In which I prove I'm a clueless straight male

[onyxhawke]

Talk of sex, stereotypes, and worse truth below.

I don't get it. Really I don't. I don't give a damn about which character is sharing sheets and swapping fluids with whom. Gay, straight, interracial, interspecies, pansexual or autoerotic, but for the love of carnal acts can we please pour a bit of reality into the stories that have a strong sex

Comments

[downtime_mayhem]

umm...I don't know why it is, but I can maybe tell you where it came from. Or at least, where I noticed it first, and that's slash fanfic. It's a tendency there to pair off EVERY guy with another, and only the really awful (and icky, everyone loves a sexy villain so they get laid no matter how evil) can't get a date. So the writer just makes them straight--gotta have some straight guys in there, right?

This really makes me want to send you my ms with the gay MC, the pansexual object of his desire, a cast of straight supporting characters, and an antagonist who Just Wants What's Best for the MC. (but it's not ready)

I don't write lesbians, though. Just no interest. Which is probably why none of my female characters have come out to me.

KD

[onyxhawke]

:: sigh ::

This is why I stopped reading fanfic... I thought that maybe this stuff wouldn't follow me home.

[saraphina_marie]

You seem to be encountering yaoi, which has made the jump from anime and manga into fiction. And at a fever pace. Yaoi is marketed towards women and they just devour the stuff (my best friend included). And many turn around and try to reproduce the art they love (my best friend is NOT included in this however, she sticks to non-fiction).
I have a friend that specializes in male/male erotica and when I am helping her sell at a con, I only have to mention to word, "yaoi" and the books fly off the shelves!
In a word, it's a fad. Keep your chin up, it'll be over soon.

[onyxhawke]

When can we make this go the way of 24/7 sweatbands, short-shorts on men and avocado green kitchens appliances?

[saraphina_marie]

Not soon enough, but we can all soldier on!
And there is some great male homo-erotica out there, Anne Rice's Cry to Heaven is really awesome. Much better than her vampy stuff, I think.
Slash fiction will always be with us, but I think in a few years less writers will be trying to actually get it published.

[ebourland]

>>>>While its possible I'm being guilty of being offended on behalf of a group I'm not a part of, like oh say people who insist that by allowing myself to be called black and not African - American I am somehow devaluing myself. I don't really think so though, most of these books resemble more the minstrel shows with parodies of blacks, than any life like depiction. The intent is different, but every time I get one of these stories I can't help but feel that there is some unintentional mockery going on.

Word. (And I mean that unironically.)

[mallory_blog]

M/M is more abundant and profitable - so it attracts writers who know next to nothing about it, they can't even wrap their brain around it very well. I do think there are het people both male and female who can write it very well - just as there are gay males and females who can write het fiction quite well but you aren't really talking about them.

[onyxhawke]

Dog no, I have two things that I'm shopping around that feature some sort of m/m relationship. But neither of them suffers from them above or the oh so original and delightful "and EVERY1Z DA GAYZZZZ".

[insert eye rolling, wretching and rotating head here]

[tcastleb]

I'll take a stab at this, since I do try to write more realistic M/M. I think the other posters are right in that slash and yaoi are a big thing, shiny and (relatively) new. Yes there's a lot of bad stuff, but there's a lot of good stuff too. Some of the e-book publishers (I'm partial to Loose Id) have some very good M/M stories that have plot and story along with the sex written by those of us who are serious writers and have practiced a lot and done workshops and whatever. And then there's also the ones that have bios that say, "I'm a stay-at-home mom that wanted to write and *poof* six months later I had my first story out with e-publisher X!" Though the better e-pubs send books through several stages of editing; I saw my latest one four times for edits

yes, yes you do more realistic m/m

[onyxhawke]

Excellent piece. And one of the points that causes the break down is with the failure a good number of members of each gender to grasp the other(s) emotional (and instinctive,and intellectual and for dogs sake physical) norms and ranges, its kinda hard to do an emotional focused piece from the pov of the other gender and get it right. There are a lot of writers who don't even come close to getting it right, some of whom (both published and non) make me seriously wonder if they've ever had any type of relationship or connection with a person of whatever gender flavor they are failing to write usefully.

One of the best people at writing the other gender is (gasp appreciatively here please it will make me feel better) Lois Bujold, only once in all her (SF) writings of male pov did I feel she may have gotten it wrong.

Re: yes, yes you do more realistic m/m

[onyxhawke]

first few lines of DI.