This commentary was written by old management with the support of many authors in November 2012. The opinions here do not necessary represent the opinions of the new owners. This article will remind posted for archival purposes.
Gay For You in M/M romances (which is the only place where you’ll ever find this trope) refers to when a straight man falls in love with a gay man, has sex with him and they live happily ever after. I’m sure this does not happen in RL but that never stopped our authors from writing literally hundreds of these stories which readers snap up as soon as they hit the publishers’ shelves. What is it about GFY that female readers can’t resist? Many of you have said that you’re not into reality you just want the fantasy, but shouldn’t the fantasy have some basis in something that makes sense, or is that too much of an oxymoron? 🙂
A few years ago my blogger friend and fellow Canadian MaryM used to rave about GFY as she devoured every book with this trope – she just couldn’t get enough. Now she can indulge her fantasy to her heart’s content because there are tons more GFY books published, but I think today she’s more involved in slash i.e. Kirk/Spock. 🙂 Ingrid and Tam are two readers who are like many of you, they just love GFY, so let’s examine why so many female M/M readers and writers love this trope.
Is GFY the forbidden fruit which makes gay romance even hotter to female readers than if it were just two gay men? Is it because it’s the ultimate fantasy of female M/M readers to hook up gay men with their straight counterparts? Is it the idea that anyone can be turned? (No, I’m not talking about vampires :)). Author Marie Sexton has a different idea about the whole GFY phenomenon which she discussed on this site a few months ago. She called it Out For You. Her idea was that the MCs in GFY romances were always gay, not straight, and when they fell in love with another man they came out of the closet. Whatever the explanation, GFY has taken hold of the imagination of straight women who read M/M romances.
My first GFY romance years ago was The Assignment by Evangeline Anderson recommended by the abovementioned MaryM, then I read the Heaven Sent series by the queen of GFY, Jet Mykles, and The One That Got Away by Madeleine Urban and Rhianne Aile, a free read every week on Rhianne’s blog. Later I read Caught Running by Urban and Abigail Roux and I was dragged, kicking and screaming, until I read Cut and Run, by Urban and Roux (it was 350 damn pages for chrissakes and I hate l-o-n-g books) 🙂 which naturally led me to Faith and Fidelity by Tere Michaels. After that it was all over for me, but I have an explanation it’s all about the writing! When I examined the GFY books I loved I realized the reason was that I loved the authors and the writing not the trope. In fact I read just about everything by these authors as long as it’s M/M. That’s my explanation anyway, because I know logically that GFY does not make a damn bit of sense and it’s ridiculous.
Jet Mykles did a post not so long ago about GFY and she doesn’t see any change in the direction of her writing because as she says –
“It’s too much fun. It’s also a built in conflict. Besides, I love that shock that a guy feels when he has to admit that he’s hot for another guy. There’s something too terribly sexy about it.”
Jet made an interesting point that in all but one of her stories the straight protagonist was the receiver not the pitcher, which would be ass backward. 🙂 It seems to me that it would make more sense if the straight partner were the top, but what do I know? Who said that this was logical? lol.
What do gay men think about all this?
I asked Damon Suede an M/M author and guest reviewer on this site what he thought about Gay For You. Here’s his take:
I don’t believe in “Gay for You” actually, either as a trope or a designator; the popularity of the term within the genre always makes me laugh because only someone who had never come out or seriously questioned their sexuality could think that same-sex desire works like a rigid boolean switch. We know that’s bullshit.
I tend to think of it as “Out for You” as Marie Sexton calls it. The thing is, “Out for You” is how most gay men figure themselves out sexually, at whatever age they come to terms with their sexuality. They meet someone who arouses feelings that make them question their self-image.
Desire exists along a very complicated four dimensional spectrum. What we want over the course of our lives changes radically, and that’s only one set of desires!
Gay For You is an outdated label we give stories when men who are “straight” fall for one special guy….who “makes” him “gay”. As if this character would have been happily straight for the rest of his days EXCEPT for this accidental meeting that realigns his existence and his heart.
There’s another term for that in the gay community: it’s called COMING OUT.
When a man realizes that he has romantic and erotic feelings about another man and acknowledges those feelings as part of his identity, he COMES OUT of the closet. He isn’t Gay-For-Anyone-But-Himself! He is Out-For-You (as Marie Sexton puts it so beautifully). I’m not talking about extreme circumstances like prison romance or military canoodling… but for the record that is the way 80-90% of GLBT people discover their sexuality. Duh! Actually that’s how ALL people explore sexuality in their adolescence: they meet someone that makes them feel differently than they have before.
Of course this means the term “Gay For You” HAD to have been coined by someone who had never faced that kind of radical realignment of their assumptions about gender and identity. Gay For You is a relic of another time in M/M and I’m praying to all the gods that it finally falls out of favor. I’m trying to not even USE it anymore because of the lie at its heart as a designator.
Only a person who has never questioned their erotic preconceptions could point at that situation and call it “Gay-For-You” because (again) to do so implies that sexuality is something you put on like a hat, and can take off just as easily. Or worse, love is something that you can only find with one person, no matter how evil, abusive, or disinterested. And as the genre has grown, it has lingered like an idiotic mole that we don’t address because it’s too entrenched or benign.
For that matter, this is why it is now considered unacceptable to use the phrase Sexual Preference as opposed to Sexual Orientation when discussing GLBT issues. “Preference” implies that Gayness is a choice made of a menu of possibilities. Or that straight people simply obeyed society’s wishes and “picked” correctly. Again, not how sex works for anyone of any gender.
If anyone doesn’t think “Gay-For-You” is a stupid, vicious term, imagine if I started asking heteros who married their first love if their spouse had made them straight… or worse, consider rapists who argue that victims seduce them. Love and sex involve mutual participation.
So I don’t hate what is popularly referred to as Gay For You in books, I hate that it is CALLED Gay For You because the term is literally moronic and misguided. It’s something coined in ignorance that persists out of familiarity
On the other hand I love a beautifully written coming out story in which a man who had assumed things about himself makes life-changing discoveries that transform his future. What’s more romantic than that? 🙂
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So readers/authors, what do you think? Is “Gay for You” outdated and should the term be changed to “Out for You”? Or would that make the fantasy too much like real life? 🙂
I am not as stunned by the whole GFY trope because I have seen it done right. Brokeback Mountain is an excellent example of such a use of the trope despite the fact it has no HEA.
BUT!
That may also be the key problem with GFY in my mind as a gay man. I do not associate taking a man’s virginity which is what we are talking about as a great setup for an HEA.
