A lot of times the MM romance market follows trends from the MF market, only maybe they show up years later? But I think there are certain trends that might never translate well into the MM world. One big trend right now in MF is bully romance. There are tons of Reverse Harem stories in MF where the female lead is basically tortured the entire book. Often the female lead does get the upper hand at some point, but there is definitely a lot of pages where she is basically used sexually and abused mentally.
They say many women read bully romance because they’re working through being bullied when they were younger. Reading about a tough heroine who overcomes the bullies makes them feel vindicated. I don’t think that storyline would go over well in MM romance. There are a lot of people who would have issues because the LGBTQ community is considered a vulnerable group and readers don’t appreciate seeing them picked on.
I did deal with bullying a bit in Painful Lessons. Maybe it was more stalking than bullying, but bullying takes all different forms. Here’s a link to that book.
Bullying is especially problematic in the MM romance world because so many people in the LGBTQ community have suffered bullying. Straight people get bullied too, but it’s not on the same level I would guess? My husband is a ginger, and he was bullied horribly in grade school. But no one would think to bully him today. Bullying for most straight people probably stops once they’re out of grammar school or high school, where as people in the LGBTQ community probably have to struggle with it their entire lives.
Thoughts? What do you think about the subject matter? Do you think the LGBT community could handle books that have to do with bullying?