Unpacking the Case Against M/M: Part 3, A Little Perspective

Hello, and welcome to part three of Unpacking the Case Against M/M.  I started this series in the wake of Lambda Literary Award's shift in eligibility guidelines.  Just so you know, I don't object to Lambda's decision. As blogger Kaigou points out, the technical definition of (fill in the blank) literature is literature by members of the (fill in the blank) community about being a member of the (fill in the blank) community.  When it comes to LGBT lit, that pretty much rules out straight women writing across gender, and really, if we're keeping to the spirit of the notion, should rule out queer women doing the same. To my mind, our real beef here is with the romance publishing establishment's steadfast refusal to acknowledge m/m as a legitimate subgenre of romance. 

But however you feel about the Lambda decision, if you're a woman m/m author, chances are you're not too happy with the way some people have characterized you in the ensuing discussion of the LLA rule change. Words like homophobe, voyeur, exploiter, and fetishist have been flying fast and thick. I think there are a lot of assumptions at play here, so I'm taking a look at a bunch of them, one by one.  Last time around, we looked at the charge that women who write m/m are exerting cultural privilege.

While examining that idea, I pointed out that while our culture is saturated with heterosexual male sexual fantasy, that fantasy positions women not as sexual beings in our own right, but as objects of and accessories to straight male sexual agency.  And that's just the women who please the het male gaze.

Men, and straight men in particular, are privileged to look, but not be looked at, to fantasize, but not be fantasized about. Women, on the other hand, are looked at, written about, touched, hit and manipulated economically. We have little control over how we are represented in mainstream culture, and millions of girls and women harm their health every day, trying to live up to the unreasonable appearance standards that are held up to us as the only valid way for us to be accepted as sexual beings.

In this hostile environment, one of the few safe ways for women to explore their own sexuality is through writing.  The tradition of women writing smut for one another goes back to what many regard as the first novel, Tale of Genji, written by lady in waiting Murasaki Shkibu, for her friends, the other ladies in the 11th century Japanese imperial court. I contend that women writing sex stories for one another is a core element of women's genuine sexuality as we've developed it within the constraints of male dominant culture. 

Likewise, male/male romance in all its many forms also constitutes an adaptive response to patriarchal restrictions that makes room for and expresses a non-male-mediated sexuality. Writing and reading about men gives women an opportunity to pick up the mechanism of our own oppression -- the binary gender system -- and manipulate it to our own ends. Writing hot stories about men together is an opportunity to explore sexual agency in its most accessible form.  It's also a nice break from the daily grind of cultural expectation, heterosexual power dynamics and gender role baggage. In my opinion, this is central to women's enthusiasm for m/m. At the very least, I can tell you that it is the shining light at the heart of my own.

I know from my newsletter group and from my blog hits that the audience for male/male romance is international.  I doubt I need to point out that in Japan, boys love and yaoi constitute a portion of every book store that outstrips the romance section in U.S. bookstores. There, the genre exploded in the seventies, about the same time women Star Trek fans started writing slash fanfiction.  Then, there's Emily Veinglory's medieval nuns who created homoerotic male icons.

My point here is that all these women across nations and generations are not doing this flippantly.  We have our reasons, and again, it speaks to the deeply entrenched distrust of female sexuality that we are treated with such suspicion.

I have a feeling that people who think m/m is a passing fad driven by profit motivated romance authors and that it will go away when the next big thing comes along are going to be pretty disappointed. Women will probably continue to face recrimination for it, but I don't think we'll be giving up m/m any time soon.  The simple truth is that it's one of the best venues we have for sexual expression that is safe, accessible, and offers an alternative to het power dynamics and rigid gender roles.

So this time, let's try flipping the closing question around another way: Who benefits when people who are struggling with sexual oppression recognize and honor their struggle in each other?

