Why Queer Women Can’t Look Away from Gay Romance—And What "Heated Rivalry"
Gets Exactly Right
On a Friday night in Bed-Stuy, a combination of queer and straight women debate the identity politics of pegging men. The recent release of the Canadian show Heated Rivalry, and subsequent mass psychosis, has reminded the world that women love gay sex.
Marisa C., a 25-year-old bisexual woman from Staten Island, sat in the hot seat at a Valentine’s Day party as eight people argued whether or not her pegging her bi boyfriend was straight, gay, or a secret third thing.
“I have pegged my straight ex-boyfriend, and I will peg my current bi boyfriend…I wanted to be the dominant person in that moment, and the only way for me to actually feel like I was a dominant person in the moment was to peg my boyfriend,” said Marisa.
At the opposite end of the table, filled with a combination of heart shaped candies, soju, wine, and buzz balls, Alyssa T., 27, a queer woman also from Staten Island, countered, “…deviating from that [straightness] turns you queer in a way.”
This is the kind of gender envy and sexual questioning the show about two infatuated queer hockey players has triggered for queer and straight women alike, and in the case of Marisa, the possibility of pegging her boyfriend.
This show has brought up the elephant in the room: why do women like watching men have sex so much, and what does it say about them? In a political climate where red-pill traditional masculinity is a part of the national identity, Heated Rivalry exists as a parallel, displaying men as vulnerable, soft, and feminine in a way that women love…and kind of want to be.
The show centers on the forbidden romance between gay and bisexual hockey players, Shane Hollander and Illy Rosanov, and follows their journey from enemies to lovers. Although the show caught on because of its captivating sex scenes, it’s the endearing romance and gender-neutral dynamic that have kept women hooked.
In a genre written by over 80% women, M/M (Men/Men) romance is also consumed predominantly by women, with 85% female readership. In an interview with Kacey Whalen, author of “A Consumption of Gay Men: Navigating the Shifting Boundaries of M/M Romantic Readership,” she points out this discrepancy.
“Based on author blurbs, and I’ve been to a couple romance novel conventions, I would say easily 90- 95% of the authors — at least there — are women, or people who present as women. I think it’s large — 90, maybe 85% women. Predominantly, I’d say even just as much as the reader, the authors are mostly female.”
Meanwhile, in Brooklyn, the round table had just discovered that sexuality is a spectrum.
“In theory, it’s straight — a man having sex with a woman. But it doesn’t feel that simple,” concluded Alssya.
And she’s right, its not that simple. Queer and straight women becoming enamored by gay love, wanting to top their boyfriends (strap or no strap), and experiencing gender envy can land anywhere on the sexuality spectrum.
Art like Heated Rivalry exemplifies this, providing the space for women to explore these feelings with whoever their partner is.
“He [my boyfriend] was totally down. And honestly, just as invested as I was, which was, which was nice… it turned both of us on,” said Marisa.
Mari M., 28, also from Staten Island and a part of the round table, grounded the room from the opposite side of the table from Marisa, “Hey, it could get wild in there — you never know what might happen when you stop policing desire and start exploring pleasure without fear of what it means.”
It makes sense for women constantly navigating romance and life while living under a patriarchal society to have to bend the rules of gender and sexuality in order to find a safe type of romance. Seeking out romance that removes this looming sense of sexism resonates with many women, like Marisa, who engage in the genre.
“I’ve been consuming this genre for a while. There is something nice as a woman, removing yourself from the equation and seeing love happen in a way where women aren’t involved,” Marisa pointed out.
“Because I feel like in a lot of mainstream media, it’s straight relationships where women have this inferior role, or they’re not the dominant character. So it’s nice to see two people playing an equal role,” she continued.
The relationship between M/M romance and queer women begins early, with many queer women’s first introduction to sex coming through M/M fanfiction on Wattpad and Tumblr, and feeds into why they began writing it.
Whalen educates us as to why this is: “I think one of the reasons it’s so easy for women to get into male-male romance novels is because a lot of us come from fanfiction backgrounds.”
“And it’s so interesting to me — at least the gay romance novel didn’t really spring from gay literature like you’d think it would. It didn’t come from E.M. Forster or Giovanni’s Room or Baldwin or anything like that. It came from people writing fan fiction. They got popular, and then they got published,” says Whalen.
And that’s one of the most fascinating yet logical parts: a genre focused on the love between men is coming from women.
Women, both queer and straight, take different things away from the genre, whether it’s gender envy, the lack of binary gender dynamics, or just pure attraction.
Strict lesbians like Olive Okoro, 25, from Houston, Texas, explains her reasoning, “From a very young age, I admired people who broke the system. I really admired when people completely went past the patriarchal man-woman, masculinity-femininity portrayal of what we’re supposed to be,” Okoro expressed.
“I don’t actually want to be a gay man. I want the same love story. I want the same passion. Lesbians don’t usually get that type of representation.”
This gender envy proves to be consistent for many women; watching two men be intimate with each other scratches a power imbalance itch for many. This may affirm women like Marisa’s desire to contort those gender dynamics.
“I’ve pegged my ex-boyfriend, and I think it doesn’t necessarily sexually turn me on, but the feeling of being the dominant person — the gender envy aspect of it — being able to be in a role that I’m not usually in, is very appealing to me. I feel like it’s hard for me to assert dominance in other ways. Being on top is not the same as pegging,” Marisa reflected.
This gender envy could be explained in multiple ways. Juliana Amaya, 23, a lesbian from San Diego, California, encapsulates this envy. “The gender envy comes from gay men’s ability to be feminine as a transgressive act, rather than a conformist one, as it often feels like it would be for me as a lesbian.”
Amaya continues,“For the longest time, I felt like I could never say when I thought that a man was attractive, because I’d be like, ‘Oh, if I say that, that means I’m not gay.’ But then I realized the way that I’m ‘attracted’ is different. It’s not that I want to be with him. It’s that I want to be like him.”
On the contrary, gay men don’t need to do this with lesbians or women in general, because there is no power imbalance to address for them.
Addressing this power imbalance within the patriarchy directly through gay male intimacy is one perspective, but Whalen offers a different, more insidious reasoning.
“We’re already conditioned to consume stories from a man’s perspective. That’s the default in so much media. So when women read gay romance, it’s not like we’re suddenly crossing into unfamiliar territory — we’re just shifting the direction of the desire. The structure of masculinity is still there… I don’t think it’s as much of a cognitive dissonance.”
Whalen brings up the reality that women in the M/M romance genre are, in part, doing it as a byproduct of being indoctrinated into a patriarchal society.
Stories about men falling in love are happening through a subconscious version of the male gaze, even if it is queer women writing it.
Heated Rivalry has proved M/M romance to be a genre for women by women, proving a space for queer and straight women to bend the rules of gender both on paper and in real life, with Whalen concluding, “We’re already inside masculinity when we read. Gay romance just lets us explore it without being confined by it — to want it, to question it, even to imagine ourselves inside it.”
If this piece sparked something in you, there’s more where that came from. Follow Krys Cerisier on Substack for bold, thoughtful writing on culture, desire, and the conversations we’re just starting to have.
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