knew before jumping in. I love Roux/Urban Cut & Run books and I've known from the start they are women. I also just started listening to Widdershins by Jordan L. Hawk and she's not hiding her gender. TBH I thought he was a male also before I just checked her out.

I remember feeling so disappointed when I found out that Robin Hobb is a woman. (She of course only writes fantasy, and not m/m. Hobb name itself is a pseudonym.) I thought I had picked lot of gay subtext from the Farseer books but when I realized Hobb's a woman I started questioning. Unfortunately it turned out all the gay subtext was just in my own head and in the end even the one gender unspecific character who had sort of flirted with the male hero turned out to be a woman.

The male hero ditched all the weird stuff and became a domesticated husband to his boring as fuck childhood sweetheart girl. I was so furious. I felt like I had been played by a housewife who in the end turned everything into a nightmarish straight suburban love story.

[quote]you know that Josh Lanyon is actually a woman, right? She's taken the leap of actually taking a male pseudonym, unlike A.J. Dingleberry, et al.

Josh is? I've never heard this before and a quick google search doesn't turn up anything supporting this.

[quote]What makes bad slash much worse IMO is that a lot of the authors don't know how men relate to each other. They put words in men's mouths that they would NEVER say and they make the characters talk, talk, TALK about their feelings until everyone wants to puke. So much angsty hand wringing and pearl clutching over every little thing.

Yes, sometimes the ridiculously angsty conversations these male characters have don't even resemble how guys ever talk to each other.

Damon Suede came recommended from a friend and I'll pass that along. I've read "Hot Head" and "Bad Idea" and they are fun and actually feel like it is written from a gay male perspective.

Teenage girls write tons of gay fanfic.

R48, I also googled Lanyon being female and there is talk about it e.g. at Amazon, and that was already years ago. I didn't find any info of him ever appearing live which would put the questions to rest. I can imagine him being female if he keeps it so hidden.

So I am in the right thread for misogyny at least.

Women can't write Gay male fiction. What a load of bullshit.

The whole point of fiction is sharing ideas and escapism.

R42 your pompous reply. Men have relationships with women so they know how to write about them.

Women are fucked by men both literally and figuratively by people like r42, so they certainly can write about being screwed.

I would certainly trust a woman's idea of Gay men than a straight man.

R51 you are fullof shit

R51 is cuckoo for cocoa puffs

The difference between Rice and Brite and most of the current crop is that their novels are about more than just gay characters. Most of Rice's are "pan-sexual", for lack of a better description. Of the current crop, Jordan L. Hawke is by far the best. The Widdershins series is very readable and is about fucked up families and social power struggles as much as it is about the fact 2 of the 3 protagonists are gay men in an era when it was not great to be one. Even the more predictable Spectr novels are about a lot more than the gay characters.

Well, one of the authors that I first cut my teeth on all those years ago when I started reading and writing erotica, eventually became a friend of mine. And back in the day, he wrote stories like I did, mainly for his own enjoyment. Writing wasn’t his career, but I considered him a very talented author. About a year or so ago, he emailed me and informed me that he’d written a story and asked for my feedback.

Not surprisingly, I read and loved the story and immediately suggested he get it published. Well, he shopped it around to numerous m/m publishers, and every single one of them rejected it. The story wasn’t formulaic romance, but it was really hot and very erotic. It was a book that I as a gay man absolutely loved, but the publishers all seemed to think it would never appeal to their female audience.

Okay, I’ve got to be honest. I was pissed. My friend wasn’t happy either. I just couldn’t believe that all these publishers who’ve made all this money over the years off of stories about gay men would not want to publish a really good story written by a real live homosexual about actual gay men, portraying real gay men how they actually are in real life.

What? All women are bisexual lesbian leaning, women are repulsed by naked men, let alone 2 gay buttfucking naked men yuck. Now stop your lies men!

Some of you shouldn't be commenting about how women or what they want, particularly sexually, because you know nothing about them.

Not to mention it makes you sound so....old.

And R57 you know nothing about men

R56 the sex in these books is totally risible. Sorta like Pokemon sex. Nothing to do with real sex with real men so yes in the end they're still not attracted to men.

The most telling part of these female writers and readers is when you ask them if they'd like their husbands to do the stuff they write about in their trash and they all scream NO!

[quote]The most telling part of these female writers and readers is when you ask them if they'd like their husbands to do the stuff they write about in their trash and they all scream NO!

LOL @ R58. WTF are you babbling on about, moron? How many slash authors and fans do you even know to ask such a stupid question? Have you taken a poll?

I wonder if authors of horror ever have to suffer fools like R58 asking them if they would like their spouse to do the things they write about.

R55, tell your friend to try self-publishing on Amazon. He could be sitting on a fortune - erotica is HUGE.

You'd be surprised at just how many lesbians write m/m. Unfortunately many m/m stories are just chicks with dicks - the submissive guy is really a female. He weeps (constantly), stamps his feet, sulks, flicks his golden curls, and waits to be rescued by his lover. Whereupon he weeps all over again. Ugh. Many of these stories wouldn't even be accepted by Harlequin Mills & Boon, seriously.

But lots of men can't write women, either, so I guess we're even.

I used to read a lot of fanfic years ago but these days it seems to be teens who can barely construct a sentence, let alone anything else. But for most of them it's only a hobby so it's nothing to get stirred up about.

Published m/m is another matter altogether. So many stories (not only m/m, any topic really) are so poorly written, with spelling and grammatical errors galore - and it is NOT confined to self publishing, either.

Crap or not, erotica, whether it's m/m, het or whatever, is a money spinner. Some self published writers are making six figure incomes apparently.

Interesting writing blog:

[quote]I wonder if authors of horror ever have to suffer fools like R58 asking them if they would like their spouse to do the things they write about.

Comparing romance and sex with horror and violent acts...brilliant...only a conservative moron would think like that.

"So I am in the right thread for misogyny at least."

The world is as one perceives it.

"Women can't write Gay male fiction."

No, they can, and do, in abundance. They just more often do it poorly.

"What a load of bullshit."