Comments

[Charlie]

Exactly Kirsten. It's the 21st century. If a woman wants to get her kink on reading or writing m/m romance more power to her :)

I'm all for pushing boundaries (which hopefully means someday the handful of us guys who read romance won't get such odd looks trolling the romance section at borders. lol)

[kirsten saell]

"I don't understand this notion that it is difficult to write female characters with sexual agency. As a straight male reader of romance I love to read about automonous and assertive women in romance. Kirsten do you feel it is more difficult to write this because of internal biases or because the audience for romance simply isn't asking for it? I know I am :)"

I think it's a combination of both things, really. I tried an experiment once, where I picked a few random seduction scenes with very alpha heroes and more meek heroines, and rejiggered them in my head so both characters were women. The results were...uncomfortable. And when I switched them so the alpha hero was a woman and the heroine was a man, it was even more disconcerting.

So I do think women--even me--can only tolerate so much dominance in our romance heroines. I've written an alpha heroine in an m/f before--if there were ever a heroine who was willing to go after what she wanted in bed, she was it--but it's the least consistently well-received of my novels. Not sure whether it was the alpha-heroine dynamic or that the f/f scenes with the male voyeur pushed some Girls Gone Wild buttons, but something in it rubbed a lot of readers the wrong way. With is sad, because in many ways (certainly sexual tension), I feel it's my strongest book.

I think in a lot of ways, f/f sensuality--whether it's within an m/f romance, a menage, or on its own--is my own way of writing those sexually autonomous "women in pursuit" in a way that's more...appealing to me. Because I have a real appreciation for manly men, or if they're beta, for those beta traits to derive from a place of strength and self-control/denial.

And though I relate to and am attracted to women who wear the pants, they don't turn me on quite to the degree that a soft, tender, femme can. So even in my f/f stuff, it's almost always about one heroine who's "made it to the destination", so to speak, and another who's following in her steps. Sometimes with a man involved, just to make things really confusing, lol.

"I'd like to see the ladies who participate in the m/m romance genre treated with a little more respect by those who are suddenly feeling under siege from female writers of m/m whose only crime is writing a story showing two human beings falling in love."

I do agree with that. And not only when m/m fits the needs of, or accurately reflects, gay men. Because really, even if it is just a kink for some women (and that's primarily what it is for me), part of having sexual agency is being able to say, "Dudes, I just like reading about guys being sensual with each other. Wanna make something of it?"

[Charlie]

I don't understand this notion that it is difficult to write female characters with sexual agency. As a straight male reader of romance I love to read about automonous and assertive women in romance. Kirsten do you feel it is more difficult to write this because of internal biases or because the audience for romance simply isn't asking for it? I know I am :)

As for m/m romance I fully support those women who enjoy writing and reading this fast growing genre. No explanation should have to be given to "justify" what a person likes to read or write in the romance world. Lamba has a right to make their own rules for their own awards but I'd like to see the ladies who participate in the m/m romance genre treated with a little more respect by those who are suddenly feeling under siege from female writers of m/m whose only crime is writing a story showing two human beings falling in love.

[kirsten saell]

"I don't see m/m as a stepping stone to having women explore their own sexuality. They could well be exploring a different type of sexism than they would encounter directly."

Well, I think women are attracted to m/m as a genre for a variety of reasons, and it's likely that none of those reasons apply across the board--other than maybe the kind of honest voyeurism (sexual or otherwise) that leads us to read any romance (or any type of fiction, really). Because women wouldn't read m/m if they didn't get off on it on some level--either sexually or emotionally--right?

I have my own hypotheses about m/m readers who *only* read m/m, but I know they're probably not going to be true for every (or maybe even any) reader. The "eeewwww, girl bits" reaction troubles me, whether it's directed at m/f or f/f. It *is* homophobia when you have a group of readers advocating for mainstreaming m/m, but want f/f to stay in the "LGBT ghetto" where it belongs, because "what if I accidentally buy one? OMG! I got some one me!!! Get the disinfectant!"

