What a Man: Men in Romance

One of my favorite aspects of writing m/m romance is getting to write a lot of men, and one of my favorite things about writing men is showing all the different kinds of men there are in the world. Not just physical types but emotional types too: strong, reserved, intense, relaxed, paranoid, overindulgent””the whole buffet. And because I write primarily gay characters, I get to show that men are varied no matter who they want to take to bed, which just makes my job doubly fun.

My husband is the original against-the-grain male. Looks-wise he’s your ordinary handsome geek, with a salt-and-pepper do now that he’s getting older. He is the original boy-next-door. But he’s also the boy next door who was too shy to do much but go down the street to the record store. He doesn’t know a thing about any sport, just barely knows how to hold a hammer, and takes no real pleasure in using any power tool of any kind, not even a charcoal grill (though that really isn’t a tool, is it). He is the first one to tell you he doesn’t fit the male mold.

What he’ll also tell you, however, is that most men he’s met don’t feel like they fit the mold. He’s also convinced that, while most men do NOT want to sit around and talk about their feelings, they truly do yearn for more authentic, emotional connection with other males. They just can’t figure out how to do it. Which is why, though he’s straight, my husband enjoys not just my m/m romances but the occasional outlier I tell him he should try. Because what he really wants is to watch that emotional connection. He’s always one of my betas; where my straight women and gay male friends (and sometimes even my lesbian betas) will revel in rather steamy moments, my husband effuses over “that time they talked in the truck” or “when Randy broke down with Ethan.”

I love that sentimental quality in my husband; I don’t think I could have a more emotionally connected partner than I do. I like that connection in my fictional men as well. I love taking a hapless neurotic and a bustling overachiever who doesn’t want anyone to know he’s vulnerable and thrusting them together in a situation that makes them reveal their emotions to each other. I like taking two stoic souls and closing off all avenues for happiness, alone or together, except for the route where they have to do a lot of communicating.

Writing men in loving relationships with each other takes the best parts of men and lets you stir them up together to reveal the parts most men would rather hide. And I like all the men. I like the big bruty ones who don’t talk much. I like the chatterboxes. I like the friendly ones and the surly ones. I absolutely adore lean and slender men with soft faces and bright smiles, the type that tend to geekier habits than going out for football””kind of like my husband, I guess!

What type of men in romance do you like? What are your favorites? What are the types of men you’re still waiting to see?