Zipper Rippers: Women write gay male romance novels for women

Books

Zipper Rippers

Women write gay male romance novels for women

Daniel Krall

By Heather Harris | Posted 6/17/2009

The romance novel, a static and predictable genre, is undergoing an evolution of sorts: storylines written by straight women for straight women . . . about gay men. Gay men are allowed to read them, of course--there's no gender ID check. But the authors want the books shelved with romance novels, not gay literature, and they are straight women writing the stories that they would want to read. Alex Beecroft, the author of False Colors, an "m/m romance" set in the mid-18th century British navy, doesn't see what the big deal is. "Whether your romance is m/f or m/m, love is the same," she writes in an e-mail from her home in England, "two people, heart and soul, fighting for something beautiful, something worth fighting for." Yes, but is it really a romance novel if there's not a heaving bosom?

The movie version of Brokeback Mountain is credited with ushering in this twist. Beecroft's publisher, Running Press, wrote in the book's publicity material, "The success of 2005's Brokeback Mountain demonstrated the lure of the subject for a female audience." Or maybe it demonstrated the lure of Jake Gyllenhaal and Heath Ledger. Informal polls of straight women in the Baltimore/Washington area--i.e. conversations at parties attended by this writer--revealed that they loved the movie, but didn't feel aroused by it. Watching seemed to engage less of their imagination and stoke more sympathy than empathy. But reading requires imagination, which brings the reader's personal experience to bear, and this may provide False Colors with the opportunity to connect and arouse in a way that Brokeback Mountain didn't.

Beecroft's False Colors has many of the standard romance novel elements. Sexual tension is established in the first few pages. There are some bad double entendres: "his body seemed to pull towards the other man's as one pole of a magnet to the other." And when the boys finally get together, John is faux-resistant ("it would be terrible"), while Alfie is bound and determined ("He let go reluctantly, and only so he could peel off the rest of his clothes").

However, the pivotal points in the story are markedly different from an m/f romance. First, Alfie admits his attraction to John, who hasn't yet faced his own orientation, and John is embarrassed and demonstrably repulsed. Fifty pages later, John has his first homosexual experience; it is anonymous and disturbing for John, more realistic than romantic. As the climax of the book builds, John is asked to choose between his career and Alfie. It's 1762, and John can either become the captain of his own ship or he can risk the gallows by unsuccessfully defending Alfie against sodomy charges (John's ass is not in question here). This cynical reader rooted for him to take the promotion--it was just too hard to envision a happy ending. But of course John chooses love, and the resolution of the story does not disappoint.

It seems strange on the surface--gay male romance novels for straight women--but maybe this is just the latest iteration of the age-old against-the-odds, forbidden fruit love story. Whether it's the Capulet who can't be with the Montague, the princess who can't be with the stable boy, the beauty who can't be with the beast, the countless Hollywood leading couples who can't be together because someone is getting ready to marry another, or the two Georgian naval officers who will be hanged if they are discovered, isn't it the same basic story inspiring the romantic imaginations of women through the ages? They can't be together, so they must.

Another thing that seems strange is a straight woman writer who would leave her sex out of her love stories. Who is this woman with the gender-neutral name? Beecroft is a married mother of two. It was her idea, not some editor's or publisher's, to write these kind of stories. "I find it curious that people are surprised that a straight woman would want to write m/m romance, because for me it's such a natural thing," she writes. "It wasn't suggested to me by anyone. In fact, I started imagining stories in which the two heroes would get together pretty much as soon as I hit puberty."

Beecroft also sees her stories as opportunities for her to play with and transcend traditional gender roles. "M/M romance can be used to examine relationships which don't suffer from the same sort of built in power imbalances and gender role constraints that make m/f romance such a minefield," she writes. "And of course, unlike f/f which has the same advantage of equality, m/m allows the writer to use characters who are not mired in feminine gender roles either. So it has a big element of escapism to it, plus the advantage of two gorgeous heroes for the price of one."

