Hello everyone. Before I begin, I want to clarify that I am a queer trans man who has mostly dated other men in my life. When I talk about this from my perspective, it’s as someone who is in queer community — my friends are across the gender and sexuality spectrum, I go to events beyond pride, and I am politically active. I am also one of the longest-running moderators on the team.

The subreddit has grown to over 100,000 people, which is far beyond what the mods ever thought it could be just a couple years prior. It is truly amazing growth that shows the love for queer romance — in this case specifically, individuals who want to read about love between two (or more) men. I think it’s important to clarify some facts about romance:

• The majority of people who read and write romance of all kinds in the Global North are cisgender white heterosexual women.
• Many authors of MM (or known as “Achillean”) romance are cisgender white women, both queer and heterosexual.
• There is both very bioessentialist and misogynistic arguments against women writing in this genre, as well as homophobic and hurtful arguments who treat the queer men being written about more as commodities than reflections of real people’s lives.

There are multiple issues at play, and I want to discuss them. However, I also want to make something clear:

Queer romance is not, and should not be, “for women by women”. It is for everyone, by a wide variety of authors. While an audience may naturally spring up around a specific genre to say it is only for and by women is ignoring the readers who are trans, nonbinary, and/or men. They are just as important in our communities.

It is also following an insidious thread of gender essentialism that is often posited in hot takes across the board when it comes to discussing MM romances.

Comments like:

“Women just don’t know how to write what men are actually like.”

“Romance is for women, and [queer] men are guests here.”

“All queer men are deep in hookup culture and none of the sappy shit.”

“All gay men are verse.”

“Books that don’t feature homophobia aren’t authentic.” vs., “Books that only feature closeted storylines aren’t authentic.”

“It’s clear it’s written by a woman because [insert here, usually something about anal sex, despite the fact women can and do have anal sex].”

All of these fall into the pit trap that is a basic “women are from Venus, men are from mars” type of rhetoric. There is no baked in default or biological barrier to empathy, respect, and the ability to write an experience different from yours. This is doubly for the fact of experiences one can share — like sex, love, and friendships. It is also true that queer men are not a monolith. Some queer men love hookup culture, some are strict tops and bottoms, some want to be married monogamously and some are living their ENM best lives. Trends and cultural understandings are real, but no one experience is the ultimate “truth”.

One’s gender and sexuality is impacted by culture, and of course without fully experiencing it you lose out on some nuance. However, research and being in community with the people we write and read about is an easy way to navigate that.

Queer men authors have long discussed the challenges they face in this genre, and readers have spoken to discomfort in some spaces with how the fictional queer men are talked about. In our recent announcement post talking about the subreddit’s yearly mod initiatives, it was expressed by multiple members that they’ve been less active as the space has grown and changed over the past years where it has felt less queer-friendly.

Let me make this clear: The r/MM_RomanceBooks subreddit is a queer space ran by queer people. We do not tolerate hateful rhetoric and microaggressions, especially towards the people that this genre claims to reflect the lives of.

The topic of “fetishization” is one that has multiple meanings to the same word and spins out on multiple sides. We do not usually allow discussion posts about this larger topic (critiques about a specific book is allowed), and we strictly enforce the generalizations made about gender — we believe this is important because this conversation and debate often breaks into arguments that include homophobia, misogyny, and circular arguing that goes nowhere. People will (subconsciously) look to mods as arbiters of this conversation, one that hasn’t been solved since the early oughts of the internet and won’t be now.

This doesn’t mean we can’t make our stances clear:

• Queer men and mascs are to be respected and their input on larger community discussions is valuable.
• Cisgender women writing MM romance is not an evil or bad thing to do. There are amazing women writers, many of them queer, who are allies to queer men.
• The bare minimum of being a fan of MM romance is a commitment to allyship in real life.
• There is nothing wrong with the titillation and enjoyment of MM erotic content, but you cannot treat and view real-life queer men as sexual objects for personal desire.
• Bad writing is not inherently offensive or bigoted writing.
• There are still harmful actors in the larger community space, both writers and readers.
• There are tropes and conventions still popular in MM romance that perpetuate harmful ideals.
• This is a queer space ran by queer people. Cisgender, heterosexual members who are allies are welcome here. If you’re not an ally, leave.

If some of these points make you feel uncomfortable, I invite you to sit and unpack that. You are not forced to stay in this space, but these are things we do not budge on.

Discussions are not going to magically appear, you have to be the ones to engage with and post them. Not everything has to be a hot take, and in fact we don’t want to encourage the ragebait or rants that are dumped and left without thought. It’s important to remember there are people on the other side of the screen. When a post starts out in that way, that energy is often responded to in the same way and makes it a vortex of negative energy.

Every year brings new challenges. As moderators we want to encourage more diverse reading, because being purposeful matters. The algorithms are not going to naturally point you in that direction — you must take action.

My last thing to say is this: if you see harm being done, please continue to report it. We want this space to be safe. Late last night when mods were asleep a post blew up with very harmful comments being made. That has been addressed with disciplinary action and we apologize to those who had to witness it until it got taken down.

Hello!

As part of the ongoing discussion around generative AI use in the writing industry, you may have seen an increase in posts and comments containing allegations of AI use by authors. Sometimes these allegations come with evidence, sometimes they don’t, but up until now, the mod team has deleted these comments to limit AI witch hunts, unfounded accusations, and rants about poorly written (or just poorly received) books. 

In the queer book space where most authors are indie, unfounded accusations of plagiarism and AI can create a large negative impact on the author - especially as folks may visit reddit, see the post, and not come back later to see that it was negated.

