AKAManaging

I'm not sure if this is a question that you can answer, as it's mainly related to the gay erotica scene, but perhaps you're familiar enough with what I'm about to ask that you might have some kind of information to share. It's been very frustrating for me when I read certain MM Books.

Are the target audience of female written M/M books mostly female readers?

I've noticed that a lot of the time, those type of romance books don't actually get labeled as gay, but M/M. It also seems like the vast majority of those books involve extremely stereotypical gendered dynamics--lots of fretting about what it means to be a man who likes to bottom, plus some top-masculine/bottom-feminine stuff.

Also the ones written by women often have, let's say questionable understandings of the mechanics of gay sex and unrealistic behavior; the number of those books that include rimming is very, very small/non-existent. I can't actually remember one that even touches that. Rarely do they even mention lube.

To give you an example of unrealistic behavior: In one comic I read, when the two love interests were finally ready to have "their first time" with each other -- I kid you not, they sat down next to each other and googled "how to have gay sex," clothes on, seemingly uninterested.

Not to say that female writers can't write beautiful gay romance novels, in fact The Charioteer and The Song of Achilles are my two favorite books in that genre.

Do you have any recommended gay male (preferably non-smut, but smut is okay) readings? Or a website that has recommendations for such?

You're right about the pseudonyms. I remember Josh Lanyon coming out as a female was a huge deal to a lot of people. (I don't care haha.)

Thank you for the response, it certainly sheds some light. I've been having trouble finding literature (not necessarily smut) that specifically has a gay male "lead", and what little I do find falls into two categories.

Pure smut.

Or "coming of age" stories, where the characters are almost always AT THE VERY LEAST under age 25. It's infuriating.

Again, thanks for the response. I'll find the perfect book eventually. I hope.

Good luck with the AMA, and I appreciate the insight!

Because you're not the only one that finds it frustrating. It's nice to get insight from someone within the industry instead of random people on /r/books

Yeah?