Nasty taste in mouth

[erastes]

Haven't said much for days, (editing) so a rant was well overdue I suppose.

Just spotted this over at Anne Harris/Jessica Freely's Blog.

"Romancing the Genre was less fabulous.   There the subject of m/m's suitability for the romance section of the bookstore somehow (*sheepish grin*) rose its thorny head and we had what is becoming the predictable debate between m/m converts who want it in the stores and established publishing professionals who insist there's no call for it.  The conversation devolved into a shouting match between an audience member and a panelist and as moderator, I had to chill it out."

Good GOD. This is the first mention I've heard of this and it makes me feel hugely militant.  It's not said who was on which side i.e. whether the shouting person in the audience was advocating for or against, but I'm assuming as the panel was "Romancing the Genre" - the "established publishing professionals" were, sadly, on the panel. I think I would have been "debating hotly" too.  I'm assuming by Ms Freely-Harris' *sheepish grin* that she was the one that broached the subject.

Ok. There's a lot of points to cover here.

"suitability": Why would gay romances be unsuitable for "the romance section"? Discuss.  Is it the covers? Are the E.P.P.s scared that the av-er-age female reader will refuse to go down the romance aisle if there's a danger that their eyes might be polluted by covers such as the one on my icon?  Is it because they wouldn't want to take their children down that aisle in case little Britney or little Dwayne might open the pages of Captain's Surrender or Whistling in the Dark? Goodness that would be awful wouldn't it?  They might read of people who love each other so much that they make sacrifices for that person.  They may even read about two people who love each other that they make love.  Of course none of this is already available in the romance section. If little Britney or Dwayne picked up some of the het romances they'd see some things that were "unsuitable" for them to read, that's for sure.

Again I say: What makes gay romances unsuitable for the romance section?

"romance section"  A similar point to the above, but looked at from the opposite direction.  If something looks like a romance, talks and walk like a romance and oozes pink hearts and a happy ever after when you open it, it's not a duck.  It's a romance.  So put gay romances in the ROMANCE section.

"m/m converts" - I don't know where to start here. I know that Ms Freely-Harris didn't mean to be belittling because I know that she's a fan of gay romance but I don't like the term.  I don't really like the term m/m anyway because it still smacks, to me, of fanfiction. I wouldn't call my work m/m - I call it gay fiction, gay romance, gay historical fiction/romance.  Lumping all writers/readers into the m/m category gives the impression that we all are women and that we all aim our fiction AT women. Some do, some don't.  I don't. As for "converts"- again, I don't like this. It sounds like gay romance/erotica is a bandwagon; something that romance readers and writers have jumped on because it's fashionable, or because it's something that we find titilatting.  In my case, I've not read "romance" since I was in my early 20's (I'm in my 40's now) when I used to have Mills and Boon phases. If anything "converted" me to m/m - it was fanfiction.

And "convert" also panders to the stereotype that gays "convert" their "victims" - that gayness is something that can be transmitted. And I don't like that at all.

"established publishing professionals"  Who were these people?  I'd like to know.  What experience do they have with gay romance? Do they know what the sales figures are? Do they know that Perseus are bringing out a range of mainstream gay historical romance in the Spring that they will be placing in stores in the romance section? Do they know that men and women read gay romance? Have they any conception of the numbers of people involved in fanfiction? Have they watched the shift in acceptance in the last four years?  Have they noticed that Affaire de Ceour and Dear Author are reviewing gay romance? Are these people gay friendly? Do they have their ears to the ground, or do they have their ears stuck in them?

"no call for it." - Someone said to me a while back that this is the equivalent of someone saying "You are the 200th person who has asked me that question today, and I'll say to you what I've said to them. There's no call for it." Enough said, I think.

That being said, however, there are TWO different points here. 

"Unsuitable" - Which seems to say that for some reason gay romance doesn't deserve a place in the romance section for reasons related to offence, or morality; and

"no call for it" - which is a different thing. It says that sales would not improve one way or the other if they went in there, and that readers aren't looking for gay romance.

Forgive me for being dim, but doesn't Gaylaxicon actually MEAN encompassing the GLBT?  Doesn't it say on the main page it's a "annual international Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror convention for gay men, lesbians, bisexuals, transgendered people and their friends."  Why then was this discussion even permitted to escalate into "there's no call for it"? 

Surely the discussion should have been a critique on why it hasn't happened yet, and looking at ways to help it to happen.  I wish I'd been there.

Comments

[suryaofvulcan.livejournal.com]

“I don't really like the term m/m anyway because it still smacks, to me, of fanfiction. [...] Lumping all writers/readers into the m/m category gives the impression that we all are women and that we all aim our fiction AT women.”

I have to disagree with you on this. I know I come from a fanfic background, but to me m/m is simply a very useful descriptor (as are m/f, f/f, m/m/f etc.). It just means a story where the central relationship is between two men.

