Celebrating GLBT Literature

Reviews are for readers more than anyone so here at Three Dollar Bill Reviews we wanted to know what readers liked about the genre. We sent out feelers asking readers two questions:

What do you love about GLBT literature?
What would you like to see more of?

We asked for answers anywhere from one word to dissertation length and can focus on m/m romance, literature, fiction, non-fiction, bisexual, lesbian, comics, erotica, action, porn, or the entire umbrella genre. Whatever their opinion was as a reader in the genre, we wanted to know. This is one response we’ve gotten back.

What do you love about GLBT literature?

Well, this a hard question to answer, because it’s easy just to say “Two guys are hot, what more do you need?” but it goes beyond hotness I think for most people. At least if you plan on sticking with it beyond a few months of titillation. Part of it for me was the novelty factor in the sense that in my early days I read a LOT of m/f romance, predominantly historical. I cut my adult reading eye teeth on Kathleen E. Woodiwiss and Johanna Lindsay like many romance readers. (I still wish I’d called my daughter Shanna.) For years that’s all I read. Then I got bored and I started reading mysteries, any detective mystery I could get my hands on, for about 15 years. I started to get more particular – British mysteries only – and then I got bored with that too. I went back to my roots somewhat and started reading Paranormal Romance (PNR). This was new to me as I’d stopped reading romance before vampires and werewolves were popular, but despite the fact the guys could change into amazing creatures and give you the best blood sucking orgasm ever, the m/f part really wasn’t that much different from when I was in my 20’s. The men still tended to relate to the women the same way and I think I kind of outgrew that type of relationship as I matured myself. I got tired of the alpha male saving the weak swooning heroine. Urban Fantasy (UF) helped for a short while, at least those girls could kick butt, but the guy was still often bigger, stronger, badder in the end.

Then I discovered m/m and while there are still some swooney boys who are rescued by their alpha lovers, it’s not the predominant theme or at least I can find more stories with equal relationships. I like stories with two betas (as they are often referred). Two normal guys, without relationship power struggles (but perhaps some large external struggles) because even in real-life m/f relationships I think that’s more normal, at least for the women I know. Of course it’s fun to have werewolves who rescue their mate and big strong doms and their meek (or not so meek) little subs once in a while, but I find on the whole there is more equality to the relationships of m/m than in m/f.

There have also been discussions at Val’s at Obsidian Bookshelf about the way men communicate, or don’t as the case may be. I am not a typical female. I HATE talking about feelings and relationship stuff. Ugh. So perhaps I relate more to the male characters of m/m who often feel the way I do. Sure they have their talkers as well in m/m, just like in real life, but most tend to think about things the way I do. I’ve heard reviewers or commentors say “But if he’d only said X then …” and I’m thinking “Yeah, but if I was him? I would have kept my mouth shut too.” So maybe that’s part of the appeal as well for me personally. Chris of Stumbling Over Chaos and Val expressed similar sentiments about emotional ”sharing” so maybe for those of us who are more “male” in our communication style (or lack of communication style) it draws us closer to the characters.

Oh yeah, and did I say two (or three) guys together is freaking hot? There’s that too.:-)

What would you like to see more of?

I would like to see more diverse setting in m/m. The vast majority of the books are set in the US, in either real or fictional places. There are some stories set in Canada, usually written by the same few authors and some in the UK or Australia but anything outside of those locales is rare. I have nothing against the US, I love the US (I’m Canadian for those who don’t know) and some cities there I adore, but I’d love to read a book set in Paris, or Moscow, or Santiago, or Seoul. Of course there is yaoi if I’m craving Japan and yes, there are always examples of books that are set elsewhere, NL Gassert’s The Protector set in Guam, KC Kendricks’ At the Southern Cross series set in the Caribbean and Neil Plakcy’s Three Wrong Turns in the Desert set in North Africa, but they are few and far between and I often snap them up BECAUSE they are set somewhere unique. I love to travel and while I can’t afford to go everywhere I’d love to in person, I like to do it vicariously through my favourite characters.

I also want the stories to be authentic. I want an Australian guy to ask his lover if he’s “taking the piss” or the British guy who dropped his ice-cream on the “pavement” while putting on his “jumper”. That’s what takes me there, not hearing a Frenchman or a Korean using American slang when they’ve never been to America. I know some readers HATE it when they don’t understand a phrase or word, but I love it. Google is your friend. If you aren’t sure, look it up, it’s good for your brain to learn new things.I find most of the time context explains it anyway.

It’s more of a challenge to write I’m sure because usually at least one of the characters has to be English speaking to make it seem more realistic to those of us reading in English, but I’d love to see a story of two Spaniards or two Brazilians falling in love. As someone who’s dabbled in some writing for fun, I know it’s tons easier to write a story about my own town that I know inside out than a city I’ve never visited. (I had my daughter Googling to find out if there were Golden Griddle pancake houses in Calgary and where they would be. There aren’t by the way.) But I suppose that’s part of the fun for serious authors. So I would encourage authors to do as much research about a city/country as they do about a career when coming up with ideas for stories. But I also acknowledge that the publishing industry in m/m does not seem to be on my side in this and sometimes actively discourages stories that are too “non-North-American” which is really a shame because I’ve never heard a reader say “I hated that story set in France, if only it had been set in Ohio I could have enjoyed it.”

Tam @ http://tamsreads.blogspot.com/

We got back several responses and some we’re still waiting on. However we didn’t have email addresses for everyone so if you’d like to participate – which we’d love to be able to share different opinions from all kinds of readers, including authors who are readers too – please feel free to write up your own answers and contact us at threedollarbillreviews@gmail.com.