I have been following this Lambda Literary Wankfest at length for a reason so let me put my personal point of view in context here.
The very first Gay Romance I ever loved as a young gay man was The Catch Trap by Marion Zimmer Bradley. A book which is sold as Gay Fiction written by a “straight woman”. The very first eBooks I ever bought and loved were Out There In The Night by Laura Baumbach and The Tin Star by J.L. Langley which are now in print and available even in Gay Bookstores as Gay Fiction sold right alongside such Gay Fiction classics as The Front Runner by Patricia Nell Warren or The Beautiful Room Is Empty by Edmund White.
Now “M/M” is usually defined as (read by women and written by women) although I have seen the term “straight” used in conjunction with this description in several places.
So…
Victor J. Banis one of the pioneers of Gay Fiction weighed in against the changed mission statement and guidelines.
Brent Hartinger a Lambda Award winner (Split Screen: Attack Of The Soul-Sucking Brain Zombies/Bride Of The Soul-Sucking Brain Zombies) weighed in against the changed mission statement and guidelines.
Lee Thomas a Lambda Award winner (The Dust Of Wonderland) weighed in against the changed mission statement and guidelines.
Now these guys obviously represent Gay Fiction, Gay Horror and Gay YA in regards to the award winners. Their commentary on the Lambda Literary Awards was treated with respect as “Gay Writers” giving their opinions. Whenever I saw posts by anyone who writes Gay Romance they were immediately labeled “Women M/M Romance Writers” and subsequently negated as a whole by detractors as “straight women and/or pandering to a straight audience” which follows along with my “M/M” definition given above.
So this brings up my questions…
Are all “M/M” writers straight? Are all “M/M” writers women? Is the “M/M” label even valid anymore due to all the myths surrounding it?
Is constantly branding Gay Fiction, or more to the point, Gay Romance as “M/M” creating a misrepresentation of not only the content but also the writers, the audience, and the purpose? Are even the Gay Retailers indicating the “M/M” label is inappropriate for their use?
I am just saying that J.L. Langley’s The Tin Star was a bestseller over at A Different Light in 2008 and the shelf it was on was not labeled “M/M” just Gay Fiction. Marion Zimmer Bradley had no intention in publishing The Catch Trap for it to be only read by women straight or otherwise.
Tags: Lambda Literary Foundation, Wank
Alex Beecroft wrote,
This mystifies me too, to be honest. I always thought I wrote gay fiction, but then I noticed people using ‘gay fiction’ to apply to fiction written by gay people, and ‘m/m fiction’ to apply to gay fiction written by straight people. So thought, ‘oh, clearly I missed the part where everyone agreed on this’ and I switched over to saying that I wrote m/m. Now I’m just back to being confused again.
Link | October 1st, 2009 at 9:00 am
Ally Blue wrote,
I refuse to use the term “m/m”. IMO, it’s for fanfic. I know, I know, lots of people see it as just a term to label the pairing in the book, and that does make sense, but still. I don’t like it.
BTW, is the cake REALLY a lie? I need to know!!!!!
(yeah, the boy-child played Portals and finished but I never found out, dangit… and every time he played that it made me want cake O_O)
Link | October 1st, 2009 at 9:24 am
TeddyPig wrote,
You can actually find the cake at the very very end but you have to be really good to get to that area.
Link | October 1st, 2009 at 9:34 am
Ally Blue wrote,
Oooooh, okay. I’ll have to ask the boy if he got that far.
Thanks!
Link | October 1st, 2009 at 9:36 am
kirsten saell wrote,
I kind of wish m/m and f/f hadn’t evolved from slash fanfic, because those terms carry a lot of negative baggage for a lot of people. And they just don’t for me.
To me, m/m at its most basic is a romance between two men of whatever orientation. F/F is a romance between two women of whatever orientation.
I kind of cringe at the thought that the f/f I’m working on right now will likely be marketed as a lesbian romance. It’s not a story about lesbians. It doesn’t embrace the tropes common to the genre. That is to say, readers who enjoy lesbian romance might not enjoy it, and women like me who don’t read lesbian romance (but love anything decent with a bi-female slant) might not be bothered to pick it up.
And you can say what you want about a love story between two women being a “lesbian love story”, but really, from the standpoint of a bisexual who’s already invisible enough within both the straight and LGBT communities, I’d rather have a label applied to my book that, um…allows for my existence? Which is why those Lambda categories bug the bugfuck out of me. I see them as making books with bi characters more invisible, not less, because the only decent option for a m/m where one character is bi and the other gay is to enter it in the “gay romance” category. Yay for bisexual erasure!
I feel the same way about my first book–an m/f romance between a straight guy and a bi woman. I’d rather call it m/f than het, because one of the characters is, well, not heterosexual.
Call me weird, but to be honest, I call all romances between two men m/m. I only go further to define a book as gay if I discover both characters are gay. I only define a lesbian book as lesbian if it’s about lesbians and/or explores those lesbian/feminist issues, which often include a subtle exclusion of the male, that are common to the genre (and why I don’t tend to enjoy them).
