HuffPo Books Disses Romance, Stupid-to-Solar-Power Conversion to Come

Bitchin' Blog Posts

by SB Sarah | by SB Sarah | December 04, 2009 | Friday at 11:16 pm | 121 Comments

What a pity. I had higher hopes for HuffPo’s book section but wow, they were dashed against the rocky shores of sweeping generalization and people who don’t know diddly squat talking out their asses. I mean, how else am I to judge the entire offering of a diverse selection of writers discussing all things book except by judging the whole on a limited and asinine sample, right? Right! Of course!

Alan Elsner went to the library and borrowed a stack of romances. Seems because he wrote a book called “Romance Language” he is often asked if he’d written a “romance novel.” You can see where this is going.

So he borrows a stack and finds his conceptions of the genre were out of date. He then takes the time to carefully list the ways in which romance novels take the romance out of romance.

Well, I suppose it’s only fair that he make such cringe-worthy judgments, since his article takes the quality out of the HuffPo Books section.

The sad part is, aside from some painful and cruel assumptions about romances and the women who read them (hold on to your blood pressure medication), there are some points upon which I agree with Mr. Elsner. He isn’t so far off base with his first assessment - that the female protagonist is usually young, brave, and independent.

But Elsner’s assessment of the hero is monolithic and indicates that when he went a-hunting for romance, he was sadly limited in his selection. Not all heroes are ‘hunky but haughty” “prototypical alpha-males.” Considering that the hero will “find himself way out of his depth when this chit of a girl awakens feelings he’s never known,” I suspect Presents may have been a part of the reading material building this list.

And then he moves on to other commonalities of the romance novel, making sweeping pronouncements that remind me of Dr. Google diagnosing every symptom as meningitis, no matter what symptom it is. No, Mr. Elsner, most of the barriers to the happy ending are not always misunderstandings. Some are sweeping judgments pronounced by someone who ought to know better. No, wait, that would be the happy ending to something else entirely.

And avast, ye hearties, here comes the expected smacks at the genre: the protagonists “are usually exchanging fluids by around page 60. This involves detailed and highly explicit descriptions of kissing, oral sex, mutual masturbation and full penetration. Both parties experience mind-blowing orgasms, described in minute detail.” I’m not sure what to address first, the idea that sexual explication is a bad thing (which it is not) or the myth that romance protagonists knock boots by page 60. In all honestly, this many misconceptions stacked up in ignorant formation just makes me exhausted. But no, there’s more.

Elsner continues on with summaries of the evil characters who try to break up the happy couple with schemes or whatever, and the hero and heroine defeat said evil and live happily ever after, hooray.

Then, alas, my head exploded.

I have nothing against such escapist fiction in principle. And I guess that women have as much right to enjoy pornography packaged to their liking as men. But I simply don’t find these books romantic….

Oh, no. You didn’t.

When does stupid-to-solar-power conversion come out? I could use it to fuel my whole house based on those three sentences alone.

In the romance novels I have read, love is expressed through sex and only through sex. The fact that the hero and the heroine can provide each other with tremendous orgasms becomes proof positive of their undeniable love for one another. If the sex is that good, the love must be real.

Actually, sir, there we agree. I find the books that express the emotional complexity of human relations through the congress of nookie to be tiresome and hate that so much of what is erotic narrative is presented as romance and sold as such, because it is not. One good orgasm does not a happily ever after make, despite many insistent books packaged as “romance” to the contrary. I wonder at the list of books Mr. Elsner took home with him, because that which we consider to be excellent romance avoids that sexually-ever-after cliche with determined alacrity.

Mr. Elsner’s mistake is in assuming that the books which DO rest the struggle of the relationship upon sex are romances. They’re not. Really. I’d almost want to create a recommended reading list but the overwhelming weight of judgmental asshattery is keeping me from doing so.

The true disservice that the “romance” genre does is that it sucks all the oxygen out of the room. It sets up expectations and lays down rules of what “romance” should be and what great sex is like. Publishers expect writers to follow these rules. So do readers. Anyone trying to write a real love story involving real people grappling with real dilemmas is breaking the rules of the game.

No, sir, anyone trying to write a real love story about people grappling with real dilemmas is most likely writing romance. Quality romance, at that. What you are writing, however, is ignorant whining.

But what really made my head meet the desk repeatedly was Mr. Elsner’s discussion of why he doesn’t write explicit sexual scenes in his books:

Partly, it’s because it’s so easy to write bad sex scenes and so difficult to write good ones…. But mostly, I don’t do sex because I’m more interested in love—and love takes place in the mind where it has to fight for its existence against all the other challenges presented by life.

Yes, that is certainly true. But yet it’s so easy to write articles dismissing romance novels based on a rudimentary, dismissive and woefully incomplete understanding of the genre. May I come into your house and criticize your writing based on the note you left for the paperboy?

No?

Then I will judge the entirety of the HuffPo books section as tawdry, limited, incurious and dense based solely upon your article. Fair is fair, after all.

Filed: General Bitching, Ranty McRant

Tagged: sex, romance, orgasm, huffpoo, huffpo, asshattery

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GrowlyCub said on 12.04.09 at 11:36 PM • [link]

I read that yesterday, thought about commenting and then decided he wasn’t worth the electrons…

In light of the ‘bad sex’ awards I have to actually applaud him for refraining from writing sex scenes himself since men seem so incredibly bad at it.
Brad Hanon said on 12.04.09 at 11:40 PM • [link]

I think my favorite is how he says “I guess women have the right to pornography…” (wow, that’s big of him to give his permission like that) and then goes on to say that they suck because it’s like they’re porn or something. To sum up, I guess women have the right to pornography, only no they don’t.
Kwana said on 12.04.09 at 11:52 PM • [link]

What tha! A total annoyance and then so sad. he says ” one engorged penis pretty similar to the next. ” Really? Must not get out much and judging from the “stack” of books picked I guess not. Grrrr.

I say please enlighten us all and go write the best most romantic romance ever. Like now!
Beatriz Williams said on 12.04.09 at 11:53 PM • [link]

Perhaps Mr Elsner’s real problem with romance novels is that he perceives a miles-wide chasm between himself and the heroes who seem to be getting all those scrumptious girls. And if he’s unable to grasp the notion of expressing emotional connection with physical touch, he might not get the point of women to begin with.

What’s the old line? Only the brave deserve the fair.
Barb Ferrer said on 12.05.09 at 12:09 AM • [link]

I read that yesterday, thought about commenting and then decided he wasn’t worth the electrons…

What GrowlyCub said.
Poison Ivy said on 12.05.09 at 12:13 AM • [link]

But if romance is not about sex, and love is not about sex, does he mean that only pornography is about sex? Is he then saying that the meeting of bodies is a priori pornographic rather than symbolic of the meeting of minds, hearts, souls, and (because of the HEA) of futures? Didn’t he learn about symbolism in college English?