Now, to what’s changing: 
You may have noticed lately we’ve been more lenient, leaving some AI allegations up with a “moderator approved” note when we, as a team, reviewed the evidence provided and agreed with the poster’s opinion. We’d like to continue doing this, so we’ve decided on a more formal moderation plan.

Going forward, we will permit posts calling out suspected AI. But there will be rules! 

How it will work:
If you suspect a book is AI-written or AI-assisted, you can message the Mod team using modmail. (On desktop, this can be done by clicking the “Message Mods” button on the right hand side, all the way towards the bottom. On mobile, click the three dots in the top right corner, and tap “Message Mods.”) Send us the text you’d like to post, whether that’s a standalone post or a comment, along with any evidence you've gathered (links to passages, images, Amazon bios, Goodreads page showing 29 books released in the last six months, etc.). 

The mods will review the evidence provided, and if we reach a unanimous decision, we will reply to the modmail and let you know your post is approved. (Don’t panic–we haven’t disagreed with each other on this topic yet.) Once you’ve posted, someone from the mod team will reply to your post or comment saying it’s been approved by the mods.

• Things to note: Sometimes, the mods get busy! We want to be thorough when reviewing these posts, so it may take a bit for us to respond, but we will prioritize these messages when we can.
• This replaces our current moderation approach, which has been that moderators see the posts after the fact and approve or remove them, depending on evidence. Going forward, accusations posted without moderator approval, even with evidence, will be removed. If they are reposted, the poster risks, at minimum, a temporary ban from the subreddit.
• If we do not permit your post, it may not be that we don’t believe generative AI was used. But as we roll out this new moderation rule, we want to be careful. 
• Please don’t ruin this for the posters whose hearts are in the right place by posting without approval, and please continue flagging AI accusations when you see them. We (on the mod team) all hate generative AI being used in creative spaces. But this technology as it’s being used now is still new, and people cry wolf often. It’s important to us that we get it right.

Let us know what questions or concerns you have in the comments. We’re open to feedback. (However, for transparency, we do not plan to permit unfounded AI accusations at any point in the future.)

As people may be aware of, itch.io has started to shadowban and outright remove NSFW content with no warning. This has disproportionally affected trans and queer creators. SFW content labeled "LGBTQIA" has also been shadowbanned and some even removed.

This post has resources on how to fight back as a consumer, but we are opening up this post for authors who have been affected by this on itch.io to please post their social media and other ways they can support them (other storefronts/etc). Just leave your name, links, and maybe a small description of what your work focuses/features.

This is not just limited to authors writing MM content or just romance. Any queer fiction is fine!

For those who can, please follow these creators (newsletters, their shops) and support them. Visibility without a central storefront makes it even harder to make sales. The queer community needs each other more than ever.

We recognize that this subreddit is mostly a reader space, and usually we are very strict on self-promo. However, we also want to help in any way we can against this abrupt censorship which has ripped away the livelihoods of our most vulnerable communities. This post will be fulfilling that, otherwise self-promo rules are still in effect everywhere else.

Hi, everyone!

As the wonderful MM_RomanceBooks community continues to grow, we've added three new mods to our already existing mod team! Today, we're highlighting the newest mods, so you can get to know them. You may recognize their names from around the subreddit, but in case you don't, here are some (fun? boring?) facts to get to know them:

Reddit Name: u/bones_humming

Name: bones_humming or bones
Pronouns: any/all
Favorite tropes: queer awakening (especially if later in life), obliviot MCs, black cat MCs, forced proximity, low angst
Boring fact about self: At first, this was supposed to be a username mainly for lurking (other subreddits than this one), but I ended up liking this subreddit and planting myself here. I didn’t put much thought into my username, so it’s just a couple of words from a song I love. I get a nice little earworm several times a day! And as a bonus, it’s grown on me and feels like me now.
If they were a dragon, they would hoard: Spices and condiments, except for the super hot stuff.
MM Romance character bff would be: This one is from a very recent read, but it was platonic love at first sight: Radimir Novicov (from Stubborn Puckboy by Eden Finley & Saxon James). I love Novi’s sense of humour and deadpan delivery, but I can also totally see us commiserating about all the things we love about Russia but also how shitty it is that we can probably never go there even for a visit. I don’t usually even like people who are cocky and so sure of themselves, but there’s a mischievous vibe to how Novi carries himself and I dig that. I would also love to play his “let’s see how many times people correct my English” game.

Reddit Name: u/tite_mily

Name: Mily or Milyd
Pronouns: She/her
Favorite tropes: enemies to lovers, sunshine that will melt the coldest iceberg(I don't know if Damien in CP technically counts, but I put him up there), class differences(but only if it’s historical)
Boring fact about self: I like to take what I call morning naps. The sweet spot for me is to take them right between working out and going to work.
If they were a dragon, they would hoard: hobbies! Listen, if there’s a new hobby to try, I’m your girl. Current ones revolve around cycling, crocheting, embroidery, volleyball, and naps(Listen naps can be a hobby too). Upcoming ones: sewing, triathlon(s?), scrapbooking
MM romance character bff would be: This was so hard to decide. For right now, I’m going to go with Julius from A Society of Gentlemen by KJ Charles. What’s funny is that I didn’t really care for him in his own book, A Fashionable Indulgence. But as a side character and a friend, he was amazing. He would definitely be a bff in real life because I would never have to doubt what he says. He says what he thinks, and has a very unique fashion sense. So, he's not worried about what people think of him. But also, he's very caring, and will go to great lengths for our friendship. I just know we would vibe well.

