A decade ago, when I worked at Barnes & Noble, we shelved the stories of male/male romance in the gay and lesbian section of the bookstore. From what I remember, it was mostly X-rated and strictly for men, written by men.
That's not the case any longer and Star Trek had a great deal to do with it.
Rather, Star Trek fandom did.
That fandom, being one of the first that went viral, even before the internet, gave birth to fanzines and fan fiction where viewers, desperate for more of the stories, created their own. This eventually gave rise to the phenomenon where writers put themselves in the stories, eventually dubbed as inserting a Mary Sue.
And, proving the adage that "if it exists, there is porn of it," writers also delved into erotic stories featuring their favorite characters. They included male/male pairings as well. Since there weren't any established gay men in the Trek universe, they created their own pairings. One of the most popular because Kirk/Spock, said out loud as "Kirk slash Spock."
The term "slash" then eventually came to mean a male/male pairing in fan fiction or in the subtext of a work of fiction.
I first heard "slash" used when I was in a Yahoo group dedicated to the Anita Blake books by Laurell K. Hamilton. The slashy subtext, at the time, was very high. (I say at the time because, later, subtext became text.)
I became aware that there was a burgeoning underground of slash stories in favorite SF fandoms, from Harry Potter to Star Wars to Buffy to Lord of the Rings. Witness The Very Secret Diaries, written by now-bestselling author Cassandra Clare. Sample: "Everyone is hitting on me. Cannot cope. Off to Mordor."
But now male/male fiction has come out of the fanfiction closet and found a burgeoning readership for original stories. What I find most fascinating about all this is that the book are primarily written by women for women. And they're not all erotic. Like heterosexual romances, they range from sweet to x-rated. It seems to be the romantic dance between two men that is the appeal, not the explicitness of the work.
I asked two successful writers of multiple male/male romances about their appeal to the female audience and got some very interesting answers.
Heidi Cullinan is a long-time friend who I first met as a member of a reader's fan group. At the time, she was writing regencies started off writing sweet regency romances. Now she has five novels, two novellas and three short stories focused on male/male romances.
Kate Rothwell is my in-person critique partner and has co-written, under the pen name Summer Devon, four published male/male romances with fellow author Bonnie Dee. They're working on a fifth.
GeekMom: Why do you think some women love these stories?
Kate: The more the merrier? You like one man, why not two? I have to say I personally find it hotter all the time. I like what Alex Beecroftwrote about it.
I love good stories about relationships. Forbidden love, love that has to overcome obstacles, is even more intriguing and since we write historicals, that's at least part of the story--although all that fear and shame can get old fast so there has to be other conflict keeping them apart.
There's also the fact that men in the past could more easily follow interesting paths than women, could get away with a lot more, without being rebels in other parts of their lives.
__Heidi: __ There are a lot of reasons, I think, some very simple and some all complex and psychological/sociological.
What I hear a lot from healthy, well-adjusted women who like it is that it is just plain hot. Two guys are better than one, etc. I think for some women, however, it's also about sexuality that has none of the familiar ties on it. You don't have to feel like a whore for identifying with the hero, because they're both guys, and it's okay for guys to want a lot of sex. Sometimes it's that the familiar sexual politics are gone, so it's totally a fantasy.
Beyond that, readers react like any readers of romance: a demand for good character and character consistency (and skip the sex unless it advances the plot), the love of watching the opera of personal relationships, the joy of reading sexual-tinted plot.
I think the latter would be a surprise to a lot of people. Somehow anytime you write GLBT romance it gets chucked into erotica even when the sex stays pretty sweet. And readers in my experience are very vocal about hating sex that doesn't advance the plot or seems tacked on. That said, they love it when the sex is hot and integral to character development and the story itself. You know, just like any romance reader.
I think too that like in all ebook-based publishing we have a lot more leeway for the types of things we can do. One, it probably hasn't been done before, not in m/m, and not to death yet, and there's no NY marketing boardroom worrying if this will offend Walmart. We already offend Walmart, so nobody even brings it up.
Kate: OOoooo I hadn’t heard that not wanting to feel like a whore one before. Interesting.
Heidi: Well, nobody's come out and said that, but I"m extrapolating from things people have said.
There is sometimes definitely more than just "it's hot" going on though, with the way some women will only read m/m and get very upset if any women have any sexual relations in the books they're reading. And joke about "girl cooties." I don't know what that means, but it sure strikes me as Interesting.
As Heidi and Kate noted, there seem to be multiple reasons why this has become such a popular genre, especially among small presses that are primarily electronic. If I had to make my own guesses, part of the reason is that plots that seem done to death suddenly become fresh with a male/male perspective. There are a great many romances with a male spy and a female noblewoman who either gets in his way or becomes his partner. But a gay spy is something new and the ostracism of gays at the time adds to the story conflict.
And I have to agree, many women find the stories just plain hot. I've seen plenty of comments over the years about slash pairings in original fiction and fan-fiction to know the appeal to women is similar to the appeal of a lesbian romance for men. When Captain Jack Harkness was introduced as bisexual (or possibly pan-sexual) on Doctor Who, it immediately became more popular to place him in a romance with another man that a woman. Perhaps in a nod to the appeal, James Marsters (Spike from Buffy: The Vampire Slayer) was cast in *Torchwood *as Captain Jack's former lover. I thought my livejournal friends list might melt down from the reaction to their kiss.
My question to those of you reading this post: Have you read male/male romance? What would draw you to it?