I keep thinking that the majority of down-on-romance reviewers all subscribe to a naturalistic (i.e., negative) view of the universe and they hate us because romances are idealistic (i.e., positive). Not because we include sex, but because it’s happy, life-affirming sex instead of miserable, awkward, alienation-producing sex.

Spamword “policy74” seems…uh, symbolic.
Donna Alward said on 12.05.09 at 12:13 AM • [link]

Oh my goodness! All this time I thought I was writing romance, but I was mistaken! It can’t be romance if my characters don’t swap fluids by page 60!

Some of my books have consummated sex and many do not, since the bulk of my books are with Harlequin’s Romance line which generally keeps the bedroom door shut. I enjoy writing and reading both.

Clearly, he didn’t read a very big cross section if he came to the conclusion that in romance novels “love is expressed through sex and only through sex.”

What really bugs me though is the assertion that love is only in the mind. That totally negates the need for chemistry. And if he also thinks that sex is not an important part of love, well, consider my jaw dropped. Great sex is just great sex until it’s with the one you love. Then it’s exalted and life-altering.

Don’t know about you, but I really like romance novels. :-)
Jess Granger said on 12.05.09 at 12:13 AM • [link]

I also read that article yesterday, and I also decided it wasn’t worth thinking about too much, but the pornography line bothered me enough that it stuck with me.

Here’s the problem as I see it. Men and women think differently.

Surprise!

Articles like this are based on the assumption that women and men think the same, and we don’t. And guys, guess what? We don’t think about sex the same as you do either.

Surprise again!

Men and women will experience the same story, and have totally different experiences. This became crystal clear to me when my husband and I discussed watching Braveheart. I didn’t want to put myself through that again. He didn’t see what the problem was. I asked him what he saw when he watched the movie, and he talked about bravery, honor, fighting for freedom from oppression and beating the odds. I told him I saw babies hung from the rafters, women raped and killed, the only just man in the story betrayed by someone he trusted and then tortured and eviscerated. He was surprised by that. He said, “That’s not what the story is about.”

That’s what I experience.

To make the assumption that romance is porn, the first thing you have to do is define porn. Is romance purely for sexual gratification? I’ll argue no. Are the sex scenes purely for sexual gratification? Again, I’ll argue no.

In my 330 page book, there are 12 pages of love scenes, and when I wrote them they had little to do with sex and everything to do with connection and trust between two people in the process of developing a lasting love. I think that is a far cry from gratuitous. Sex changes things. No matter what, sex changes things, and so it is valid to address the act in character driven fiction, because the arc of the story is about how characters change.

Biologically speaking, a man isn’t very invested in a sexual act, and by that, I mean he won’t be pregnant for nine months, go through pain and risk death because of that act.

It hasn’t been until modern times that a man was clearly tied to his offspring at all. Again, biologically speaking, sex has little consequence for men.

Now this might be an unfair assumption on my part because I’m not a psychologist studying the sexual habits of men, but I believe sex in terms of how men think about it has less gravitas for the male species than for women. Sex is fun, comforting, self-affirming, an expression of affection and love.

I believe for women it is much more than that. It is the ultimate expression of trust. Again, until modern times, our bodies and our lives were on the line, as well as our social status. We think about that act differently. It has huge weight. And so how a couple comes to and goes through with that act is interesting on an emotional level.

And yes, it is pretty darn sexy, so what?

I have yet to see porn stress monogamy, love, or consequence of sex in the way romances do, so there’s much more going on here than just getting ones proverbial rocks off.
Lynz said on 12.05.09 at 12:32 AM • [link]

I read that yesterday, thought about commenting and then decided he wasn’t worth the electrons…

What GrowlyCub said.

Me too! Or three, I suppose. I have better things to do than explain to judgmental asshats why they’re idiots. (Instead, I’m going to read two pieces of random literary fiction and explain why the whole genre isn’t worth the paper it’s printed on. Huzzah for logic and reason!)
Carolyn Crane said on 12.05.09 at 12:33 AM • [link]

I love how so many “book” sections of online and print pubs hire historians to comment on historical nonfiction, they have memoirists commenting on memoir, science writers reviewing books on science, but when it comes to romance, they seem to seek out people who’ve never read romance, or worse, non-romance readers who are also snarky humorists, to discuss romance. Nice.
Laura Kinsale said on 12.05.09 at 12:59 AM • [link]

It’s a good thing most of us think it’s not worth commenting, because there have been several reports on Twitter that comments (self-described as reasoned and courteous, and I know we are always reasoned and courteous in the face of this sort of thing, hey ;) ) were not allowed to see the light of the HuffPo audience’s screens.

So, we have not only a guy willing to diss the genre, but unwilling to let us talk to him about it.

That’s a nice gig, when you can get it. Then again, maybe he should just grow a pair.
Beatriz Williams said on 12.05.09 at 01:04 AM • [link]

So, we have not only a guy willing to diss the genre, but unwilling to let us talk to him about it.

It would hardly be sporting of you, Laura, since you could write circles around this chappie.
Victoria Dahl said on 12.05.09 at 01:12 AM • [link]

Good thing most of you didn’t bother commenting. It wouldn’t have been worth it, because apparently they have some pretty strict moderation. My comment didn’t make it through. Why? Not sure. Not feminine and sweet enough? I’m pretty damn suspicious about the moderating standards as that post has been up for 4 days & it’s been all over Twitter, and there are only 4 comments.

Here’s a paraphrase of what I said:

I find it interesting that you accuse romance novelists of trying to set rules and definitions about romance when you’ve gone to so much trouble to instruct us on what “real” love involves. And what “real” romance is. Talk about sucking all the oxygen out of the room.

This statement: “In the romance novels I have read, love is expressed through sex and only through sex.” is just an outright lie. Maybe you couldn’t see the forest for the distracting sex trees…

I also advised Mr. Eisner to put on his grown-up glasses, try to avoid getting obsessed with the naughty bits, and try again.

My books are full of sex and erect body parts. Sometimes the erections have to do with love and sometimes they don’t, but in most serious adult relationships love and sex are wound up together. One would hope. I find it disturbing that, for Mr. Eisner, love and romance are to be kept separate from graphic sex. Sounds to me like the old-fashioned idea of keeping the dirty parts of your life away from the respectable parts. Comparmentalization, anyone?
joanneL said on 12.05.09 at 01:14 AM • [link]

I won’t say that Alan Elsner is a big fat fibber; oh wait, I just did.

