Male on Male Fiction: Representation or Fetishization?

Over the past several years, Young Adult literature has seen significant diversification, especially in LGBTQ+ characters. From Benjamin Alire Saenz’s Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe published in 2012 to Rachel Hawkin’s Her Royal Highness and Casey McQuiston’s Red, White & Royal Blue both published just last year, the genre has undoubtedly seen a rise in representation when it comes to queer stories. 

One of the most notable examples is Becky Albertalli’s Simon vs the Homo Sapiens Agenda, which was adapted into the major motion picture Love, Simon in 2018. Love, Simon was a huge deal, becoming the first major studio-released teen film to star a gay protagonist. Even more significantly, it broke a long trend of popular queer films that preceded it. Unlike tear-jerker movies like Brokeback Mountain and Call Me By Your Name, Love, Simon is a gay story with a happy ending. This is huge. As queer kids, we grow up consuming so much media that does not represent our experiences. Straight kids have so many romance stories to choose from, from tragic romances that end in heartbreak to light-hearted, bubbly rom-coms with fairytale endings. For such a mass-market queer film to give its gay lead a fairytale ending is game-changing. Queer kids deserve their John Green stories, too. 

Despite this cultural impact, Simon vs.’s success was not without controversy, and not for the reasons one might think. The backlash did not come from senseless homophobes; it came from the queer community itself. For many gay men - particularly other gay authors - the fact that Becky Albertalli is a straight woman profiting from telling a male on male love story did not sit well.

Publishing major Anthony Rodriguez is one of these individuals. 

“Becky Albertalli being a straight woman writing queer stories is definitely questionable and dangerous,” he said. “It can fall into horrible stereotypes which is exactly what she did in her follow up to Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda, Leah on the Offbeat; it portrayed such a toxic look at bisexuality and I denounce that book entirely.” 

For her part, Albertalli did address the controversy in an interview with ABC in 2018. She acknowledged the concerns of queer communities, expressing that she understands that no matter how much research a straight person may do, they cannot strip away their privilege nor know what it is like to exist as a queer person. Albertalli even went as far as to say that, "If [she] were sitting here today, knowing what [she] knows now, [she doesn’t] think that [she] would choose to write this book."

This is part of a larger industry problem. Despite the progress we might be seeing in queer character representation throughout the YA genre, the same cannot be said about the market behind the scenes. That is, male on male romance novels that have garnered attention and success over recent years has been written predominantly by cisgender, straight women.  

The history of male/male romance, or gay romance typically written by women, dates back to the 1970s, when fan fiction communities first began to emerge. According to Camille Bacon-Smith, author of Enterprising Women: Television Fandom and the Creation of Popular Myth, writing male/male fanfiction was a means of sexual expression for women when female sexuality and desire was too taboo. Adult romance fiction, specifically male/male romance, allows for that same expression. While YA, as a genre, does not include explicit sexual content the way adult romance does, it is very similar in content otherwise, and this treatment of male/male relationships as fetishized objects has easily been incorporated into the genre.  

One huge issue with straight women writing these stories lies in the fact that, when people write, the first audience is always the author. That means that, when straight women are writing these stories, they are writing them for a straight audience, thus the gay characters become an object of curiosity for straight people rather than relatable representations of gay men. This is the process by which they become fetishized. 

The problem with male/male romance goes beyond the risk for misrepresentation, however. When straight women are telling stories that belong to queer men, they are stripping them of their opportunities to tell their own stories.  

For Rodriguez, the first time he felt properly represented in the media is a key example of why having stories written by people within a community is so important.

Photographed by Toby Lichtenwalter

“As a gay Latinx man myself, I never really saw myself represented in the media until I read More Happy Than Not by Adam Silvera,” he said. “ Adam Silvera being a gay Latinx man as well, I have always aspired to be like him and have been following his books ever since. He truly is an inspiration.”  

As a reader, and especially as a member of the LGBTQ+ community, I feel a responsibility to question dynamics where it feels as though someone may be exploiting members of the community. I also feel as though it is key for me to acknowledge that, as a queer woman, I ultimately do not get to decide whether gay men feel properly represented (or exploited) by straight authors. However, I do think these dialogues are necessary in ensuring that progress in healthy representation will be made efficiently. And this is only one conversation in a whole movement toward representation. The world of YA fiction is still incredibly lacking in diversity, and so much more work needs to be done to publish stories featuring trans stories and stories featuring queer people of color, among many other minority groups.