I just honestly see this as an extension of the whole older man or hunky male guardian seducing the young ingenue from the old Barbara Cartland days.
If you bought into those stories then fine lot’s of people at the time did and loved them but let’s all agree they were thin as far as realistic HEAs with their plot lines and they were never that sophisticated relative to today’s romances.
I used to love those Barbara Cartland romances when I was a teenager. But then I started to grow, and by sixteen I was 5’8”, strong, a jock. I found myself feeling like a thug in gym shorts next to her tiny, delicate, helpless heroines, who were always described as ladylike, of good breeding, because of those tiny hands and feet. When the time came and I realized people could not tell if you were a virgin by looking into your eyes, and I spent some time thinking about that concept, I got madder and madder, and put down romances for almost thirty years.
I’ve been thinking lately about identity formation in teenagers. I especially care about this right now, as I’m watching my son pick and choose the pieces of his identity. So much of identity is tied to the expectations of people you love and depend on—no matter what you feel, if you can’t bear to lose the love and acceptance of your parents, your coaches, teachers, priest, then you may develop the identity you need to live.
But! We change as we get older. We get stronger, hopefully, and our identity changes until the person we most depend on for love and acceptance is ourselves. There is an accounting that takes place then. My point is our identities are more complicated, richer, more problematic than just our sexuality, and they can change in time.
Maybe the issue is we writers need to work on our conflicts and resolutions. Surely thinking adults, strong, smart heroes, have other conflicts than this one? And surely there are other resolutions than getting them into bed?
As I said to TeddyPig, I never read a Barbara Cartland romance. The blurbs were so far out I couldn’t relate to them and I knew there was no way I would enjoy them. Those tiny feet and hands of Ms Cartland’s heroines were from a different time, probably when dainty virgins were sitting down to tea every day. lol I’m sure millions of lovely young ladies from good families read and enjoyed these books. 😮
Identity IS tied to more than sexuality but sexuality is a huge part of who we are. Many teenagers are influenced a lot by their parents and society’s expectations and they feel that they have to conform, so they do, for a while. Then they realize they are living everyone’s life but their own
I’ve always believed that the best things a parent can give his/her kids are roots and wings. The wings set them free to become who they are meant to be. Parental guidance is one thing but when parents make their love conditional on their kids living the kind of life they designed for them that’s where the whole control thing goes overboard.
M/M is a genre with a lot of inexperienced writers, many of whom are first-time authors and it takes time for them grow and write the kinds of books we all love to read, with nuanced heroes and wonderful plots. Perhaps then their heroes’ conflicts will resolved in ways that don’t involve getting them into bed.
I thought that Brokeback Mountain was about two closeted gay men, not a straight man falling for a gay man, which is the premise of GFY.
Never having read Barbara Cartland’s books I don’t know how well that worked other than it was just another trope that readers bought into. Probably readers at the time did not question the premise and went with the flow. A closer look at some of those books now would probably reveal the huge pot holes in the plots and characterizations.
“I thought that Brokeback Mountain was about two closeted gay men, not a straight man falling for a gay man, which is the premise of GFY.”
Not the story I read. One was gay from the hints the writer gave and the other was probably bisexual but too damaged to figure it out.
“A closer look at some of those books now would probably reveal the huge pot holes in the plots and characterizations.”
Well sure, but that does not make them wrong just reflective of earlier ideals about romance.
My point is that any GFY stories I have read should not be called “coming out” stories since they really don’t engage the reader on that level or encompass all the issues involved that you would find in regular Gay Fiction under that trope.
I think that’s my point. Neither character was exactly straight so they weren’t “turned” by each other, which is the premise of GFY.
I’m not advocating that GFY should be called “coming out stories.” That’s not what Out for You means. The suggestion is that these stories should be called OFY to more accurately reflect a situation where one MC comes out of the closet because that’s exactly what happens – the character no longer lives on the down low because he fell in love with a gay man and decided to live with him openly. In fact he was either bi, bi curious, or gay all along, but definitely not straight.
I’m aware that M/M romances could not possibly cover the host of issues involved in coming out. I did a post over a year ago in which 6 men (Rick Reed, Ozakie Knotts, Sean Kennedy, Batboy 126, Christian Otto and Ethan Day) talked about their own coming out and how each one coped with such a devastating change in his life. As Sean Kennedy said:
I took his comment to heart so I would never suggest that M/M romances should be called coming out stories.
Since you’re gay you know what it’s like to come out and remain out, but if you’re interested in reading the entire post and the 7 stories (John is the other contributor but he’s still in the closet) here’s a link:
http://www.gayromance.org/2010/04/23/coming-out-of-the-closet/
I don’t think BbM is a GFY story, Teddy, because I don’t believe Proulx is naive enough to try selling the idea that a heterosexual can be flipped into a homosexual. My impression was that neither Jack nor Ennis was a “natural-born” straight guy. They were either gay or bi to begin with but obviously in denial about it — until their feelings for each other drew them out.
But that’s my point about referring to “Gay for you” as “coming out” is a misnomer too.
The focus was on the couple not their identity. Coming out or out for you makes it sound like they were seeking that. They never did. The focus is not there.
Very true. It was definitely not a coming- out story, either.
I think part of the appeal (unrealistic though it may be) is that a man overcomes his supposedly basic hard-wiring, for TWU WUV. We’d all like to believe that someone would love us soooooo much, everything about us, that even if they are straight (or gay in my case I suppose), that the love would overcome their first choice sexually. And with gay men, I suppose the challenge they face would be even greater, revealing their choice to family, friend, coworkers who knew them as straight all their lives. So kind of the ultimate proof of massive love.
Likey? *snort* No. But then shifters and vampires aren’t likely either (although I’m keeping an open mind) and that’s never stopped me from reading them either. It’s one of those wildly romantic notions that is fun to read about, but I don’t take everything I read literally and expect it to apply to real life. I also tend to find “coming out for you” as Damon and Marie noted a bit more realistic, at least let the guy have THOUGHT about kissing a boy at some point, so it seems a bit more plausible. But well written GFY classic trope can work when I’m in the mood for it.
Hi Tam
I guess your comment also reinforces the point that it’s not that the guys are straight, but that they are on the down low or flying under the radar until they meet someone who makes them come out.
These books are almost always premised on one of the MCs being straight, not that they’re in the closet. I guess that makes it more exciting for the readers.