From the description he gave of the books I’d like to suggest that he didn’t actually get a stack of romance books from the library but rather flipped through the back cover blurbs of some romances at a book stand. He certainly didn’t read any of the latest books by Susan Elizabeth Phillips or Nora Roberts or other authors of their ilk.

I could be wrong in that opinion (that he’s a big, fat fibber in case you missed it) but he is definitely limited by his exposure to different types of romances.

One of the many, many reasons I HATE opinions given on romance books by people who don’t read them.
Victoria Dahl said on 12.05.09 at 01:17 AM • [link]

Jinx, Laura! You owe me a Coke!

Also, it’s possible I wasn’t exactly courteous… but I do believe that others were! *g*
Brooks*belle said on 12.05.09 at 01:40 AM • [link]

I totally agree with everything he said….For BAD romance novels! Dude needs to read a little Georgette Heyer or Laura Kinsale or any writer who’s NOT Cassie Edwards.

Gee—I think I’ll read a few cheap pot-boilers and then summarily throw out all thrillers!
Lynz said on 12.05.09 at 01:47 AM • [link]

What’s really, really funny about the whole thing, actually, is that one of the related blog posts that shows up is a positive one from May with the most perfect quote possible:
And to draw fast conclusions about the genre and its audience is to perpetuate the kind of stereotyping which has always made romance the “most maligned of literary texts.”

Also:
Romances offer very different things to very different readers, therefore, and to lump the genre and its audience together is short-sighted - and problematic.

Also also:
...the Princeton conference taught me that to rush to conclusions about romance fiction is to flatten out a rich, varied, and continually evolving genre.
Jill Sorenson said on 12.05.09 at 02:06 AM • [link]

Well done, Sarah! I laughed out loud several times during this post. And then laughed at Mr. Elsner’s original article. It’s the old “all romance is the same” bit disguised as “all engorged penises are the same.” Sounds like this guy hates romance AND hard-ons.
SonomaLass said on 12.05.09 at 02:08 AM • [link]

Ha, Lynz, I noticed that too. Here’s hoping some people clicked on the related post link and got the other viewpoint as well.
Chani said on 12.05.09 at 02:24 AM • [link]

Victoria Dahl, I love your books (have already pre-ordered your next contemporary) and your comment pretty much sums up why.

I am sick of romance being the easy target of the book world. There are some amazing, breath-taking romance novels out there and some truly terrible ones, just like ANY OTHER GENRE. Why is this concept so difficult to grasp??
GrowlyCub said on 12.05.09 at 02:31 AM • [link]

Chani,

because then these people wouldn’t have anything to look down on to make themselves feel bigger.
Janet Miller/Cricket Starr said on 12.05.09 at 03:03 AM • [link]

Wow… a man pretends to read some romance novels and then inform all us stupid women that the romance books we actually are reading isn’t really romance.

I’m not sure what is worse… his posturing or the Huffington Post for letting him get away with such clap-trap. Where are journalistic scruples these days?
MichelleR said on 12.05.09 at 03:06 AM • [link]

As someone who spends time on HuffPo, I can say their filters are tough. And, anything from a guest author, goes through moderation. It’s not just this guy, but anything that is more than mildly critical of any of their writers. On articles they’re just linking, a lot more is allowed, but you still have to have a feel for their filters. I also suspect that if too many comments get stuck awaiting a human to judge that they just dump ‘em.

respect67: really?
Victoria Dahl said on 12.05.09 at 03:46 AM • [link]

Thanks, MichelleR! Someone else also pointed out to me that moderation is much stricter in non-politcal areas of the blog. Good to know.
Tessa Dare said on 12.05.09 at 03:48 AM • [link]

Yeah, chalk me up as another who was commenting and deleting - never even took my chances with the moderation filter. I just vented on Twitter about how romance readers (not coincidentally, mostly women) are so readily knocked for their reading choices. To me, it doesn’t even matter whether he read “good” romances or not. I never see columnists shaming (predominantly male) readers for enjoying unrealistic spy thrillers or horror novels.

So I decided I didn’t want to be a nice, quiet girl today, and I posted over there. It was something like this, in case it gets stuck in the filter.

I do hope we’ll be treated to a column about how the mystery genre takes all the mystery out of life by….solving every crime! What kind of unrealistic expectation does that create in the minds of readers? And of course, with all these formulaic mystery novels, books about people dealing with “real” unsolved mysteries can’t find a home. (And yet, somehow The Lovely Bones got published and seemed to do okay. Hm.)

Others have already pointed out that sensuality in romance novels runs the gamut from sweet to erotic, and that many romance novels do address “real-life” issues.

But ... so what if they don’t? If a reader enjoys admittedly improbable stories about dukes, billionaires, and Navy SEALs, why is that different from the reader who enjoys admittedly improbable stories about dragons, aliens, spies, or curio-shop owners who manage to solve a murder a week? Somehow it’s always romance readers who are depicted as “living in fantasy” or who become the subject of deep concern because we’re supposedly being fed these crippling, unrealistic expectations of what *real* love and sex are like. What would those expectations be, exactly? The idea that sex can and should be enjoyable for both partners? The idea that fidelity and lifelong commitment are possible?

Personally, I find it refreshing to read and write in a genre where sexuality is inextricably linked with love and commitment, because so many of the media messages I see today separate the two. But that’s me. No genre is for everyone. However, it’s one thing to say this genre isn’t your cup of tea, and quite another to portray those who enjoy it as drinking the kool-aid.
Teddypig said on 12.05.09 at 04:02 AM • [link]

Remember when Clara Bow went from silent films to talkies and people discovered she had a heavy Brooklyn accent?

How is Alan Elsner the anti-smut crusader with issues of sexuality in his books gonna play when most readers of HuffPo probably just finished scanning the latest Gay Porn pics at Badpuppy.com

Sounds like HuffPo failed to find appropriate commentators for their book section. Oh well, no one reads HuffPo for book reviews and they will most likely not continue to not bother. They’ll be good for a laugh though.
MicheleKS said on 12.05.09 at 04:09 AM • [link]

That’s a nice gig, when you can get it. Then again, maybe he should just grow a pair.

Laura Kinsale, that was an absolutely brillant comment. But I don’t think this guy has much to begin with and to be so down on women… ugh.

Overall, typical stuck-up snotty-shit trying to masquerade as intelligent analysis. >insert sarcasm here<
Beatriz Williams said on 12.05.09 at 04:26 AM • [link]

I never see columnists shaming (predominantly male) readers for enjoying unrealistic spy thrillers or horror novels.

Well, why not? Maybe one of the SBs could march down to HER local library, pick out a stack of spy thrillers—as third-rate as possible—and send up THAT genre (and its readers) in her inimitable style.