I don't know if more readers would enjoy f/f if they could find it. I mean, my one m/m/f title raked in more in ten days than my next-best performing book (m/f with two short f/f scenes) did in six months. And frankly, my bi-female stuff is generally my better work, because my heart's more in it. It's kind of sad to think that women would choose not to purchase a solidly reviewed m/f romance based only on the letters "f/f" in the warning, but after my experiences online, I have to assume at least some of them did. :(

As far as writing female characters with sexual agency, it's not easy. I've read women admit all over the place that they'll tolerate a lot more "bad behavior" in their heroes than they will in their heroines. I'll admit, this is a fine line I walk when I write f/f for a non-lesbian readership--getting the subtle D/s dynamic most straight women and many bi women (including me) enjoy right, without my dominant heroine being unlikeable. Because as much as I like to preach about sexual agency and autonomy and being assertive in taking what you want, even I have those biases that tell me women should be passive and quiet and take what's given to them by men, and not demand one bit more.

So I think m/m is a lot of different things to a lot of different women. It can be symptomatic, curative, progressive, regressive, cathartic, or just one more aspect of human sexuality to explore. All depends on the place you're coming to it from, really.

[Ally Blue]

Yeah I've always found it disturbing to see women go "eeewwwww GIRLS!" when someone, say, posts a story on an fanfic thread that has a female in it. And I have indeed seen that. It's.... weird. I have to wonder about those people. However, I do know some folks who only read m/m romance, and most of them will say they do some because they relate more to the characters and relationships in the books they find, rather than just because the characters are men. I hear some people saying that the m/f romances they find lately just don't have female protagonists they can relate to or particularly care about. I dunno. TBH I don't read a lot of romance. I know, traitor! LOL. I read a lot of horror (Books of Blood! I love Clive Barker!), old sci-fi, stuff like that. I wonder if some of those readers would enjoy soem of the f/f out there, if they could actually find any. There's precious little, relatively speaking.

[Emilie]

I'm appreciating this thoughtful series. I don't agree with all the points made, however. I'm not reading m/m for "a non-male-mediated sexuality." I want the perspective to seem believably male, and I expect the protagonists to act at least reasonably like men in a relationship together might act. A story gains a level of realism by having a take on sexuality which is very much male-mediated.

A lot of the books I like do deal with "cultural expectations," power dynamics, and "gender role baggage." They just look at those issues from a different angle.

I don't see m/m as a stepping stone to having women explore their own sexuality. They could well be exploring a different type of sexism than they would encounter directly.

The femdomme I've read has just been really unconvincing and has especially struck me as having badly-written dynamics.

I've also read comments here and there from at least a few women who love m/m stories but are homophobic about f/f. It's interesting to consider the ramifications there.

[kirsten saell]

"It simply feels more natural for me to write men than to write women. To me, this doesn't and shouldn't say anything at all about society, or a woman's place in it. It only speaks to my own personal experience."

Hey, Ally. I was mainly addressing Jessica's point in the OP. Because for her, and I think for many female authors who write m/m, it *is* a way of exploring sexual agency in ways that feel comfortable to them.

"That would be awesome. I won't be writing them, though. (reading, sure, just not writing!)"

I do think for many authors like you, it's simply a matter of playing to your strengths, or writing what calls most strongly to you. And I think we all do that.

But for some authors and readers, it's clearly more. I've come across some female readers who won't read any type of romance other than m/m, and I find that...curious. Because on the one hand, we keep saying "love is love and gender doesn't matter", but on the other, for some, gender seems to be the most important aspect of this.

I'm like you, frankly, in that I don't really relate to traditional female roles, etc, etc. I was married, but I wasn't a "good wife". I'm a mother, but I'm not a very nurturing one. All my friends growing up and most of them in adulthood were men. Perhaps if I weren't interested in fucking women, I wouldn't be so interested in reading romances with them. :P

As far as the "kink" thing goes, I kind of feel that when women are as free of gender-political baggage as men are, we'll be free to enjoy m/m even if it's just for the kink of it the way men do with f/f--without any higher purpose attached to it. Unless, of course, we want it to have a higher purpose. Which is cool, too. :)

[Ally Blue]

Kirsten, I'd also like to address some of your remarks, specifically about m/m being a "stepping stone" to writing about women (which should be our goal?) and one day being "just another kink". I write about men because this is what interests me. NOT because it's a "stepping stone" or because it's a "kink". My whole life, I've simply connected more with males than with other females, in real life as much as in fiction. It simply feels more natural for me to write men than to write women. To me, this doesn't and shouldn't say anything at all about society, or a woman's place in it. It only speaks to my own personal experience.

