Gay Men Shouldn’t Write Gay MM Romance

On cultural extraction, the pink ceiling, and why asking for a seat at the table of our own stories has nothing to do with gatekeeping

Citation: Burton, A. P. (2026, September 26). Gay Men Shouldn’t Write Gay MM Romance: Cultural Extraction, the Pink Ceiling, and the Displacement of Gay Authors from Male-Male Romance Fiction. Tremolo A Tiempo Design House. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.22978866

I have of late noticed a peculiar species of post appearing within my own square of control on Instagram, one which argues, with varying degrees of subtlety and volume, that male authors ought to step away from writing gay romance altogether. I recently recorded a short video in reply, and the response it received persuaded me that the matter deserves rather more than a caption and a handful of hashtags can bear. The title of this piece is the claim itself, laid out upon the table like a specimen beneath glass, so that we might examine it properly and ask what it reveals about the genre, about the market that moulds it, and about the place of gay men within stories that are, ostensibly at least, about us.

I should like to begin with a note of generosity, since it colours everything that follows. For thousands of years, straight people have…