Look, not only did Mr Elsner violate the cardinal Holmsian rule—finding facts to suit his theories, instead of the other way around—he also missed a writer’s most valuable opportunity: a REAL story, a ‘man-bites-dog’ story about how, gosh, some of this pulp isn’t half-bad. A genuinely inquisitive person, one with a broad mind looking for a fresh angle, would have asked the librarian for her all-time top five romance picks. Or at least the five most recent romance bestsellers.

But that wasn’t Mr Elsner’s point, was it?
RSH said on 12.05.09 at 04:36 AM • [link]

when it comes to romance, they seem to seek out people who’ve never read romance, or worse, non-romance readers who are also snarky humorists, to discuss romance.

Well, the New York Times hired an ignorant guy who didn’t know the genre to be their science fiction book reviewer. I haven’t seen one of his clueless articles for a while, so perhaps he mercifully gave up.

So, don’t worry too much—it’s not just romance that gets dissed.
Laura Kinsale said on 12.05.09 at 04:38 AM • [link]

Guess what.

Alan Elsner has an author page on Amazon.

Guess what. His post is there, under Customer Discussions in the Alan Elsner forum.

There are no comments in reply to it. Yet.
Liz said on 12.05.09 at 05:29 AM • [link]

Don’t hit me, but I agree with almost everything he said, especially the part about love coming from within, and not from multiple orgasms. And let’s face it, there are a LOT of books out there that get that wrong. A lot.

Maybe we’re just looking at this from different perspectives. You seem to have read the article and found someone who read a stack of romances and dismissed them because he could. I, on the other hand, read the article and found someone who has a deep appreciation of love stories, and was disappointed with their portrayal in the romances he read.

Regardless, there’s no denying the formula he listed does exist, especially in category romance, and while I don’t agree with him that it’s that cut and dry across the board, there are those authors who use the paint-by-numbers approach and call it a day. But then, those stories aren’t typically regarded as the cream of the crop even by the most devout romance readers, so I can hardly expect a novice to hold them in high esteem, either.
Wendy said on 12.05.09 at 05:33 AM • [link]

Poison Ivy said:
Not because we include sex, but because it’s happy, life-affirming sex instead of miserable, awkward, alienation-producing sex.

in light of the bad sex awards, it seems critics don’t like happy sex in romance novels, but they don’t like alienated sex in literary novels either. I’d like them to give an example of sex done well.

Good points Jess Granger and Tessa Dare
Wendy said on 12.05.09 at 05:49 AM • [link]

Sorry, I think I meant Tessa I BRING THE MACK Dare, don’t I? :)
Bronte said on 12.05.09 at 05:54 AM • [link]

Liz, I understand what you are trying to say and I am certainly not going to hit you for it BUT you know what? Sometimes I like reading a paint by the numbers story and I have every right to read it and not be denigrated for making that reading choice. I have two bachelors degrees, I am a professional and I read widely. That tripe that Mr Elsner just wrote is the equivalent of comparing a dinner at Macdonalds to a dinner at a michelin starred restaurant. They are both food but you wouldn’t talk about them as if they were the same thing would you? And you know what? (shock, horror) Occasionally I like to eat macca’s, and as long as its occasionally there is nothing wrong with that.
mingqi said on 12.05.09 at 06:11 AM • [link]

But if romance is not about sex, and love is not about sex, does he mean that only pornography is about sex?

great comment!!! This is what confuses me when someone calls the romance novels I read literary porn. It makes me want to say “Maybe i’m just an ignorant single person, but normal people don’t have sex? not even when they’re in love? No way!!”

I guess the verdict on sex in novels is: if you enjoy sex, it’s porn. If it’s an account of a sexual assault, it’s literature.
Liz said on 12.05.09 at 06:27 AM • [link]

Bronte, I didn’t get the impression Mr. Elsner was trying to do anything more than state his opinion and explain why he hasn’t written a romance and doesn’t intend to in the foreseeable future. And I certainly didn’t mean to imply any such negativity in my post above. Again, it could just be perspective. I rarely take offense when someone points out the formulas and stereotypes of the romance genre, because you know what? There are formulas and stereotypes for every genre out there, even when it comes to TV and movies, and none of them are bad (though all can be executed poorly.) I can’t dismiss someone’s else’s opinion just because it doesn’t reflect my own. There were parts in his post I agreed with, and some I didn’t, and some I agreed with, but didn’t see as a bad thing. A few of the things he listed that he didn’t like, I recognized in books I did like. But that doesn’t mean either of us are ignorant or wrong, nor does it mean he’s a snob or I’m low class. It just means we are receptive to different things. And that’s OK.

To be honest, I’m quite surprised at some of the ire sent Mr. Elsner’s way, here and elsewhere, especially since there are a number of books reviewed on this very site treated to a similar snarking for all the reasons he listed. It almost seems as if no one is allowed an opinion on the matter unless they’ve first earned the right by professing themselves to be part of the romance community. So… yeah. I don’t get it.
Jess Granger said on 12.05.09 at 07:03 AM • [link]

I actually agree with you Liz.

I thought he had a couple of valid points, but some things that just didn’t line up. And the porn line was way over the top and inappropriate if you want my opinion.

I actually thought it was amusing that many of the things he said about how love scenes go were pointed out as over the top in Beyond Heaving Bosoms. (Which I loved by the way)

We have to be able to look at ourselves and what we do clearly, or we don’t grow and change as a genre, however, we don’t have to put up with being called porn writers either.

Porn has its place, but that place is not here.

I certainly hope romance doesn’t lose the sexy any time soon. I know I’m proud to write it, and considering the thought, effort, and emotion I put into it, I think it’s pretty darn good.

It makes me happy, anyway.
Barb Ferrer said on 12.05.09 at 07:13 AM • [link]

I don’t want someone who’s not familiar with pop music reviewing the latest CDs for me, based on the fact that they went to the library, picked up a random stack of CDs and decided it’s all crap based on the fact that it’s lip-synched, formulaic nonsense.

Does that stuff exist? (Milli Vanilli? Vanilla Ice?)

Is there really stellar, memorable pop music? Of course. But by the same token, what I think of as really stellar memorable pop music may not be what Sarah thinks of as really stellar, memorable pop music. Hell, she may not even like pop music. Luckily, there’s a vast world of music out there.

(Sorry, I’m on a music kick.)
SB Sarah said on 12.05.09 at 07:33 AM • [link]

I said in my original reply above that I agreed with some of his comments. Books that advertise themselves as romance but rest the basis of the narration on resting someone’s part in someone else’s part are NOT romance. I’m with him there.

