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Meanwhile, Michael Nava, Richard Stevenson, and others have found much success with gay detectives solving crimes, some gay, some not.

Alas, the list of gay genre movies is much, much shorter, especially if you rule out the 90% of all thrillers or horror movies where the villain turns out to be effeminate, openly gay, or a vampire. This is not inclusiveness, just plain old prejudice.

Still, one of the best genre movies ever made, Bound, is a caper flick involving a lesbian couple.

The big question for the producers of these projects is, of course: can gay genre succeed? After all, genre audiences are niche audiences; a sizable percentage of people have no interest whatsoever in science fiction or mystery or romance, so the project begins with a smaller audience pie.

And since a lot of straight people are too bigoted to enjoy any gay storyline, gay projects are niche offerings too.

In other words, gay genre stories cater to a niche audience within a niche audience. Michael found this out when he published Frontiers, his 1999 gay historical novel, and quickly learned that about 60% of gay readers would never even consider reading a historical novel, no matter how well-reviewed.

Still, Buffy, Bound, and Xena appealed to mass audiences, despite being gay. But let’s face it: the gay people in question were hot lesbians, a fact much appreciated by their predominately straight mail audience.

Can gay genre work for stories about gay men?

Absolutely!

How do we know for sure? Because in writing books about gay teenagers (in Brent’s case) and gay frontiersmen (in Michael’s case), we’ve discovered an interesting fact about our audiences: just like straight men find lesbians fascinating, straight women find gay boys adorable and gay men hot.

As more gay genre stories are released, we are certain that the best of them will find wide and enthusiastic audiences, made up of gay folks like us who are tired of the same old, same old, and of straight women who want to watch Heath Leger and Jake Gyllenhaal romp around naked in mountain streams (we don’t mind that either).

We predict gay genre is the future of gay entertainment, which makes it another part of the Big Gay Picture.

Two Cheap Bastards are Brent Hartinger and Michael Jensen, partners since 1992. Brent is the author of the gay teen novel, Geography Club, and its sequel, The Order of the Poison Oak (www.brenthartinger.com). Michael Jensen is the author of the gay historical novels Frontiers and Firelands (www.michaeljensen.com).

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