I am 45 years old; I know myself quite well at this point. I'm sorry if it makes anyone uncomfortable, but I have always written gay romance, and I fully expect that's what I always AM going to write. This is me. It's who and what I am. I understand that not everyone is interested in reading the gay romance genre. However, some of us ARE interested in it, and we certainly see it as something more substantial than a "kink". I know I do, and I won't apologize for that, or be made to feel (again) as if I'm somehow wrong, or defective as a woman.

I figure that's not really how you meant it, but TBH that's kind of how it came across for me. For what it's worth, I agree that there SHOULD be just as many books out there starring women who own their sexual power every bit as much as men do. That would be awesome. I won't be writing them, though. (reading, sure, just not writing!)

[Teddypig]

I just don't understand the dichotomy here. On the one hand, you're going out of your way to define the genre by the gender-identity/sexual orientations of its characters. You're stating that the LGBTQ-ness of this fiction is important enough that we are recognizing it with this award.

Yet at the same time, so many seem offended by the very idea of Lambda saying "we're going to define this award by the LGBTQ-ness of both a book's characters and its author." I honestly don't get it.

That is, why is focussing on LGBTQ characters because of their LGBTQ-ness okay, but focussing on LGBTQ authors for the same purpose is somehow...distasteful?

###############

Because the writer is a real person not a commodity and I don't remember having bought a piece of Clive Barker's private life with his books requiring him to publicly label what he does in the bedroom.

[kirsten saell]

"I see that kind of shaming directed at m/m women all the time. I can tell you, personally, that yes, I do need to use men as my model for sexual agency. Other alternatives are not present in my environment, not in adequate doses to counteract the programming I've endured."

OMG, don't even get me started on feminists, LOL.

On the one hand, I think leslit--with its commonalities with feminist lit--can sometimes be a great model for sexual agency for women. But at the same time, a lot of it comes across to me as a defensive rejection of the male--which is another way of defining yourself as you relate to men, after all, isn't it?

I think we'll all be better off when things settle out and we all inhabit a middle ground where it's okay to be whoever you want because YOU want to be that way, and where gender really doesn't matter. But yeah, we still have a long way to go.

"Other alternatives are not present in my environment, not in adequate doses to counteract the programming I've endured. M/M isn't perfect, no, and I agree that it is not an endpoint. I share your optimism that one day writing and reading about women with sexual agency will feel just as natural as writing and reading about men with sexual agency."

That's what I try to write. But I do have to walk a very fine line between what women would all agree we should be striving for (sexual agency, personal autonomy, all that stuff), and what women as readers are prepared to accept from female characters. It's telling that probably the most sexually liberated female character I've written has been pretty much the least well-received by readers.

But yes, stepping stones. They show us how far we've come and how far we have left to get to the other side. And we certainly can't expect every woman to be on the same stone, either. :)

Me, I'm going to keep writing romances with women in them (or not, as the mood takes me), and watching guy-on-guy porn. :P

[Jessica Freely]

Kirsten, I want to address what you said upstream about m/m being *just another way of saying "I need to use men as my model for sexual agency because women can't have it"?*, *how far we still have to go*, and *while I think m/m is a valuable stepping stone, I don't think it's the goal.*

I think you've put your finger on one of the big reasons why m/m gets hit so hard, particularly by feminist women. It does say some things about where we're at that maybe a lot of people don't want to hear. Speaking as a feminist, one of the most personally frustrating things I've encountered in feminist and other progressive circles is this idea that we should all be at a certain place in terms of our own liberation. Often, not being at that (as far as I can tell, arbitrarily designated) place is treated not as a failing of the movement, or as evidence of the power of normative social structures and attitudes, but as a personal failing of the individual.