I dislike being told that my reading is pornography, and I very much dislike sweeping generalizations about the genre and its readers being made by someone who grabbed random samplings off a shelf and called himself an expert. I do not slap at someone else’s genre to elevate my own, and I do criticize the genre most definitively when a book doesn’t rock my world. I’ve also read more than a random sampling of books grabbed from a library, and have a greater sense of the genre than someone who dabbled and proclaimed himself an authority.

Mr. Elsner was trying to do anything more than state his opinion and explain why he hasn’t written a romance and doesn’t intend to in the foreseeable future.

That’s not what he said, entirely. He stated that romance novels are so awful that publishers expect more of that same ilk as he read, and do not appreciate anything else.

So because the sample he read was crap, ergo everything in the romance genre is crap. No, no no no no. A thousand times no.

I will absolutely say when I think a particular book has the narrative strength of a gummy worm, but I do not ever say that romance as a whole is deserving of ire, because it is not. I may say that I don’t like romantic suspense because of the propensity toward insta-love under duress (and ferns, don’t forget the ferns) but I do not dismiss the entire romantic suspense subgenre out of hand merely because I didn’t like the books I read. I do not reject and publicly denigrate a genre because the books in that genre I’ve read didn’t float my boat. That is the difference. He did. And that’s foul. Ergo, I said so.
Liz said on 12.05.09 at 07:33 AM • [link]

Jess: I’m with you that criticism is good for the genre. Without it, the genre would stagnate. So whether you agree with Elsner’s opinion or not, it’s never a bad thing to view the genre from the outside looking in, even if it’s not an image you particularly like.

As for the porn line…It didn’t bother me. And it didn’t bother me because I’ve read books that, quite honestly, did read like a porn script, a detailed list of actions performed by both parties, with little or no meaning or emotion behind them. I like sexy books. But I don’t like books based on sex and nothing else. If every romance I’d ever read had been like those books, I would make assume the rest of the genre were that way, too. Was it accurate of Elsner to label all romantic fiction girl porn? No. But it may very well have been an accurate description of the books he read, and I can’t hold that against him.

Also, he’s a man, and I don’t for one second expect for a man to truly understand the appeal of women’s fiction, be it romance or chick lit or any other commercial fiction geared toward women, because they’re wired differently. To most of the men I know, a romance novel is right up there with a toilet paper cover—what is the freaking point? Which is exactly how I feel about car parts and Sportscenter. See? Wired differently.
Kris said on 12.05.09 at 07:40 AM • [link]

Well, hopefully someday they will make books that work like those damn greeting cards and play music when you open them. Classical music for “appropriate” romance, and some rousing Boom-chicka-wow-wow jazz for the cheap porn. Might make that distinction a little easier for some who only have 1 neuron. I can only dream.
Brooks*belle said on 12.05.09 at 07:46 AM • [link]

SB Sarah said:
So because the sample he read was crap, ergo everything in the romance genre is crap. No, no no no no. A thousand times no.

Bingo!! Maybe what he really needs to do is take a statistics class and get a refresher on what it would take to get a statistically relevant sample!

Would he do either? (take a class or read a bigger, randomized sample of romances)

“Ah, bah!” as one of my favorite heroines would say.
Beatriz Williams said on 12.05.09 at 07:51 AM • [link]

He stated that romance novels are so awful that publishers expect more of that same ilk as he read, and do not appreciate anything else.

And if you read between the lines, and realize that the entire point of his essay was to draw a thick self-congratulatory line between genre romance and his own finely-drawn love story, you get the general idea that he had a hard time selling this novel to the major publishing houses.

Also, he’s a man, and I don’t for one second expect for a man to truly understand the appeal of women’s fiction,

The crux of the matter, isn’t it? He reads a romance-novel sex scene as gratuitous pornography, whereas we read it (assuming it’s well-written and appropriate to the context of the story) as a way for our protagonists to express love—or at least its potential—before they’re ready to acknowledge it openly. Ah, hunters versus gatherers.
Laura Kinsale said on 12.05.09 at 07:59 AM • [link]

Liz, if you are really that bewildered, and can’t see through this old set-up, let give you an example of how the racket might be run from my end:

I just read a stack of recently published literary novels. They all had protagonists who were too stupid to live, and dreary boring endings. These lame excuses for entertainment are so godawful stultifying that they’re sucking all the air out of books and ruining the publishing industry.

I have nothing against effete intellectual snobs, I assure you. I guess they ought to be able to read their boring stuff if that’s what they like, but just think, they could be reading MY books. But there’s this game that lays down expectations and rules that prevent anybody who wants to write a book like mine from being successful. Publishers are in on it, and readers too. I don’t refuse to write crashingly dull literary novels because I can’t do it. I refuse because I’m just a better person than that.

My books don’t get reviewed in The New Yorker because these depressing naval-gazing books about losers get all the respect. I don’t understand how anyone can read them, because I thought the ones I read were dull and even stupid. They should be written the way I write books. It’s a disservice to me that these literary novels exist.

I don’t even have to read Mr. Elsner’s novels to know what I say is true about them.

Why bother? After all, he didn’t bother to read mine.
Rosa Lario said on 12.05.09 at 08:02 AM • [link]

I loved this post. It’s a great summation of my feelings on the matter. Obviously this man is clueless. What more can I say.
Barb Ferrer said on 12.05.09 at 08:02 AM • [link]

Also, he’s a man, and I don’t for one second expect for a man to truly understand the appeal of women’s fiction, be it romance or chick lit or any other commercial fiction geared toward women, because they’re wired differently. To most of the men I know, a romance novel is right up there with a toilet paper cover—what is the freaking point? Which is exactly how I feel about car parts and Sportscenter. See? Wired differently.

No. I don’t see.

Some of my biggest fans (among the twelve that I have) are men. My husband has read everything (published and unpublished, YA and adult) I’ve written and while he could be saying he likes it just to keep the peace, that’s not how he rolls. In fact, I wouldn’t show him my work for the longest time because I knew he’d be completely honest with me and my tender, Writer’s Ego wasn’t ready to take that on. No one was more surprised than me when he said he loved it and better still, got it.

Husband aside, I have other men who have complimented me on my work—said I made them reconsider earlier opinions of romance. And this is considering I write YA romance, so it’s not like they were thumbing through looking for the pages-long explicit sex scenes. They liked the story.

And as for me? I happen to like fast cars and Sportscenter and baseball almost as much as I like my Christian Louboutins and Valrhona dark chocolate.