But we know that vamps aren’t real and gay men are. 🙂
When I was writing this post I checked with a few gay men about GFY and their reactions were similar to Damon’s.
But I think a truly straight man (at the extreme end of the straight scale with not even a passing interesting in men) who does a 360 flip and ends up on the other end JUST BECAUSE they fell in love, is about as realistic as vampires. 🙂 But I find the concept romantic.
I agree with OFY more than GFY. Some people just don’t figure out or accept their sexuality until later. Developing a super strong attraction to a person of the “wrong” gender, getting past social obstacles (cultural conditioning, homophobia, etc), and realizing their sexuality isn’t what they thought it was. I myself was hit with the cluebat when I was 23. I’ve known people who were well into their 30s and beyond.
One of my books, Rules of Engagement, has been labeled GFY a few times, and I strongly disagree with it. The MMC isn’t gay, nor is he gay just for the other guy: he’s bisexual. Prior to meeting Brandon, he’d married young after an oppressive youth, spent ten years in a turbulent marriage, and simply hadn’t had the opportunity or the headspace to figure it out. When he does so at 28, it creates somewhat of an identity crisis for him (rethinking your sexuality in your 20s will do that to you…been there, done that). I always saw Rules as someone discovering a previously unknown/unexplored side of his sexuality AND falling in love with a man at the same time. Romance and self-discovery, I guess.
So, yeah, I’m definitely more inclined to call the trope OFY instead of GFY, if only because “Figuring Out I’m Not Actually Straight Now That I’ve Met You And Gotten Whacked With A Cluebat” makes for a bit of a lengthy acronym. lol
Hi Lori
I remember reading Rules of Engagement a long time ago (2009) but from what I recall Dustin always thought he was straight but Brandon knew he was gay since he 13 and it wasn’t until he discovered women at 21 that he knew he was bi. At any rate it read like a GFY to me, but what do I know? 🙂
I wrote this post because the more I heard from gay men the more it seemed that this trope was more similar to paranormal books than real gay men.
I suspect it’s a female thing. I know women who suddenly discovered they were attracted to women in their 30s and 40s. They had never had a real inkling before, until the right person walked into their lives. (I once ran a discussion panel called “Straight before Fandom” because a number of us had the experience)
The ?FY trope is partly heteronormativity, the assumption we are all straight until proven otherwise, and partially female sexual desire patterns being mapped onto male characters.
I agree as well, to a point. I’ve always read those books as if the “straight” guy was just straight-identifying bi and then met the “one” and so was “Out for You” but also in a way, “Gay for You”. The best of these is Matt from Maie Sexton’s “Promises”. While he’s coming to terms with his feelings, he goes out, checks out some men and it’s all “Nope. Nope. Nah. Whoa!”. Then later in the series theres a throwaway line about how he wouldn’t mind going to see female strippers. So the character begins and remains bi.
I guess I just always assumed that of the others too, even if it wasn’t spelled out. Even in the classic GFY “The Assignment”, I still figured they were just strongly on the straight end of the bi section of the Kinsey scale (even though in that one, it’s a stretch).
Maybe what authors need to do in this trope is simply more vocally acknowledge bisexuality and not make it seem so much of a breaker switch thing.
Neeley
I must apologise. I overlooked your comment.
The thing with bisexuality is that the authors would have to have the bi protagonist have sex with a woman in an M/M romance to establish that he is bi. This wouldn’t go down too well with M/M readers who don’t want on-page sex with women in their books. I suppose the authors could refer to something in the character’s past to sort of show his preferences. lol.
Most of the GFY books I have read in the past are definitely about straight men who switched suddenly and become gay, which really is kind of strange. Not that it might not happen in RL – maybe as often as we see vampuires on the street. 😮
(having a REALLY hard time posting, so this is going to be multiple posts)
I agree with “out for you” more than GFY. Sometimes people just don’t figure out or accept their sexuality until later. I myself was hit with the cluebat when I was 23. I’ve known people who were well into their 30s and beyond.
(part 2 of 3) One of my books, Rules of Engagement, has been labeled GFY a few times, and I strongly disagree with it. The MMC isn’t gay, nor is he gay just for the other guy: he’s bisexual. Prior to meeting Brandon, he’d married young after an oppressive youth, spent ten years in a turbulent marriage, and simply hadn’t had the opportunity or the headspace to figure it out. When he does so at 28, it creates somewhat of an identity crisis for him (rethinking your sexuality in your 20s will do that to you…been there, done that). I always saw Rules as someone discovering a previously unknown/unexplored side of his sexuality AND falling in love with a man at the same time. Romance and self-discovery, I guess.
(part 3 of 3) I agree with calling it OFY instead of GFY, if only because “Figuring Out I’m Not Actually Straight Now That I’ve Met You And Gotten Whacked With A Cluebat” makes for a bit of a lengthy acronym. lol
I guess it’s all about your perception of the “straight” man in these stories. I mostly agree with Damon, though I’m not as offended as he is about the term. In my mind, the “straight” character in these stories ISN’T straight, but they’re not necessarily gay either.
I’m a strong believer in the Kinsey scale of sexuality; sexuality is complicated, and messy, and dependent on a lot of factors. It’s possible to be wholly straight or gay, but not find anyone who you’re attracted to for a very long time. In my mind, the men who identify as straight in these stories are generally some variant of bisexual; they just haven’t come across the guy or type of guy that “rings their bell”, or if they have, they’ve ignored it. Out For You is probably a more accurate term…but I think it’s more important that female readers and writers understand some of the turmoil of coming out, and the mental games you play to avoid revealing your “secret identity”. 🙂
Hi Brett
Damon tried to respond to your comment but WordPress is screwing with everyone today. Here’s Damon’s comment:
***** *******
I agree with you, Brett about the spectrum… which is why I use the phrase Boolean switch derogatively. Nobody is either/or anything. Uncontrollable desire is a sexy plot development any day, but people are not switches.
Again, I’ll say it: coming out books with tremendous struggle: awesome. Instant brainwashing because the author didn’t know any better: silly.
So it’s misguided to make a straight character gay by FORCING him to be gay by introducing someone who can “infect” him with gayness. The idea that “gayness” is a kind of unwanted brainwashing is exactly how anti-GLBT activists characterize homosexual desire.
So it’s the term that’s stupid and yet we use it out of habit, not understanding… GfY is a weird hybrid, enshrining the logic of homophobia in a gay-positive genre. Like all catchphrases, Gay-for-You is a timesaver that allows folks to not examine what they’re actually saying. Sexuality and people are more complicated than that. And the term betrays a DEEP ignorance of homoerotic desire.
