Just over a month ago I invited you to vote on the level of sex you personally wished to have in your M/M romances. Of the 10 categories (and some were almost identical, which was deliberate) this is how you voted:
Of the over 1000 readers who read the post, almost 500 of you voted.
54% said -
I want a balance – I enjoy a good story but I love the hot sex too.
40% said:
I think the sex in M/M romances should advance the plot, otherwise it’s just porn by another name.
On the other side of the spectrum only 1 person wanted these books to be wall to wall sex, and 3% said they found M/M romances without lots of sex to be boring.
Which brings me to this question. If 40% of readers said they thought the sex in M/M romances should advance the plot otherwise it was just porn by another name, why are books with less than a heat level of 5 (or 3 depending on the publisher’s rating scale) not selling?
Authors and publishers complain that this genre has been ghettoized by re-sellers like Amazon and ARe because all of these books are categorized on their websites as erotic romances, regardless whether or not there’s any sex in them, so authors have a tough job from the get-go selling their books to the mainstream public. When we (M/M readers) don’t buy “sweet” romances with minimal sex it’s a double blow to the authors. Now there seems to be an expectation on the part of new M/M readers that these romances will all be erotic or even veer into erotica and PWP. Where did they get that impression, I wonder?
A few of our best authors who write books with very little sex or none at all are thinking of abandoning M/M romances altogether (see the comments on the original post) because, despite saying how much you enjoy their stories and admire their writing, you won’t buy their books in sufficient numbers to make it worth their while to stick around. 
Anemic sales don’t offer much encouragement.
We all like different books and there’s nothing wrong with erotic books — I read a lot of them and love some of them — but I want to read books that tell a story without depending on the hot sex which sometimes is used to mask the fact that there is no story. In my book 
the sex should advance the plot and not be the plot. According to this small poll many of you seem to agree. I hope you will continue voting (you can only vote once) so that the numbers and opinions are representative of a large enough segment of M/M readers. The votes are anonymous so you can be honest. 
My personal opinion is that there’s enough room for sweet as well as sexy romances in our genre and it would be a pity if the authors who write books that are less erotic felt that they weren’t appreciated, and left. Thanks for voting guys.