My point? We’re all different. We (men and women alike) simply cannot be categorized or compartmentalized based on assumptions or sweeping generalizations.
saltwaterknitter said on 12.05.09 at 08:09 AM • [link]

I have to say, as someone who used to hate on romance novels from afar, I felt the same way as Elsner. Then I actually read one that I randomly pulled off the shelf at Walgreens. It was everything Elsner complained about.
Then I found some book lists and found Kinsale, Roberts, and ohmygod Bitten (Armstrong). I probably looked like that old ad where the guy sits in the chair in front of a tv and has just been blown totally away.
Also, the sex scenes were a revelation. The scenes from books I love are so complicated, so gorgeous, tender, fun, crazy, and wild, I’m amazed at the level of writing.
I read quickly, and widely, from many genres and I have so many favorites, but I have learned to LOVE these books about love. When they are bad, they are worse than other bad books of other genres, possibly because when they are good, there is nothing better.
Liz said on 12.05.09 at 08:16 AM • [link]

Sarah: But Elsner did make clear that his opinion was limited to only those books he did read, and not the genre as a whole. The last paragraph is the only one that lumped the genre in with the mix, and while his last paragraph isn’t one I agreed with, what he said about publisher guidelines and reader expectations was true—some publishers do have very strict guidelines and readers of the genre do have expectations. For him, those guidelines and expectations leave little room for his definition of romance. But not everyone subscribes to that definition, nor is he saying they should.

There were hits and misses in his post, but for my part, I didn’t feel as though he encroached upon my opinions by stating his, even when he referred to what he’d read as girl porn. A lot of the reason why has to do with the fact that the point of his post is that he doesn’t find romance fiction particularly romantic. Fair enough. His post was an opinion piece, not a review of the genre, and nowhere did I see him profess himself to be a romance genre expert. In the same way you seem to think he’s reading more into the romance genre than his limited experience allows, I believe there are more than a few people here and on the Huffington Post forum who’ve read more into his post than was actually written, and I don’t understand what makes one reprehensible and the other A-OK.
Liz said on 12.05.09 at 08:43 AM • [link]

Laura - There’s nothing wrong with not liking romance, thinking it’s porn, and saying so. Is it the most flattering thing in the world to read? No. Can it be upsetting for some? Obviously. However, until someone demands outright that I acquiesce to their opinion that romance is porn, and that I submit to their idea of what romance should be, I’ll allow them their opinion. That’s just how I see it. The source of my bewilderment isn’t with his post, but why so many feel it necessary to ‘read between the lines’ and make assumptions based on facts that aren’t there. It’s OK to be angry and feel insulted by what was written, but making shit up to back up those feelings? I dunno. Makes me feel weird is all.

Barb - Saying men and women view relationships differently isn’t a sweeping generalization. Psychologically, men and women look for different things when it comes to relationships and romance. They also react differently to situations, and release different hormones and chemicals. Most romances are written with a female reader in mind. It doesn’t mean men can’t or don’t enjoy them, but men aren’t the target audience, so a man not understanding the appeal of romance doesn’t surprise me. That was the only point I was trying to make.
Victoria Dahl said on 12.05.09 at 08:53 AM • [link]

However, until someone demands outright that I acquiesce to their opinion that romance is porn, and that I submit to their idea of what romance should be, I’ll allow them their opinion.

I never understand this argument. Of course he’s allowed to say that it’s porn. Just as I’m allowed to say that his assessment of romance is ridiculous.
Victoria Dahl said on 12.05.09 at 08:57 AM • [link]

I mean… he’s posting it online. On a major blog. Clearly, he’s either trying to spread the word about his opinion, or he’s welcoming debate. It’s not like I overheard him talking with a friend while waiting in line for a movie.
Gwynnyd said on 12.05.09 at 09:16 AM • [link]

But Elsner did make clear that his opinion was limited to only those books he did read, and not the genre as a whole.

Really? He says, “Here are some general conclusions” - if the conclusions are general, do they not apply to the genre as whole?

The only place I found where he limits his opinions to a specific subset is in just one phrase here: “In the romance novels I have read, love is expressed through sex and only through sex.” And yet, his conclusion is, “Publishers expect writers to follow these rules. So do readers. Anyone trying to write a real love story involving real people grappling with real dilemmas is breaking the rules of the game.”

Clearly, to me, he is extrapolating his experience with “the books he has read,” that all seemed to be about hott sexxoring and little else, to apply to the whole Romance spectrum. The “rules of the game” do not exist the way he thinks they do.

I don’t find the kind of books he read to be particularly romantic, either, but I know the whole romance genre, while it contains the books that fit into his conclusions about what the genre is, is neither defined nor limited by that subset. He seems to have missed that.
Laura Kinsale said on 12.05.09 at 09:19 AM • [link]

C’mon Liz. If there’s nothing wrong with his opinions, then there’s nothing wrong with ours. Getting a little disingenious there. You claim you don’t understand our reactions; when people explain them, you claim we’re making things up and aren’t letting him have an opinion.

I guess if you really can’t see what a lot of others see very clearly, you will remain bewildered and feeling weird. You use the phrase “making things up” as if what we are saying isn’t true. That’s an insulting accusation to those who’ve commented here, certainly. Did you mean it that way? Or are you just assuming we know we’re making things up and we wouldn’t be offended at you calling us liars?

Or is that just accusation of “making shit up” the same sort of making shit up that you are accusing us of?
DM said on 12.05.09 at 09:19 AM • [link]

HuffPo would not post my comment, but I took issue with the paternalism of Elsner’s conclusions:

And I guess that women have as much right to enjoy pornography packaged to their liking as men.

That men have a right to enjoy pornography is taken as an established fact. That women might also is something that he’s forced to guess about. In other words, he expected more from us. He’d prefer we read Jane Austen, or better yet, an improving book like his that is a

real love story involving real people grappling with real dilemmas

His six point analysis is a basic outline of dramatic structure. Literary fiction rejects dramatic structure in favor of such nebulous ideals as “importance” and “realism.” The result is usually boredom.

Tessa Dare’s post neatly demolishes the rest of his poorly thought out essay. And you only have to compare her Amazon sales rank with his to know what the reading public thinks is worth their time.
Victoria Dahl said on 12.05.09 at 09:31 AM • [link]

Actually, I’ll admit to jumping to conclusions about one thing. I don’t believe for one solitary second that in every single book he read, “love is expressed through sex and only through sex” which is why I called him a liar. You’re all more generous than I am! :-)

If he checked out a “stack” of romance novels, what is the statistical chance that every single book he picked up was just Tab A into Tab B = love? I believe he may have read one like that. Maybe even two. But all of them?

Not one had the man and woman learning about each other and gaining respect for one another? Not one had a tender touch or a sympathetic look or a full-throated declaration of love? None had devotion or understanding or groveling? None had genuine, deep conversations between the two characters? Letters exchanged? Risking of life and limb? Friendship? Caring? Vulnerability? Admiration? Sacrifice?

Not one?