As you say, the games people play to hide are elaborate (and insanely dramatic) and make for much better romance anyways. 🙂
Damon
“”…but I think it’s more important that female readers and writers understand some of the turmoil of coming out, and the mental games you play to avoid revealing your “secret identity””
Not even so much female readers/writers, but *straight* readers/writers. But yes, I think anyone who writes about gay people (male, female, or otherwise), should absolutely make an effort to understand that.
I think part of the problem is that these books are formulaic and it’s “follow the leader” most of the time. Readers know the story will go from the initial set up – straight man meets gay man, there’s an uncontrollable attraction that straight man fights until he can’t resist the coils of TWU WUV anymore and he succumbs. Instant HEA.
i know that M/M romances are fantasies but I still feel that like Tom Clancy said – “The difference between fiction and reality? Fiction has to make sense.”
Of course paranormal stories are exempt because the reader knows going in that he/she has to suspend disbelief.
GAH. Sorry for the multiple comments, all. Between my crappy connection, Firefox, and the website, it was acting like it didn’t want to post anything, then posted EVERYTHING. Wave, feel free to delete as necessary.
I admit I’m one of those readers who like GFY or Out for you (however you want to call it) as long as it’s well written and we can see why the MC’s got together and what they saw in each other.
Also, in most of the GFY books I’ve read, at the end you see it really is Out for you since more often than not it turns out that the supposedly straight guy has been know to check guys out before but for one reason or another never acted on it.
I think one author (can’t remember who or what book it was) got it right when their character described the whole gay/straight/bi thing like a scale where on one end you have totally straight, on the other totally gay and then in the middle you have varying degrees of being attracted to both sexes. And our “GFY” heroes fall into that middle ground. It just takes that special someone to help them figure it out.
Hi Eva
I do remember that book and I think I reviewed it. Now it will bug me until someone else comes up with the title. 🙂
Most of the GFY books that I have read and reviewed fall into the other category of being totally straight with absolutely no sexual urges towards other men, and then BAM! our straight guy meets that one man that he just has to have. Which seems to be incredibly unlikely.
I realize that many adults don’t figure out their sexual orientation until they are well into adulthood, how else does one explain all the gay men who were married to women? Of course the more likely explanation of that phenomenon could be that they knew all along they were gay but societal pressures forced them to marry women.
In any event, I just find the plots of GFY books harder to swallow having read so many of them, since most of us are hardwired even though our place on the sexual spectrum may not be the same as someone else who may identify as either straight or gay or bi.
Does “straight for you” make sense? 😕 Well, there ya go. GFY is the flipside of the ex-gay or reparative-therapy coin; it ignores the fact that sexual orientation is determined in utero.
“Out for you” or “bi and willing” is the only realistic (and, as L.A. suggested) respectful approach — if, that is, there’s an HEA involved. Certain straight men are curious about homo sex, but it’s extremely doubtful they’d ever commit to a relationship.
Hi KZ
I think those straight men are called bi curious and most of them don’t go so far as to have sex with another man to satisfy their curiosity unless they are seriously questioning their sexuality.
This whole reparative therapy seems to be trending. Hello!! (Michele Bachman’s husband) ????
I don’t read F/F but I’m wondering if the same trope exists in a different form in lesbian literature. Does anyone have that answer???
I don’t like the term Gay For You and prefer to think of it as Out For You or Bi.
The issue I have is that if you are saying someone is straight but chooses to be gay because they met the right person, then the people who think a gay person can make a choice to be straight would have a valid argument.
Exactly KZ’s point. She did a post about that some time ago about the so called reparative therapy to make someone who was gay straight.
Sure there are many men and women who are bi but that’s not the same thing. In GFY books the so called straight man does not seek out partners of the opposite sex but remains faithful to his gay lover, so in effect he’s gay.
To be honest, I’m not a fan of the term Gay For You. It just seems like a hangover from the early days of slash fanfic and insidiously homophobic – as if the author has to excuse the male character sleeping with a man with “it’s okay, he’s not REALLY gay – it’s just the other guy’s so incredibly awesome.” Some of those early stories have an emphasis on the way the GFY character never looks at another man which I find a bit distasteful.
I think renaming it “out for you” is a definite step in the right direction, even though this term still has misleading connotations, implying the character is already aware of their sexuality which often isn’t the case. “Questioning For You,” anyone?
Hi Jamie
I read a number of books where the character was bi curious and eventually changed to being gay after having sex with a gay man. However I don’t know how often someone who is bi curious actually has sex with a gay man in RL, or if he did, if he liked it and his partner enough to stay. 🙂
I just felt it was time to question the term GFY which implied that this person only came out for that one man. As Damon put it, He isn’t Gay-For-Anyone-But-Himself!
I don’t care what you call it, I still like it. It’s as fantasy as werewolves sometimes, sure, but I like the idea of being able to have someone love you SO MUCH that they’ll reinvent themselves to be with you forever and ever. TWU WUV 🙂
Hi Thorny
Isn’t it great to love someone so much that “you would reinvent yourself to be with that person forever.”
As you say that’s a fantasy like weres, which is exactly my point.
Even though M/M stories are fantasies, surely these stories should not all require the total suspension of disbelief. Authors keep saying that even though the plots may be fantasies the actual characters are based on how gay men would act in RL.
I don’t know any completely straight man who switched to being gay because he fell in love with a gay man. He must have had those feelings or inclinations before he met the man who captured his heart or he came out for a completely different reason. 😯
I agree. I’ve always felt it was silly to call it Gay For You, for all the reasons you’ve mentioned. Out For You is much more accurate.
The only “question” there really is, is how aware and conscious the person might or might not be regarding their sexuality. And the only reason I say “question” is because I’m not sure how else to phrase it lol.
Like you, I love a good coming out story, though 😉
Hi Naelany
I do love a good coming out story as does Damon.
Most adults suspect at some point if they are not really straight but it takes time for them to come out of the closet – some never do. One of the reviewers on this site is still in the closet because of family circumstances and a lot of other considerations.
I think Out for You will reflect more accurately what these stories are about rather than Gay For You.
