Okay, so my first m/m story (which was recently accepted by Torquere Press) features long time friends falling into bed with each other about half an hour after they figure out they're both gay. My second story, which is with another publisher at the moment, features a couple that bump into each other two or three times, then go out on a date and have sex that night. And the story I'm working on now features a couple who meet each other in the park and are having sex within a couple of hours.
Now - let's be honest here - if these were m/f couples, we'd be thinking 'Huh, that's kinda slutty'. I mean, no one cares, in an erotic story, but still...we'd be thinking it, right? And there's no way it would happen in any kind of a traditional romance. Half your traditional romance stories still have virgins for heroines, and a good chunk of the remainder have heroines who've never had an orgasm until the hero's magic penis waves in their direction.
This has always bothered me, even in my teens when I still was a virgin. It's such an unfair, archaic double standard. We're all supposed to be fighting against it, and yet publishers keep putting that stuff out there, which means a lot of women must be buying into it wholesale.
And I think it's part of the reason that I - and so many, many women - like m/m stories so much. Sex. Lots of sex. Muscular, sweaty, man on man sex and best of all: NO GUILT. So long as those guys suit up (I hate stories where gay guys go bareback unless they're damn sure they've been monogamous and tested multiple times first. And even so...come on, people, you've heard of window periods, right? Just use a fricking condom) it's fine with us if they get each other off minutes after they walk into the same toilet in a club, without even exchanging names. I love to read about sluts in m/m fiction, so long as they fall in love and reform before the end. A story that starts with a hero having meaningless, hot sex with someone in the back room of a club and walking away whistling hooks me every time. I want to be that guy. I want to be able to walk into a club and get a guaranteed orgasm in an hour or less (women who tried sex that way in clubs will know that orgasms are rarer for girls in the straight club scene than virgins in the gay club scene).
And yet...aren't we falling into a kind of prejudice of our own by buying into this? Are we all in so much of a rush to get our rocks off that we're rushing our characters too? I have a couple of gay friends (well, out gay friends) and they're quiet, sweet, genuine guys who are in long term relationships. And they're young - twenties and thirties. According to most gay fiction these guys should be having a lot of meaningless sex right about now, but I'm pretty sure my best gay friend would be about as keen to get down on his knees for a stranger in a club bathroom as I am (right now, anyway).
So...maybe in my next story I'll try to give the characters a bit of a longer courtship. Draw things out a little. Wait for the sex.
Or maybe I'll carry on writing about sluts. I do love 'em. Sigh.
No comments:
Post a Comment