I’m currently working on a story with a main character who told me he’s asexual, and it has me thinking about romance and happy endings. One thing the M/M genre of romance has always done better, and is continuing to expand in a very positive way, is moving beyond the traditional two-folks-in-love-and-happy-exclusive-sex definition of HEA, to other options.

The true definition of HEA has to be a relationship in which all the participants feel satisfied and fulfilled with the way it works, and who share love. And in M/M, I’ve been pleased to find stories that give the guys that happy in non-traditional ways. Not just asexual relationships, where having sex is not important to being happy and in-love for the longterm, but other variations. (I’m going to avoid naming books to avoid spoilers, but if something pings your interest you can ask me.)

There’s poly, of course. In my Changes series, the guys need that three-way balance to keep a stable relationship that fulfills everyone. But they are still in exclusive love-and-sex with each other, just adding a third person to that exclusivity.

There’s unbalanced poly. In one story, that means two poly guys and one who really isn’t, and three two-way relationships. One pair is D/s but minimally sexual, and their love is warm and real but not as clearly romantic, and more protective, across that pair. And yet they are a stable romantic trio.

In another, it begins with two guys in an open relationship because one is poly and the other isn’t, with heavy BDSM overtones. Then add a third guy who is asexual, but has a romantic love relationship that comes to include some very specifically-constrained sex with one MC, and a low-key love but not romance or sex with the other. That’s also HEA.

There are open relationships of all sorts. One ace guy who doesn’t want sex, happy to let the man he is in love with find non-romantic sex elsewhere. A Dom whose beloved sub likes to be shared out, and whom he loves to watch with a third. A group of guys, all in romantic pairs, but who come together to enjoy group sex with D/s elements, but only in their small circle. An older guy whose sex drive is low, happy with a younger guy who goes elsewhere when he wants an hour with a stranger, where the older guy sometimes does a trio with them, but mostly doesn’t. Even guys doing sex work, who can compartmentalize the sex that is their job from the love-and-sex of their romantic relationship.

I think it’s vitally important that we step away from defining a “successful” romantic relationship as a life-long two-person exclusive sexual one, and embrace defining it as “a relationship in which all parties feel content, safe, and fulfilled.” And accept that we don’t get to make the call of what that looks like for someone else.

We should also embrace the idea that a marriage that ends, calmly, after years of happiness, because the partners have grown apart, is a success not a failure. If the relationship nurtured the people in it for years, and has not left them bitter and angry, then that’s a success. And if they subsequently find new love, that’s no more a sign the first love was “wrong” or “incomplete” than if a widower finds someone new to love. I adore books that don’t devalue a previous love (whether lost to death, or otherwise ended) in order to show how wonderful, how much better, a new love is. You can love more than one person with all your heart, in your lifetime.

Not every reader will enjoy a broader definition of “romance.” Coming into the books with your own hurts or previous expectations may make anything but two-people-exclusive-HEA feel unsafe, incomplete, or unsatisfying. But I think as a genre, we help the real world become a safer place for love of all kinds when we broaden our definition, and celebrate every version of romance. And not coincidentally, we get some great and unique stories from it.

– Kaje Harper

October 2021