What would you like us to review?

Hmm, so well-researched that they don’t realise that one of the male authors they cite is a woman…………………..

Do they really think that the sex in m/f romances is not ‘fetished’?

I’ve read all these arguments before and yes, they have some merit, but this article lost me here:

“According to Brownworth, “queer writing gives queers their own agency in describing and portraying their own lives;” however, straight women who are unfamiliar with queer lives fetishize “the lives of gay men” (Brownworth). There are some women writers such as Erastes and Alex Beecroft, who sexually identify as gay men. In fact, Beecroft is married to a man and a mother of two kids. [FTL]”

My daughter is a longtime friend of Alex Beecroft (under her real name) and has even edited some of her books. She and Beecroft talk online for several hours weekly. For one, Beecroft has never identified as male other than to choose a male sounding pen name. Beecroft is married, but is agender/non-binary and uses she/they pronouns. In other words, they’re queer, so it’s a queer person writing queer romance. The fact is that this article’s outrage over straight women writing m/m loses some credibility when they get the facts wrong, PLUS seem to dismiss the possibility that a person assigned female at birth could be anything but a “woman.”

Another point I think they get wrong is to consider monogamy a heteronormative construct. I think it’s pretty clear the desire for long term relationships crosses gender/sexual orientation boundaries, or else why the F would the LGBTQ+ community fight so hard for marriage rights? I know the desire for marriage rights wasn’t universal in the LGBTQ+ community, but it was in the majority. Also, at least in most of the queer romances I read, the relationship dynamics and what we can expect of the characters is definitely different.

This article has been posted here before, and I’ve read it then and done more research and reading since. I’ve also read articles written in response by gay men who disagree with this POV and believe the availability and popularity of queer romances is mostly a step forward. Yes, I think m/m sex has been fetishized by some authors and readers, but so has m/f sex, especially in books considered dark or all those historicals dealing with virgin heroines.

In fact, I’d go even farther and say the stock characters in most fictional genres, police procedurals, courtroom dramas, military and most certainly suspense and thrillers also “fetishize” in that they are unrealistic portrayals there to feed our personal fantasies (not necessarily sexual fantasies, but fantasies about how the world works).

And do we really only want people to “write what they know?” I guess Anne Perry did murder someone so she has the right to write murder mysteries, but how many other authors are actually part of the field they write about? I mean, if you only write what you know, then I guess we shouldn’t have any more discussions about non-historians writing historical romances. If you don’t know the time period inside out, then should you be writing what you don’t know? My daughter and I were just discussing the problem with only wanting “own voices” representation in the disabled community. Many in that community, including her, believe we need more abled authors who are willing to learn about disabilities and write characters. The risk of some getting it wrong is outweighed by the exposure that a compassionate author can provide.

Of course there is such a thing as research, and any good author does it, whatever they are writing about, including good m/m authors.