Yes, stock images of headless shirtless porn actors posing in badly photoshopped embraces as firefighters, cops and cowboys who magically turn "gay for you" to satisfy the pedestrian fantasies of people who don't even interact with gay men...is bullshit.

"The whole point of fiction is sharing ideas and escapism."

Not exclusively. Good and great fiction is much much more than that. The majority of M/M romances are puerile, sophomoric, and depict a cartoonish depictions of homosexuality.

If that's too unpleasant for you to admit, too bad.

[quote]Yes, stock images of headless shirtless porn actors posing in badly photoshopped embraces as firefighters, cops and cowboys

This.

[quote] How many slash authors and fans do you even know to ask such a stupid question? Have you taken a poll?

It's a common question to ask writers of romance books if they practice what they preach. Jackie Collins has been asked countless of times if she has done some of the stuff she has written in her books. It's part of the whole genre.

You're definitely out of your league in the brains department.

As far as Josh Lanyon is concerned, if you read all the biographical info available online, you'll see they all go out of the way to use specific pronouns, necessary for legal reasons.

I wrote to Josh Lanyon and asked if 'he' was actually a woman. I received a nice reply that said he didn't want to discuss his gender as he didn't think it was relevant. (Of course the word word "he" was never used.)

The reason I know Josh Lanyon is a woman is a blog from some years ago where he inadvertently talked about being a mother. Whoever she is, she's the only one I've found so far who's actually taken the step of using a man's name. I find it deceitful, which of course it is.

That should read "non-specific pronouns". Sorry.

[quote]Poppy Z. Brite did an entertaining job of this back in the day before it really took off.. not sure what she's up to these days.

Poppy is now a trans male, Billy Martin.

[quote]The vast majority of these writers know absolutely nothing about the gay experience, and cordone their narratives off into fictional cardboard midwestern towns where no other gays, AIDS, or any semblance of reality exists.

One thing you will almost never find in these books is any sort of infidelity. It's a big taboo. If a book does include a plot point where someone cheats, it's labeled a "cheating book" and is given one star ratings on Amazon and Goodreads.

Which leads us to the obsessive hausfrau fans on GoodReads who hivemind to hacks like this "Josh" fraud, and their gal pals, and attack gay male authors for including reality in their romances.

But who have YOU asked, R64/58. Crickets. You made that shit up entirely. You have no idea what slash authors do or don't do in bed and it isn't relevant anyway to what they write. Again, since you seem to be slow to catch on, most authors (yes, very good ones) write about things they have never personally experienced. Examples (helping you here, because you're special) horror, murder mysteries, sci fi, historical fiction, etc.

It's amazing how many in this thread act like they'd gouge their own eyes out rather than read a m/m romance, and seem to despise the fact that they're largely written by women, while also despising the women who write them.

And yet, they somehow know EVERYTHING there is to know about the books, the motivations of the women who write them, and the details of their personal lives.

Y'all are an incredible bunch of psychics, that, or you're just making up bullshit to fit your narrative.

R71, I think it's more about not being ok with female writers trying to define what being a gay man is like without them really knowing.

I doubt most people would care but when the situation is what it is: women practically definining the whole gay fiction market place with their gay stories that are meant for other women, then I think it's ok for us gay men to voice our opinion.

Like I wrote earlier I love Roux/Urban's books and I know they are female. I did like Josh Lanyon until I found out from this thread she's a woman. Apparently she's doing all she can to disguise her true gender which is just fucking sad.

One of the problems with (some) female writers and many READERS of m/m romances is their belief that men and women are the same.

They are not. Men and women are different. They react differently, think differently, behave differently. When a writer (male OR female) writes gay men as - well, as men who behave and react as men, you get the response that R68 described. Most female readers are looking for HEAs.

Having said that, there is some good writing out there - the problem is male characterizations in most of these stories. If you can get over that, there's some good stuff out there, and if the story is good, you're more likely to overlook male characterization issues.

As a female who reads a lot of m/m, I try to steer clear of authors with a history of creating characters who possess golden curls, who sulk, pout, silky skin, soft lips, and whose blue eyes shimmer with tears. Don't get me started on Mpreg or poorly written BDSM shit (the m/m version of 50 shades of gray; the quality of the writing is generally on a par with that crap.)

I also steer clear of writers who habitually use phrases such as, "The older man kissed the younger man". Ugh.

I am going to start writing lesbian novels. I think I've learned enough from the MichFest threads to get the characters right.

To be fair, R73, ALL romance writing is formulaic. It follows a narrow script: boy meets girl (or boy). Something or someone keeps them apart. They get together anyway in spite of all the angst and conflict (usually consummating the relationship around halfway through the book). Then they are torn apart again only to reunite for their HEA at the end. It's always the same.

And you could also say that hetero romance authors (again predominantly female) don't do good male characterizations either. In fact, romance in general has LOL bad characterization of ALL characters. Everyone is a stereotype--hyper masculine/ultra feminine main characters, and a cast of "extras" that fit one dimensional roles: sweet little old lady, curmudgeon old man, prostitute with a heart of gold....... you get the idea.

So, it's funny to me that the gay men on this thread are clutching their pearls at the way men are portrayed in slash romance/erotica. It's no different than straight romance writing. It's ALL ridiculous.

I like a good romance and wish the genre wasn't in such bad shape in general.

I hate that to be considered literature you can't get a HEA. It wasn't always the case.

I've recently read authors discussing why this is a requirement to be taken seriously.

So If anyone has any good romance suggestions m/m or otherwise please share. I don't care who wrote it.

As Meat Loves Salt - Maria McCann

It is historical fiction m/m set in the English Civil War (17th Century.)

It is not a romance and there is no HEA. The main character (anti-hero) is a psychopath. The novel is in the first person, his point of view.

It is one of the best historical m/m novels I have read.

Josh Lanyon is Laura Baumbach, head of MLR Press.

In theory women can write M/M stories. Why not? Afterall proper female authors write novels where the main character is male and vice versa all the time, and it is perfectly acceptable.

Of course a lot female written M/M stuff is complete crap but I don't get the insistence that this genre is totally beyond the pale.

