Oh I know, I knew I was going for those worms, and I know it's been discussed a zillions times by people, but... I went anyway. *g*
m/m fic isn't gay fic, as it tends to be sex/romance orientated and bears little resemblance to gay men's real lives. Oh I know... I've been trying to work out what's "gay fic" and what's "m/m" and what the difference is, and how you can even tell anymore when so many women writers adopt male pseuds for their books (e.g. Erastes, in fact)... I mean how do you tell?!
It's all very well saying that men write gay fic in a different style to women, so the style/focus should be able to tell you, but... is that always true? And isn't it stereotyping gay writers as much as women writers? Suggesting that they should never think differently from "everyone else"?
"The Boy I Love" is a great example - I went into that without really having taken note of the author, but assuming that it was a man purely because I'd bought it at Gay's the Word in London, and it was about men, from a male pov. At no point reading the story did I come across anything that made me wonder any differently - it was only when I looked up the author to see if they'd written anything else that I found out it was a woman. On the other hand, I've read m/m books purportedly by male authors who used phrases that I've never heard a bloke say, but are euphemisms used widely by women I know. And I've found out in a couple of those cases that there's actually questions over whether the author is in fact a man... *sighs*
Perhaps "genres" should only ever be attached by someone other than the author/editor/publisher/marketer of a book... then they'd fall less into the "I want it to sell to these people because I'm better/worse/etc" grounds...
m/m fic isn't gay fic, as it tends to be sex/romance orientated and bears little resemblance to gay men's real lives.
Oh I know... I've been trying to work out what's "gay fic" and what's "m/m" and what the difference is, and how you can even tell anymore when so many women writers adopt male pseuds for their books (e.g. Erastes, in fact)... I mean how do you tell?!
It's all very well saying that men write gay fic in a different style to women, so the style/focus should be able to tell you, but... is that always true? And isn't it stereotyping gay writers as much as women writers? Suggesting that they should never think differently from "everyone else"?
"The Boy I Love" is a great example - I went into that without really having taken note of the author, but assuming that it was a man purely because I'd bought it at Gay's the Word in London, and it was about men, from a male pov. At no point reading the story did I come across anything that made me wonder any differently - it was only when I looked up the author to see if they'd written anything else that I found out it was a woman. On the other hand, I've read m/m books purportedly by male authors who used phrases that I've never heard a bloke say, but are euphemisms used widely by women I know. And I've found out in a couple of those cases that there's actually questions over whether the author is in fact a man... *sighs*
Perhaps "genres" should only ever be attached by someone other than the author/editor/publisher/marketer of a book... then they'd fall less into the "I want it to sell to these people because I'm better/worse/etc" grounds...
Reply
Leave a comment