Why Many Gay Romance Readers and Writers are Women

Not too long ago I was browsing Amazon for gay fiction books to read. I’ll admit I don’t read as much as I should or want to, but it’s always nice to see what other authors are writing in my genre. There were few things I knew I wasn’t interested in: stories geared towards teenagers (which are categorized as “young adult” but don’t cater to readers my age), stories focused on “coming out”, or focused heavily on romance. I basically wanted general fiction stories that included a gay character as the main protagonist. But the more I looked, the more I realized how limited my options seemed. There was a plethora of gay romance to choose from and again I don’t read Young Adult. Stories that sort of fit my criteria were gay literary fiction, which doesn’t fit that normal three-act story formula most of are familiar with. And sometimes I’m not in the mood for that either.

Then I noticed something peculiar. Most of the gay romance I was seeing was written by women. In fact, some of these authors were married with husbands, yet writing male-male romance. Why is that? And how many people actually know there’s a difference between gay romance and gay fiction?

Gay Fiction vs Gay Romance

First, for anyone that was like me, thinking these two were the same, they’re not. Gay romance is just like all the other romance novels out there, except it features gay men instead of the typical boy-girl pairing. The main goal is whether these two characters are going to fall in love and stay together. Pride and Prejudice comes to mind. Or Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. Make Juliet or Elizabeth Bennet a man, and you have a gay romance. Sure, other things can happen in the story, but the main journey is the love between the main characters.

Gay fiction puts the romance in the background. I liken it to women’s fiction or African American fiction. Both genres are more so about the trials and tribulations of women and black people, respectively, than it is about the romance the main character may develop with someone else. Two gay fiction novels that come to mind are Less by Andrew Sean Greer and James Baldwin’s Giovanni’s Room. Both novels involve romance between men, but it’s not the focal point. Less is the story of a middled-aged gay man going through a midlife crisis, and Giovanni’s Room is the examination of a man struggling with his sexuality and his place in society. The characters’ personal journeys are way more important than the romance they get tangled into along the way. In fact, you may not see happily ever after endings in gay fiction. Certainly not as much as you would expect from a romance novel.

It was actually a little freeing to realize that many gay fiction books have been written, even if it’s not as noticeable as gay romance is. But that brings me to my main question: why are so many readers and writers of gay romance women?

Reader Expectations

The answer simply comes down to cultural conditioning and statistics. Most readers are women, and they statistically read more romance than men. If any genre has more male readers, its crime and thrillers or comic books. One person commented on the website Quora that he’d be embarrassed if he was caught reading a romance novel in public. I can completely understand that. I don’t think anyone would bat an eye if a woman was reading a romance novel while waiting in a busy airport.

I think this is the similar reason many authors of gay romance are women. As one blog post pointed out, gay romance was born out of slash fiction, which is basically fan fiction but with two male characters that more often than not develop a romance that’s not cannon to the actual story. I find it peculiar because I’m not interested in lesbian or even straight romance unless I’m doing research or see a novel that’s widely popular. But to each their own.

I should mention though that there are several gay male readers and authors that find this unsettling. Some complain that we’re being fetishized or exploited. Others complain these authors are seeing more rewards than gay male authors are for telling the same stories. Or that these romance stories are overshadowing gay fiction stories. But some of this I would have to disagree with. Romance is escapism, it’s fantasy. And it will attract different readers than those looking for gay fiction. I’m an example. Sure Amazon could do a better job of categorizing those stories (which they sort of have) and authors could not be afraid to categorize our stories correctly instead of fearing we won’t be discovered otherwise (which I’ve been guilty of. Staying Alive is not a romance novel although I put it as that at first). It also doesn’t help when you look at the gay fiction genre in Amazon and still see the top listings are romance or have cover and blurbs that are heavily similar to steamy romance.

But I understand the knee-jerk reaction to get angry and feeling unheard and exploited. That could be said for any person in a minority group who sees their story written by someone not of that group. But I also don’t believe in censoring what authors should and shouldn’t write. Sure, readers should express their opinions on whether the author did the story justice (it’s necessary for us authors to see what we got right or wrong in the story) but saying women shouldn’t write gay stories will solve nothing. Making that distinction between the two will make for less frustrated readers and will shed a better light on the genre. Imagine if you bought a fiction novel and realized it was poetry. Or Western and realized after the first chapter it was actually British. I’d be feel confused and peeved too.

Conclusion

Statistics are just that-statistics. It doesn’t dictate what readers should read or writers should write. The frustration comes from those stories not being correctly categorized. Ive even read some comments on blog postings and Quora by some gay men who don’t mind the gender of the author. As long as the romance novel is written well, the reader will continue to read from that author (my favorite gay romance that I’ve read so far was in fact written by a woman and another by a trans author). You’ll have some truly awful books in either gay fiction or gay romance, just as you will read brilliantly written that will make you think of the characters long after you close the book.

Another thing we can do is highlight gay authors who write gay romance or gay fiction. Many readers of Young Adult were trending #OwnVoices to highlight writers of minority communities writing stories representative of their experiences. I think that’s a great idea to do for other genres as well, especially LGBT literature. On that point, I saw a blog post saying that the distinction of LGBT fiction wasn’t needed (as us gay men don’t “gay park” our car of buy “gay coffee”). But here’s the thing: until we see the same level of acceptance as we do in straight media, that distinction is needed. By the way, the author of that blog was a straight woman. Do with that what you will.   

So what do you think of all of this? I find it interesting, but it doesn’t discourage me from writing more gay fiction. Nor do I believe gay romance is choking out gay fiction. Both can exist and have for decades, even if the distinction wasn’t clearly labeled.

Also, if you’re interested in any of the books I’ve written you can click here. I’m currently working on my second novel, so subscribe to my Readers Group to get updates on that.