Josh Lanyon is not Laura Baumbach, but the rumor Lanyon is a woman was started by Baumbach, who after the two had a falling out as co-writers, put that info out there.

"So, it's funny to me that the gay men on this thread are clutching their pearls at the way men are portrayed in slash romance/erotica."

It's funny to you, because you've never had your sexual subculture commodified by a heteronormative market.

The MM Romance genre bulldozed gay literature with its Wal-Mart quality.

It's the literary equivalent of a bachelorette party invading a gay bar, again, and again and again.

The majority of writers and fans in this genre don't get that, in between tossing out antigay "pearl-clutching" cracks, because they are privileged straight women.

You don't get it, because you've never been randomly assaulted, fired, or made a criminal just because of who you are.

Relax, R81. You're giving this trashy lit much more power than it actually has. It's throw away pulp and easy to avoid if you don't like it.

Wow, what a victim mentality R81.

How do YOU know female m/m writers are privileged straight women? Women are also randomly assaulted, fired, and made criminals of.

In some countries, even in Western countries, women are genitally mutilated, killed for "honor" reasons, and forcibly married.

If you want to write m/m stories (romance or not) go ahead. WHO is stopping you?

Ever heard of self-publishing? Write something. Upload it to Smashwords. Or Amazon. Or try pitching it to a publisher - if it's unsuccessful, you've still got the Smashwords or Amazon route.

But stop blaming women for your shitty life. If women want to read and write this stuff, good luck to them. At least they're writing and getting it out there through sheer hard work.

You want some good m/m fiction out there? Go for it. Just fucking do it and quit wallowing in your self pity. I bet there are plenty of women who have lifted themselves out of poverty by their writing, whether it's m/m or something else.

Their "privilege" is due to their own hard work.

If they can do it, you can.

If gay men hate women writing gay novels then why did MOST of fucking DL go see Brokeback Mountain & LOVE it?

BTW, I didn't see it and I felt that it was WEIRD that a woman, Annie Proulx, wrote that pos. But no, all the fucking QUEENS here loved it.

[quote]If gay men hate women writing gay novels then why did MOST of fucking DL go see Brokeback Mountain & LOVE it?

Partly because Annie Proulx, whatever you think of her other work, has more talent in her smallest fart than most of the women who write the m/m erotica. And the entirely of her body of work isn't Brokeback Mountain.

The women who write these (and I'll straight up admit that there are a couple that I do really like, and have multiple titles from) are taking our lives and turning them into commodities. And good for them, there's clearly a market for it. But the thing is, when so many of them seem to get us wrong, and especially want to write about gay sex without even really seeming to understand how it works, it gets a little offensive.

The bachelorette parties in gay bars comparison is pretty apt.

[quote]BTW, I didn't see it and I felt that it was WEIRD that a woman, Annie Proulx, wrote that pos. But no, all the fucking QUEENS here loved it.

R84, how can you call a movie pos when you haven't even seen it? Your post makes you sound like a right wing straight lady.

I prefer the story submissions at Breeding Zone. The stories are definitely written by men for men.

[quote]If gay men hate women writing gay novels then why did MOST of fucking DL go see Brokeback Mountain & LOVE it?

Annie is a real author. She doesn't exploit. I haven't read BM but I've read some of her other books and one can clearly see she doesn't write trash. With that being said I wasn't too impress by the film. I thought there was no spark between the two men but then that can be attributed to the director or the actors or the producers who wanted it toned down. It's easy to see the difference between someone with talent and a bunch of talentless nobodies exploiting gays for their 'let's play dolls' fantasies because they are unable to objectify men through a female POV (since most of them don't care about that stuff) and substitute it with supposedly gay men in phoney gay scenarios to work around that blind spot in all women.

Breeding Zone: Fictional stories about bug chasing and gift giving.

I think I'm going to go throw up now.

The stuff on NIFTY seems like mostly guy writers

How many of you bitches authored these great works?

And you bitches say women can't write?

Take a look inside:

[quote] But no, all the fucking QUEENS here loved it.

ALL? I never saw it, and don't intend to.

I never understood that complaint about Sex and the City. Did straight criitics say that only because the creator is a gay man? Did they not realize that all bitchy New Yorkers with money, male or female, gay or straight, are pretty much like those characters? And it's based on a book written by a woman.

So there are queens here that think this is great writing?

"They never talked about the sex, let it happen, at first only in the tent at night, then in the full daylight with the hot sun striking down, and at evening in the fire glow, quick, rough, laughing and snorting, no lack of noises, but saying not a goddamn word except once Ennis said, "I'm not no queer," and Jack jumped in with "Me neither. A one shot thing. Nobody's business but ours."

Wow, R95, that was embarrassing to read.

I hate it when men are written as alien beings. I frequently see Gaybro type 'mos conflate these alien characteristics with their perceptions of what it is to be a man.

The poster(s) upthread who stated that men and women are different had it right. Men and women ARE different but it's totally laughable when people try to pass men off as autistic robots incapable of eloquently expressing their feelings.

It's a very American (Western? American/European?) thing, might I add. In my experience, Latin men - in spite of their machismo - are very in touch with their feelings.

Anyway, back to Annie Proulx... the other thing I hate is how these writers depict sex. Sterile and unrealistic!

This series is written by a woman author, but you might not know it based on her name. When I started it, I thought it was written by a man. When I found out, I didn't care anymore.

It's partly a police/crime drama series and partly paranormal, but set in the real world.

I'll second that recommendation r97. I didn't know it was written by a woman either, it was just a book someone told me I would like and I did.

Great series and characters. Not a paranormal fan and although it's central to the story it is just the real world with a little twist. I would put her writing on par with decent male crime drama writers.

The worst is the m/m/f combination stories. Way, way worse than m/m.

"How do YOU know female m/m writers are privileged straight women?"

Because thier smarmy bios humblebrag about their suburban white middle-class lives; dozens of them I've seen and (tried to) read prove this.

"Women are also randomly assaulted, fired, and made criminals of."

Yes on the first point, but made criminals of simply because they are women? No, there are no sensible laws forbidding hiring a woman. That is illegal in the U.S.

