Why Lesbian Romantasy is Arguably Better

When men are present in romantasy - no matter how kind, progressive, or well-written - they bring cultural gravity with them. Not because men are bad, but because patriarchy is sticky.

Lesbian romantasy removes that gravity entirely.

And the absence is... noticeable.

Patriarchy Follows Hetero Romance Like a Curse

From a bisexual perspective, this is the uncomfortable truth: heterosexual romantasy has to work very hard not to reproduce dominance tropes - and often fails.

Even well-meaning stories slide into:

Feminist theorists have long pointed out that structures outlive intentions. Bisexual readers feel this acutely because we recognize the patterns from multiple angles.

Lesbian romantasy doesn't have to fight those defaults. They simply aren't there.

Desire Feels Different When It Isn't Gendered

One of the most freeing things about lesbian romantasy - yes, even as a bi reader - is how desire operates without default scripts.

No automatic assumptions about:

Power becomes something negotiated between characters rather than assigned at birth.

From a feminist standpoint, that's huge.

As bisexual feminists have often argued, attraction across genders doesn't mean attraction to inequality. Lesbian romantasy offers a vision of desire where wanting someone doesn't mean shrinking for them.

The "Morally Gray" Trope Finally Gets Interrogated

Let's talk about morally gray love interests.

In straight romantasy, "morally gray man" often means:

As a bisexual reader, you notice how often this trope depends on masculinity to stay sexy.

In lesbian romantasy? That protection disappears.

When women are morally complex:

That's not puritanical - that's feminist storytelling.

Systems Start to Crack Without Heteronormativity

Here's something subtle but important: Lesbian romantasy destabilizes fantasy power structures by accident.

Monarchy. Bloodlines. Divine inheritance. The genre loves these things - but heterosexual romance quietly props them up through reproduction and legacy narratives. (Mind you, this might be a great opportunity for the author to introduce the idea of "democracy" and get rid of the monarchy. Or at the very least, keep the monarchy, but have a parliament that is elected.)

Lesbian relationships disrupt that logic. Suddenly:

As a bisexual feminist, this is where the genre gets genuinely exciting. The romance forces the worldbuilding to evolve.

But What About Bisexual Representation?

Here's the tension - and it's real.

Bisexual readers want to see ourselves on the page. We don't want lesbian romantasy held up in a way that erases bi women or frames us as politically compromised.

But appreciating lesbian romantasy isn't bi-erasure. It's structural clarity.

We can say both things at once:

That's not hierarchy. That's analysis.

Why "Arguably Better" Is the Right Phrase

Not all lesbian romantasy is feminist. Not all bisexual or straight romantasy is anti-feminist.

But if feminism is about:

Then lesbian romantasy starts closer to the goal line.

It has less to unlearn. Fewer inherited scripts. More room to experiment with mutuality, solidarity, and shared power, or better yet: Democracy.

Regardless of whether you like Romantasy, or hate it, this doesn't change the fact that many men definitely hate it.

There's a familiar sneer that shows up anytime romantasy is mentioned in certain fantasy spaces - forums, Reddit threads, YouTube comments, even book reviews:

None of this is accidental. From a feminist perspective, male disdain for romantasy isn't about quality - it's about control.

Fantasy has long been treated as male cultural property, and romantasy threatens that ownership in ways men find deeply uncomfortable. Fantasy was canonized through male-centered works like "The Lord of the Rings", where emotion and romance were secondary to masculine heroism. Romantasy breaks that mold by centering relationships, interior lives, and desire - often written by and for women.

That shift threatens male dominance over the genre, and it provokes male backlash for the following reasons:

It isn't written for men. Emotional focus gets mislabeled as "bad writing."

It exposes male fantasy as preference, not default. Lone heroes and domination aren't universal ideals.

It removes male centrality. Especially in queer and lesbian romantasy, men aren't the heroes, prizes, or audience.

"Trash" becomes a gendered insult. Romance, YA, and fanfiction - women-dominated spaces within bookstores - are routinely dismissed wholesale, while badly written epic fantasy is forgiven because it reinforces patriarchal belief structures. Some men, the gatekeepers, essentially don't want to share space in fantasy bookstores with women because they're afraid that women will take over the space and dominate it.