So if the story is just a twist on forbidden fruit, and the author simply likes male characters and to be free of rigid male/female roles when writing romantic storylines, who is the audience for books like False Colors? In other words, who is brave enough to sell, purchase, read in a coffee shop, and discuss a romance novel with two brooding uniformed men on the cover? Running Press is advertising the book in romance-reader periodicals like Romantic Times and Affair de Coeur (these are actual magazines). Romantic Times claims to review every book that pays to advertise, but so far they have not reviewed False Colors. "That's not unusual," Beecroft writes." In fact that's RT's standard practice with m/m romance."

Originally, Borders and Barnes & Noble agreed to shelve False Colors with their other romantic fiction, but that hasn't worked out either. According to Beecroft, both booksellers immediately re-shelved the book in the much smaller GLBT section. But just as False Colors seemed to be facing market obscurity and the bookstore ghetto, Amazon gave it some free publicity.

In mid-April, as False Colors was being released and beginning to cross over to Amazon's historical romance bestseller list, Amazon dropped the ranking of tens of thousands of books, mostly with gay themes. According to the Wall Street Journal, books by E.M. Forster and Gore Vidal, along with Annie Proulx's Brokeback Mountain and False Colors were suddenly literary eunuchs. The public's response to what was dubbed "Amazonfail" was swift and Amazon quickly cried innocent mistake. Meanwhile, the cover of False Colors was splashed all over the reports, most significantly on Twitter, and the word was out. "The Amazonfail thing may, ironically enough, have been the best thing that could have happened to the book," Beecroft writes.

So the evolution is underway, complete with all the false starts and dead ends change brings. But the change is deceptively superficial. Whether m/m or m/f or f/f, the prosaic romance novel is still about escaping with characters who are, above all, true to themselves. Whether they have heaving bosoms or straining packages is of less consequence than whether they are heaving and straining against an oppressive society that would keep them apart. And if their equipment matches, the oppression multiplies, and the romantic-at-heart just might root for them even more.

Books archives

More from Heather Harris

Walk Away (12/23/2009)
2005: My friend, my boss, my pain in the ass

Thoughts Busy Hatching (2/18/2009)
For Philosophy Professor Phil Seng, There's No Place Like Oz

The Broken Boys Club (1/14/2009)
Mike Sager Intimately Knows The Men He Writes About--He's Just Like Them

Carol Stacy

1 comments.

Member since 6/17/2009

Dear Ms. Harris,

While I appreciate the mention of RT Book Reviews (formerly Romantic Times) in your article I must address an inaccuracy.

"Running Press is advertising the book in romance-reader periodicals like

Romantic Times and Affair de Coeur (these are actual magazines). Romantic

Times claims to review every book that pays to advertise, but so far they

have not reviewed False Colors. 'That's not unusual,' Beecroft writes. 'In

fact that's RT's standard practice with m/m romance.'"

While it is true we currently do not review m/m books in our magazine, it is not true that every book reviewed in our magazine is attached to an ad. We review 250-300 books a month and I only wish we had that many ads per issue :)

Our policy to not include m/m romance in RT Book Reviews is a space issue. Our periodic surveys with our readers tell us that there is not enough interest in this type of book within our general audience to warrant the extra space it would require (since there are so many being published) to review m/m books. If that changes in the future we most certainly would consider them for review in our magazine.

I regret that no one fact checked with us before printing this inaccurate statement about RT Book Reviews in this story. Fact checking is a practice we take very seriously at RT Book Reviews to avoid reporting incorrect information as demonstrated in this article.

Sincerely,

Carol Stacy

RT Book Reviews Publisher

Posted 6.17.2009 11:10 AM

Lee Rowan

2 comments.

Member since 6/18/2009

Great article!

Just for the record...

In 2006, My publisher, Linden Bay Romance, who also published Alex Beecroft's first novel, submitted an ad to Romance Times that included covers of several of their books, including my own Age of Sail m/m romance, Ransom. Authors who bought in to the co-op advertising were told that it was RT's policy to review books that bought ad space, and the admittedly pricey square inch was worth the cost for the promotional benefit of being reviewed.