What is still legal in the U.S. are multiple forms of legal discrimination against gay people.

"In some countries, even in Western countries, women are genitally mutilated, killed for "honor" reasons, and forcibly married."

You're talking about second- and third-world countries. Are you so arrogant to presume that a white woman with a family in Idaho is on the same level as an impoverished West African rape victim? Your self-absorption is astounding.

"If you want to write m/m stories (romance or not) go ahead. WHO is stopping you?"

This is not about doing or not doing, but a critique of the mountain of crap written by women pretending to be gay men.

"Ever heard of self-publishing?"

Yes, you condescending asshole.

"But stop blaming women for your shitty life."

Stop projecting your shitty life on others. Your snide dismissal of the oppression of an entire subculture is indicative of the barely veiled contempt these women MM writers actually have for gays when we're not behaving like fictional pets.

"If women want to read and write this stuff, good luck to them."

But any critique from the people they're writing about is shut down by vindictive sniping frau-fans like you.

"At least they're writing and getting it out there through sheer hard work."

Writing crap fiction is not hard work, it's a hobby.

"... quit wallowing in your self pity."

More claws from the frau.

"I bet there are plenty of women who have lifted themselves out of poverty by their writing..."

You really don't know much about royalties and sales, do you? Most of these writers give their books away by the hundreds, and sales are minimal.

"Their "privilege" is due to their own hard work."

No, their 'privilege' is being middle-class (mostly) white women whose husbands have jobs while they clack away making up silly gay stories.

They are the dominant class/culture appropriating a sexual subculture.

And your failure to see the larger picture and instead make personal uninformed attacks is typical of the vehement and deranged sense of entitlement straight women MM writers and their rabid fans exhibit online and elsewhere.

Really - some fraus writing bad m/m fanfiction isn't all that big of a deal. At least they're being pro-gay in their own way..

R100 is so full of shit.

Maybe reading some slash fiction will cheer him up.

If R100 spent more time writing and less time bitching and fretting about what women are doing, maybe he'd have a novel ready to be published.

Quit whining and write.

r72 your 180 about a writer whose work you originally praised, because the author might be a different gender than you thought, is sort of all the explanation you need for why someone would do that in the first place.

Authors choose obscuring pseudonyms for a variety of reasons. You enjoyed the work and it should be about the work.

If some of these novels are shitty, they are because the writers are shitty. Not because of the author's gender.

[quote]If some of these novels are shitty, they are because the writers are shitty. Not because of the author's gender.

Reading this thread, one would think the ONLY shitty novels in existence are m/m written by women.

FFS. There are shitty crime novels, horror, sci-fi, het romance, lesbian fiction, Man Booker winning prize novels...

... written by both genders.

R96 that is exactly it. Annie Proulx is a SHIT writer. She has a degree and teaches right? So that makes her "legitimate" but you can see by my post at R95 that she's as bad as, if not worse than, any other straight frau writing about gay men and she really has no business to write about gay men, period.

So many times I am watching tv and I'm thinking nope, a straight guy doesn't act that way. Nope a (fill in the blank) doesn't act that way, and I see it's written by some fucked up "writer" who's a woman.

The SAME can be said imho for women's roles. Gosh they make women sound like shrill harpy cunts a lot in the movies and on tv. The WORST PART is that it's WOMEN writing a lot of it, or men.

Ugh.

What we need are better writers! Annie Proulx is NOT a good writer, BBM was cliched and terrible, and she's just awful!

Many female characters in TV shows are horribly written.

For TV writers, strong independent women means raging ball-busting bitches. Oh, and they're sassy. Never forget the sassy.

R108 I thought to writers of TV & movies "sassy" is the trope that only belongs to BW?

[quote]The SAME can be said imho for women's roles. Gosh they make women sound like shrill harpy cunts a lot in the movies and on tv. The WORST PART is that it's WOMEN writing a lot of it, or men.

Like you right now?

[quote]At least they're being pro-gay in their own way.

They're not being pro-gays. They're exploiting gays.

They probably don't even know any gay men.

[quote].. not that there's anything wrong with that ..

Yes. Yes, there is. But like anything centric to men and gay men, women must also make a nuisance of themselves here also, so really it isn't very surprising.

R100, brilliant!

The phrase "get over yourself" was invented for R100.

I detect more racism in R100's post than I do valid arguments.

So, 100, you hate them because they're "entitled middle class white women"?

1) Middle class in America isn't generally referred to as an entitled class. Perhaps the upper levels of that, but then the upper levels would, by most metrics be considered wealthy.

2) Yes, women writing gay fiction about gay men is both misandrist and offensive, I'll give you that.

3) What is it about their race that bothers you so? Why are "WHITE!" women seemingly the sole catalyst for your scorn here? I doubt there are many black, Asian or Latina women writing on gay mens issues or stories centric to gay men, but I'll bet there are a few.

Your trigger seems to be white. White women, perhaps white people. Perhaps there's something you're not admitting to us or yourself?

R100, what makes you so arrogant as to assume anyone is "appropriating" (how tedious) YOUR life? No one wants to write or read about a boring 50 y/o gay celibate who lives in his mother's basement, tapping out angry diatribes while brushing Cheeto dust off his bitch tits.

R115 = Perhaps you've read too many bad detective books as well as bad romances.

There's nothing more transparent than someone accusing "racism" and an "agenda" when white heterosexual privilege is brought up.

The authors are - by a large majority- white, as are their characters, unless they're described in pejorative terms relating to food.

Look at the book covers that flood Amazon.com; white guy, white guy, etc.

R115, your deficient Miss Marple skills aside, mentioning this statistical fact is not what you think it is.

The idiotic prior comparison to oppressed African women and suburban U.S. women was absurd, and deserved a rebuttal.

R116, = vomiting up beyond-cliché internet insults from the 1990s proves how stupid you are.

The thread is about women writing lots of bad romance books, mm-kay? But obviously from your puerile remark, you read and write clichés all day.

It's not surprising that the personal attacks surface when the pro-bad romance fans have nothing left.