I’m not buying it.
Brigid said on 12.05.09 at 10:01 AM • [link]

It’s not always fair but there is a certain element of being in a group and being able to criticize and being out of a group and being able to criticize. Elsner isn’t in the group, so he is allowed his opinion but I’m also allowed to feel that his opinion is likely ill informed. He is criticizing the entire genre based on a few books he read (he states everything as if it is fact that applies to all romance novels though he says he only read a few and at random at that) and doesn’t even use modifiers like “most” or “some” which might lead me to be less harsh on him. If someone in the group was critcal in the same way it would a) be a specific book and not all books and b) they’d have a higher level of credibility since I’d know they didn’t discount the entire genre ahead of time. Honestly this piece would bug me no matter what genre he was talking about, because it is lazily written.
MichelleR said on 12.05.09 at 10:09 AM • [link]

Well said, Brigid.
terri said on 12.05.09 at 10:54 AM • [link]

Basically, you felt this article was like:

A good man in the room watching sports on TV while you are curled up with a well written romance novel that keeps you turning pages. But then this man hits the MUTE button so there is this sudden silence, so you can hear his fart against the leather of the chair.
orangehands said on 12.05.09 at 11:32 AM • [link]

While this is not the point of this post, I always wonder about reviewers who choose the “random off the shelf” way of picking books to represent a genre. I don’t read Westerns. Nothing against them (I actually really enjoy cowboy/ranchers/rodeo riders/etc m/m loving books, and the setting and lifestyle is partly why), I just don’t tend to read them. But if I was going to start reading them, I wouldn’t go into the section (if the library happened to have one) and randomly take three or four books off the shelf (cause seriously, how many did he really buy and then read?) and expect through blind look to hit the best of the genre, or even higher mid-levels. I’d go to a few review sites ABOUT WESTERNS and see which names repeatedly crop up, and then I’d go and ask people I knew what they’d recommend (and can have them narrow it by things they think I’d enjoy based on my own reading list), and then I’d get a freaking stack and read them. And if I didn’t like any of them? I’d assume I was originally right and Westerns just aren’t books I’d enjoy. I wouldn’t say Westerns “[suck] all the oxygen out of the room.” (Hey, I did link it back to the post.)

Out of all the people who dis the romance genre for being “porn” or “all bad” or “nothing but shitty escapism, which I would never do”, I really hate when the people doing so write “love stories” that “grapple with real issues.” Romance, at its core, is about love stories, and grappling with real issues (like, oh, relationships and friendship and love and sex and how to share your time and being with someone else, etc, not to mention all the other issues they grapple with like rape, disabilities, societal restrictions, etc).

Usually, the only difference is that
~~our heroines live~~
they don’t always have a HEA. Also (and this can totally be a generalization based on my limited experience with “literary love stories”), romance is written by women for women, and their stories are written by men for “intellectuals.” And if I’m not mistaken, the last time I picked up a “literary love story”, it ended where the hero thought the heroine enjoyed being raped by her father. (They may have had a HEA. At that point the book - which had not been so bad till then - became fire fuel.)

I think I will stick with romance, and doing one (of many) better than Elsner, I won’t say all “literary love stories” suck just because a few I’ve read did. Following my own advice, I asked around and found some I did like, because no genre has ONLY bad books or serves no purpose.

*huff huff huff* This article pissed me off much more by the end of this comment than I thought it would. Well, definitely woke me up.
orangehands said on 12.05.09 at 11:38 AM • [link]

Ha, I see others made a similar point so I guess the beginning of my comment was related. But just yay!, yay!, yay! for you Smart Bs.

It’s not that he didn’t make good points. It’s just so hard to find them through all the bullshit he was also spewing.
Bronte said on 12.05.09 at 11:53 AM • [link]

Loved your comments on literary fiction Laura. That is exactly how I feel and why I read a lot of romantic fiction. Interestingly I was in a book store today (that also carried magazines) and I was stunned at the number of skin flick mags ie FHM, maxim etc taking up shelf space versus the amount of space allotted to romantic fiction. I have never read any diatribes that say “I guess men can have their porn in magazines as they feel fit but that is really shithouse journalism”, so why does this continually occur with romantic fiction?
Emily Elizabeth said on 12.05.09 at 12:24 PM • [link]

Maybe it’s because all five of the only honest-to-God romance novels that I’ve read have been historicals set primarily in England and published after 1990, but what he claims to have read doesn’t sound like it fits in the genre at all. Isn’t love sort of an essential part of the romance?
Miranda said on 12.05.09 at 03:02 PM • [link]

I don’t buy the ‘‘men and women are wired differently’ argument. It may be true, but it isn’t verifiable, since males and females are socialized differently from birth, and the societal (and sometimes physical) penalties for stepping out of the assigned roles are considerable.

As others have said, there are terrible books in all genres. I have seen bashing of other genres, or bashing of all fiction, or bashing of television. People love to feel superior about something.
Cara McKenna / Meg Maguire said on 12.05.09 at 05:09 PM • [link]

“[The romance genre] sets up expectations and lays down rules of what “romance” should be…. Publishers expect writers to follow these rules…. Anyone trying to write a real love story involving real people grappling with real dilemmas is breaking the rules of the game.”

I hate to admit it, but having been rejected multiple times by category romance publishers for my “unique voice” (what exactly does that translate to, anyway?) I too have entertained this particular gloomy sentiment on a wine-soaked evening or two. But excuse me, he doesn’t get to say it! Not only is it an inaccurate blanket statement, but I don’t think he’s earned the right to complain about our industry the way we have.
Suzanne said on 12.05.09 at 05:18 PM • [link]

Romance writers have been fighting the image that we write “women’s porn” for years. Romance novels have a plot, an emotionally satisfying ending, and a likeable characters. Porn is sex for sex’s sake. Too bad Mr. Elsner can’t figure that one out. He’s so condescending I have to wonder what his problem is concerning sex. A lack of frequency or a lack of knowledge on the application of making love?
Barb Ferrer said on 12.05.09 at 05:36 PM • [link]

real love story involving real people grappling with real dilemmas

Y’know, when I read this in his post, it reminded me of something and I couldn’t quite place it until finally, this morning, when I was wiping off my dog’s muddy paws after she’d been cavorting in the rain, it came to me. Several years back, I judged a book in a contest that left me shaking my head and wondering WTF? This was part of the back cover copy:

Are there people who experience love at a higher plane than the rest of us? One, lofty enough, that it must have a thinking basis, as well as an emotional one? If so, what kind of drama would their love story make? Wouldn’t they have unique challenges to overcome in scaling the zenith they seek, and in keeping it vibrant through time? BOOK X is the love story that establishes a new sub-genre in telling such an account.

Now, this particular book happened to be written by a man, but I’m well aware there are male and female writers alike who have this attitude towards writing “love stories” vs. “romances.” You suggest that their book even has romance embedded within it and they recoil with horror saying, “No, no, no! My book doesn’t have romance. It has a love story!”

