Well, damn, the next bit I was going to work on for Getting My Hackles Up involved pornography in romance, but Mrs. Giggles just recently posted a most excellent piece on just that subject. What is this, some kind of Malaysian mind-meld? (For those of you who haven’t read Part I of Getting My Hackles up, it concerns realism in romance.)
Anyway. So yeah, I was going to parrot much of what she has written re: the issue of romance novels being glorified pornography. This accusation especially chaps my hide when it comes from men who pay loads of money for actual pornography. They evince no embarrassment about displaying their issues of Playboy and Penthouse on their coffee table, or having 20 gigabytes worth of creampie shots from HotWetTeens.com on their hard drive, but they seem to assume that I should be ashamed to read romance novels because they contain sex scenes. Double standards much?
And really, I really don’t have a problem with porn at all, assuming that the porn involves only consenting human adults. Some forms of porn are kind of odd (sneezing fetishes) or gross (roman showers) or scary (bloodplay) or odd, gross and scary in a mind-boggling number of ways (fursuitsex.com), but hey, it’s not like I’m being forced to view it.
To be honest with you, sometimes I do seek romance novels for the sexual titillation. Not very frequently, because there are more efficient ways to go about it than hunting for 20 pages worth of sex in 380 pages of novel—for instance, I can much more easily search the alt.sex.stories.moderated archives for something that appeals to me (“leather daddy yellow discipline Pikachu”—oh wait, did I say that out loud?). But c’mon, why else would one pick up a book like Taboo if not primarily for the sexiness one hopes to find within? And why else would one (OK, OK, I) feel so damn disappointed when the sex scenes inspire narcolepsy instead of excitement? What’s so wrong with seeking to be stimulated sexually through the written word? Are there any logical, convincing arguments not based on religious dogma that can be made about how one should completely abstain from that kind of stimulation? Why are we being made to feel so deeply ashamed about indulging in something in private that doesn’t hurt anyone else? (Unless he asks nicely, that is. But really, I’ve never had any complaints from “anyone else” about the side-effects of my getting turned-on by romance novels—in fact, “anyone else” has always been pretty happy with said side-effects.) Why is something that’s fun and sexy and sexual also immediately associated with being immoral, tawdry, anti-intellectual and/or somehow unworthy of appreciation?
Good sex scenes, for me, can enhance the appeal for a romance novel, but they’re not necessary for my enjoyment of them. I have several books on my keeper shelves that have the hero and heroine barely kissing each other, much less savagely slaking their breathless lust, loins a-quiver and arousal a-surging. Those who don’t want to read sex scenes will find plenty of romance novels catering to their tastes, while those who do want sex scenes—lots of them, in excruciating detail, in every configuration possible and with the maximum number of synonyms for “vagina” one can humanly come up with—can find them too. For me, the primary appeal in romance novels lies in the love stories. Well-written sex scenes aren’t even the icing on the cake; they’re more like the little curled shavings of dark chocolate on top of the icing that add that extra bit of flavor and texture where it’s needed. But at the end of the day, I’ll take my cake with or without the dark chocolate shavings, thank you.
So in short: I don’t think romance novels are pornography. It has certain pornographic elements, and no doubt some people do use them pornographically on occasion, and some books do focus a bit too much (and a bit too tiresomely) on the quivering mounds o’ desire, but I think the people who accuse the whole romance genre as being directly equivalent to porn must’ve been sleeping through the vast majority of the book in which the hero isn’t boning the heroine. Either that, or they’re prurient bastards who have obsessively fixated on something that typically makes up less than 10% of the average romance novel.
For those of you who don’t know: I lived in Malaysia for the first 19 years of my life, specifically in Kuala Lumpur, so when Mrs. Giggles talks about getting pirated DVDs from Bukit Bintang, I have a most excellent idea of what and where she’s talking about.
I love well-written sex in romance, but (unless DH is away on business for weeks on end or has been abducted by aliens) it’s not even close to the reason to read it. I write sexy books, and I read them, too, but I love traditional Regencies—all romance, no touching. Although sometimes all that banter reads like sparkly, witty, verbal sex, which is cool.
The folks who like to call romance porn seem to have missed the last two decades and are remembering their mom’s old nearly-exposed-boob-covers, it’s-not-rape-it’s-seduction books. Or they believe that the 90 percent of the book that leads up to the sex scenes stands in for the “Oh, sir, I think I’ll have to examine that for you” scenes in porno flicks.
Love this site. Do you guys need minions? ‘Cause I look pretty swell in a robe.
Yeah, I love traditional Regencies too, and although so far only The Grand Sophy has made it to my keeper shelf, I’ve really enjoyed everything I’ve tried by Georgette Heyer. All my very favorite authors (Laura Kinsale, Jennifer Crusie, Loretta Chase, Patricia Gaffney, Barbara Samuel, Sharon and Tom Curtis aka Laura London) are not known for writing super-sexy books; their sex scenes are usually pretty hot, but there typically aren’t a whole lot of them in a book. The passion the characters feel towards each other is pretty damn sexy, though.
You know, your point about clinch covers is a most excellent one: romance novels generally aren’t pornographic, but those “whoops, my ta-tas spilling out of my bodice again!” covers can certainly make them seem a lot more sex-a-riffic than they actually are. As a kid I found those covers excruciatingly embarrassing; I couldn’t figure out how my sister could stand to read those things. OK, I find those covers excruciating as an adult as well.
As for old-school romances: in my opinion many of them would actually be improved if they were non-stop sex scenes, especially The Flame and the Flower and Sweet Savage Love, but alas, there’s all the dreck in between one has to wade through. Legions of Woodiwiss and Rogers fans would disagree, of course. (And they’re certainly free to snark about my swoony fangirly worship of all things Kinsale, Crusie and Chase.)