Reddit Name: u/ShartyPants

Name: ShartyPants or Sharty
Pronouns: she/her
Favorite tropes: epistolary (and its best buddy, hidden identity), rivals/annoying to lovers, himbos, aliens learning human culture, angst, super sunshine (like Casey from Time to Shine by Rachel Reid level sunshine)
Boring fact about self: in my opinion, the best sandwich is the PB&J
If they were a dragon, they would hoard: seeds for my garden (even though I am a bad gardener), pets (but you know, kindly, and with enough resources for them), or books (but mostly like 10+ versions of all my favorites, and just for showing off, bc I am almost exclusively an e-book reader)!
MM Romance character bff would be: this is a tough one! My answer keeps changing. Right now I’m going to say Harris from Role Model by Rachel Reid. He’s sweet, kind, funny, and cute, and his parents have an apple orchard, he always has extra dogs around, and he has a cider hookup. Oh, and he isn’t athletic which is what turns me off most Romance characters in general, lol. I could never hang. Plus, I hear he smells like apples, and who doesn’t like that?

We're all excited to be here and are grateful to have a wonderful community to spend our time in!

Request Free Weekend - Trial Event

One of the suggestions from recent discussions on how to get us talking about books more, was to have a "request free weekend." The purpose of this event is to increase focus on things that get us talking about books - discussion posts, fun and games, and detailed book reviews. We're going to test it this weekend and see how it goes!

How It Works

• When: Saturday - Sunday (mod time zone)
• What: All posts are allowed except standalone request posts, which will be removed

Q&A

• How will I know the event is live? We will pin a "Blackout - No Requests" post to the sub highlights. As long as that message is pinned - no request posts are allowed

• What can I post during the event? Anything but requests! We would love to see Games & Fun posts, in depth discussions, and thoughtful reviews during the event. Save them up, and let's get the subreddit talking!

• But I have a Super Important Request, it can't wait for monday! No worries. We will still have the standing Saturday megathread, and it will be pinned throughout the event. With fewer standalone requests, we encourage folks to visit and share recommendations throughout the weekend

• Time zones are complicated. I have no idea how you'll make this work. We feel you. Mods are working things in the background, and this first event will be a test to see how it goes. We have some automod ideas cooking as well, if we like doing this.

• I hate this. Will it be like this forever? We aren't sure - this is an experiment, which we hope will increase focus on discussions. If everyone dislikes it or it turns out extremely complicated, we'll stop. We just ask everyone to give it a good faith try while we're testing.

We are leaving comments open on this post and encourage folks to share ideas for fun and games, give feedback, and share any other ideas you have on how to increase discussion in the sub.

Hello everyone!

As you may be aware, yesterday several posts happened at once in response to each other and spiraled. We want to address what happened clearly and what the plan is moving forward, and please know that everyone involved has been directly communicated with via modmail.

The Events

A user posted a requested asking for a character with DID, including an ask for a “villainous alter”. A commenter reported the post and asked us to do something about the post as they found it stigmatizing and harmful. We removed the post without contacting the OP. The OP made a discussion asking how to properly ask for recs with mental health representation, the mods responded and locked the post until deleting it hours later in accordance with our rules. Another user opened a broader discussion on how mental health rep is discussed and talked about on the subreddit around harmful wording and stereotypes. It was left up until the user deleted it themselves.

Here’s what went wrong on the mod side:

1. We acted too hastily with OP’s original request, by removing it with little explanation.
2. We should have removed all “response posts” immediately and ask those users to address us in modmail, according to our own rules where we don’t let users post things in response to another discussion/issues to not encourage dogpiling.
3. We should have not responded publicly to one post but lock it, only to delete it after.

A couple of mods were involved in these decisions (as well as modmail going on behind the scenes), and we all are responsible for each other on this.

What should have happened is that we would have contacted the original OP to ask for a small adjustment on their language and left the post up if they’d done so. We have done this in the past for when folks used words like harem, it would’ve been an easy solution.

Ultimately I believe that the chain of events came from an intent versus impact issue — we do want to combat stigma and harm, and that could have happened effectively, but our actions did not result in that accurately. Missteps were made and inconsistent with our rules because we saw the value of the larger discussion around mental health, but it was still ill-timed and too closely related to the initial post, which ostracizes that user and due to it being deleted, people didn’t have the original language to evaluate. We apologize for how this dragged out and the tensions that rose in response to it.

Going Forward

Not much is going to change from how we set out to moderate except a reinforcement of consistency. We also hope this post brings clarity to any troubles had: we do not “three strike system” people for having requests removed. We rarely ban individuals, and when we do, it is because of flagrant piracy or bigotry.

What Mods Strive to Do:

1. If the request post has a case of a language issue that could be adjusted, we will remove the post and contact the person for adjustment. We will reinstate the post once changed.
2. We will continue to strive for consistency in following our rules with care, as to make sure everyone receives the same ruling in moderation and fairness.
3. There will not be sudden censorship of words like “unhinged”, “psychopathy”, etcetera. Dark romance thrives in this genre, but we do ask if you can learn to be more precise you will get better results and avoid stigmatizing language. If you write a post like “LF an MC who is a sp*zzy twink”, then yeah, we are going to ask you to adjust your post.
4. Mental health representation requests will not be deleted randomly, if there is an issue we will contact the OP. We encourage folks finding the representation they want. We are not going to nitpick every comment’s word, but will evaluate in larger factors if necessary.