This is the same behavior on other websites where women - who love their "pet gays" to act like their fictional fantasies - reveal their harpy claws when anyone -specifically actual gay men- dare to critique their collective mediocrity.

[quote][R72] your 180 about a writer whose work you originally praised, because the author might be a different gender than you thought, is sort of all the explanation you need for why someone would do that in the first place.

Naah, it's not really 180. My problem with Lanyon is her deliberately lying about her gender. I'm pissed off because I fell for it. I'll keep listening to her books because there just isn't that much gay fiction around and her books are enjoyable and funny enough. When I say I love her books I say it in the context they are in: easy listening that gives few chuckles every now and then.

I very rarely read anymore because audiobooks work better for me and Audible is thankfully carrying more and more m/m stuff. Yes it's mostly m/m romance and I had noticed that some authors are female but I hadn't realized that gay fiction genre seems to be mostly written by women to women now. This thread has been an eye opener.

But I'm not saying I'm bothered by women writing gay fiction, like I said Urban/Roux books are my favorite gay pulp novels around, but I am annoyed by Lanyon taking the pretense of being a gay man so far. Why not just come out and say you're really a woman?

BTW, Annie Proulx's Brokeback Mountain is a beautiful and haunting short story. Taking few sentences out of it and saying it's badly written crap is just dumb.

R118, one could ask the same question of Laura Albert, whose literary fraud, J.T Leroy, was merely bad teen abuse fiction.

That minor work was hailed as a literary gem, but I smelled something odd from the beginning.

But this is different that Lanyon persisting in the lie, when so many thousands of mediocre gay romance women writers have "come out" as female.

R119 totally agree about Laura Albert. The first time I heard of her, it was about JT LeRoy and SF Chronicle was praising JT to the skies and how REAL it was.

Then everyone got into the act and praised JT to the skies till everyone found out. I figured it out pretty early on that JT was an EST.

Annie Proulx's writing IS shit, she is no different than any other fanfic frau. That quote came from Wikipedia from BBM - to show how "great" a writer she is. LOL. #dead

R100's post is absolutely correct (and extremely well-argued). All the subsequent attacks are poorly reasoned and/or self-pitying. There is nothing racist or misogynistic in his remarks.

Oh, and R118 is correct about Brokeback Mountain, too.

Yes, the writing is what counts, but it's also representative of a culture in these instances. It would be no different than someone writing stories about what it's like to be a different race. Sometimes they'll get it right, but when they're off, the whole thing becomes rather insulting.

Anime and Manga have a lot of gay sex story lines. It's created a generation of women who think gay men are just women with penises. They write these novels which are nothing more than rehashing what they see in these cartoons. It has nothing to do with being open minded, or even with homosexuality. It has everything to do with these women turning gay men into little dolls they can play with like barbies.

The dialogue in sex scenes is the worst. In most of these books, a character will speak to his partner in laughable and awkward sentence fragments. For instance, "Bed. Now." "Clothes. Off." "You. Naked."

"Clothes! Too Many Clothes!" is another!

Indeed, R122. The corollary to that is that straight men think "lesbian" sex involves two testosterone-fueled women fucking their brains out as though they were men.

[quote]And many of them "beta" each other, i.e. read and edit each others' books, so they all end up the same.

I once read a short (and free) story that I thought would be fluff (an outgoing, rich college boy takes his shy, introverted boyfriend on a family vacation in Canada), but it turned out to be atmospheric, dark and tense. So, I guess the short was a hit because the author penned a full-length novel (In Too Deep) based on the story/characters. Unfortunately, it's typical m/m drivel. I saw on the author's blog that she used a lot of "betas" for the book, so I suspect they're responsible for the resulting steaming pile of shit.

R126, that short story was "In Over Our Heads" by Kate Sherwood. It was a nice surprise. Sorry to hear the novel sucks...I had downloaded the sample but never got around to checking it out.

Was happy to run across this thread and hope it's okay for a straight woman to crash the party. :) For the record, a lot of people know Josh Lanyon is a cis-gender hetero female, but when someone speaks openly about it on the popular book discussion sites and blogs, the conversation tends to degenerates into a nasty shit storm. When the dust eventually settles, most of the m/m community opts for the 'no harm' mind set; an author has to take the deception to the extreme--fabricated life experience, etc.--before folks feel it crosses an ethical line.

People are willing to look the other way with Lanyon because she's maintained a neutral persona, writes well, acts professionally and has been very generous to the m/m community. I happen to be more familiar with her cyber past, so I realize she's a very driven and ambitious person who, sadly, cut some ethical corners to quit the day job and write full time. And now that she's financially successful—300K last year, so she says—I've noticed more cracks developing in her professionalism, which is why I landed here.

**continued**

**continued**

I needed a safe place to unload after reading one of Lanyon's posts on an obscure blog she writes under her mainstream pen name that gets zip traffic. Why she doesn't have that particular post set to private is anyone's guess, but it reveals the real feelings behind the professional façade. After saying how much she loves her readers, loves talking with them and hearing their stories and gets satisfaction from knowing she's able to entertain and touch them, she goes on to say that being able to earn a comfortable living doing what she loves makes her patient with the occasional intrusive or rude fan, but she's seeing an increase in the number of 'rude and intrusive' on-line interactions which she attributes to reader 'entitlement'. Then she gives the following letter--which I'm guessing was similar to the email someone up thread mentioned getting a polite reply to--as an example:

"I've been reading one of your books, which I'm enjoying a lot. Out of curiosity, are you a woman writing under a nom de plume? There is a similarity in your writing to another author I read. I've had the experience before reading m/m fiction written by female authors. The gender doesn't bother me at all, but I prefer it if it's out in the open. Many thanks from a fan!"

