A very interesting read, I must say.
W4M4M?
Meet Alex and Erastes, two women who write erotic man-on-man fiction for other women. Confused yet?
“Alfie raked fingernails gently across one of his nipples, his other hand pushing aside John’s neckcloth so that he could pepper John’s throat with little bites. ‘Nnh!’ John managed. His trapped cock hurt, bent and straining against the heavy, harsh fabric of his breeches.... Alfie’s mouth was on his and sweet fire pulsed down his backbone as he opened to Alfie’s questing tongue. Gathered up in both arms, his head back, astonished and all the more aroused by his own deep surrender, he felt Alfie’s knuckles dig hard into his back as the man snapped the tapes at the back of his waistband and shoved the suddenly loosened breeches down to his knees.” [False Colors]
Alex Beecroft, the writer of this raunchy encounter and a happily married mother of two with short red hair, picks me up in an old Volvo wagon at the train station in her tiny, green Cambridgeshire town. Her home reflects a daily bustle of family activity: framed pictures of adorable blonde children, various craft supplies crowded on tables, stacks of handmade wicker baskets, rosebushes thriving in the backyard. It is in no way visually apparent that Beecroft is one of the most popular and beloved authors in the rapidly expanding male/male romance genre, a defining feature of which is explicit gay male sex.
M/M romance fiction is the latest development to evolve out of the renegade slash fiction phenomenon -- an entire subculture devoted to stories that take straight male buddy characters from various pop culture offerings and write them into steamy gay love scenes. What has been a relatively recent and surprising revelation is that the majority of slash creators (known as “slashers”) and fans are heterosexual, college-educated women -- and that for a rather large number of them, gay erotica is the pornography of choice.
more.