Man Love

If you read erotic romance, you must have noticed the latest trend. Books involving male/male sexual interaction, written for women, by women.

I've read plenty of discussions on the topic and still I have no explanation for why it's such a huge draw, outside of the fact that women just seem to love reading about two powerful men having sex. It's not gay fiction. It doesn't (generally) delve into a character's emotional issues with his homosexuality. More often, it skims across the surface, sticking with the physical sensations, erotic experience. And a key difference, of course is the presence of a heroine, who interacts sexually with the men.

I have several erotic works that incoporate male/female/male (as well as male/male/female--to me, the order is significant) sexual interaction, including my entire Carpe Nocturne series (which concludes with this Friday's release, If Looks Could Kill), Burning Hunger, the second book in the Twilight's Possession series, Carnal Hunger (which hasn't released yet), Wild Nights, and my current wip, Double Take.

Ironically, before I began writing my first book with male/male sex, I discussed this trend with customers at the indy bookstore I work at. Ninety percent of them said they do not like male/male sex in their erotic romance books. The other ten percent are not bothered by it, although they said they don't intentionally seek out books with it.

And yet, when you pose a question to online readers--say, in a chat--you get a very different response. They are very pro-m/m, enthusiastically rattling off their fave books/authors of the subgenre.

Does that mean it's mainly an ebook/internet trend? Not necessarily. I don't have access to sales figures, but I do follow Amazon rankings. And it does seem that Amazon sales are stronger for books containing m/m sex scenes.

So I'd love to hear, do you read or write m/m/f or m/f/m? Do you read or write gay fiction? Or do you become uncomfortable when reading m/m sex scenes? I'd love to hear your thoughts. Let's talk about man love.

Tawny
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www.tawnytaylor.com