According to some people, they’re both the exact same thing - which is stupid. I would know, I’ve been on the receiving end of that kinda bullshit.
Negative stereotypes are obviously worse.
The real conundrum is when the negative stereotype IS your fetish. I’ve seen and read enough gay porn, catered to gay men, to know a lot of gay men have fetishes regarding negative stereotypes.
So “worse” is really just a matter of opinion. Hell some people even find negative stereotypes to be positive representation while those same people find positive fetishes to be the worst possible thing ever done in the history of ever.
Long story short, people are dumb and you can offend anyone with anything. On Tumblr people got offended by a blank panel that mentioned what jokes are okay to make so you don’t offend anyone - in other words, nothing. And people still got offended by it. I’ve seen other Narcoleptics get offended by that one character in Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigalo, but I found it funny.
On the subject of romance - eh, it’s not exactly a realistic genre to begin with anyway. Romance, or romanticism, in general tends to exaggerate or idealize things. It’s not supposed to be realistic. Tho I personally avoid straight up romance stuff - I only read BL if something else interesting is going on in the plot. Anyway, BL is more of a well known category online - it makes the content easier to find if you’re actively seeking out gay romances, you know? If you just label it as romance people are gonna go “oh it’s a boring old het romance - pass”.
Yeah, so that’s all I got. Lol