
Nah you’re right on both accounts. It IS weird. As a queer man who reads MM romances it’s impossible not to feel a little objectified and uncomfortable sometimes. Sometimes I feel like I have to cater to the female gaze to be valid as a queer man. I want to write my own MM romances but I feel like I’d get no audience if my readers knew I was a man, just because women (specifically those that write MM) have a huge dominance over queer romance
The more I think about it the more it makes me so mad, so I had to add more. I, a queer man, when writing about queer men in love, may have to use a woman’s pen name, otherwise I will be an outcast within the genre. I’ve encountered groups of women before who believe that MM is for women only, and that men (or other non-women) are not welcome as writers in the genre. I wish I was exaggerating, but I’m not. It’s ridiculous that in order to find authors like myself I have to go far out of my way
ik exactly what you're talking about as a bi nonbinary person, my experience with gender makes it a little weird (literally anything involving me feels gay, like i adapt to the person's gender) but i see myself the most in stories by and for and about queer men. and some of the mlm stuff ive seen that's very female gaze oriented is so... theres still so many issues with homophobia within gay media and a portayal of mlm/nblm relationships that just doesnt really map to reality. and
like it's absurdly hard to find media that isn't literally just normal porn that really acknowledges queer men's sex lives without being kind of judgemental?? that is actually written by men and nonbinary people who have experienced these relationships? that's written from experience rather than fantasy? i love a good fantasy, but sometimes i want to be able to see characters like the real people i've loved too
and there are women into mlm who treat actual queer men like garbage. like i'm transmaculine and genderfluid, with my gender mostly floating in the realm of a nonbinary butch man, and i literally have to hide that being a man is any part of my identity to not get treated worse in the queer spaces i'm in. i dont pass as a cis man, but cis men usually treat me better than women in general do now. the way men treat me hasn't actually changed from when i could pass as as a cishet woman.