I see that kind of shaming directed at m/m women all the time. I can tell you, personally, that yes, I do need to use men as my model for sexual agency. Other alternatives are not present in my environment, not in adequate doses to counteract the programming I've endured. M/M isn't perfect, no, and I agree that it is not an endpoint. I share your optimism that one day writing and reading about women with sexual agency will feel just as natural as writing and reading about men with sexual agency.

But in the meantime, stepping stones are what keep me out of the water and up here where I can breathe and look around and get my bearings. Without them, I have no hope of getting where I want to go.

[kirsten saell]

Sorry, I'm a multiple-comment abuser, but:

I just wanted to pose this question. If readers and authors are okay with the Lambas drawing that initial line, of saying "This is LGBTQ literature. This is what it's about--LGBTQ people. It's about exploring their lives and sometimes looking into their bedrooms," why are they NOT okay with Lambda saying "This award is for LGBTQ people"?

I just don't understand the dichotomy here. On the one hand, you're going out of your way to define the genre by the gender-identity/sexual orientations of its characters. You're stating that the LGBTQ-ness of this fiction is important enough that we are recognizing it with this award.

Yet at the same time, so many seem offended by the very idea of Lambda saying "we're going to define this award by the LGBTQ-ness of both a book's characters and its author." I honestly don't get it.

That is, why is focussing on LGBTQ characters because of their LGBTQ-ness okay, but focussing on LGBTQ authors for the same purpose is somehow...distasteful?

It's almost like we want RL to be more progressive than the fiction we write, at least in part, to facilitate RL progress. It's like we're saying "being LGBTQ in real life doesn't matter when it comes to this award" when the award itself is necessary because in real life, being LGBTQ still matters. A lot. If it didn't, LGBTQ literature wouldn't be necessary, right? It would just be literature, no prefix required.

[kirsten saell]

Hehe, isn't that what LGBT romance (or any romance) does? Sticks its nose in people's bedrooms?

And I kind of find it perplexing how many people assume sexual orientation is based on who sticks what in whom (or doesn't, as the case may be)?

I mean, the fact that I was in an m/f marriage for 15 years didn't make me straight. Lambda could look in my bedroom for evidence of my bisexuality, but other than the stack of f/f erotica next to the bed, they wouldn't find much. And what about LGBTQ writers who are virgins? Do they not count because there's nothing in their bedrooms to find?

It's not about who you fuck, Teddy--or even what parts you have. It's about *how you identify*.

[Teddypig]

Kirsten, what we should expect is for people to keep their nose out of other peoples bedrooms and respect their talent for what it is. Which is pretty much what I do.

[kirsten saell]

Right but that's the whole issue here is we all know the race is provable or gender is provable but is "openly gay" the right definition for qualifying what is Gay Lit?

Well, issues of gender are not as "provable" as you're implying. I mean, Caster Semenya has to go through a series of complex tests before her gender is either proven or disproven. A simple determination of XX or XY is not always adequate to determine gender.

What about people who are genetically male, but anatomically female? What about people who are gender-ambiguous at birth, or who develop characterisics counter to their chromosomal makeup?

Moreover, how openly LGBTQ are we talking? If Lambdas definition of "openly" is being willing to enter your pen name in a contest for LGBTQ authors, well, that isn't exactly commensurate with RL participation in Gay Pride parades or publicly holding hands in Red States or wearing a rainbow on your lapel. Considering how many authors use pen names, it seems entirely possible for Author X to be openly gay, while mild-mannered alter-ego Y enjoys a less open existence. And any question of "what will the Jamaican authors do?" boil down to this: would an author who faces real peril based on his/her culture's treatment of LGBTQ people enter a contest for lit exploring LGBTQ people's lives in the first place? Because wouldn't that be just as likely to get a person's butt kicked by bigots?