At this point her tone switches to a mini-rant. She says the question was 'so offensive on so many levels', and the person who sent it was a 'misogynistic creep'. She thought it was a 'smarmy' 'fishing expedition' sent by someone who probably didn't even read her books, let alone was a fan. She concedes she understands why people are curious, but fumes if this person genuinely didn't care whether m/m fiction was written by a woman, then they wouldn't be asking the question, and therefore they are 'biased', 'prejudiced', 'bigots'. She finally says she 'despises' them but then softens things by saying she knows these questions aren't usually 'fueled by malevolence' and it's a product of being a reader in the 'Age of Entitlement'. She wraps up by circling back to how much she loves interacting with her readers again, and says she's become 'close friends' with many of them. But ultimately all she owes any reader is the best book she can write. Period.

Umm, I guess no one deserves simple honesty.

**continued**

Fraus thread

^ asshole reply

Can anyone recommend any titles that aren't complete crap? I actually don't care about the gender of the author -- some of the male authors (Ethan Day, Jeff Erno) have written bad books, too.

VOTN was being generous when he said that 5% of the books are readable. The whole genre is a cesspool.

All that Josh Lanyon gal needs to do is declare herself trans! Problem solved.

R107 thats because women are basically useless

[quote]Can anyone recommend any titles that aren't complete crap? I actually don't care about the gender of the author -- some of the male authors (Ethan Day, Jeff Erno) have written bad books, too.

Amy Lane. If you look at her author picture, she is the prototypical frau author of this genre, but her prose is head and shoulders above almost most of the others. She tends to rely a little too heavily on writing men who want to be domesticated, but she never dips into the "Clothes. Too many clothes" trope, and moreso than any woman writing gay erotica, she seems to understand how gay relationships work.

She has a series (3 books at present) "Chase in Shadow," "Dex in Blue," and "Ethan in Gold," which are set around a Corbin Fisher-esque porn studio. I bought the first one on a whim, and I liked it so much, I've kept going back to her. They're not all winners, but her average is much, much higher than anyone else, even more than the ambiguously gendered Josh Lanyon.

I'm making myself a little vulnerable here, but her most recent book "The Bells of Times Square" which is set in part during WWII honestly made me cry.

There's also Scott Sherman (who I'm pretty sure actually is a man) who writes a series of mysteries about a gay escort--"First You Fall," "Second You Sin," "Third You Die." They aren't erotica, but they're good beach reading.

There were some great female writers doing popslash (Nsync slash fic) back in the day. They were often British (not always though). But they mainly wrote short stories, writing a novel is a whole other ball game.

I wonder what some of the best ones went on to - some names IIRC Helen, Wax, Torch, Kayly.

If you like mysteries I can't recommend Michael Nava's Henry Rios Mysteries highly enough. They're well written with a protagonist who suffers through the same trials in life we all do.

Another good one is "Men of the Mean Streets: Gay Noir" which is a bit uneven, but still a very readable collection of short stories.

My personal favorite for m/m romance is probably "Zero at the Bone" by Jane Seville which I've recommended on here before. It's part spy novel, part gay romance.

I refuse to read a book with a (Book 1) subtitle.

Being part of a series means the story will never end, and be dragged out for as long as the author can squeeze royalties from the characters.

Has anyone read anything by Rick Reed? All of his books are highly rated, but I read one of them -- Hungry for Love -- and didn't enjoy it, so I'm skeptical about reading him again.

Women are such cunts.

A lot of the women who write m/m claim that they're queer, lesbians or trans anyways.

I know people hate on the female writers but a lot of times they're better than the men in writing it. You can usually tell the male writer because they're obsessed with size and will drop it in everywhere. Like he dropped off his laundry wearing a jeans that showed off his 9 inch penis.

Just because someone is a gay man does not mean they know how to write a sex scene.

Not everyone likes Rick Reed's books R139 but at least you can be sure he's a gay man, which meets the OP's criteria. He even has a gay son.

I've liked a couple of his books. "Raining men" is about this guy who's a kind of a sex addict who has sex with everyone and anyone in Chicago and his emotional journey. It wasn't too bad.

Another guy who writes interesting m/m books is J.F. Smith. "Latakia" is a fun book if you don't take it too seriously.

For all that there's an awful lot of horrible fanfic out there in the world, there's also some really good stuff. It's a pity most fanfic writers who have been successful at crossing over are like E.L. James-- horrible writers who are good at self-promotion.

But then the old school writers of fic don't really believe in filing the numbers off and publishing fanfic outside of fannish circles. Just wasn't done. If you were gonna try to get something published somewhere other than a zine or fanfic site, you would create original characters in an original universe.

Writing ability doesn't have anything to do with gender near as I can tell, though it's true that slash was primarily written by women back in the day; now that fanfic is far more common, seems clear the percentage of men writing it has gone up.

Of course part of the gender split has to do with women preferring their porn in written form versus men preferring movies, but that's shifting now too as porn of all varieties is more accessible to everyone.

Fraus write it because they can objectify men.

I remember reading something the actor Gale Harold said years ago when they asked him why Queer As Folk fans were mostly fraus. He said it made sense, they never got to objectify men and in a gay show, men are objectified. Women are attracted to men (straight women anyway) and so this was a perfect scenario for them.

He was right.

It's not objectifying men, whether they are gay or straight. It's more like playing with dolls for them and writing neverending soap scenarios. QAF was a soap. I'm gay and I could never watch that crappy show because it was a crappy soap with crappy characters. Women love crappy melodramas.

But we're talking a minority of women who are into this. The vast majority of women don't read m/m books or watched QAF.

[quote]But we're talking a minority of women who are into this. The vast majority of women don't read m/m books or watched QAF.

Actually that's not true. A recent study of porn preferences by gender found that gay porn, both lesbian and m/m, was the most popular type for women as a gender. It was orders of magnitude more popular among women than among men.

R146

"The most common category for female visitors? “Lesbian porn”—which means either the site gets a lot of lesbian visitors, or straight women would rather see girl-on-girl action than what passes for “female-friendly” straight porn."

It has nothing to do with m/m or gay men.

The majority of women prefer watching lesbian sex than anything else.

Also, and this is the most important aspect which goes over everyone's head, women love alternative porn not because they like it but because they don't like the straight stuff. That's hardly an endorsement.

Well I don't know how scientific the study was since it was Porn hub but they did say women were also watching gay male sex.