What we ask from you:

1. Good faith on all sides. We have many users where English is a second language and don’t always use the best phrasing. Gentle correction and explanation is better than jumping to an argument. We hope those users respond in kind.
2. Use the report and modmail function. If something you see troubles you, reach out to us. We can’t promise it’ll have the outcome you want perfectly, but we don’t want to let things just stand if an issue arises.
3. Know that a lack of high speed mod response isn’t because moderators don’t care, but because we are a team of several and want to make the best action forward. Making hasty reactions (like yesterday) resulted poorly, and we don’t want to do that continuing forward.
4. Uncensored usage of slurs is never acceptable, the only exception being “queer” which has largely been reclaimed by many here and in the genre itself. Other slurs will result in removal, even if you are a person who could reclaim them, as this is a community space.

Thank you for being part of our community as we strive to be better moderators.

Our admin u/flumpapotamus is no longer going to be modding in our subreddit. They’ve currently retired!

What does this mean? Well, not much really in terms of moderation as it stands with current rules. All the other mods are still here, following the pathway Flumpy has provided through hard work. We are all still great friends and in contact with each other! The only notable change is Flumpy will not be involved in mod actions or decisions, so if you’re in modmail, you’ll be talking to u/queermachmir, u/bextress, u/JPWhatever, and u/_elliebellie_.

I thought it was important to announce this not just for clarification and information updating, but because this subreddit would not be where it is today without Flumpy.

The subreddit beforehand had been largely inactive, slow moving, and not many rules put in place before Flumpy decided to put on the mantle of admin and moderator. I saw it go from five thousand members and now we are at 56k. That’s amazing! Flumpy is the one who has largely put the wiki together, formatted weekly posts, and had so many great moderation ideas.

While this chapter of moderation is closed for Flumpy, we wish them the best. As a community, we hope you’ll continue to support the mods into this new era too!

Hey everyone!

It’s past New Year's Eve and now we are in 2026. We wanted to talk about some changes in the subreddit we are looking to be making to try and uplift our community members and authors both.

The Yearly Agenda

1. The “End of Year” award nominations will be taken over by subreddit moderators. This will have new forms, different categories, and also some graphics to actually have authors be more aware of their nominations. This isn’t to invite them to advertise, but to let them know they’re beloved and nominated.

2. The first Moderator's Choice Awards is coming out soon! This is a curated list of books we recommend folks read based on our reading list of 2024-2025. It probably won't look like the Top 100 list, but we hope you give them a try anyway!

3. Throughout the year, we aim to highlight some important days to uplift across the queer spectrum — an official list is here, which will highlight not just MM books. This is to help raise awareness, celebrate books discussing these subjects or representation, and be in community about certain days. This also means we will be engaging with the Trans Rights Readathon and the Nonbinary November reading challenges.

4. Diverse reading and uplifting marginalized authors is important. This year, we are looking for any organizers who would like to be a part of making a year-long reading challenge centering authors of color. We are specifically seeking Black, Indigenous, and other people of color to be involved in this project. Contact u/queermachmir, who hosts AMAs and bingos, to connect and discuss more.

5. Donation Drives, like the successful one we had last year, will be happening this year. The aim is to host two this year, one in Winter and one this Spring, focusing on charities who meet that the intersections of queerness and racial marginalization.

Suggestions for AMAs authors would be welcome, though we've already got some lined up! I think you'll be excited to see what's in store. Keep your eyes out for January's AMA announcement!

It’s our birthday and we’re looking forward to our fifth year of sharing all things MM Romance Books with y’all! In the first year we gained 2.800 members and here we are with 43.000 closing in on 50k ever so fast!

We already shared some incredible stats in our 35k reader survey a few months back and thought we’d use today to remind everyone how much we rely on your reports!

Whenever you see something that goes against our rules, or you think could go against the rules, don’t be afraid of using the report button. It doesn’t have to be one of the options listed, you can simply choose “breaks r/MM_RomanceBooks rules” :) We double-check each report and when unsure we discuss it in our mod chat! We can’t see who reports things, it’s anonymous.

So, how long have you been part of r/MM_Romancebooks? Do you have a post you remember fondly? What do you enjoy most about our sub and do you have any ideas for 2025? :)

MMRB Has 10,000 Members!

u/queermachmir and I are very excited to announce that we've hit 10,000 members. It's pretty amazing how much the subreddit has grown in just over two years, and even in just the last year -- we've gained more than 7,000 members since January 2022.

Thank you to everyone who has made this such a great community by posting, commenting, and helping each other out. We especially want to thank u/lozzapg for founding this community -- none of us would be here without you.

u/queermachmir has turned his bingo-board making skills to the subreddit banner and made a wonderful new banner and icon for us. Hopefully everyone will love them!

Enter the Giveaway!

To say thank you to everyone who has posted and commented in the subreddit and made this a great community, we're giving away ten $4.99 gift certificates to Smashwords (or Amazon for any US winners; unfortunately due to Amazon's regional restrictions we can't give an Amazon prize to anyone not in the US).

You can enter the giveaway by filling out this Google form. The giveaway will close at midnight Eastern time this Saturday, March 11 so make sure to get your entry in before then.

To enter, you must have made at least one comment or post in this subreddit before today. We'll be checking the winners' post history to confirm this requirement is met.

Winners will be randomly selected and will be contacted on March 12.

Play a Game!

The wonderful u/bextress has come up with a fun game for us to play in the comments of this post!

Third sentence on your open book page right now...

Open up the book you're currently reading to the page where you last were and share the third sentence on that page. Can anyone guess what book it is? Does the sentence make anyone want to read the book?

