The Importance of LGQBT Romance in the Book Community

I have just recently read Mature Content by Santino Hassell and Megan Erickson, and while I was devouring every delicious word of this book, something that Zane, one of the main character’s said struck me.  It is this: there is a difference between tolerance and acceptance, and while no one needs acceptance of others to be happy, they should live in a society that accepts them for who they are without any stipulations or regulations.  Toleration is no longer enough, nor should it be.

We live in a world filled with a wide variation of people, races, genders, sexual orientations, religions, etc., and even though we have these immense differences, as David Levithan wrote in Every Day “We all have about 98 percent in common with each other…For whatever reason, we like to focus on the 2 percent that’s different, and most of the conflict in the world comes from that”. We need to start realizing that we are all the same in the fact that we want love, we want someone to desire us, to be accepted, and this is what LGQBT romance brings to the book world.  If we could see this and focus on our similarities then we could end the hate from fear and intolerance that seems to separate and plague us.

From personal experience, as a teacher and a parent, I know that readers need to be exposed to different books with different heroes and heroines for one solid reason.  Not only do they get to see themselves in characters, but they also get to see that even though we are all so different,  we are all incredibly similar.  In a time when being individual is often hard, there is nothing more important than finding someone or something to connect and identify with.  Just as it is important in YA books and young readers, it is just as important in adult fiction, romance and non-romance genres, alike.

This is what MM romance did for me. I’m going to be honest and say I was hesitant to enter into the world of MM, simply because I never read it and so I wasn’t sure I would like it.  Then one of my very favorite writers, Sarina Bowen, published Understatement of the Year,  and I thought that this was the book and the writer to venture into new territory.  Two chapters in and an I was a goner.  The fear, the emotion, the love was all so poignant, and I found myself not even paying attention to their gender but to their relationship and love.  My love only continued with Him and Us by Sarina Bowen and Elle Kennedy and the whole PresLocke series by Brooke Blaine and Ella Frank.  The Cyberlove series by Megan Erickson and Santino Hassell is another series that opened the door for me as a reader even further with their introduction to different and widely unique characters.  Exposing me to people I would probably never have met otherwise, as I live in a relatively small, rural community.  No matter what MM romance I have, the common idea that runs through them all is the need for love and acceptance, which is what our world needs.

While LGQBT literature seems to be trending right now, particularly in the romance world, it is one that needs to stay.  This world, more than ever needs to focus on the inherent similarities that drives most humans so that we can start honoring the love that should be driving our decisions versus our fear and ignorance.

So thank you, particularly to the authors that opened my eyes to this new world and to the authors who continue to write in this genre or are venturing into this genre.  For those readers who are intrigued but wary, take the leap.  You won’t regret it.  You will see that whether MM, FF, or antoher LGQBT book, at the base of it all is love and we can all relate to that.