Hi everyone– I’m baaaaaaccckkk! Back from a great week at GayRomLit in New Orleans where a fantastic time was had by all — and where most of the authors and readers of the gay romance genre are quite obviously women. (Although i met some really fantastic guys as well). I recently posted a blog at my friend Tristram LaRoche’s site about why women read and write gay romance. As you may know, Tris has been a guest on this blog and my readers love his visits. He sometimes talks about the experience of a man writing gay romance. So i turned the tables and thought i’d repost it here.  
Yes, I confess, I am a het female. But then the average reader of M/M romance in the world is a woman between 30 and 60. Isn’t that interesting? Scientists tell us that while men are mostly turned-on by images and ideas related to their orientation (heterosexual men like M/F images and homosexual men like M/M images) that women respond to the entire spectrum of stimulation — M/F, M/M, F/F and all combinations thereof regardless of whether they are hetero or homosexual. No one knows why exactly, but those are the facts. Women tell me all the time that they were amazed when they found out that they were excited by gay romance. But there are chat rooms full of thousands of women who want to talk about gay romances and at  GayRomLit Retreat in New Orleans in a week and the majority of the attendees will be female.
The reasons women love gay romance is not just physiological. There are emotional and sociological issues as well. Women, no matter what age, have experienced a lot of gender roles and stereotyping and these often carry over into het romances. In M/M romance, these gender roles are gone and a reader or writer can experience the fluidity of a relationship in which no clear-cut interaction exists.  In a M/F romance, a woman reader (or writer) is almost forced to identify with the female character. When reading or writing M/M, she can relate to either or both (or in my case any of) the heroes. When we read romance we get to be vampires and werewolves. I think being the opposite sex is even more fun.
Obviously, I would never presume to write serious gay fiction. But romance is fantasy. I have made love to a man and know the touch, taste and smell. I can imagine what an idealized happy-ever-after love is like between two men as well as I can between a man and a woman. In fact, because I don’t have the limitations of “real life” to hem me in, I can imagine a very grand love between two men — or three. Most women readers try out their first turn in M/M romance with a female author. I did, reading the wonderful Jet Mykles and Z A Maxfield and Lynn Lorenz. Then I tried my hand at some Josh Lanyon and Ethan Day and Tristram LaRoche. Of course, there is bad gay romance written by both sexes. But I find well-written gay romance to be virtually indistinguishable between male and female writers. Just as emotional, just as sexy. What do you think?