Sadly, I'm here to report that it is the latter. I read in the book, "The Beauty Myth," (which incidentally is a great book that changed my life) that modern romance novels generally follow the same plot over and over again:
1. A working, independent woman meets a man at her workplace setting
2. The man pursues her and she resists him
3. The man overcomes her resistance and they get together
The standard BBW romance genre copies and pastes this formula, and then adds in a crippling lack of self esteem on the woman's part, because she's a BBW and can't imagine any decent man would be attracted to her. In these stories, which I'm assuming are written by women, the man's body is typically described with more enthusiasm than the woman, and he's always a muscular guy.
The "romance" part of these stories is particularly lame. Why does the man always chase the woman? Why does the woman always have the same reasons for resisting? (ie, being insecure, not wanting to be perceived as slutty). Why does the man have to go to creepy, stalker-ish lengths to win her over? Why does he have to do threatening things like grab her arm when she tries to run away?
If any other man acted like this, he'd be a predator, but because he's described as attractive, he's given a free pass.
The sex parts aren't much better. You'll hear a lot about the woman's inner monologue, but never what the man is thinking. You'll hear what it felt like, but rarely what it looks like. You'll have to sit through the woman's monologue constantly insisting to you that she's not usually a slut and so she has conflicted feelings about doing whatever she's doing. He has no feelings - he's charming, he's attracted to her, and he wants to have sex, that's all he is. He may end up being a decent fellow, but he is still a flat character. He is not tender, he is just macho.
When I first got into reading stories as a teenage, I was so repulsed and repelled by these type of dynamics (which, again, are true in many genres, not just BBW Romance) that I didn't want to read any more. I just read stories about lesbians, because you might actually read something heart warming instead of stomach churning and predictable.
The next review I'll do will be of any good actual weight gain or other transformation type stories that I find. Hopefully they will be better.