Exploring Diversity in M/M Books ... Yes, Let's Go There

Have you read an M/M book lately with diverse characters? How many books over the past year? 2, 5, 10 or none? Does it seem that there's not a whole lot of selection out there if you are a member of that rapidly expanding group called "diverse" if you want to read books with characters that look like you? In publishing parlance diverse means that you're not part of the mainstream. I'm not talking only about ethnically diverse protagonists, but culturally diverse, characters who are over 40, or those who are physically challenged.

As you probably know by now from my polls, I tend to go where many fear to tread. The reason I do is because very few bloggers post on some sensitive topics that affect readers of M/M books, therefore I do so to even the playing field - you don't get answers unless you ask questions. One example was when I interviewed Clare London recently and I asked her a very touchy question - "Why don't you ever write interracial stories?" To give Clare a lot of credit she had the option to delete this or any question she didn't want to answer but she did respond and gave what were (to her) very valid reasons for her choices of protagonists in her books.

Prior to this interview, I summarized my thoughts about moving beyond racial and other boundaries on another poll on M/M romances conducted on the blog sometime ago. Here's part of what I said -

"There seem to be very few ethnically diverse main characters in M/M books. At least 90% of M/M books feature Caucasian characters as the protagonists. There are very few non-white ethnic main characters and those are mainly Latino where the plot involves drug cartels, and Asians in yaoi themed books, notwithstanding that there is a large multicultural population in the US and elsewhere in the world,

There is an untapped market of readers who do not feel that they are being served and that M/M books do not reflect their diversity. Writing positive culturally, ethnically diverse or physically challenged characters or older protagonists in M/M books would be a great way for authors to grow their readership - this is simply good business. If I can draw an analogy, if you eat the same diet every day or you can't relate to the food, it becomes boring and old very quickly and after a while you don't want it any more.

We live in a global society and economy and I think it's time for books to reflect this ethnic and multicultural diversity. Loose-id, recognizing this growing market, is one of the few publishers of M/M books that is actively promoting and asking for submissions that feature ethnically diverse characters (although they call them multi cultural.:) But there is still a huge lack of books featuring protagonists who are outside the "norm."

Noticeably absent in M/M books are protags who are physically challenged and characters that are over 40 -45 years old. A writer has to have a wonderful imagination if s/he is going to be successful, and I'm sure that s/he can come up with a few protags who are other than a 20 - 25 year old white male. Our society is changing rapidly and readers like to relate to characters who look like them in books. Of course I realize that historical books have their own challenges and that there are very few diverse characters to draw from in past centuries, but I'm sure there were physically challenged and culturally diverse people who lived in those times.

When I posed this question originally here are 2 of the responses I received -

As to ethnicity. Don't you think we get enough criticism for writing gay male fiction? Imagine the furore if all the white wimmin started writing black gay fiction! Seriously though, I couldn't do it. I know many gay men, but I've rarely met many ethnic minorities.

For the purposes of ethnicity, I have to agree ......... It's one thing to write fantastic creatures that have no real life counterpart. As long as you support your own world, you can be as fanciful as you want. But for creating characters that would reside in an everyday society, it's not enough to make it up as you go. For instance, I would never feel comfortable writing about Asian culture without studying it first, and I think anybody who does, does the culture a disservice. It wouldn't take much to learn, but to jump head first into writing a character without taking the time to learn what makes that character tick is irresponsible in my opinion. There is already enough outcry about minorities being presented poorly; the last thing we need to do is perpetuate it.

Of course I don't agree entirely with these opinions which, like some opinions are partly true, but in this case need perspective. These comments make ethnically or culturally diverse people seem as if they were another species altogether from strange new worlds. I think I'm fairly normal, but others might not.:) As a human race we're not that different from each other except for skin colour, hair, religion, age, or other physical characteristics.

While most M/M authors seem to be stuck in a rut as if they have found a winning formula and aren't willing to change in case they lose fans, I am pleased to say that, based on a very small survey, a few M/M authors have written books with ethnically diverse, physically challenged, older protagonists, or characters with different religious backgrounds than the Christian faith, and to the best of my knowledge their sales have not plummeted because they chose to take a walk on the wild side.:) Madeleine Urban & Rhianne Aile, Sean Michael, Lynn Lorenz, K.C. Kendricks, Jeanne Barrack, Ally Blue, James Buchanan, Z.A. Maxfield, Ariel Tachna to name some of them, have all written books with diverse characters. Het romances have significantly more interracial pairings and it seems that the authors who write primarily M/F romances are much more open to breaking down barriers and stereotypes and are more adventurous than their M/M counterparts. The only exception is in yaoi romances where the nature of this sub genre dictates that the protagonists must be Asian.

We live in a global society and books are the gateway to our new world. Authors have always been in the forefront of the changing human dynamics and shifting paradigms and they are now positioned where they can demonstrate that they recognize the world is not inhabited by only nubile young white males. The latest world population statistics indicate that we are almost at 6.8B people, with China at 1.3 B, India 1.1B, Africa 967 million, European Union 500M, USA 303M, Indonesia 230M, Brazil 190M, Pakistan 166M, Bangladesh 156M, Russia 142 M, Japan 127M and Mexico 111 M; Britain at 60M and Canada at 31M lag far behind. Clearly the population pendulum has shifted to countries that are ethnically and culturally diverse and people in the most populous countries in the world want to read about characters they can relate to.

As I said at the end of Clare London's interview, "we live in a global economy where people are more disparate than 10 or even 5 years ago -- whether it's their ethnicity, the fact that they are physically challenged, their sexual orientation, they are culturally diverse or are of a different religion -- and writers whose books embrace these differences perhaps have an opportunity to expand their readership. We all like to see ourselves reflected in books. The majority of M/M writers, being female, know nothing or very little about the lives of gay men, yet despite this they write terrific stories about gay protagonists. Similarly, they create wonderful paranormal worlds and characters and I'm sure they have never met a werewolf or a vampire.:) The world population is expanding exponentially at an unprecedented rate and every day I grow more and more excited at how far we've come, and the incredible opportunities that await those who choose to take advantage of our new global environment."

My blog is accessed by readers from all over the world if you can believe the Neocounter. To name a few - China, Singapore, Germany, Japan, France, Africa, Austria, Italy, India, Finland, the UK, US, Canada, Switzerland, South Korea, New Zealand, Australia, Georgia, Italy, The Netherlands, Belgium, Greece and on and on and on -- The more I read about the technological advances in countries like Asia where young adults live online and are actually reading and writing books on their cell phones, the more I'm enthused about our global society - what an expanding market for books! The number of M/M books with diverse protagonists is less than 5% (not counting yaoi), and one of the reasons I love books by the authors mentioned above is that they are willing to go there occasionally. Authors who see diversity as an opportunity to explore new worlds and move beyond stereotypes may find untold benefits in terms of an expanding fan base.

Next Wednesday I'm interviewing Jeanne Barrack who has written M/M books from a different cultural perspective and I hope you will log on to read what she has to say.

Are you hearing the music M/M authors?*g*