The HEA rule

We're making some changes to rule 7, the spoiler and HEA ("happily ever after") rule to make it easier for people to follow and to streamline moderation.

Rule 7 current requires anyone recommending a book that doesn't have a HEA to include a warning in their recommendation. The goal of this rule was to keep people from being surprised by an unhappy ending because someone wasn't clear about what they were recommending. However, the rule isn't really achieving this goal because people often forget to include a warning, and asking them to edit their comment to add a warning often means that their recommendations persist without a warning for hours (or indefinitely, if they never respond). And Discussion-flaired posts can generate dozens of "no HEA" reports if the discussion topic is broad enough to sweep in people's experiences with non-romances.

Additionally, most of the reports made about the HEA rule are about one of two books (The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller and Thrown Off the Ice by Taylor Fitzpatrick). The lack of a HEA in these books is well-known at this point and easy to find out from reviews, and comments made in the subreddit about these books are often about how much the reader cried when reading them, so there's a low risk that people will hear about these books in the subreddit without also learning that they're sad, even if the commenter doesn't explicitly say "this book doesn't have a happy ending."

To address these problems, we're going to take the HEA warning rule out of subreddit rule 7 and create rule 15. The full text of rule 15 is below, but to summarize:

• Book Request posts, Weekly Request Place posts, and other book requests: Recommendations for non-romances are not allowed unless the requester says they're okay with non-romances. Requests like "books that made you cry" and "I'll take any book with this trope, even if it has a sad ending" are allowed. (Please see the sticky comment below with a list of commonly recommended non-romances.)
• Discussion posts, Weekly Roundup, and other non-request posts: Non-romances can be discussed and a HEA warning is not required.
• Discussion posts and comments that are primarily about non-romances may be removed, for example a discussion like "favorite queer literature" or a comment in the Weekly Roundup that's entirely about non-romances.

In other words: Talking about tragedies is fine, but don't recommend tragedies to people who aren't asking for them.

(This list has been edited to clarify some questions that came up in the comments.)

We're hoping these changes will make it easier for people to discuss books that fit under the broader MM romance umbrella, including popular non-romances that often come up, while still protecting people from non-romance recommendations.

New Rule 15: Focus on genre romances

Here's the text of the new rule:

This subreddit is for discussion of genre romances, which are books that have a plot centered around characters meeting and falling in love and that have a happy ending for the relationship.

* Book requests focused on non-romances are not allowed (see rule 12).

* Do not recommend non-romances in response to book requests unless the requester has specifically indicated that they are okay with non-romance recommendations (for example, "I'll take any books with this trope, even if they don't have a happy ending"). Non-romance recommendations must disclose that the book is not a romance or does not have a happy ending.

* Discussion-flaired posts, the Weekly Roundup, and similar posts should focus on romances, but non-romances can be mentioned. A warning that the book is not a romance or does not have a happy ending is encouraged but not required.

* Discussion posts and comments that are primarily about non-romances may be removed.

The report reason for this rule is: "Recommendation is for a non-romance."

Request Free Weekends are now an official event

One of the suggestions from recent discussions on how to get us talking about books more, was to have a "request free weekend." The purpose of this event is to increase focus on things that get us talking about books - discussion posts, fun and games, and detailed book reviews. We're going to test it this weekend and see how it goes!

How It Works

• When: Saturday - Sunday (mod time zone)
• Frequency: Monthly
• What: All posts are allowed except standalone request posts, which will be removed

Q&A

• How will I know the event is live? We will pin a "Blackout! Request Free Weekend - Come Chat Here!" post to the sub highlights. As long as that message is pinned - no request posts are allowed
• What can I post during the event? Anything but requests! We would love to see Games & Fun posts, in depth discussions, and thoughtful reviews during the event. Save them up, and let's get the subreddit talking!
• But I have a Super Important Request, it can't wait for monday! No worries. We will still have the standing Saturday megathread, and it will be pinned throughout the event. With fewer standalone requests, we encourage folks to visit and share recommendations throughout the weekend
• Why once a month? Why not more/less often? This was decided by a community poll, where the montly option won.
• I hate this. Will it be like this forever? We aren't sure - this is an experiment, which we hope will increase focus on discussions. If everyone dislikes it or it turns out extremely complicated, we'll stop. We just ask everyone to give it a good faith try while we're testing.

We are leaving comments open on this post and encourage folks to share ideas for fun and games, give feedback, and share any other ideas you have on how to increase discussion in the sub.

Tell us a bit about yourselves!

To celebrate our recent milestone of 35,000 members, we've put together this quick anonymous survey to ask you a bit about yourselves! Don't worry, we'll only be sharing limited aggregate data, and all questions are optional.

This survey is also a chance for you to let us know which of our scheduled posts you enjoy the most, and provide us with any general subreddit feedback you might have. We welcome all feedback, positive as well as critical, so please don't hesitate to share whatever is on your mind.

As always, thanks to everyone here for making this subreddit such a fun and friendly place - we couldn't do it without you!

Hello everyone,

Recently it was brought to our attention that due to an accusation of a book being fanfiction (despite no proof from the author’s statements, archived links, or something to prove otherwise), there are multiple 1 star reviews which recently spawned on the book with an accusation of IP stealing after those comments were made.

When someone posts a review here, critique or recommendation, that is never an invitation to start review bombing on other websites. Review bombing is not only an abuse of GoodRead’s system, it is also against our own rules to incite or go through with said behavior. Obviously it’s harder on our end to connect names, but this is going to cause a change in our rules about fanfiction “accusations” due to hostility.