I often find it difficult to find the books I’m in interested in if they’re just labeled as ‘gay fiction’ or ‘gay romance’ – or worse, ‘GLBT’ – because about half of that turns out to be lesbian or menage, which I don’t want to read. Have you any idea how annoying it is to have to trawl through a website, clicking on every single synopsis in order to find something that’s m/m romance? I much prefer to have an accurate label which quickly tells me the nature of the central relationship in the book.

I don’t see where you’re getting the idea that something labeled as m/m must be written by and aimed at women.

But well said on everything else.

[aphephobia.livejournal.com]

Are the E.P.P.s scared that the av-er-age female reader will refuse to go down the romance aisle if there's a danger that their eyes might be polluted by covers such as the one on my icon?

More likely, they'd worry that it cut into their sales of heterosexual romance. And then people would have to start admitting that women like hot gay sex and romance as much as some men do. And that could, I dunno, demasculinalise a whole bunch of straight men who only like bisexuality when it's two women kissing for their amusement. (Not that I'm at ALL bitter and cynical and angry about the double-standards about gender and sexuality in society at all, hey?)

I don't like the term "convert," either-- it suggests that you were "turned over to" something, as opposed to just having always liked/enjoyed/appreciated it from the word go. There's nothing wrong with being EITHER, but when we got into said fiction really is irrelevant. I agree with you to a point on the "m/m" thing, but in the broader world, I suspect most people don't have a clue about fanfic and it's just an easy way of explaining what the book's about. "Gay" or "GLBTI" doesn't always mean "two men."

[joyful-molly.livejournal.com]

Converts? CONVERTS? Quoi? It's not like a gay missionary knocked on my door to make me see the light! What rock are these people living under?

Though I don't mind the "m/m" label; I use it myself. I'd even go as far as saying that I write slash, but I'm aware that that term belongs in the realm of fanfiction. The belittling part, to me, is the connection with "converts". It's insulting.

The more I read about the subject and the more I hear, I understand that the "established publishing professionals" are the professional equivalent to fandom Big Name Fans who (ab)use their power. Fandom bullies with a contract, so to speak.

Funny enough, I found readers who have never had an interest in romance to be more willing to read gay romance than het romance. And at the end of the day, it's the readers who decide what they want to spend their money on. Thanks the Gods for that.

[ggymeta.wordpress.com (from livejournal.com)]

Sadly, I'm not in the mindset to get too deeply into this, but here are my thoughts [blogged it at GGY].

"I find this aversion to the ‘gay area’ of bookstores to be unsettling. I’ve seen this attitude from authors and publishers that the ‘GLBT’ somehow is too far beneath them…they want their YAOI in the manga section, and their gay-romance in the traditional romance section.

Erastes did go on to make some good points, even if I am one of those creators who feels that making the GLBT area of the bookstore a better place is a more worthy cause then trying to impress the het-romance community into giving my work a charity spot in the normalcy club."

:)

[angelabenedetti.livejournal.com]

It's not so much a matter of the GBLT section being "beneath" gay romance, but a couple of other issues. First, the GBLT section tends to be buried at the back of the bookstore, and/or in among other sections where hardly anyone ever goes. You get pretty much zero in impulse sales there.

Second, the GBLT section covers gay health issues, gay politics, gay psych and self-help, true inspirational stories about coming out or being accepted, gay history, etc. I'll let people who write gay history or gay self-help complain about their books being buried in GBLT :) but there's no reason anyone who doesn't already frequent the GBLT section of the bookstore should imagine that any kind of fiction would be there. There's no fiction in the "normal" history or psych or self-help or inspirational (well...) sections, so why should gay fiction be in the GBLT section? Why should someone who wants a romance have to dig through dozens of memoirs and legal guides and sex manuals to find romances? Why should someone who wants a coming-out story or an activist manual have to dig through romances? Or any other kind of fiction?

It's not that GBLT is inherently a ghetto, in an insulting way. It's that the assumption that the "GBLT" aspect of all those books is their sole defining characteristic. Just as gay, bi, lesbian or transgendered people don't want to be defined solely by their sexual identity, books on widely varied subjects shouldn't be judged as being all alike just because they all touch on some part of GBLT life or interests.

Angie

[ggymeta.wordpress.com (from livejournal.com)]

I don't know what bookstore you're speaking of, but GLBT section isn't hidden anywhere - the back of the store is usually kids, youth, graphic novels, and then everything else. ^_^ At least all of the Barnes and Noble stores I've been in, have that layout-- perhaps your area is different. What I do find is, there's too small a space for it, no matter where you go.

As for what's in the GLBT, I get all my gay graphic novels there - and as far as I know, Tim Fish isn't making coming out comics or 'how to sex' books; there's fiction there--most of it erotic.

