quick question for those of you familiar

[kaigou]

...with yaoi-girls and/or (female) m/m fans. Of those you've known/met in the subculture who prefer the m/m and avoid the m/f, have any of them ever explained the reasoning behind their preference? Beyond just the younger version of "well, m/f is icky" or the lazier version of "I just don't like m/f". Anything more in-depth, more honest, more insightful?

Because the only explanations I've ever gotten amount to variations on those two, and that's not much substance when it comes to deconstructing what, exactly, is going on for readers with the preference.

Comments

[casey_valhalla]

Oh dear. You had to ask. I hope you don't mind that it's in first person, although I've had this conversation with fangirl friends who agreed that this was an underlying reason for their preference for m/m.

It stems from a rejection of heteronormativity by straight women who are not heteronormative. Basically, I dig guys, but I'm not interested in getting married and having babies. In a m/f romance, it's given that love leads to marriage leads to family, and that females naturally want this, and that 'suitable' males want it, too. If a woman doesn't, she's a slut; if a man doesn't, he's a hopeless bachelor case who only wants sex that the female will summarily reject. If you're a real-life female and you don't hold the love-->marriage-->family value set, it's really hard to identify with the women in these stories, or even the men.

In a m/m romance, however, there is no pressure from family, peers or society in general to get married and have children--partially because doing so is logistically and/or legally impossible, and partially because the societal norms and expectations of a m/m couple are vastly different and in some cases the complete reverse. Which isn't a good thing, but it serves to prove my point. In reading m/m romance, I can read my own romantic fantasy of having a healthy, loving, sexual relationship, in which both partners are equals, without the pressure or obligation of it being any more than that.

Of course this raises a lot of questions about why there can't be m/f pairings that accomplish the same thing; but as far as the mainstream media goes, the value set I outlined above is so deeply indoctrinated in books and movies and advertising that even in a story that attempted a non-heteronormative m/f pairing would be dismissed as the characters being in denial, and/or the heteronormative overtones would still be present even if only in my own mind, reading it. It's a sad thing, really, when the only way for a woman to escape the expectations of her gender is to remove it entirely from her romantic fantasies.

This is why I have a problem with 1) Mpreg, 2) any fics in which the m/m pairing gets married or otherwise goes domestic, and 3) ukes that are way too effeminate in looks and/or behavior.

The whole argument comes across as unfortunately self-misogynistic; but honestly, when I'm sitting here being bombarded with the materialistic twit females on reality shows and commercials where the girl talks about how she doesn't know when she's supposed to change the oil in her car--you can't really blame me for running full-tilt in the opposite direction.

[billie]

That makes an amazing lot of sense. I've ever been able to say what exactly it is that has me growing bored of/ annoyed with even the more well-written m/f pairings in many cases, but this is definitely one aspect.

I'll think on it during class, maybe I'll have some input of my own later. :)

[kaigou]

Oh dear. You had to ask.

Oh, but you know I love it when you answer!

It's a sad thing, really, when the only way for a woman to escape the expectations of her gender is to remove it entirely from her romantic fantasies.

Absolutely. I don't think most readers realize it consciously, and I think a fair number of authors don't realize it, either -- which is why so many of them are insistent that they're "allies to gay men" and/or "helping the gay cause" -- because they don't realize it's not really about gay men at all. (And it's also the reason I get somewhat frustrated with gay men who get irritated with M/M fiction on the grounds that it's not realistic; a few times I've wanted to snap, "maybe it's not all about you, buddy," though I wasn't entirely certain where that instinct originated, only that I knew it, somehow, to be undeniably true.

If you're a real-life female and you don't hold the love-->marriage-->family value set, it's really hard to identify with the women in these stories, or even the men.

This is one reason I adore Shelly Laurenston's later works, especially Pack Challenge, in which the female lead tells her lover, "no kids, no way, I'm not doing that white-picket fence crap," and he doesn't even fuss, just accepts it and is perfectly fine with that (especially having been somewhat ambivalent about it himself). More often than not, though, romantic plotlines assume that kids are the penultimate of the relationship dance, and after awhile... that really does get tiresome. I don't mind in M/M where the characters want kids, and I don't mind it overall, really. I mind it definitely when those last two steps are simply taken for granted.

[berrie]

I AGREE WITH EVERYTHING.