And we've kind of come to a place (I hope) where we should be able to expect that authors too ashamed of their sexuality to put their pen name on a list of LGBTQ authors while writing LGBTQ fiction should maybe not be considered for LGBTQ awards? Because, really, writing from inside the closet may be a reality for some, but doesn't it reinforce all that same negative shit we have to deal with but shouldn't? Shouldn't the authors honored be the ones who have the courage of their convictions, at least to the extent that they'd say, "Yeah, I, Sally Penname, am a lesbian"?

[Teddypig]

I have heard rumors that Marion Zimmer Bradley was lesbian right?

She was married and I never saw any public notice that she was gay.

I still like The Catch Trap and consider it an important defining book book for Gay Romance.

We are talking outside the awards about how to define Gay Lit using the writers orientation when one might never have been explicitly ever given and that is a far more slippery in slope than simply addressing the content.

[Teddypig]

Books by women that don't deal with women's issues are not women's lit. Books by men that do deal with women's issues are...also not women's lit.

Right but that's the whole issue here is we all know the race is provable or gender is provable but is "openly gay" the right definition for qualifying what is Gay Lit?

See Lambda now wants to define what is right gay and what is wrong gay.

That is why they are in big trouble and why I call them nuts and why the defining has been left off in the past and only the content worried about.

[kirsten saell]

Hehe, Teddypig. Of course [whatever] literature is are determined by content. But pretty much across the board, it is determined also by authorship. Books by women that don't deal with women's issues are not women's lit. Books by men that do deal with women's issues are...also not women's lit.

It would certainly raise some eyebrows if a bunch of male authors claimed to be writing women's fiction because their books dealt with women's issues. Or if a female author entered her biography of George Washington in a contest for women's lit simply because she's a woman.

That may not be what the founder was thinking when he created the Lambda awards, but it is applicable.

I have my own questions concerning women's exploration of sexual agency through m/m relationships...is it just another way of saying "I need to do use men as my model for sexual agency because women can't have it"? I get the casting off of gender-political baggage, but at the same time, I'm not that interested in reading about men's sexual conflicts from their position at the top of the gender food chain.

I think m/m does reinforce that women get to write what they want (which is good all around), but it also makes me realize how far we still have to go if--yet again--we turn solely to the male (even males of our own construct) in order to explore our sexuality.

And I think that plays out in the unpopularity of femdomme (because IMO, it's not the discomfort of seeing a man on his knees--women often love that in m/m--it's the discomfort of seeing a woman in control of her sexuality and exerting that control over someone else), and some of the visceral, negative, deeply offended reactions some women have to les-fic.

No, m/m is not a fad. It's not going away anytime soon. But while I think m/m is a valuable stepping stone, I don't think it's the goal. I think when women as a whole can write female characters who are unencumbered by that patriarchical baggage, we'll have reached our destination. And at that point, maybe m/m will become just another kink, something women read and write for entertainment alone. Which is okay with me, too. :)

[wren]

I like your series on this topic, too. And I agree with you that the romance industry needs to acknowledge this subgenre. Thanks for your thought-provoking work!

[Teddypig]

Actually Kaigou's arguments were the first I read that seemed totally based off assumptions being made and not facts.

LGBTQ Literature off the typical LGBTQ Shelf was always defined by the subject matter not the writer.

Deacon Maccubbin the founder of the awards declared what the exact intentions of the awards were for, originally 21 years ago and good enough till last year, again it was based on books containing subject matter important to the LGBTQ community not the writer who happened to write the book.

I really don't mind people arguing for or against the Foundations decision I just wish they would get their facts straight.

[twitter.com/GeorgeTAllwynn]

I am loving this series you are doing. Though the Lambda Litereary decicision does not necssicarly affect me, have to admit to some aggitation over it - as hetros were accepted before.

However, you are right - we need to fight this with the Romance industry. I was one of those Star Trek fanzine writers/readers back in the 80s - and by looking at the amount of fan fic slash on the internet, I don't see M/M going away soon.

Keep the good work up! I love reading your stuff!