The other books were reviewed. Mine was not. Other writers of gay romance told me that it never would be, since RT was always willing to take m/m advertising but never reviewed same-sex romances. I asked my publisher for clarification. She said she had never heard of this policy.

My publisher asked RT, and received the answer that m/m was not reviewed because RT's readership was "not interested" in that sort of story.

Later that year, RT ran a poll asking whether there was interest. The results were 60+% infavor of including m/m, 20+% who didn't care, and about 17-18% vehemently opposed. Some creative folks suggested, in comments, that RT print the scary gay reviews on purple pages and seal them, so that no one would read them by accident. Most comments simply suggested that same-sex romances be treated fairly.

RT ignored this poll.

At RT's convention that same year, ManLoveRomance, a writer's co-op to which I belong, which had bought advertising space at the event, had its promotional materials removed from the common table and dumped in an out-of-the-way box. The group's representative at the convention was told that "someone" had complained about the content. (The materials were no more, and generally less, suggestive than the sizzling boy-girl displays that covered the table and some walls.)

The discrimination against same-sex romance by RT and a few other groups in the 'traditional' romance community has been going on since the genre appeared, and will no doubt continue so long as the people making the decisions are determined to enforce their own narrow, rigid definition of 'romance.'

I find it interesting that, although RT's policy has not changed, Ms. Stacy's reason for the discrimination has been reconfigured. Two years ago, there was "not enough interest" in our books to bother reviewing them. Now there are "so many being published" that, my goodness, they just don't have room!

Logical, I suppose. Since so many m/m romances are being bought--and read--it's no longer credible to claim that no one's interested in the genre. At least not with a straight face.

I have to wonder, though... if any heterosexual romance genre were experiencing this sort of boom ... would one not expect the biggest publication in the field to review the books for its readers' benefit? Even if it took up some space, which would certainly be paid for by advertising?

RT's discriminaory policy is a fact. The reasons given may change. The fact does not.

By the way... of course m/m has heaving bosoms. They are simply *manly* bosoms.

Posted 6.18.2009 9:20 PM

piranha

2 comments.

Member since 6/19/2009

On 6/17/2009 11:10:08 AM, Carol Stacy said:

"Our periodic surveys with our readers tell us that there is not enough interest in this type of book within our general audience"

aside from possibly being untrue according to lee rowan (is there a reference to that survey i could look up?), this is of course also a self-fulfilling justification. i don't read RT _because_ it has nothing of interest for me as an LGBT reader, so naturally i wouldn't be included in a survey of their readers. i am certain i am not unique, so RT is missing out on a number of people as subscribers because of this policy. enough readers to overcome anti-LGBT bias? who knows, but if i were in charge of a leading magazine during a recession, i wouldn't be so cavalier about it. after all, our money isn't covered with gay cooties.

thanks for the nifty article! i especially love the term "zipper ripper"; hadn't heard that before.

Posted 6.19.2009 4:11 PM

Lee Rowan

2 comments.

Member since 6/18/2009

The results are here:

http://www.romantictimes.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=4005

Should've posted this last night, but it took awhile to find the url. My apologies for the inaccuracy; this was from November of 06, and I stopped following this poll after awhile. The final tally in favor was 56%, not 60-something (the last one I remember seeing was about 62).

As far as I know, this topic has never again appeared on RT's public boards, so if a poll is being taken of members-only, I have no knowledge of it. It would make sense to exclude non-members if they want to get less lgbt-friendly results since, as you say, the magazine has nothing of interest for readers who are looking for same-sex romance.

Posted 6.19.2009 7:48 PM

Jillian MacLeod

1 comments.

Member since 6/19/2009

Apparently Ms. Stacy fails at basic reading comprehension; this strikes me as problematic for someone who publishes book reviews. Perhaps I can clarify for her? Let's look at the two statements, breaking them down for meaning.