The whole Gay For You trope started in fanfiction over 40 years ago. First in Man From Uncle fandom, then in Star Trek with Kirk and Spock. I’d always thought it was an interesting concept that a canon womanizer like Kirk would pledge his love (and fidelity since Vulcans are monogamous) to Spock in fiction considering Kirk’s past. 🙂
Then the trope moved to Starsky & Hutch fandom, which is where “The Assignment” originated from – it was originally published as a S/H slash zine – before it was made into an ebook. And the GFY trope is no where as prevalent as in Starsky & Hutch fandom! 😉 Fans eat up the fact that Starsky and Hutch are so fiercely devoted to each other that their love could (perhaps) change their sexuality since onscreen they were portrayed as heterosexual. (Although TVGuide at the time called them “primetime homos” in an article, so even then society was questioning their sexuality.)
So I’m afraid I look at the GFY trope through the long history of fanfiction, not m/m books.
But I do agree with Damon, I think another designator needs to be given. GFY is outdated and not appropriate and belongs in the fanfiction archives along with bell bottoms pants, leisure suits and my mother’s god-awful blue eye shadow.
Lasha
Sorry it took me so long to get to you. 🙂
Obviously I missed out on a lot by never following fanfiction. 🙂 I realize that many readers are addicted to this trope even though I think it’s past its prime. Marie’s suggestion of Out For You seems to be a great alternative to the current name because it represents the sexuality of many of the MCs in these books.
Bell bottoms, leisure suits and blue eye shadow??? 😮 OMG!
Bell bottoms, leisure suits and blue eye shadow???
The seventies. You missed out on a lot. 🙂
I didn’t miss it I just refuse to acknowledge it ever existed, lol.
I think there is a strong distinction between Out For You and Gay For You. I happen to have many gay male friends who were married to women and had families only to come out later as gay men.
It is very real and it happens. One of my longterm readers reached out to me when he was going through the transition of living as a straight man to a gay one and I have felt every traumatic step he has taken and encouraged him all the way.
I was pleased when he started attending PFLAG meetings and finally addressed those closest to him with his truth.
His adult children and ex wife shunned him but he has SLOWLY gained a wonderful, rich new life.
I’ve seen this phenomenon before. I wrote my first M/M book, Phantom Lover, based on an experience I observed with a dear friend who was married to a woman, only to slowly and painfully realize his real passion was men.
He didn’t jump into the sack with the first man he clapped eyes on. He was terrified he’d lose his life. He worried about losing his job, his parents’ respect, etc. etc.
It DOES happen and as Jet pointed out, this creates a great source of angst for a romance book.
The difference in my mind as a reader and a writer, is that the ‘coming out’ is not a sudden switch. It’s not all whips, chains, sex on the roof of a car and cherries on top.
It’s a process. I think Out For You is more realistic than GFY and therefore to me, much more enjoyable to read – and to write.
Hi AJ
You mentioned your friend who was afraid he would lose his job, his parents’ respect etc. if he came out.
Rick Reed has a similar story about his marriage to a woman and being together for almost a decade and having a son. In Rick’s case he suspected his sexual orientation and tried to repress his urges. This is what he said in a post on the site:
He went through a costly and emotionally painful divorce and lost his job with the conservative company for which he had worked for 4 years. In effect he had to start over in his thirties.
My point is that Rick knew something was wrong, that he wasn’t straight, and eventually he came out of the closet – a process which took years.
In GFY romances it’s almost always a sudden switch without warning. Maybe our authors need to focus more on making the characters more realistic i.e. Out for You.
“”In GFY romances it’s almost always a sudden switch without warning. Maybe our authors need to focus more on making the characters more realistic i.e. Out for You.””
I think this is a good point — usually there is *some* inkling of being either gay or bisexual. That said, it can come as a shock, too. For me, it was an out-of-the-blue “wait WHAT?” moment when I was 23. It completely took me by surprise. Looking back, there was some very subtle writing on the wall, but it wasn’t until years later that I recognized it. At the time, I had, consciously or otherwise, *refused* to consider I was attracted to women. I was straight, end of story, and I was so convinced of that, I didn’t question it at all. Yeah…surprise!
So, it happens. Denial – even if it isn’t conscious – is a powerful thing.
Lori
Something like that is always a shock but you’re lucky that you realized it in your twenties rather than in your forties. 😮 It’s as if your entire life as you knew it didn’t exist any more because in some ways it had changed radically.
Sexual orientation is so much a driver of who we are that when you have to re-examine your beliefs in this area it changes who you are. However you seem to have adjusted remarkably well. 🙂
“”Something like that is always a shock but you’re lucky that you realized it in your twenties rather than in your forties. 😮 It’s as if your entire life as you knew it didn’t exist any more because in some ways it had changed radically.””
Oh, god yes. Definitely lucky it was in my 20s as opposed to 40s. Where it gets complicated is that I figured it out at 23, but I got married at 22.
“”Sexual orientation is so much a driver of who we are that when you have to re-examine your beliefs in this area it changes who you are. However you seem to have adjusted remarkably well””
Very much so. And yes, I adjusted — it wasn’t anywhere near as traumatic as it is for a lot of people, thankfully. It was just rather…jarring. Plus, our culture is much more forgiving of women than men in this case. It’s practically trendy for women to be attracted to other women (which is actually really irritating…now everyone thinks bisexual women are Girls Gone Wild/I Kissed a Girl and I Liked It types, and don’t take us seriously), but it’s horribly taboo for men to be attracted to men. Adjusting my perception of myself was challenging, but nowhere near what other people have to go through, so I count myself very fortunate.
Excellent Post Wave, and great discussion.
As a reader, my biggest concern is whether or not the book is well written & if I’m enjoying it. And for those of us who read for entertainment, we must be willing to suspend belief in some areas…otherwise the genre becomes non-fiction.
As for labels, they can be handy for research purposes but do not in themselves define the book. Seriously, how would we use the library or Google without common use terms?
Damon, your book is awesome ❗ A man comfortable in a kilt…made me want to lick his knees 😉
Hi Denni
Like all other readers we want a book that is enjoyable, with well formed characters, and also a plot that is somewhat believable, but not within the range of non fiction.
Damon is still having problems with WordPress so he can’t post any comments but I’m sure he saw your comment about Hot Head. Did you know that he wears a cocksock under his kilt? 😯 😮
I agree with Damon. Out for you is a much more accurate term.
Wave, on a side note.. The picture you have shown above alongside this post is my all time favorite so thanks for that! :hurray2:
That picture is also one of my faves Laura. 🙂 Aren’t Chris and Ryno one of the the hottest couples?
I started reading m/m 3 years ago or so and some of the first books I read were GFY since many of them made it on the “must” read m/m lists.
I always had a hard time accepting GFY, just could not wrap my head around it, “straight” guy or guys fall for each other and live happy ever after.
