elingregory | Sweet or Spicey

As mentioned briefly yesterday and, very kindly, by

alex_beecroft I've been giving a lot of thought to the problems facing authors of books with gay protagonists that don't quite fit the standard M/M = erotica definition.

First of all THERE IS ABSOLUTELY NOTHING WRONG WITH EROTICA. It has a long and noble tradition, can be very joyful, liberating and great fun to read, and I imagine it's good fun to write if you have the knack for it. Erotic romances can be good fun too and there is certainly a HUGE market for them.

But what about the other genres? I have read plenty of mainstream novels where heterosexual relationships develop and are consummated alongside a complex and satisfying plot, and these books are shelved according to their genre NOT as erotica. Why should a science fiction story, or murder mystery, or spy caper, that might have one or two sex scenes [no more than a similar mainstream novel] be tagged as erotica just because the lovers are the same sex, trans-sexual, or transgender? How can an author flag their work to show that while their books might contain LGBTTQ relationships, relationships that impact on the plot in interesting ways, the sexual content is quite light, scarce, discreet, off page, or not present at all? Do readers need to know that kind of thing before they start reading a book? Would they like to? As readers are you horribly disappointed if a book doesn't have the sexy times you expected from the M/M label? As an author of erotica, do you ever worry about letting your fans down if, just for a change, you decide to write something less explicit than usual? Do you think there should be as much choice, as much range, in books with LGBTTQ characters as you might see on the shelves in Waterstones?

In short - if I - or someone with a rather higher profile - start a group on Goodreads, with another on Facebook where authors can promote books that paddle in the shallow end of the nooky pool, would you be interested in joining, posting etc etc.

Please note - again because it's worth saying more than once - erotica is a fine and lovely category but a 400 page book with one FTB sex scene doesn't really belong in it. I'm just thinking of trying to provide an alternative venue.