I’m aware that this is my own personal way of looking at things, and that many people see m/m as by straight for straight, or by women for women. Which is kind of sad, since at their essence f/f and m/m are probably the most broad and applicable labels for the entire genre–which could then be sub-categorized as gay/lesbian or not, as the case may be.
Link | October 1st, 2009 at 9:36 am
TeddyPig wrote,
Right that is how M/M has been defined so that is why I think the use of the term M/M is creating a perception that is wrong.
Link | October 1st, 2009 at 9:47 am
kirsten saell wrote,
What’s a bisexual who’s sick of being told she doesn’t exist to do then? Sigh.
Link | October 1st, 2009 at 10:20 am
TeddyPig wrote,
I say we take them out in a blaze of glory.
You be my Thelma and I’ll be your Louise
Link | October 1st, 2009 at 10:25 am
kirsten saell wrote,
The mustache is gonna have to go, Louise. Just sayin’.
Link | October 1st, 2009 at 10:44 am
veinglory wrote,
I think the mainstream of the Lambda-related discussion has descended into a dank mire of wankitude and wackadoo from which it will, sadly, never emerge. A teachable moment about stereotyping and semantics? Possibly. The existence of genre boundaries based on author-identity does feed into what happened.
Link | October 1st, 2009 at 11:42 am
veinglory wrote,
…or, indeed, based on presumed reader identity.
Link | October 1st, 2009 at 11:43 am
TeddyPig wrote,
Oh the only person I can change is myself.
No matter how many facts you point out people ignore facts when it does not mesh with their agenda.
I think I need to formalize my vocabulary to be specific in how I see Gay Romance and Gay Romance Writers as a viable part of Gay Fiction and stop using the term M/M Romance which is not a valid description and I think is creating a issue.
Link | October 1st, 2009 at 12:07 pm
Dakota wrote,
This is something I’ve wondered quite a bit about in the past. Personally, I really dislike the label of “m/m fiction” but I came into this online community with that seeming like the accepted term. I’ve actually struggled with the wording on my website, going back and forth again and again, b/c I couldn’t decide what should be on there. I want people (readers) to know what to expect so I don’t want to go against the tide, but if you asked me? I’d say I write gay romance (which is what I have on my website atm lol). At times I even had “gay erotic romance” in my intro…but I don’t really think that fits either. I’ve seen people say that if the bedroom door is open, then it’s automatically erotic romance. Until I started hanging around this community (community being the online m/m community, for lack of better way to make myself understood) I never would have classified any romance I’ve read as erotic romance just b/c the bedroom door was open. I think it has more to do with a sensibility, maybe with the primacy of sex in the story? Maybe the way I feel about this is b/c I’m coming at it from genre romance–not to say that’s all I read, but just that I’ve read a lot of it and it was how I “discovered” gay romance, and having that finally click, I’m now reading the Gay fiction “classics”…as opposed to someone who came at romance from, say, a lit fic or mystery background. I don’t know, but I know I sure wouldn’t say Josh writes erotic romance, despite the open bedroom door. And while I do keep my door open, I feel my writing lacks the…sensibility (that’s so exact, I know!) to be classed as erotic romance. I don’t want to mislead readers on that front, either.
And, um, wow…I’ve gotten off topic, but the whole labeling thing is something I’ve thought about a lot, and I would agree that the appellation of M/M fiction is somewhat problematic. I think it carries a lot of baggage, and I feel like it can easily be used as a pejorative.
Link | October 1st, 2009 at 4:55 pm
Amber wrote,
You got to know when to hold ‘em.
Know when to fold ‘em.
Know when to walk away.
Know when to run.
–Don Schlitz
Link | October 1st, 2009 at 4:56 pm
Angelia Sparrow wrote,
I’ll say the same thing I’ve said other places.
I’m not coming out of a gay literary tradition. I’m coming out of fanfic, romance and pulp fiction. I have more in common with “Riding the Wheel of If,” “The Windflower” and “A Princess of Mars” than I do with “Tales of the City” and “Rubyfruit Jungle.” My tropes aren’t the same. My vocabulary is not the same. My subtext and agenda aren’t the same.
It’s about sensibility and style, I think. I want to write like Ray Bradbury and Edgar Rice Burroughs and literature can go get into self-reference spiral and feel smug. (I have an English lit degree: writing book reports about other people’s book reports)
I hesitate to call what I write gay. Most of my men are bisexual and many of my books have some heterosexual content as well.
I’m another of those invisible bisexuals. Haven’t slept with a woman in almost 20 years and have no prospects to do so, but the desire is still there.
Link | October 1st, 2009 at 6:28 pm
TeddyPig wrote,
I am just saying that using M/M the way it is being defined implies you are a straight woman and I as the reader am a straight woman and it was used in a way to negate our participation.
Gay Lit mostly evolved out of pulp fiction and erotica so you fit right in on that note and from what I have read you are not writing fan fiction anymore.
Link | October 1st, 2009 at 6:38 pm
Treva Harte wrote,
Well, lemme know when it’s definitely pejorative or only defines straight women writing slash. (It would probably be easier to change the label than ask our authors to change their orientation or gender or genre.)