I always asked myself, what if one of the guys dies, would the other one now like guys only or go back to women. Just figured you are either straight, gay or bi. I have not read any GFY in a very long time, out for you makes more sense to me.
Hi mrb
That could happen (that they would go back to women) since they are only gay for that one guy.
The reason I wrote this post is because, like you, I had a hard time accepting these stories even though they are supposed to be fantasies, especially since the authors tell me that even though the plots are fictitious the protagonists are patterned after real gay men.
Many moons ago when Out magazine a magazine of substance, it ran an article about several men who had always considered themselves straight (still did at the time), but had fallen in love with another man and decided to take a chance on love. (I wish I could remember more about it, but the gist of the article stuck with me. It was probably published in the ’01-’04 time frame.)
IMHO, the GFY v OFY debate is silly because it really depends on the character. Matt in Promise had recognized his attraction to men earlier in his history. In his case, I think the Out for You “label” fits. The same will be the case for Zane & Ty when/if it comes to that.
Conversely, neither Matt nor Evan in Faith & Fidelity had any previous inkling of their same-sex attractions. Much like the guys from the Out article, it took meeting the other man for that to happen. Therefore, I consider them more GFY.
As someone above said, these are not “coming out” stories. To call this type of story “Coming Out” is, frankly, ridiculous. While that sort of inner war must be touched on if the book is to be worth a damn, it is not the focus of these books–the romance is.
Oh, and I don’t know the book that was being referenced above, but the scale is the Kinsey Scale, where 0 is 100% heterosexual and 6 is 100% homosexual. Amazing that something that came out in 1948 still has relevance, isn’t it? Alfred Kinsey might have been onto something, after all. 😉
Hi Buda
I think there is a misunderstanding. I’m definitely not suggesting that Out for You stories are or should be “coming out” stories. What I have said repeatedly is that in 95% of these GFY stories the MC who is “straight” switched almost overnight because he met a gay man with whom he fancied himself in love. No lead-in. It was BOOM, I’m gay! I recognize that this could happen in books and RL, but in almost ALL cases? 😯
I do understand that the coming out process is painful, long, and sometimes the person involved wonders whether it’s worth it because of all the lost opportunities. I’m not gay but I have enough gay friends who talk about the toll coming out took and continues to take on their lives. As Sean Kennedy said (see my comment to TeddyPig) coming out is a continuous process. No M/M romance would be able to capture this effectively in the word count of the novellas and novels written by M/M authors who love GFY. 🙁
As you said, the Kinsey scale (with which most of us are familiar), has been around for a long time and is still relevant today, although with more people self identifying, the percentages would probably change.
Also Glori raised a valid question:
I responded to her comment so I won’t repeat my answer here, but that’s certainly something to think about in terms of the churches that say that they can turn any gay man straight.
So to sum up, OFY is NOT intended to be “coming out” stories. They would still be romances with one difference from GFY – the MC would not be 100% straight – he would at least have been doubting his sexual orientation at some point in his life. Coming Out stories are a whole different kettle of fish. 🙂
Sorry, Wave, I didn’t mean you thought FY stories should be labeled coming out stories. I was reacting specifically to this:
You said:
I agree that the light bulb moment is followed too quickly and too easily with a hearty round of sex and a lifetime commitment. Page one, dude is shagging a chick and loving it. Page 2 he meets his male counterpart and by the top of Page 3, those two are going at it like fiends. To me it’s the mark of an underdeveloped story. It’s also one of my biggest pet peeves in this storyline, to be honest–and I love FY stories almost as much as I love serial killers. Of course, I’m one who loves angst in books, too, so perhaps that’s why I like well-done FYs. Faith & Fidelity is still one of my favorites because even in book 3, long after Evan and Matt have committed to each other, Evan still has issues about his sexuality. That is real and honest to me. It’s not as easy as saying, “Hold the surf, I’ll have the turf from now on.” Ya know?
I think part of the answer to Glori’s question lies in Angelia Sparrow’s reply. It’s about the heteronormative conditioning we all receive as children. I can only speak from my own experience long, long ago when I was first figuring it out, but every time I got an inkling I wasn’t “normal,” I shoved it down deep inside. I wasn’t as successful at keeping it there as some people are, I guess–and thank Crispix for that! If parents and society could ever learn to stop expecting every child to be “normal” and heterosexual, then this problem would eventually solve itself. And I’ll be expecting that to happen about two weeks after I see pigs fly on their own power.
Anyway, interesting post, as usual. 😉
Can I be bi-opinionated?
I certainly agree with Damon, Brett, AJ, etc. They put it well, especially AJ’s point about coming out being a process – even coming out to oneself. And I agree that “Out for You” is a much better, more respectful term for M/M fiction.
On the other hand, I can believe that in some cases, a person will find and fall in love with someone he didn’t expect and wouldn’t have sought out; and some of the people who experience that will take the chance on making the relationship work, even if they seem to cross over in terms of sexual orientation. I suspect it really happens, but only very, very rarely. “Out for You” would be far more typical.
Marie Sexton might pop in here to correct my opinion, but I don’t think PROMISES was ever meant to be interpreted as a GFY tale. I think Marie gave us clear signs, such as the blankness of Matt’s apartment, that he wasn’t living his real life, that part of him was hidden and closed off until he had the courage to feel his attraction and affection for Jared.
OMG, no wonder my ears have been ringing today. 🙂
Charles, you’re absolutely right. I never intended Matt to be a GFY character. I was surprised when I kept finding him referred to as such, so I started referring to him as Out For You. My point wasn’t to say that GFY characters don’t exist in m/m romance (and whether or not GFY is realistic at all is a whole other debate), but it seemed to me that we were lumping OFY characters (like Matt) into the GFY label, when in my mind, they’re two very different types of stories. My intention in using the term was only to attempt to distinguish between the two.
Interesting discussion, and crazy to see my name up there as some kind of reference! Yikes! :nuts:
I thought it was about time you got off your cushion and did some real work for a change Marie.
It’s strange that both Damon and I used your suggestion of Out for You in our joint post. 🙂
It was clear to me that Matt was not a GFY character but many others in M/M books are clearly GFY. Hopefully they will all evolve and become OFY.
Now I’m leaivng you in charge of answering comments as I’m taking a well deserved break. 😎
I think what I will say will be a repetition, but I want to say it anyway. Yes, I prefer Out for you stories to Gay for you, in fact I plain out do not like gay for you. Marie, may I just say that Matt is my example of how such guys should be done. Just show me that they had some inclination of feel attraction towards the guys, some repressed feelings, ANYTHING. But not BOOM I am straight today and gay tomorrow. I definitely want some “making sense” basis for my fantasies.