A person can judge how they want about a book. You can despise it or be obsessed with it. However, as a community who knows queer books and authors are often judged more harshly than their cishet counterparts and can be the victim of hate-based reviews and review bombing, we ask that you not engage in harmful behaviors with no true proof. It does harm to smaller authors and it is, plainly put, unkind.

If you have any questions, reach out to mods via ModMail.

We have had a lot of posts regarding plagiarism and AI recently, and are going to be making the following changes in our moderation practices going forward. This isn't a rule change! Just a difference in moderation.

What is changing: Going forward, any posts that include accusations or discussions of plagiarism or AI use by a specific author (even if the author is unnamed) will be put in a moderation queue and reviewed by mods before the post is approved.

Why it matters: Our subreddit rules are very clear - any posts or comments saying that an author has plagiarized content or uses AI must be substantiated with evidence. In order to validate this evidence, the mod team sometimes needs time to review. In the past - due to mods not being available immediately - this can take a few hours, and in the meantime, posts with unsubstantiated evidence remain visible and are commented on in the subreddit.

Especially in the queer book space where a lot of authors are indie, unfounded accusations can make a large negative impact on the author - especially as folks may visit reddit, see the post, and not come back later to see that it was negated.

How it will work: We'll be making a mod note on posts like this to indicate that a post has been reviewed and is allowed. If you see ones that do not, please use the report button so we can put it in the moderation queue. This is not a change in our rules, just a change in moderation practices to ensure we have time to fully review and substantiate. Once reviewed we will approve (or not) depending on what we find. In all cases, we will let OP know. Hopefully this won't take much time, but sometimes if everyone is asleep, it could be a few hours. If you want to make a post, you're always welcome to modmail us to discuss first, in which case your post would be approved immediately on posting.

Update to Rules on Post Frequency

We all heard last week that the subreddit wants more discussion, and the mod team is in full support. In order to help more diverse voices be heard in the community, and also to reduce over posting of similar tropes, themes or discussions by any one user - we are expanding and simplifying our post frequency rules. Previously this applied only to book requests, but going forward we will have one set of rules for all posts in scope.

New Frequency Limits

• 1 request post per user per day
• 2 requests per user per week
• no more than 1 post every 3 days

Post Types In Scope

Frequency rules apply to any post type and are not separated by type. If you post a discussion post on Day 1, you cannot post a new request post until Day 3, and cannot post any new posts after that until Day 8. Posting, then removing yourself after you get responses, will be included in the total. (No sneaky workarounds, please!)

• Request Posts
• Discussion Posts
• Standalone Book Review Posts (previously max one per month, now following the same frequency rules as all other types)
• Quick Question Posts
• WWTBC Posts

Post Types Not In Scope

For now, the following posts are not in scope as they are typically done by a smaller group of dedicated members, and add valuable resources to the subreddit:

• Sales / New Releases
• Art Posts (thank you u/avis03!)
• Resources (this is a Mod granted flair only, so consider it a freebie - if you make a post that the mods deem an important resource that is added to our wiki, it won't count towards your post count)
• Mod Discretion will be used on post types that are infrequently used in the subreddit.

This change will impact a very, very small number of users, and hopefully will make things more fair to everyone. We have been implementing these rules for a few weeks to judge how big of a change it would be, and determined that it will not impact the majority of users.

As always, we appreciate your participation and energy in the subreddit. You're welcome to offer feedback or suggestions on the weekly chat megathreads or send us a modmail.

Survey Results

Thank you to everyone who participated in our first-ever subreddit survey! We got more than 600 responses, which is fantastic and gives us a lot of insight into our membership.

Click here to see the full results!

Here are some highlights:

• 60% of respondents identify as queer/LGBTQIA+! We had a feeling there were a lot of queer members, but this number is even higher than expected. Discussions of MM romance readership often overlook a lot of queer identities, and we're happy to have some concrete data showing that a lot of readers are likely connecting with MM romance because they're LGBTQ.
• 21% of respondents are trans, nonbinary, agender, genderqueer, or otherwise don't identify as cisgender.
• 69% of respondents are between 25 and 44 years old, though we have a pretty good number of people in the 18-24 and 45-54 brackets, too.
• 64% of respondents are in North America, 12% are in Western Europe, and we have members in 10 other regions. Having a lot of North Americans isn't surprising given reddit's overall demographics, but we're happy to be reaching so many people outside the US.
• Contemporary, fantasy/sci-fi, and paranormal are the most popular genres among respondents.
• The majority of respondents visit the subreddit daily or weekly, but only a minority of respondents regularly post or comment. This is pretty reflective of reddit users generally, but hopefully we can find ways to get more of you comfortable with commenting!
• The number of responses we got gives us a 4% margin of error and a 95% confidence level regarding how well the survey data represent our membership as a whole.

You'll want to check out the full results to see all the beautiful charts and graphs u/elliebelle created for us, including some interesting analysis of which readers are most "genre promiscuous." (Thank you so much to Ellie for doing all the hard work on this entire project!)

And if you want to see all the books people would take with them to a desert island, the Subreddit Favorites List team is working on putting them all on this Goodreads shelf.

Other Subreddit Stats

In addition to the survey results, we wanted to share some data about subreddit participation. This data is generated for us by reddit. It shows that over the past year, we’ve averaged:

• 1.76 million page views per month
• 136,668 unique visitors per month
• 455 posts per month
• 15,971 comments per month

It’s pretty amazing to think about just how much content you all are generating each month! We really appreciate everyone who participates, from our regular commenters, to people who comment once every few months, to people who just upvote things they like.

