After hundreds of read books under my belt I can freely say: There are even more stereotypes in M/M!
I'm not going into ranting about alpha males with their Cromagnon-like behaviour. Just the basics: Plenty of men in M/M are not communicating. They don't talk, they jump to conclusions and act on them. And it's even worse when it comes to sexual arousal - even the brightest ones are reduced to drooling zombies who can't think, talk and it's a miracle they manage to breath.
Nice. Only it's just a female view on men. Let's get some reality check:
1. Seeing a dashing twink/hunky cop/whatever rocks our boat is not going to turn off our brains. We can stare for couple of seconds and drool a bit but we're not going to be hypnotized for hours. The same goes with erection. Unless the twink/hunk/whatever is about to have sex with us, we don't sport a wood lasting for hours.
2. When engaging in sex, we don't lose our ability to talk, think or see. If we don't talk while thrusting it's because we're thrusting, not having a conversation. We don't need to talk while having sex but it doesn't mean our IQ suddenly dropped.
3. Communication barriers in gay relationship are not the same as in het relationship. A man says what he thinks is important. He asks what he wants to know and usually he gets a straight answer. Hello! There are two men talking!
If one of them says: "I'm having a lunch with my colleagues tomorrow," the perception of the other man will be: "He's having a lunch with his colleagues tomorrow." He will not think "Why doesn't he want to have a lunch with me? Is he getting fed up with me? Is he avoiding me? Is he really having a lunch with his colleagues?"
The other man will not start to think about what the sentence might imply. He will process the information and maybe think what he's going to have for lunch tomorrow because they won't be dining together.
4. Talking is not a miracle applied in the last minute to save the relationship (usually implied by the protag's best friend who, despite being a female, knows exactly what's going on in the other man's head). I know The Great Misunderstanding is a well-loved plot device but, honestly, most of them wouldn't happen in real life. Men speak the same language and therefore what one of them says, the other will understand correctly.
So, once again:
Men are not animals.
Gay men are not women in disguise.
End of rant.
Can of worms, opened.
ReplyDeleteNah. Nobody cares.
ReplyDeleteDreams dashed. Thanks. Thanks a lot.
ReplyDeleteKris, dreams can come true. Look at me, babe, I'm with you. You know you gotta have them. You know you've gotta stay strong.
ReplyDeletePlagiarist!
ReplyDeleteTell that to my next novel, The Girl With the Unicorn Tattoo.
ReplyDeleteIs it a My Little Pony one cos that would seriously rock.
ReplyDeleteBTW, is it m/m or are you dipping your toes into m/f?
M/F? If so, Sean's a dead meat! I'll burn my copy of Tigers & Devils! Oh, wait, I only have the e-book. Nevermind. I'll think of something horrible.
ReplyDeleteYou people are crazy.
ReplyDeleteAnd Matthew, my next book contains f/f as well as m/m. And there will be no book burnings. The f/f characters rock, even if I do say so myself.
The proofreader in me is biting my tongue... *G*
ReplyDeleteMatthew, we just "met", but I must disagree about #3 & #4 as over-simplifications, since I've been in a monogamous relationship for twenty-nine years.
ReplyDeleteYes, we're both MEN, but we are both human being who came into this with our own baggage - and even after a quarter of a century, there can STILL be misunderstandings and insecurities.
And in case you're wondering if we're two whack jobs (well, we might be ) - I have a Master's Degree in social work, so I am trained as a therapist. Tis is more common than you know in gay couples in LTR's. In fact, the longer the relationship, the longer tha bad communication habits and the bigger the unspoken resentments and one other thing:
The bigger the fear of saying something that will destroy something you've spent decades building with an ill placed word or gesture. I love the hell out of my man, but he can also drive me bats at time. And sometimes he just dies NOT want to talk about what's bothering him- hairy chest, mustache and all.
And my hairy chest and full-beard feels the same way, sometimes.