#(& if you haven't read 'Seven Tears at High Tide' - it's about a bi Asian American MC and his selkie eventual-boyfriend Morgan. IT'S GOOD!)

[musicrunsthroughmysoul]

All I'm trying to do is read more adult fiction novels (but my focus is still historical fiction because I am a NERD), but I've discovered recently how fucking BORED I am of the gender essentialism in reading about MCs in cishet relationships - and this is even in novels where the romance is not a focus, like, at all.

[From a cishet female perspective - directly quoted from the novel I'm currently reading]: "I was aware of the strength of his body when he stretched to refill our glasses."

[From a cishet male perspective]: [insert anything super cringey about how small/petite/dainty/delicate a woman is here]

I AM SO! FUCKING BORED! OF THIS SHIT!

And it can't just be that as a reader (and a writer) I'm incompatible with characters who are more physically driven than mentally driven (as in, with action and physical description versus mental/emotional motives). I just can't, or don't want to, believe that, because these stories are generally fine BESIDES the gender essentialism that takes me out of the story every time I come across it because it annoys me so much. I think it's just, as some might say, "lazy writing", if the main concept that the lazy writing revolved around was gender essentialism. LOL Unless it's for satirical (or otherwise political, in that vein) purposes, I don't want to read it again.