"Pornhub’s Lesbian category is the leading favorite among the ladies, with Gay (male) following close at second place. "

Also it's probably a simpler explanation. The guys in gay porn are much more attractive than the guys in straight. The focus in straight porn is always on the women. The focus in gay porn is on the guys. Instead of watching one guy you get to watch 2 or more guys.

Read the study, r147.

m/m porn is more popular among women than among men.

No R149

If it was the case then all women would watch gay porn.

More straight women prefer watching the sapphic stuff.

But it's not the majority like I wrote.

Women would watch My Little Pony porn if it existed as long as it wasn't straight porn. They watch lesbian or gay porn because it's a reaction *against* the straight stuff not because they like it.

[quote]m/m porn is more popular among women than among men

Huh?

Where did I argue this?

Of course straight men won't watch m/m stuff

Josh Lanyon makes 300k? Wow.

R151 That makes no sense. Who watches porn they don't like? Watching porn is very much a voluntary act and if you're going to watch it, you're going to watch the type you like. So if women are watching lesbian and gay male porn, then that's what's getting them off. Stop acting like women are a different species.

R154, you don't understand human nature and don't get what R151 wrote

They want to watch porn but they don't like the straight stuff. They don't seek it out the gay stuff at first! "Hey I want to watch to guys fucking!" and look it up. They look at what's available online and they end up with something that's less offensive than straight porn but it's still not their cup of tea. It's the lesser of two evils. Not difficult to understand.

154

Women who say they love m/m porn always say: I watch m/m because I don't like straight porn.

They always make a point of saying this. Never read or heard one of these women claim "I only watch m/m...I've seen straight porn."

If straight porn was more to their liking they wouldn't watch m/m porn.

Most women aren't interested in visual porn. That's why they read shit like these stupid gay romance novels and 50 Shades of Grey

r150, proportionally bigger is not the same as bigger in terms of actual numbers.

Only 5% of google porn searches are for gay male stuff....women make up 51% of the population, if they loved it so much the market would be bigger

it should read "I only watch m/m...I've NEVER seen straight porn."

Exactly R157

R155 I think you know nothing about women and women's sexuality. Not surprising on a DL site.

I wonder if we aren't taking into account the very newness of online publishing, which is bound to reshuffle all the traditions, rules, codes, etc. There will be different kinds if authors, different kinds of readers, even.

It isn't just that anyone who wants to can publish now. It's that publishers no longer control content. Themes and styles (or writing) hitherto marginalized or more or less banned become mainstream.

Will the future of gay lit see the established authors switching over to the new platform and its demands? Edmund White, the patriarch of gay lit in its post-Stonewall form, said more or less in a recent book that he wasn't sure what market remained for hardcover gay fiction, even with his name on it. Ethan Mordden has been publishing installments of a new Buddies story on his blog. But there's no money in that, is there? Is online publishing going to turn gay lit into a hobby?

One last thought--when the first modern gay novels started coming out, in the early 1970s, some of the popular titles were in fact written by women. That famous one about the runner and his coach. (Sorry--I forget the title.) And Haakon, by an author with just an initial and a last name, who turned out to be a woman. I always thought that was why the title character was into oral but not anal--just so the author didn't have to get into the "messy stuff."

[quote]One last thought--when the first modern gay novels started coming out, in the early 1970s, some of the popular titles were in fact written by women. That famous one about the runner and his coach. (Sorry--I forget the title.)

I'm not sure The Front Runner is any better than these ebooks that the frauen have crapped out. It was groundbreaking because it was the first.

I haven't re-read it for a few years, but I remember it being rather misogynistic and also rather shaming of femme men. The phrase "neither of us was going to be the woman" is sticking out in my mind. And maybe the way the gay men are presented is more reflexive of a pre-AIDS America, I don't know.

And I'm not sure novels written by men are that much better. I got an audiobook of one of Michael Thomas Ford's books, listened to about half an hour, and was so repulsed by it that I've never tried to listen again.

"I'm not sure The Front Runner is any better than these ebooks that the frauen have crapped out."

'The Front Runner,' as dated as it may seem, had literary merit; allegory, metaphor, mature complex relationships, and a tragic ending, which is against the "M/M Romance" genre.

Warren doesn't/didn't treat her male characters like cuddle toys on a game board.

One can't categorically say that ALL women writers can't write gay men well.

It's just that the floodgates are open now, and the worst yet most aggressively promotional authors float to the top, like turds in a toilet.

And yes, I know that's a terrible phrase, but it's no worse than the crapfest of frau-fiction.

[quote]One can't categorically say that ALL women writers can't write gay men well.

I absolutely agree with that, and I've cited an example I personally like very much.

I may not quite be able to put this into written words exactly the way I'm thinking about this, so I'm sorry if this is a little clumsy.

I'm not going to dispute that the Front Runner is a classic nor its importance in the history of gay literature, but I can't help but wonder if Nell Warren was going to publish it today (she's still alive, right?) if it would get noticed. I'm not talking about among the same women who are consuming these ebooks, I mean more broadly. I guess it's true that it doesn't dip into the HAE well that the modern genre seems to require, but it does have the staple of the late-60s/early-70s gay zeitgeist: the dead fag in the third reel.

Then, take a look at the primary relationship in the book, and transpose that onto Lance Black and Tom Daley. They've gotten plenty of comments about how there must be some kind of intense psychological damage in one or the other, but in this celebrated cultural touchstone for gay men of a certain age, you have the exact same thing.

Christopher Rice--famous for being his mother's son and occasionally barfing out novels of his own--has a podcast that for reasons I can't even explain to myself, I listen to (note: this is not an endorsement. Stay away unless you're a masochist). He's now attempting to cash in on the trend (with gay, bisexual, and straight erotica), and recently kind of delineated the idea. It's not about following the progression of a couple, it's about following Couple X until they get their HAE, and then the second one picks up with Couple Y who were tangentially related to Couple X, etc. No one wants to read about half of Couple X being unfaithful and tested. It's just a very clear formula that A+B = HAE. The shading around the story (and that's done with varying skill) may be different, but the bones are the same.