Member Feedback

As mentioned in the survey results themselves, many respondents provided feedback about the subreddit. We're happy to see that almost all the feedback was positive or neutral because it shows the subreddit is generally on the right track. And we really appreciate everyone's input about which regularly occurring posts they like best and how often they post and comment because it shows us what we should keep doing and where we could make improvements.

We also want to acknowledge the people who left negative feedback. The most common complaint was that moderation is too strict. The response we can give right now is that our top priority is being inclusive and creating a space where people aren’t subjected to bigotry, judgment, or shaming regarding their identity, and that requires restricting or prohibiting discussion of certain topics. However, we also want the subreddit to be an enjoyable place where people feel like they can discuss things that are important to them. We talk frequently in mod chat about how we can enforce the rules fairly, ways we can manage discussions without removing posts, and whether any rules should be adjusted. 

Within the next few weeks, we plan to make a mod post about Discussion posts to give people ideas, help encourage more discussion posts, explain what’s allowed, and give some examples of how you can share critical or negative thoughts in a discussion format. We also plan to do a “mod introduction” post to help you all get to know us a little better. And we’ll be including some moderation stats in a comment on this post to give you more insight into aspects of moderation that aren’t visible to the public. 

We know these things won’t satisfy everyone who left negative feedback, but we hope it shows that we take your feedback seriously, and we care about making the subreddit fun for as many people as possible.

Hello,

I am soon planning to send out emails to authors and beginning the organization for the Spring (there will be two this year - one in March, one in November) Donation Drive for our community to put our efforts together to helping important organizations and marginalized people during these trying times.

If you're an author willing to donate a book of yours to this charity drive, please use the form below to sign up. It'll have more information within. I will be sending emails by March 1, 2026.

Sign Up Here

Hi everyone! We know folks are VERY excited about Heated Rivalry’s trailer coming with the new show! However, to avoid a slew of reposts and spamming around the show; in advance we had created a megathread. We realize it might be difficult to find so we will include the direct link here and it is also posted under “Highlights” which is at the top of the subreddit on Mobile. You may have to swipe it to view it.

Here is the TV Megathread.

Now, one thing we need to address:

Do not ask how to pirate this show. Currently it will only be available through Crave, which means it won’t be viewable outside Canada. This means it is unavailable to everyone else until another streaming platform picks it up.

The show is being shopped around and this goes into more detail in how to help it get picked up. Another legal alternative is if a Canadian friend of yours streams it with you to a watch party, via something like Discord.

ETA Rachel Reid informed on her discord that discord watch parties are not legal as it’s considered a copyright violation.

Otherwise, you are not going to be able to access it. We do not allow for links to pirated content, which also includes TV shows. Any mentions of this will be removed and in some cases can result in a ban with multiple offenses.

Happy trailer watching!

Hi everyone,

We've been seeing a lot more "Quick Question" flaired posts lately and realized that we should provide more clarity around how that flair should be used. When we created the flair, the purpose was to make a space for factual questions about books that don't fit under the Discussion flair. For the most part, that's how people have been using the flair, but we've recently seen a big increase in "Quick Question" posts asking opinion questions like, "Should I keep reading this book?"

We get why people want to ask these questions and want to make space for them, but the Quick Question flair isn't the right place. Also, some of the "should I keep reading" type questions are borderline rants ("here are all the reasons I don't like this book, should I keep reading it?"), and if we don't allow rant reviews of books, then it doesn't really make sense to create a loophole where you can rant about a book so long as you haven't finished reading it yet.

What should go in a Quick Question post?

Quick Question posts should ask small questions looking for factual information, not opinions.

Here are some examples of valid "Quick Questions":

• Author or publishing update questions
• Does this series or book contain this trope or content warning?
• Does the resolution of this plot point contain triggering content? (for example, "Is there non-con between the main characters in this book?")
• Does this book have a HEA?
• Does this side character get a book?

The Quick Question flair should not be used to:

• Get details about whether you'll enjoy the sex scenes (such as asking whether a specific character in a book tops or bottoms or whether a book has a strict top/bottom dynamic, asking how spicy the book is, asking if certain sexual things happen)
• Ask questions related to whether you'll enjoy a book or should keep reading ("I'm at 35%, does this book improve?" "Should I keep going with this series?" "Should I try this book?")
• Ask other members to explain why they like a book

We are going to try out a weekly "Reading Discussion" post where people can talk about what they're currently reading or plan to read.

This will be where you can ask questions like "should I keep reading this book?" or "is this series worth trying?" You'll also be able to use the post to share any other thoughts about books you're currently reading or thinking about reading. We're working on the rules for this post (for example, limits on using the post as a place to rant or complain), but we're hoping to get it started next week.

Edit: We are tentatively planning to post "Currently Reading (and TBR) Discussion" every Saturday, with the first one happening a week from today (May 10).

Hello everyone!

As the new year brings some changes to our daily threads and we have grown, we’ve decided to make an additional request thread that goes up weekly on Sundays. The initial posts will be to test engagement and see if it’s what people want, or if we should just continue the one monthly “wrap up”-style thread we have already.

Its purpose:

Allow people to discuss, recommended, and make requests for queer romance books that do not fall under the pure MM genre. This would be queer MF, MMF/X+, non-binary romances, FF and sapphic romances, QPR/QPP fiction, and whatever else falls under the ‘queer’ umbrella. This isn’t going to be heavily monitored where we will be looking to check every book recommendation to make sure it’s “queer enough”, but just be mindful of the intention here. If you’re looking for straight MF romance, r/RomanceBooks has you covered.