Hi Sirius
It seems that most of us think along similar lines i.e. that Out for You stories are probably more believable (as well as a better name) than Gay For You.
Definitely there is a credibility gap with someone who is totally straight one day and the next day BOOM! he’s gay because he met this fricking hot gay guy.
Hi. I’m not contributing to the discussion whether literature ought to be or need not be realistic (and what reality is etc.).
One remark about your sex position logic which I found rather confusing:
“It seems to me that it would make more sense if the straight partner were the top, but what do I know? Who said that this was logical? lol.”
You are implying a straight identifying male would be more likely to top another male (possibly identifying as gay) – and you call that logical – although it would seem to me that for a person who is not primarily aroused by the male body it might be difficult to get the hard-on required for the active role. Thus, I would suppose more a realistic intuition in those scenes than purely male phantasies of deflowering.
Okay, “realistic intuition” doesn’t make any sense. I mean something like “coherence” or “logical emplotment”…
Hi Hermann
My comment was intended to be purely from the perspective of the pain involved in the first penetration. Since the straight identifying male would presumably not have had anal before the pain of that first time might put him off anal sex for good. 😮
In terms of non performance by the straight identifying male, I am assuming that his arousal and excitement would be more than enough to maintain an erection for penetration and sustain it during sex.
I hope this clarifies my thought process. 🙂
I really don’t care what one calls it. Just write the story because I love it as Wave pointed out already :wave:
I do notice that in a lot/ some of those stories the mc try to reason out if they could have known before.
Anyways after reading Drawing blood back in ’94 I figured out that personality was more important then gender. In that book for sure but I noticed it more often in “GFY” books as well.
I have all your likes and dislikes in my little PDA Ingrid. lol
It’s not just female readers who love GFY. There are a lot of porn labels that have all those supposedly “straight” guys having sex with men. Like one of my gay friends said, men like to watch, women like to imagine.
But those are not romances – they are strictly porn. If you check the comments to this post, it’s the female readers and authors who seem to love GFY.
I don’t think the audience for this is exclusively female. Many gay men have had experiences of falling in love/crushing on a straight friend–hence the resonance of The Cranberry Hush. The GFY stories can be a fantasy version or outcome for them.
I also have to say the most in your face GFY stories I”ve read are written by a man, Victor Banis, in his Deadly mystery series. Tom continuously self identifies as straight & outrightly claims he’s only interested/attracted/in love with one man Stanley. Otherwise, Tom is strictly a ladies man.
It’s been a while since I read the Deadly series and I do remember that Stanley was the only man that Tom was attracted to but I thought he had changed in the later books.
Perhaps GFY is not exclusively female territory but it sure is predominantly female. The authors who write these stories and readers who can’t get enough of them are probably 95%female. Most of the guys I talk to hate them except for Buda and a few other gay men.
I fear you’re talking to the wrong guys, then, Wave. 😉
Just a quick glance at the current threads on the website I used to moderate tells me that the gay boys are still falling for/lusting after straight boys by the droves. It’s usually the young guys (18-23), but not exclusively. I’d be willing to wager there are a fair number of guys reading the FY books.
I tell you, I’d much rather read about this than most (any?) of the BDSM or shifter stuff out there. Thank goodness the writers are still giving us a bit of variety. This way, we all have something to read. 🙂
There you go: 18 – 23 demographic (mostly). lol They are just randy and anything goes.
You don’t like paranormals?? They’re wonderful. There’s nothing like a were to get my blood pumping (only my blood Buda) 🙂 Some BDSM books are great too – I’m reviewing one by L.A. Witt next week called Out of Focus but on second thought you might not like it because it’s M/M/M also.
This comment is from Dusk Peterson who was unable to post because of our aggressive 🙂 spam filter:
**********
I think it’s difficult to make a hard-and-fast distinction between gay porn and gay erotic romance, because “had sex with him and then fell in love with him” is a popular plotline in gay porn. (I’m speaking here of textual porn, not having seen any of the movies.) And my impression is the same as Enny’s: “straight guy falling for gay guy” is amazingly common in gay porn. In fact, I’ve always assumed that the reinvention of this trope in fan fiction was simply a sign that it’s a common human
impulse to imagine your protagonist getting that unobtainable guy.
As for real life . . . The big trend in the M/s community at the moment is cross-orientation relationships. A sizeable minority of masters and slaves are entering into these. Here is the description of one panel I attended at the M/s Conference 2004: “At one time or another, all of us have probably experienced a moment in our lives when we were physically or emotionally aware that a particular decision, choice, person, or place was just ‘right’ for us. Such as the moment you met your
significant other, or perhaps the moment you found that perfect house, or were offered a job, or decided to keep that stray cat and name it Bubbles, or chose the red dress over the blue one.
In many D/s relationships, the intentions behind our partnering choices are driven by something deeper than just physical / sexual attraction or emotional chemistry, but by an internal obedience to a spiritual awareness between two or more people. Just like in ‘love at first sight’ circumstances, if a person is truly obedient to a divine order, the powerful pull for two very diverse individuals to come together in a D/s relationship can be both very fulfilling and very scary at the same time. This panel
will discuss the development of unusual D/s relationships, such as a gay male master and a bisexual female slave, or a heterosexual master and a
gay male slave.”
I don’t really find this any odder than a gay man who knows he is gay entering into a straight marriage and fathering children. It simply puts a more positive spin on matters if he does this out of love for the other person. But I would find it distasteful if the gay man, feeling drawn to marry a woman he loved, then said, “I’m not really gay.”
Likewise, if a male character has good reason to believe he’s straight, I don’t want him denying his sexual identity, simply because he has fallen in love with someone who has a different sexual orientation.
At any rate, I agree with what numerous people above have said: If this
plotline is going to be written, it ought to be written well. But then,
I feel that way about all plotlines.
Hi Dusk
I can’t comment on the M/s relationships since I’m unfamiliar witb them and all I know about D/s relationships is what I read in books since I don’t practice the lifestyle. I’ll take your word for it about what happens in these communities.
When gay men marry women and have children eventually the pull of having a same sex relationship is much stronger than their love for the woman and they leave. Under many circumstances in RL the gay men don’t tell their wives that they are gay or bi before they get married even though they may suspect they’re gay. It could be that they discovered their sexual orientation later in all of these cases, but the lives of their wives (and children) are a still mess when they leave.
