Now I'm not so sure it matters, but it kind of rankles, because for a fan base that's supposedly liberal, this demonstrates a helluva bigoted attitude.
Let me be clear. Those who actually have read Dragon Streets know that there's a key plot element when an m/f sex scene is necessary. It's not even that long. I'm only advocating m/f sequences in m/m novels for cases where the plot justifies it, because you're entitled to get what you pay for, and you wouldn't want gay sex popping up in a vanilla bodice ripper. But it irks -- oh, boy, does it irk -- that the door is more often that not firmly closed to any minimal depiction or involvement with women.
I have a few ideas about why this is. I'm bisexual. It's taken me sooooooo long to come to terms with that, and I'm still figuring it out. And just to show you what a chicken shit I am, this is the first public forum where I've outed myself. As a bi person, there's a fair degree of bullshit you encounter in personal dealings (on my last date with a gay guy, he turns to me and says, "So you call yourself bi -- what's that about?" Other bis are used to this: we're posing, we're kidding ourselves, it's a phase, we're traitors somehow to the culture, yada, yada, yada). So it's to be expected that some assumptions are just as prevalent among readers. I don't know about other bi men, but my tastes are highly selective, and I'm predominantly attracted to women (and especially bi women, because more often than not they are more open-minded). Frankly, a very uninhibited female partner can do the same things for me a male could do, so at the risk of spoiling my own credibility, I can't say I know the "gay scene." Gore Vidal admitted when he wrote his bestselling novel, The City and the Pillar, that he hadn't a clue how two run-of-the-mill queer guys would behave. He made it up -- which is fine. That's what writers do.
Dale's ambivalence, his constant angst until he finds Phirun, are mine. Guys are dogs. You can go on Craigslist any hour and hook up within 30 minutes, and if you're like me, paranoid of disease, you will pause carefully before you think of doing something stupid (not that I'm so clever, just fearful, and having a child, even if I don't live with her, means I no longer have the right to inadvertently shorten my life through HIV/AIDS, etc. if I can help it). I like to know a guy a little before I jump into the sack with him. Of course, straight guys are also dogs, so where am I going with this? We're going back to the name: m/m romance.
Most m/m readers are female, and I think having a bi hero screws with those romance assumptions. A bi hero conjures up expectations of "cheating" in the novel, and when it comes to personal life, a woman's legitimate concern that her lover would have the higher probability of giving her something nasty by being with a man than with another woman. It's hard to argue this is wrong when in my own home city, cops have routinely busted park washrooms to nab guys who turn out to be married.
But I think the biases have calcified into another restriction on writers as limiting as HEA or HFN endings. Don't get me wrong, I like HEA and HFN, too, and write them more often than not, but a satisfying ending doesn't necessarily = HEA or HFN. What if your noble Steampunk gay hero sacrifices himself, diving off the train at the evil gangster, so that his love interest might survive? And the survivor, of course, will always remember him, somehow find another, blah, blah, blah. In the same way, why choke off an interesting story arc of a bi hero struggling with his sexual tastes, rejecting a seduction by a female character (or hell, villain) than not having it all or worse still, the wimpy solution, putting it "off screen"? I happen to think it's more powerful for a conflicted bi hero to make his choice for his gay lover than regularly relegating bi heroes' involvement with women as back story.
In Buddha on the Road, for example, my editor wisely talked me into having the hero, Brin Harper, break off his relationship with his boyfriend, Richard, before taking up with his friend-with-benefits, Aung. I say "wisely" because of course, I want readers to sympathize with Brin and cheating could put them off. In the original draft, he sleeps with Aung just before the break-up, but given how strongly readers feel Richard is a prick, I think they would almost forgive my hero. To me, the original version was far more realistic, but it was no biggie. I do find it interesting how we readily follow our TV characters when they cheat but refuse to see shades of gray and flaws in our novel heroes.
I don't regret adjusting the narrative, but like the bi issue, do you want us to grind out McGay novels or wouldn't it be more interesting if we gave you the Harvey's approach of the "beautiful thing" that's made special? Sorry to keep the fast-food metaphor going.
I'm working away now on The Fourth Estate, in which the two heroes are both clearly gay. There's no reason story-wise to have either of them bi, and it felt natural to make them both gay. But ironically, I found myself saying the things I still want to say about sexual issues in Bianca: The Silver Age , a paranormal fantasy novel with over-the-top alchemy superheroes running around, because by the time I wrote that one, I knew I'd have a hard time getting a fair hearing on bisexuality in m/m. And even then I had to think over brief depiction of lesbian love-making. Given what's happening in Tennessee and Uganda lately, maybe we haven't come so far after all.
I won't ever grumble that m/m romance should be like gay fiction. It's clearly not (and in many ways, it's much more fun). One of the nicest compliments I pick up from reviews of my work is that my protagonists show compassion. That is a huge deal for me and puts me over the moon, because it's a trait I prize as well. Bi does not = promiscuous, nor does it = cheater. And if m/m does not always necessarily = gay fiction, maybe it's time for the genre to be flexible.
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