Can You Write Queer Love While Voting Against It? The Debate Over Conservative M/M Authors

Content Warning: Sexual Assault

Romance books are one of the most profitable genres in publishing. The genre makes around 1.44 billion dollars a year. M/M romance has gone from a fringe section of publishing to a juggernaut in the genre. Red, White, and Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston spent 23 on the top of the best-selling list while Heart Stopper made 1.4 million copies.

However, the question becomes, are the people profiting off of queer experiences giving a damn about the real LGBTQ+ community? As queer trans man, I find that queer men are being ostracized from the community that should inherently belong to them. And before you get it twisted: this is not me coming for Casey or Alice.

Both Casey and Alice are bisexual, and Casey is a non-binary person. Most queer men within the community do not want to gatekeep this community to only queer men.  But should you get to profit and participate in the m/m romance community when you are actively voting against our rights?

Enter Ashlyn Drewek

Ashlyn Drewek is best known for their dark romances. According to Goodreads, they came on to the scene around 2023 and, since then, have published 20 books. She is best known for The Kidnapping of Roan Sinclair, which is book 1 of The Solnyshko Duet #1. It caused quite a stir last year when this very successful romance author came out last year as a Trump supporter in a post on a Facebook Group called ‘Book Lovers for Trump’.

As a conservative MM author, I already felt like I walked on eggshells with my community. I never posted anything political. I kept it to books and men’s issues (because that’s what MM means i.e. Male/Male), but even that became problematic so I stopped posting at all. I eventually deleted all of my social media, except FB. Needless to say, I am SO happy to have finally found a safe space where people like me aren’t vilified. Thank you for making this space. — Ashlyn Drewek

 

Video by romantically_inclined

Now, Donald Trump has erased federal protections for LGBTQ+ people. The biggest thing is the removal of Biden’s anti-discrimination policies, banning transgender people from serving openly in the military, weaponizing federal laws against transgender people by overriding state protections, and reinstating obscenity laws that have not been seen since the time of Stonewall, which, by the way, absolutely affects all romance writers (especially M/M romance writers) not to mention Trump only supports the overturning of Obergefell v. Hodges, which gives queer and trans people the right to marry

Yet, Ashlyn thinks she is entitled to write queer male characters when she supports a man who is eroding the rights of queer men. This, for me as a trans queer man, is where the buck stops with me.

The Objectification Game

Now, you are probably wondering how it is that a person can vote against queer rights while writing queer romance? This is the most frequent I have seen pop up throughout this discourse, and I am here to tell you that the answer is very simple: Fetishization.

Fetishization is the act or thought of making someone an object of desire based on some aspect of their identity. Racial fetishization is thus the act or thought of making a certain race or ethnicity the object of desire. People typically associate desire with sexual desire and fail to recognize that fetishization can expand past desiring someone sexually, such as desiring a person to do something or act in a certain way.

— Jessica Chang, MHC-LP (Wove Therapy)

This happens all the time in sapphic spaces (in particular within lesbian pornography) see them as objects to get off to. These cishet men will consume lesbian porn but go to the polls and vote against their rights. Yet, cis women think this does not apply to them.

When we can see with the Ashlyn Drewek situation that it absolutely does. There are women who believe they are above the criticism cis men receive because they are women. And that women are more mortal righteous than cis male counterparts.

This is the pitfall first-wave feminists often fall into. And so we have cis women who treat queer men as sexual objects while at the same time voting against their rights.

A Symptom of A Bigger Problem

The problem with all of this is that Ashlyn Drewek is not the only M/M romance that has this problem. And it’s not simply an issue with AUTHORS. Last year, we had a discourse about the Sinners and Stardust convention.

In which a queer male cosplayer was mobbed by readers at the event. Not only that, some of those readers tracked him with airbags to his hotel. If the people were reversed, with a man sexually assaulting a woman and then putting airbags on them to track them to their hotel?

They would be dragged from one end to the other. And this is not the first time that a woman has treated a man this way. We all remember Kierra Lewis and Hockeygate.

This is a pattern of women who think sexual liberation means treating men the same way they treat women. They are not here to break down the systematic oppression of women or to tear down rape culture. They just want the ability to perpetuate rape culture without impunity.

What Can You Do?

The solution to this problem is not cut and dry and certainly not gatekeeping. To make the book community a better place for queer and trans men (and trans masculines), we have to first bring attention to this problem.

• If you see something? Say something. Don’t give predators a safe space.
• Amplify and read books from the non-women in the M/M romance.
• Learn about consent and teach your friends!
• And listen to the non-women around you. Don’t get caught up in your feelings. Sit in your discomfort and really listen
• Don’t read books from Trump supporters.

These easy steps are a good way to make the book community a safe space for everyone, and not just cis women.

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