And Cas Loved Dean: Gay Men Writing Supernatural Fanfiction

It’s strange sometimes, being a gay male listening in on women talking and writing about gay men, like some kind of voyeur. I often sigh and mutter to myself: “oh, if gay men really were like that.” Yeah, gay men have romantic fantasies too, but the reality of gay dating rarely resembles the scenarios that play out in women’s m/m romance fictions. So, when I read the Destiel romances that ladies spin out, I sometimes get caught up in the fantasy too.

When I first stumbled into Destiel fanfiction (Dean/Castiel slash fiction) I didn’t realize that the vast majority of fanfiction writers in this “ship” were women. “Ship” is short for “relationship,” and “shippers” are fans that enjoy reading and writing about a certain romantic pairing (usually between two men) regardless of whether this pairing appears as an actual couple in the “canonical” work in which these characters appear. In the case of Dean/Castiel, from the TV show Supernatural airing on the CW (2005-2020) the writers of the show “queer baited” Dean/Castiel for several seasons and ended the show’s run with the two of them stopping just short of becoming an acknowledged gay/bi couple.

This whole “shipping” fan culture grew out of what was known as “slash” fanfiction, the name “slash” references the (/) between the two names of a usually homoerotic pairing. The original slash pairing being Kirk/Spock, and is the underlying source of contemporary m/m romance (male/male slash), which is written primarily by women (mostly straight women, but not entirely) and for a female audience. While some gay men write m/m romance, they are a small minority compared to the number of women writers.

In reading women’s Dean/Castiel romantic slash, I’ve noticed a lot of their stories tend to place these characters in locations and plotlines that are way out of character than how they are presented on the TV show from which these characters are adapted. Often Castiel and Dean’s (and his brother Sam’s) occupations, living arrangements, and on occasion, even gender (particularly in A/B/O stories set in the OmegaVerse) are considerably altered. Women writers often place Sam, Dean, and Cas into a kind of Hallmark world where they play out their romances. Which is ok; it’s romance after all. It’s amusing to read about Dean, Cas, and Sam as chefs and poets, rock stars and police officers, marine biologists, mechanics, lawyers, academics, and businessmen. Dean and Cas (and occasionally Sam) get pregnant and bear children (it’s called an MPreg), while watching them navigate professional restaurant kitchens, college campuses, corporate offices, and church marriages, all the while residing in idyllic small towns, penthouse suites, vacations paradises, remote romantic cabins, and cozy homes with white picket fences.

I love Dean and Castiel together too, and reading all these variations on Destiel writing by women, made me wonder, how do gay men reimagine Dean and Cas in their gay male romantic fantasies? How do they handle Dean/Castiel in a manner that might be different than women? How might a gay man’s perspective inform how they might handle an m/m romance?

Romancing Destiel: Women Writing Gay Supernatural Fanfiction

I’ve been reading Supernatural fanfiction for a while now. When I first started, I didn’t know anything about fanfiction and the people who write it. I started by looking at m/m (male/male) romance and eventually found my way to Destiel slash (Dean/Castiel). I love Dean and Cas as a gay/bi couple especially because the TV show on which this pairing is based got so close to making them a canonical couple, stopping just short, and leaving the rest to the fan’s imagination at the ending of the show’s 15-year run. I hated and felt traumatized by the show’s finale (I wrote about that in a different post), and made my own ongoing attempts to write my version of the end of the show.

In investigating m/m romances and slash fiction, I discovered that it’s mostly written by women, not gay men. Some gay men write m/m romance, but the field is completely dominated by women writers, both the formally published m/m romance and unofficial slash fanfiction, including Destiel fanfiction. I discovered that the closely related genres of m/m romance and slash fanfiction were essentially created by women writers for women audiences. Gay men had very little to do with them. In fact, gay men produced a separate genre of fiction all their own that had little to do with what women were writing. Gay male fiction has a long tradition in its own right and grows out of literary fiction. Whereas, m/m romance grew out of slash fanfiction and has become a full-fledged sub-genre of traditional romance with all of its tropes. It’s important to make a distinction between m/m romance and gay male fiction. Failure to do so will lead to a lot of confusion on the part of readers, and anger and resentment between women and gay men over who has the right to speak and write on behalf of gay men.

The dominance of women in reading and writing m/m fanfiction is demonstrated in the Fansplaining Shipping Survey (conducted in April 2019) that focused primarily on m/m slash fans. Of the respondents, 72% identified themselves as female, whereas only 9% identified as male and another 9% as transgender. Respondents were allowed to select multiple categories, of those categories, 21% identified themselves as non-binary/genderqueer and only 20% identified as cisgender. It seems reasonable to conclude from these numbers that the vast majority of m/m slash fans are women, and of those women, they are generally evenly divided between women who identify as cisgender and those who identify as non-binary/genderqueer.

When it comes to sexuality (presuming that the vast majority of respondents are women) 43% identify as Bi/pan and 24% as queer. Only 13% identified as gay (I’m presuming that most of the men in the survey will probably fall into this category). Like with gender, respondents were allowed to select from multiple categories. Of the remainder, 19% identified themselves as straight and interesting 29% identified as asexual. What is most notable here is that of the women who make up so much of the m/m slash fanbase, the majority of them don’t identify as heterosexual and a sizeable minority identify as asexual. Women who do not identify themselves with traditional gender classifications make up a substantial portion of the m/m fanbase.

Gay Male Fiction and LGBT Minority Writers, Genre Fiction, Gay Romance, Non-Fiction, and Young Adult Novels

This is my second list of resources on gay male and other LGBT fiction. This list focuses on LGBT minority writers, genre fictions, and young adult novels. It also collects posts on the controversy over gay romances written by gay authors vs. m/m romances written by heterosexual women.

I have followed the same strategy as my first list by drawing on established resources from around the internet. Like before, all the links are openly accessible on the web and exclude Goodreads and Wikipedia pages, as well as, academic articles that are behind paywalls. Read the introduction to my first Gay Male Fiction Web Links and Other LGBT Book Lists for my full explanation.

I expect this project to span across several pages. I will also try to periodically update the pages as I discover new links to add or better links to replace old ones. If readers have significant links that they think would add meaningful content to this list, you can leave them in the comments I will review them and add them to the list. I will acknowledge your contribution at the bottom of the page.

This is the second in a four part series of post on Gay Fiction. The other three posts can be found at the following links:

Gay Male Fiction Web Links and Other LGBT Book Lists, Literary Awards, Reviews, Interviews, Criticism, Blogs and Library Resources

Religion in Queer History and LGBT Books, Gay Spirituality, Paganism, and Literary Criticism

What Kind of Gay Books Do You Like to Read?

Below you will find sections dedicated to:

• The Controversy between Gay Romances vs. M/M Romances.
• Book Lists and Commentary for LGBT Genre Fiction such as Sci-Fi, Fantasy, Mystery, Historical, Paranormal, Coming-of-Age, and so forth.
• Book Lists and Commentary for LGBT Minority Fiction about Black, Hispanic Asian, Indian, and other Minority Writers.
• LGBT Memoirs, Biographies and other Non-Fiction.
• Books Lists for LGBT Young Adult Fiction, as well as, Debates over YA writing.