There's also apparently something called "Gay For You" that comes up in these. That one's hard for me to wrap my head around. I've certainly fooled around with straight guys, and had a very intense relationship with a man I suspect was mostly straight, but was going through a rough patch in his life and the corresponding rough patch happening simultaneously sort of drew us together, although that was never something that was going to get an HAE.

Maybe if we're lucky, we'll eventually get to a place where gay men can write erotica aimed at other gay men that women can also enjoy. Until then, I guess I'll pick and choose the wheat from the chaff.

TL;DR - VOTN pontificates on something way too much.

VOTN, there's Alex Woolfson, a gay man who writes gay superhero erotic graphic novels (that's a mouthful.) He's hugely popular with women and acknowledges that the majority of his readers are straight women, though gay men seem to be increasingly a share of his readership.

To give an idea of just how much money you can make writing m/m relationships for women readers, here's a kickstarter page Alex started to raise funds to produce a "Young Protectors" book.

He asked for $14,000. He got $133,640.

R165, that's not exemplary.

Comic fans are an entirely different genre. Alex has a big fan base from the comic world already. He obviously has the swag and products completely conceptualized.

Still, it is pretty amazing how much he got (minus the ten percent cut from KS).

[quote]There's also apparently something called "Gay For You" that comes up in these. That one's hard for me to wrap my head around.

GFY is the worst. A straight man spontaneously turns "gay" just for you. And often, the gay character is feminized to the nth degree in those books.

[quote]He's now attempting to cash in on the trend (with gay, bisexual, and straight erotica)

I don't think Chris is much of a writer, but at least the first few books (esp. A Density of Souls) he wrote were entertaining beach reads. Instead of writing this MMF nonsense, he should write Matt Bomer fanfic! I bet his mom would love that.

[quote]I don't think Chris is much of a writer, but at least the first few books (esp. A Density of Souls) he wrote were entertaining beach reads. Instead of writing this MMF nonsense, he should write Matt Bomer fanfic! I bet his mom would love that.

I will confess to also having enjoyed Density of Souls.

His last non-erotic novel was published by 47North, which is a small publishing imprint owned by Amazon. The days of Tina Brown signing him to a two-book contract based solely on his last name are long gone, so I guess if he's found a way to make money until he gets his inheritance, good for him.

I can't really throw stones. Deep in the bowels of Amazon is an ebook I wrote. No force on this earth will compel me to share its title with you.

Gays have directed and acted in many women's movies and even written a few, so no big deal. As long as it pleases its audience.

The m/m group on Goodreads puts out a collection of shorts every year. It's usually 40+ stories with almost every theme (historical, paranormal, etc., etc.). Sometimes you can find some good stuff in them. Maybe because they are free stories and haven't been through 50 beta readers who all want the same plot, dialogue, ending?

Well, there's an interesting confirmation of women writing tons of gay novels. The m/m "romance" group on goodreads is by far the largest glbt-focused group on that site, with over 17,000 members. It's moderated chiefly by someone named Lori, and of the other 9 moderators, 8 appear to be female either by uname or icon.

Yes, that Goodreads group is like the Cylon factory in Battlestar Galactica.

It's the center of all regurgitative M/M fiction fraudom.

[quote]The m/m group on Goodreads puts out a collection of shorts every year. It's usually 40+ stories with almost every theme (historical, paranormal, etc., etc.). Sometimes you can find some good stuff in them.

I checked out a few stories from this year's event and they were worse than ever.

I just read Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda. It was written by a woman and turned out pretty good. It was published by Harper Collins, so she was working with real editors and not Goodreads' users.

For those who care, Josh Lanyon just fessed up about the duplicity:

The best novel about a gay man written by a woman I have read is Jane Hamilton's "The Short History of a Prince." It helps that Hamilton is close friends with a number of gay men and that she has the artist's gift of imagining herself into lives other than her own.

[quote] Male writers rarely get women right.

So much for you, then, Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, Virgil, William Shakespeare, John Milton, Daniel Defoe, Stendhal, W. M. Thackeray, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Gustave Flaubert, Leo Tolstoy, Henry James, Theodore Dreiser, E. M. Forster, Marcel Proust, James Joyce, D.H. Lawrence, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Vladimir Nabokov! r13 has spoken!

Some of the male gay romance writers you know are male because they show up at book signings and conventions often with their partners or boyfriends are the writers like Rick Reed, Andrew Grey, TJ Klune, Jay Bell and Kade Boehme. Those authors all have big social media presence whether it's youtube or facebook or instagram or a blog and usually loaded with pictures. Lanyon was always very cagey and never had a single photo nor any specific info about her life which instantly should have made people suspicious. The rumors were always out there about her.

[quote]For those who care, Josh Lanyon just fessed up about the duplicity:

She certainly has a high opinion of herself, doesn't she?

[quote]This story can be read as a standalone and ends with a HEA

That's from an Amazon description of one of these novella.

Surely, those things could be assumed.

Straight female M/M author duo 'Kindle Alexander' gets read to filth by gay male author

One of pair of gay romance straight female writers "identifies as a gay male."

Then one of her fans replies that s/he hopes gays get sent off the the Australian Outback to die.

The author then replies that the comment "makes me smile."

Double cunt asshole-ness from a supposed "ally" who actually hates gays and makes money off of writing crappy books about gays.

Has anyone read Goofus and Gallant (as in Highlights for Children) fan fiction? It's wonderful. Don't know if it was written by a man or a woman.

I'm glad the author of The Queen and the Homo Jock King is here to set us straight.

Perhaps Chuck Tingle could weigh in too.

People buy this stuff!

They say women think m/m guys act like women, and vice versa. Gay men are MEN and gay women are WOMEN.

I'm intrigued, I might like these trashy books more than serious gay literature.

[quote]I'm guessing they are playing out fantasies that they don't want to portray women as desiring. Women are already thought of as subservient to men so they enjoy writing a male character that enjoys being the bitch in order not to betray their own sex.

Oh please.

Is any story that has a gay character(s) in it a gay book? Because shouldn’t characters reflect a diverse population? Or is it just gay if the main character(s) is gay?