In GFY books the majority of the plots involve men who are totally straight, with no indication that they are even bi-curious. I guess my feeling is that the writers should come up with more credible plotlines because I don’t believe that in RL 95% of straight men fall for and have sex with gay men the way this is portrayed in GFY romances. I’m speaking here strictly about romances not porn. In a porn movie maybe this happens 100% of the time. lol
If the plots show that the so-called “straight” character was at least bi curious before he met the gay man with whom he had sex almost the same night they met, which is the usual plot, that would make the stories more believable, to me anyway. 😯
“In a porn movie maybe this happens 100% of the time. lol”
:). The only reason I mentioned gay-male-written GFY was that there was a trend in this thread to ascribing GFY to female writers only.
“I don’t believe that in RL 95% of straight men fall for and have sex with gay men the way this is portrayed in GFY romances. . . . If the plots show that the so-called ‘straight’ character was at least bi curious before he met the gay man with whom he had sex almost the same night they met, which is the usual plot . . .”
Oh, man, is that how bad it is? I’d only encountered GFY in fanfic, and the paticular authors I’d read were a lot more sophisticated than that. No wonder you’re bewailing this trope. I absolutely agree with you that foreshadowing and plausibility are necessary.
“When gay men marry women and have children eventually the pull of having a same sex relationship is much stronger than their love for the woman and they leave.”
That’s the most common pattern, I agree, but if you do a Web search on “successful mixed-orientation marriages,” you’ll see that a minority of such marriages do survive, in a happy way.
As for motives for entering into those relationships . . . You know, I hadn’t even realized this when I wrote the last post, but there’s a personal reason why I find this topic interesting. I’ve been in two long-term domestic partnerships that weren’t based on sexual attraction. I gather that disqualifies me from appearing in a GFY story. 🙂 But it does make me capable of understanding, from the inside, how someone could enter into a relationship that didn’t fit the usual mode of what most people would consider a successful partnership.
i love the rephrasing into out for you – i think it signifies a social and emotional (re)positioning that gfy attempts, but misses. gfy parallels the tropes of het romance when i read them. the idea (cah-razy!) that love is so transformative that it changes another person into the product we want…
-kkm
Perhaps some of the M/M authors who write these stories previously wrote het romances so they brought that mind set with them i.e. that love can change or make over someone into what/who we want.
Isn’t the term Gay For You usually used for when a man is gay for one man in particular, but he isn’t attracted to other men and never has been? Just the ONE man? I don’t think that’s offensive or that it doesn’t happen in real life. It’s called bisexuality. And I know a few bisexual men (and women) who have gone through this “trope”. I don’t think they would like their feelings being called offensive. 🙁 Or non-realistic. It happens more than you think.
Hi Chris
I don’t think that bisexuality and a straight man falling for one man as in GFY romances is the same thing. As I understand it, bi men are attracted equally to men and women and sleep with both, sometimes at the same time – I don’t mean as a menage just in the same week/month etc.). Similarly bi women are equally attracted to both men and women. So a bi man could have relationships or one night stands with any number of men or women while someone who is GFY would only fall for that ONE man.
“”As I understand it, bi men are attracted equally to men and women and sleep with both, sometimes at the same time – I don’t mean as a menage just in the same week/month etc.). Similarly bi women are equally attracted to both men and women.””
Some are equally attracted, but a lot are not. For me personally, my attraction is probably 65% male/35% female. I’ve known both men and women who are closer to 50/50, some that are 90/10, etc. Being bi just means we’re attracted to both genders…it has nothing to do with *how* attracted we are to one or the other.
“”So a bi man could have relationships or one night stands with any number of men or women while someone who is GFY would only fall for that ONE man.””
A bi man could still only fall for one man. If he’s never realized he was bi (oh, denial, you’re such a bitch), or if he’s been with women all this time and falls in love with the first guy who piques his interest, he’s still bisexual.
Being straight is dull, I tell you, compared to being bi – I’ll never have as many people on my dance card from which to choose 🙂 but at least I won’t wake up next to a girl (or guy)) when I really wanted someone of the opposite sex that morning. : 😯
Maybe my next post should be about bisexuals/bi curious. lol
“”but at least I won’t wake up next to a girl (or guy)) when I really wanted someone of the opposite sex that morning. “”
LOL Don’t know how it works for other people, but it’s not one or the other: if I’m attracted to a girl, I’ll still be attracted to her later even if I’m really in the mood for a guy.
“”Maybe my next post should be about bisexuals/bi curious. lol””
Let me know if you want a guest post on the subject. 😉
I think of GFY as having gay sex or experiencing gay love with with a special person for the first time. I don’t see it as the character’s sexual orientation changing from straight to gay as, others have said, they were probably bi or bi-curous to begin with. I’m a gay man and don’t find the term offensive but if others do then maybe it needs to change. As for the trope itself, I love it.
I have no delusions that if I met the man of dreams and he identified as straight that he would go Gay For Me but I have fallen for guys who turned out to be not as straight as they thought.
I feel bad writing this but I’m not really in to camp guys – I love ’em as friends I just dont wanna sleep with ’em. So being with guys who identify as straight is a fantasy for me and if I can’t get it in real life (although some times I have) then I sure as hell wanna be able to read about it in my m/m novels.
Hello extremeboi7
Great to see you on the site again. 🙂
I think that’s the point I tried to make. These characters change overnight from straight to gay at the drop of a hat, without any indication that they were even bi curious, which doesn’t make any sense, to me anyway.
I think it certainly is more OFY rather than GFY although some authors do still write what is very definitely GFY.
I have to argue against your descriptions of the Cut and Run series and Caught Running as being OFY or GFY. Both the heroes in Cut and Run are bisexual, and in Caught Running one is gay and the other is bisexual. Also in Tere Michaels Faith & Fidelity series at least one of the characters is definitely OFY as he comes to realise he is bisexual rather than heterosexual.
to me, “gay for you” is actually less appealing. It does sound like somebody “turning” somebody else gay and the illusion of possibly changing one’s sexuality is the exact opposite idea of what I’d like to society to think. So I’m wondering right now whether I should read a book that’s labeled as gfy or not. I don’t want the main character to be like, hey I normally don’t find guys attractive, you’re the exception to the rule. It seems to me like “I’m very much in love with you. But, let’s face it, I’d love you more if you were female”. If, on the other hand, he only discovers his sexuality because of someone, I’d have nothing to complain about.