Interesting thing I've noted... the fan threads in DA2 that are being kept alive at the moment are primarily being kept so by straight women (and gay men, but I haven't seen as many of those). Cullen, Anders and Fenris have taken in much of the enthusiasm.
Of course, neither Merrill nor Isabela seems to have gotten a gigantic following from the straight male playerbase, interestingly enough.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but there seems to be sharper gender divides within fandoms of female characters than there are in fandoms of male ones. Am I deranged?
I think it's hard to say without resorting to broad, probably incorrect stereotypes. Anecdotally, all I really have a sense of is our Cullen thread fanbase, which consists of mostly women, a few men, many straight, some gay, some bi, more not saying one way or another. I can't really tell who's male vs. female in most of the other threads unless I know the folks personally, let alone sexual orientation or whatever.