We use it simply to let our readers know what the heck they’re reading — they like labels.
Link | October 2nd, 2009 at 5:03 am
TeddyPig wrote,
Hey Treva!
It may be just a label. I have never had a real problem with it before but watching the online reaction to anyone using that label was eye opening.
That is exactly why I brought up the retail angle. Amazon calls it Gay Fiction and the Gay Bookstores call it Gay Fiction and they sell the stuff. I just don’t think the M/M fits anymore either with the audience, your actual readers, or with the writers.
It may be a case of you say tomaaato and I’ll say tomato but what I am seeing it actually defines something more limiting than that. That is the only reason I am addressing it to everyone for their consideration.
I think this conversation should be had not only with the publishers but also the readers and especially with the writers.
Link | October 2nd, 2009 at 5:25 am
TeddyPig wrote,
I think what showed up on my radar about the term M/M guys was…
How can I get on Lambda Literary’s case for trying to define badly the writers sexuality and politics through the use of terms like “openly homosexual” which would have excluded a closeted Gay Writer like E.M. Forster and his book Maurice from being considered for their award while I myself was using a term that did the same thing to not only the authors I review but the readers?
That might be a bit convoluted but can anyone see what I am saying?
I can’t support that because it is wrong.
Link | October 2nd, 2009 at 5:32 am
Treva Harte wrote,
And to clarify — Loose Id doesn’t say that’s the genre or content of the book, but we probably do use m/m, f/f elsewhere.
Link | October 2nd, 2009 at 5:42 am
TeddyPig wrote,
Understood Treva.
Honestly the subjects I am bringing up in this post are not to correct anyone other than myself but they bothered me so I wanted to post about my thoughts and talk to people even if I have not thought this all the way through.
I unlike some people I do not have a college degree in “special snowflake treatment” it’s all practical stuff like Computer Science combined with ten years in the Navy as a submariner combined with being HIV positive and a big old fag. I am probably the most conservative hard ass gay guy you will ever meet.
This is just what goes on in my hard hard head.
Link | October 2nd, 2009 at 6:57 am
Selah wrote,
I unlike some people do not have a college degree in “special snowflake treatment”…
Dude. Warn a girl. My keyboard will be sticky for DAYS.
Link | October 2nd, 2009 at 8:12 am
kirsten saell wrote,
It may be a case of you say tomaaato and I’ll say tomato but what I am seeing it actually defines something more limiting than that. That is the only reason I am addressing it to everyone for their consideration.
Which is frustrating. Because when you think about it, on a strictly etymological level, gay is the more limiting label. M/M is as broad as you can get.
Almost makes me want to reclaim the term from all those slash-ficcers who appropriated it and applied all sorts of connotations to it that no one likes…
Link | October 2nd, 2009 at 8:29 am
Alex Beecroft wrote,
I think some of the conception that m/m is by women for women comes from some quite old academic studies of slash fiction–it’s actually way out of date, because in slash fandom it’s now pretty well known that LGBT people have always written slash. It’s just that it hasn’t been until recently that they’ve been coming out and saying so.
So, the m/m world is newer than the slash world, and mainstream newspapers see it and think “ooh, women writing gay fiction? What the hell is that all about?” and they go and find all these old, outdated, academic studies about slash and regurgitate the whole ‘by straight women, for straight women’ thing. Publishers play along because they know this is a way of getting the female dominated romance world to feel a bit more secure with the idea of LGBT romance, and they’re all about anything that helps promote their books.
So you get the situation at the moment where the world *thinks* m/m is written by straight women for straight women, whereas actually it’s written by people of all sorts for people of any sort. I think it’s a perception which will sort itself out in time, particularly with more men – like Josh Lanyon (author of “Writing m/m Fiction”) and Donald Hardy (whose book says “an m/m romance” on the cover) claiming that they write m/m. And I agree with Kirsten that it’s good to have a term that means you aren’t ruling out the possibility that one or both of the characters might be bi.
Also as far as I’m aware (and I started out writing in fanfiction) m/m is not a fanfiction term. In fanfic it’s called ‘slash’.
Link | October 2nd, 2009 at 9:14 am
TeddyPig wrote,
Right, but for me continuing to use the M/M label even if some say it is less defining in the face of the fact it is currently defining the writer and the reader and the market for the story is as fruitless as constantly reminding people that Brokeback Mountain was more accurately about a love affair between a closeted most likely gay man and a closeted most likely bisexual man.
Despite all that conjecture people will still sell it, buy it, love it and call it a Gay Romance. So I don’t know why fight it. At least Gay Romance and Gay Literature is a pretty stable turf.
Link | October 2nd, 2009 at 9:44 am
veinglory wrote,
Personally, in my mind mm, slash, gay is all the same. The differences between are not big enough to create mutually exclusive categories. Only yaoi strikes me as really being something fairly distinct.
Link | October 2nd, 2009 at 9:52 am
TeddyPig wrote,
Right Emily but my whole point is it might be common sense and you might feel that way and I felt that way too.
But that’s not how it played out. I mean, that’s why I brought it up you know.
Link | October 2nd, 2009 at 9:56 am