From the article:

"Romantic Times claims to review every book that pays to advertise, but so far they have not reviewed False Colors."

Translation: If you pay Romantic Times for an advertisement, your book is guaranteed to be reviewed. This has not happened in the case of False Colors.

Ms. Stacy's rebuttal:

"While it is true we currently do not review m/m books in our magazine, it is not true that every book reviewed in our magazine is attached to an ad. We review 250-300 books a month and I only wish we had that many ads per issue :)"

Translation: We review many more books than we have advertisements. Therefore, many of the books we review have no paid advertisement in our publication.

I don't see where anyone was saying that every book reviewed was attached to an ad, merely that every ad is *supposed to be* generating a review. I'm disappointed but unsurprised to discover that Romantic Times does not review m/m books, despite their stated policy of reviewing every book for which advertising has been purchased.

Posted 6.19.2009 10:24 PM

Kitchan

1 comments.

Member since 6/20/2009

Interesting, however the allure of M/M love stories is hardly a new phenomena. M/M romance stories appeared in 1970s, distributed then in not for profit underground fan magazines. The genre picked up with the popularity of the internet, and arguably every 20 something queer woman is addicted to some form of "slash" fiction or the other. (The slash comes from the / between the names of the characters) I'd hardly credit Brokeback Mountain for a genre that has existed for decades. Perhaps for the official sanctioning by publishers, but there are literally millions of slash stories archived on the internet. (mostly english, but in many other languages as well)

Another comment: Are you certain the writers and consumers of these stories are indeed "straight" women? That was a misconception that the few scholars who had written on slash fiction when I began to study it also wrote. However, I talked with some of these women, and out of the 'hundred-and-some' women I spoke with, one identified as straight, one identified as a lesbian, and the others identified as some sort of bisexual/bi-curious/queer.

They exist only in print. It is an ambiguous space in which the sexed body and gendered voice are not necessarily concurrent. I have argued that it is this ambiguity and safe space that allows women to explore the "deviant" parts of their sexuality--via voyeurism and fantasy.

Posted 6.20.2009 5:34 AM

piranha

2 comments.

Member since 6/19/2009

what kitchan said. as far as i've been able to unearth, the first slash community grew up around star trek, writing kirk/spock romance/erotica.

in japan there's a huge industry around "boys' love" (ボーイズラブ) manga and lately novels, which started completely independently in the early 1970s. it is now feeding back into the west via so-called "yaoi"-inspired graphic as well as prose works. there is a small amount of scholarship surrounding it in the west; very interesting reading.

Posted 6.21.2009 5:45 PM

SarahBalt

1 comments.

Member since 6/28/2009

I'm a straight woman who loves reading m/m erotic romances. I find men attractive. So reading about them having a romantic sexual relationship is a turn-on for me. I can't be the only one!!

And I've read some great m/m erotic romances written by women. I don't know if gay men would find them appealing, but for me they were really enjoyable. Try author Stephanie Vaughan or the publisher Loose Id (www.loose-id.com) for some great examples of this kind of fiction.

Posted 6.28.2009 9:26 AM

Alex Beecroft

1 comments.

Member since 8/4/2009

Many thanks for the article, Heather! I thought I would just chime in here and say that Kitchan has the right of it, and that although there are many straight women who enjoy m/m romance, the situation is actually a lot more fluid than a tag line such as 'by straight women for straight women' can represent. For a start, of the four authors involved in Running Press's line, I am the only one who identifies as straight, though I have some gender issues around being a woman. Two of our authors identify as bisexual, one of whom moved to Canada so that she could legally marry her wife. And the fourth is a gay man. That's a diversity that tends to be reflected in the other readers and writers of m/m romance. So far, the only thing I'd say with confidence is that there are fewer readers and writers of m/m romance who are straight men than there are of any other gender or orientation. But that may yet come too! After all, there are many straight men who enjoyed Torchwood despite/because of the fact that the hero was in a m/m romantic relationship.

Posted 8.4.2009 4:11 PM