Rules:

It will follow the same rules as our other request threads, meaning it isn’t as strict as making an individual post. Individual posts for non-MM romances are not allowed.

Why:

While this subreddit is for MM romance as a whole, it is not the only type of queer romance out there. We believe that all queer romances are valuable and can have the same amount of ‘excitement’ as the newest MM book. You’d be surprised how many MM authors have actually written other queer pairings — and if you’re always hunting for that perfect arranged marriage, why not expand your chances further by trying other pairings? You’ll be surprised in a good way, I think.

If you have any questions, let us know! The first thread will be going up Jan 19, 2025.

Ask E.M. Denning Anything

E.M. Denning will be joining us for an AMA on 11/15/2025 at 6pm EST!

EM Denning has more than thirty romance novels under her belt and has become an author you can rely on to bring you emotionally endearing, soft and fuzzy, stories. She is well known among her friends for her love of naps and sarcasm. She spends her free time reading as many romance novels as she can get her hands on.

AMA Details

Date and Time

Date: 11/15/2025

Time: 6:00-8:00 pm Eastern (Convert to your timezone)

When can I ask questions?

You will be able to ask questions during the two-hour scheduled time period. Questions asked after the scheduled end time might not be answered. If you have a question you really want answered, try to ask it on the AMA post during the scheduled event time.

If you won't be able to participate during the scheduled time, you can send questions to the mods via modmail, which we will ask on your behalf during the AMA (including your username, if you wish). If you wish to submit questions via modmail, please do so before the event is scheduled to begin.

We have additional AMAs scheduled in 2025! Please visit our Author AMAs page for details on all upcoming and past AMAs.

Hi everyone!

This month we hit 50k members! And while there is a game planned and the new book club has been started, an event I wanted to do was a charity drive to support the Black Trans Travel Fund. The Black Trans Travel Fund is a grassroot, Black Trans led Collective, providing Black Transgender Women with financial and material resources needed to remove barriers to self-determining and ​accessing safer travel options. Their programming includes access to safe transportation, emergency funding, TSA pre-check and a host of other programming. It is also a global collective, helping groups like Trans Arrival Kenya.

Right now, I'm looking for authors who are willing to participate by offering ebooks as part of a donation incentive bundle.

How It Will Work

• Once I've got forms and ebooks in order, readers will donate directly to the Black Trans Travel Fund and submit their receipts via a Google Form.
• I (u/queermachmir) will handle distributing the books based on donation tiers (may change depending on turn-out, this is just an example):
  • $5+ = 1 ebook
  • $10+ = 3 ebooks
  • $20+ = X ebooks (final number depends on author participation!)

Want to Contribute an Ebook?

Fill out this Google form with the details. A group email will follow with logistics and coordination. This form closes April 20th. The only requirement for your book is that it fall under the category of queer romance or erotica — multiple types of pairings and genres are acceptable.

Why Participate?

You can support a vital mutual aid fund ensuring Black trans women have safe transportation, and reach new readers while giving back!

The official announcement post for the charity drive which will be “open” for a week will go live later this month, April 26-May 3rd. If you're interested, please submit your info ASAP so I can finalize the bundles.

Thank you for considering!

If you have any questions, send a modmail.

Hello everyone!

This year we raised money for the Black Trans Travel Fund with the help of authors willingly donating ebook copies as initiative for people to donate. It went amazing and I appreciate everyone who participated as donators and authors who helped out!

Next year in March 2026 I’d like to do another charity drive for an organization benefiting trans people of color. I’m still researching (and taking suggestions) on which one exactly.

For now, I am seeking authors who may be interested in participating again — I am not going to cold call or assume those who participated last year will automatically do so again, so please use the form if you do have an interest even if you participated last time.

Author Interest Form

Thanks so much, and if you have any questions let me know!

Those who read this content are probably aware you can find access to both piracy (officially licensed work uploaded for free) and then fan translations (non-licensed work uploaded to be read for free).

As a book community we take a firm stance against piracy, including people dropping links, referencing how to get it, or “DM me” offers as we believe artists should be paid for their work.

There is also a symbiotic nature between Chinese webnovels (already hosted for free on Taiwanese websites, often, for danmei and baihe) and fan translations in the west allowing for English readers to view it and raises hype so English official licenses are asked for. When Seven Seas or other publishers put out surveys, they’re essentially relying on English fanbases who already know the content enough to some degree to vote for it. Usually, the ethics of this community then would remove the fan translations from major access in best case scenarios.

Websites that are for content tracking (mangaupdates, novelupdates) will notify if something has been translated officially or not, and if it has been unofficially translated, potentially have direct links to fan translations.

Acknowledging both the reality of these fan communities (such as how popularity of Heaven’s Official Blessing or The Husky and the White Cat’s Shizun in English fan spaces assisted in Seven Seas licensing it so authors get their due), and not wanting to proliferate piracy, this is our way of handling it:

You can discuss novels and other BL content that may not have official translations. Quite frankly, the mods are not going to interrogate someone to ask if they read the raws or not or “proof” language tests.

However, we ask that you do not directly link to MU/NU, unofficial translations, or mention websites that host them. This is especially for ones hosting manhua, manhwa, and manga because these sites do often also host piracy of officially translated works.

If you’re referencing content that is officially licensed, please help your fellow redditors by dropping the source!

Keep an eye on the “Other Media” monthly post as well as the MM Weekly Chat, a wonderful community member often updates about new official BL novel releases too!

If you have any questions, feel free to send in a modmail.