‘Heated Rivalry’ and the boom in gay romance stories

When the holiday season arrived last year, Margaret Hecox knew exactly what her grandmother would love.

The 23-year-old wrote in a card: “Heated Competition” Groundbreaking Canadian TV series about the secret love story between two male hockey players. Hecox watched several episodes with her grandmother and also encouraged her friends and other family members to watch it as well.

“I knew you’d like the show,” Hecox said. “Obviously he did.”

The grandmother-grandson duo is part of a large fan base of women for books, shows and movies about love stories between two men.

This type of romantic content—long referred to in some Asian cultures as: “yaoi” or “child love” — has been produced for decades. But consumers and experts told CNBC that buzz about “Heated Competition” has pushed this corner of LGBTQ+ media into the mainstream, especially among straight American women.

More than 900,000 videos have been published on TikTok using the hashtag “fujoshi” a Japanese slang term for female fans of these stories. Google Searches for terms related to the yaoi fandom rose to previously unseen levels in the US late last year, underscoring growing local awareness of the subgenre.

“This is all about women coming out of the closet with a genre that they’re invested in,” said Shampaigne Graves, who consults and hosts a podcast about female consumers. “This isn’t a new phenomenon. It’s just something women feel comfortable talking about and sharing with each other.”

Everything he said

HBOThe US streaming platform for “Heated Rivalry” said about two-thirds of the series’ viewers are women. During the show’s press tour, the creative team and leads were fielded questions repeatedly about why they believed the show was particularly compelling among women.

“‘Heated Competition’ led straight women to say, ‘Okay, we want more of this,'” said social media content creator Emily Sarre, who shared several posts declaring her interest in the series.

Demand for this type of content has gone beyond the six-part “Heated Competition” series.

“Call Me by Your Name”, a coming-of-age drama sonyIt had the ninth most fans of any female-identified feature film on the movie review platform mailbox. That’s 46 slots higher than where it sits on the equivalent list for men.

According to Nielsen, nearly seven in 10 viewers who watched the Timothée Chalamet-directed film in the first three months of 2026 were women.

“Red, White and Royal Blue” 2023 political romantic comedy AmazonNielsen found that it has 61% female viewers.

lion gate He shared Nielsen data with CNBC showing that women have made up 60% of viewers since the beginning of last year. “The perks of Being a Wallflower,” The story of a gay romance involving a football player.

The next ‘Twilight’?

This year, female readers also focused their attention on “Heated Competition” and the author’s other male-male love books. Rachel Reid Open FairytaleA book discussion platform owned by Scribd. They appear to be selecting other titles in the subgenre after reviewing Reid’s catalogue. “Song of Achilles” A re-imagining of Greek mythology published in 2011.

“This isn’t just one in a long series of little trends,” said Kim Allee, Fable’s director of marketing. “This feels like something much more important than that.”

It can be difficult to keep track of exact book sales statistics by gender. But anecdotally, the lion’s share of male-to-male romance readers are heterosexual women, according to Jennifer Bokal. Romance Writers of America trade group.

Bokal said she saw women wearing “Heated Competition” products “everywhere” at the BookCon convention in April. With the excitement felt for the series and the book, Bokal said that the series jumped into a league with the “Fifty Shades of Gray” and “Twilight” series.

On the surface, “Heated Competition” and other male-to-male love stories may be unlikely choices for women, given that they are not represented as protagonists or love interests. But Allee said Fable’s female users were struck by the subgenre’s depth of emotion, so much so that “longing” became a buzzword to describe what drew them to these books.

“This shows people the kind of love and romance they deserve, regardless of their gender,” said Gianna Saad, 30, whose bookshelf is full of novels by authors in this subgenre. Scarlett Drake And T.J. Klune. “There’s a deeper level to everything that happens in these kinds of books.”

Different stories are exhibited

Some of these games have become mainstream hits, thanks in part to word-of-mouth approval from female-centric fan bases.

Reid’s novels were among the most read e-books on Scribd’s Everand subscription service this year, according to data released by the company this week. More broadly, Fable’s Allee said man-on-man love stories have replaced “romance” It is the most popular among love books.

Amazon said “Red, White and Royal Blue” increased new subscriptions and quickly became one of the most-watched romantic comedies on the Prime Video platform. Both the movie “Red, White and Royal Blue” and the second movie of the “Heated Competition” TV series are also in production.

Tom Nunan, a producer and former network and studio executive who now teaches at the UCLA School of Theatre, Film and Television, said viewers may see more gay love stories between athletes on screen as producers try to copy the “Heated Rivalry” playbook.

But Nunan said the biggest lesson for Hollywood should be that producing original and original stories will be rewarded by audiences. He said that the industry has long been trying to attract the attention of women, who make up the majority of viewers in scripted entertainment, with diverse and thought-provoking scenarios.

“When shows like ‘Heated Competition’ air, it reminds us of what a rich part of life this is to explore,” Nunan said. It’s also a reminder that “we need to make sure we populate our shows as accurately and authentically as possible because everyone wins in this scenario.”

While these releases have garnered admiration and acclaim, LGBTQ+ advocates also warn that the overall on-screen representation of the community is shrinking.

GLAAD, A nonprofit LGBTQ+ advocacy and media monitoring organization, The share of LGBTQ+ inclusive scripted films from major film distributors fell nearly 14% from 2023 to 2024, it said. LGBTQ+ characters on TV Shows are down nearly 23% in the 2024-2025 season compared to three years ago, the organization reported.

“On the one hand, I think it’s encouraging,” said Katherine Sender, a Cornell professor who researches LGBTQ+ media, of the “Heated Competition” excitement. “But on the other hand, I don’t think we should be too optimistic.”

‘All I can think about’

Of course, not all man-to-man love stories have a predominantly female audience. “Heart-stopper” series on netflixAnd “Love, Simon” from romcom DisneyAccording to Nielsen, 20th Century Fox both leaned slightly toward male viewers in the first quarter.

There is also evidence that the genre’s fan base extends beyond women who identify as heterosexual. On CNN’s New Year’s Eve special, co-host Andy Cohen asked musician Brandi Carlile if lesbians are similarly obsessed with “Heated Competition.”

“That’s all I can think of,” Carlile replied.