They are, but usually not in a winner of girl’s affections roles, which to me quite often rings hollow. The whole ‘nice guy finishes last’ is quite often forced in the hetero romances, because, yes, the majority prefer the bad boys on the mend or powerful hulks who bend the world and the woman to their will.
My mom once told me a story about a slice of life drama aired in a movie theatre about a single mom who was in a toxic relationship with a married men, and after much drama, she finally is engaged to be married to an ideal nice guy.
So, in the ending, her previous lover cuts them off on the highway, acts like a ‘manly man’ by dragging her out of the car and she returns to him, and the whole movie theatre, at that point, in one voice yelled ‘YOU IDIOT!’
There is this disconnect between the hero-lover who sells books in hetero romances, and the guy women actually want to have relationships with. Try to put him on the cover or write a book about a softer, gentler relationship—and nobody would read it, at least not on the internet. But the same Internet would consume enormous amounts of ‘he rapes/beats her, she loves him!’
But the absence of that nice guy is felt... and BL lets you have the nice guy who is lucky in love. The second guy could be as bad or as powerful as it goes. While in a straight romance, bad girl-good boy pairings normally just don’t meet with success.
Like, Victor in a hetero romance would end up cast as a sleazy seducer to boost up the female hero’s confidence and have a drunken one night stand, that poor thing just couldn’t resist.
It’s a crazy paradox.