The GLBT area is growing in chain outlets as the internet puts a hurting on small gay bookstores; I think adding genre fiction to the mix will make it larger and give it more legitimacy--that's where I personally want my books to be found. If you want to fight for a gay-romance subcat in mainstream romance, then be my guest--I begrudge no one their chosen battles; but until heterosexuality becomes the minority, I wont be fighting that fight, I have books to write. I don't enjoy playing ice hockey on the frozen pond, without skates.

Just my opinion--
midol for any headaches, tylonol for any cramps. ^_-

[mroctober.livejournal.com]

Interesting. I wasn't on this panel or in attendance.

Yeah, I'm never quite sure about terminology these days. Lots of writers want to label their work different things. There is no real consensus. Well, perhaps we should use what a gay bookseller would use. A gay book that is romance would be shelved in Men's Fiction.

[angelabenedetti.livejournal.com]

I have to chime in as not minding the m/m designator, for the same reasons suryaofvulcan mentioned. It's short and clear and makes it easy to find exactly what you want.

I've already discussed my thoughts on the belief of the New York publishing establishment that there's "no market for gay romance" so I'll leave it at that. [eyeroll] When they say that gay romance is "unsuitable" for the romance section of the bookstore, they're probably mentally translating "gay romance" into "gay erotica;" het erotica isn't in the romance section either, so in their eyes gay "romance" should also be elsewhere.

So far as positioning in the bookstore, though, I think the ideal place for gay romance is in its own shelf sections but right next to het romance. Again, the point is to be able to find what you want quickly and easily. When I was devouring dozens of het romances every month, I only read historicals and was annoyed at bookstores which intermingled the historicals and contemporaries, because that meant I had to sort through a lot of books I wasn't at all interested in. Nowadays it'd be the same with gay romance -- when that's what I'm in the mood for, I don't want to have to sort through a bunch of het romance to find the m/m I want. Nor do I really want to sort through a bunch of f/f to find the m/m I want, but a sort on that level would have to wait on sufficient numbers. I'm thinking purely of my own convenience as a reader with money to spend, though, and I'd like to give any potential readers of my own or of my colleages the same convenient experience.

I doubt that's what the NY publishers are thinking, though, when they speak of gay romance's "unsuitability" for the romance section. I'm just guessing here [straight face] but my first thought is that they're afraid the more conservative or easily-shocked het romance fans might be distressed if their fingers brush across a gay romance cover, like they might get gay cooties or something. Personally, if this really is the issue, I don't think they're giving the het romance fans enough credit. Sure, there are particularly conservative readers who'd be angry and offended, but there are always a few angry and offended readers out there. One deals.

Angie

[kirby-crow.livejournal.com]

Are the E.P.P.s scared that the av-er-age female reader will refuse to go down the romance aisle if there's a danger that their eyes might be polluted by covers such as the one on my icon? Is it because they wouldn't want to take their children down that aisle in case little Britney or little Dwayne might open the pages of Captain's Surrender or Whistling in the Dark?

Every time I go to the manga/comics aisle of my bookstore, I see a row of shiny-faced, jean-wearing teenage girls sitting on the carpet happily reading thick paperbacks books of yaoi and Tokyo Pop shonen-ai. That's what gives me hope about the future of our genre. :)

[rwday.livejournal.com]

we had what is becoming the predictable debate between m/m converts who want it in the stores and established publishing professionals who insist there's no call for it

I say put it in the stores. If nobody buys it, then either a) it wasn't being marketed properly or b) there was no call for it. But how do they know if they don't try? OTOH, I know that I rarely if ever go into a bookstore. I buy almost exclusively online, mostly through Amazon. It could be that these EPPs are figuring that the younger romance readers and certainly the fandom people are not largely brick-and-mortar buyers.

Are the E.P.P.s scared that the av-er-age female reader will refuse to go down the romance aisle if there's a danger that their eyes might be polluted by covers such as the one on my icon?

Come on, be honest. You and I hit the cover jackpot. There are definitely gay romance covers that qualify as eye pollution. Maybe that's the real reason these publishers don't want their books in stores - they'd probably get pressure from the store owners to hire real cover artists...

[mroctober.livejournal.com]

Gah. And I've been working on your new cover... [am concerned]

[rwday.livejournal.com]

I'm sure it will be fine - the covers I'm referring to seem to be mostly e-book covers, lots of them for shapechanging romances with Sims looking werewolves and guys with impossible anatomy. Don't get me wrong, I appreciate male anatomy just fine, but too many romance covers (gay or straight) seem to employ artists who never managed to pass a life drawing class.

[tharain.livejournal.com]

WO WO WO WO WAIT JUST A FUCKIN' MINUTE.

THIS CONVERSATION HAPPENED AT GAYLAXIACON? ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?

Oh, no, missy. OH FUCKING NO.

Death squads on the march now.

[mroctober.livejournal.com]

I'd love for you to attend 2009 in Minneapolis.

[treva2007.livejournal.com]

As one of the very few people at that particular discussion, I think it was safe to say the heat was directed at mainstream publishing and bookstores and where GBLT was placed in the hierarchy there, not at anyone in particular.