So what creates the difference there? Is it because of the sexxoring? Do pleasures of the flesh somehow preclude somehow from achieving that higher plane of lurve?

I mean, to me, I know that the difference between something I would call a romance vs. a love story generally has to do with the tacit and not-so-tacit rules of the genre. That the relationship between the two main characters remain central and without their becoming involved with other parties (as a general rule) and of course, the HEA. But I’m also well aware that most people who recoil at the idea that they might romance and insist that they write love stories have no clue of the genre framework. (Such as Mr. Elsner and that commenter over at HuffPo, Mrs. Missouri.) They just know that what they’re writing is more important or different or flat-out better than romance.

So… how?
Barb Ferrer said on 12.05.09 at 05:37 PM • [link]

Oy, sorry for the wonked up formatting. Coffee hasn’t kicked in yet.
stevie said on 12.05.09 at 05:43 PM • [link]

I appreciate that many of the people posting are offended by Elsner’s essay but you do seem to be overlooking the fact that it could have been a great deal worse; at least Elsner regards love stories as something worth writing.

Now that Harlequin has not only comprehensively trashed the brand but also claimed that the only people complaining are ‘a small, but vocal, group of authors’ we can expect to see a lot more people falling in with Harlequin’s assessment of romance readers…
teshara said on 12.05.09 at 06:45 PM • [link]

I’m a voracious reader and I’ve never heard of this guy.
I know that means nothing, but if he’s going to be petty, so am I.

Either way, I think the thing that disturbs me the most about his ‘essay’ is that you never mention any citations.

Any clown can say they went into the library and checked out a bunch of books and write an opinion down, but doesn’t make it an essay. It makes it a bad blog entry.

It’s kind of sad that out of everything this is what really gets under my skin, but really. What writer above third grade level doesn’t know how to do that? How freaking hard is it?

Unless he went out of his way to find the most ridiculous romances he could find and it was so obvious he didn’t want to admit it…
aspexi said on 12.05.09 at 07:14 PM • [link]

So the author walked into his local library and “borrowed a stack.” He was “quite surprised” at what he read in that random sampling of romance novels, “especially the graphic descriptions of sex in which little or nothing was left to the imagination.”

So my question is… where is his local library located? In Soddom? Or maybe the next town over, Gomorrah.
teshara said on 12.05.09 at 07:17 PM • [link]

“especially the graphic descriptions of sex in which little or nothing was left to the imagination.”

So my question is… where is his local library located? In Soddom? Or maybe the next town over, Gomorrah.

::cough::

actually, I’d kind of like to know where it is. I might be switching libraries. ;D
scribblingirl said on 12.05.09 at 07:33 PM • [link]

Well, hopefully someday they will make books that work like those damn greeting cards and play music when you open them. Classical music for “appropriate” romance, and some rousing Boom-chicka-wow-wow jazz for the cheap porn. Might make that distinction a little easier for some who only have 1 neuron. I can only dream.

LOL i totally hope so LOL
Moriah Jovan said on 12.05.09 at 07:45 PM • [link]

@Jess Granger

Articles like this are based on the assumption that women and men think the same, and we don’t.

Doctors have, for years, run trials on drugs meant to treat males and assumed they would also work on females. Or, for that fact, run drug trials on Caucasians that they then assumed would work on other races.

What’s more troublesome are that women (dare I say it? I shall! those who style themselves feminists) join in this tirade about “women’s porn” or “emotional porn” or what have you. As if women don’t have a right to anything but bare feet and KP.

And so what if it IS porn? Or even EMOTIONAL porn? (Good of them to differentiate.)

@Victoria Dahl

My comment didn’t make it through. Why? Not sure.

Because you dissented. HuffPo isn’t known for taking dissension well.

@Wendy

in light of the bad sex awards, it seems critics don’t like happy sex in romance novels, but they don’t like alienated sex in literary novels either. I’d like them to give an example of sex done well.

Maybe they just don’t like sex. Or don’t get any. Smacks of self-loathing to me.

@Bronte

Liz, I understand what you are trying to say and I am certainly not going to hit you for it BUT you know what? Sometimes I like reading a paint by the numbers story and I have every right to read it and not be denigrated for making that reading choice. I have two bachelors degrees, I am a professional and I read widely. That tripe that Mr Elsner just wrote is the equivalent of comparing a dinner at Macdonalds to a dinner at a michelin starred restaurant. They are both food but you wouldn’t talk about them as if they were the same thing would you? And you know what? (shock, horror) Occasionally I like to eat macca’s, and as long as its occasionally there is nothing wrong with that.

That.

@Barb Ferrer

I don’t want someone who’s not familiar with pop music reviewing the latest CDs for me, based on the fact that they went to the library, picked up a random stack of CDs and decided it’s all crap based on the fact that it’s lip-synched, formulaic nonsense.

Exactly.

My book got reviewed/critiqued by a stranger (if not outright hater) of the genre and she entirely missed the point that my book is an HOMAGE to the genre.

It still pisses me off and this is an arena where the authors are encouraged to comment on reviews, and I still haven’t decided whether I want to or not.

@Brad Hanon

To sum up, I guess women have the right to pornography, only no they don’t.

Yes. “To sum up” is the key here.
Jess Granger said on 12.05.09 at 08:26 PM • [link]

@Moriah

I agree with you on the so what if it is, point. So what if women feel sexual gratification while reading. There are a lot of things that turn me on in this world, but I don’t hear anyone calling ballroom dancing porn.

It is sexual, personal, emotional and at times certainly explicit. But it is more than that.

A good love scene is always about more than sex. And good romances, even good erotica is about more than sex. It’s about something else too.

I don’t think I’ve ever come across porn that was about more than sex, which is why so much porn is boring.

To say romance is nothing but women’s porn is to say romance is flat and focused on one single emotional response, one of sexual gratification.

I find that very little romance is that one-dimensional. Porn doesn’t usually have the power to make one cry. (Unless it is painfully bad) Yet I’ve laughed out loud and shed tears over more romances than I can count. Porn does not convey emotion. If this man didn’t feel the emotion of the novels he read, he probably didn’t connect with the emotion of the story for some reason, either they were romances that were bad, or he just didn’t “get” them. It happens a lot.

And I will stick by the fact that men and women think differently. It’s a good thing. What is a bad thing is dismissing other sex because of a difference of opinion and placing one’s sex above the other’s as superior. I think this article subtly did that. That’s what I object to.
Miri said on 12.05.09 at 08:56 PM • [link]

I wonder if it bothers HuffPo that they are a forgone conclusion? Even before I read the article I knew what it would say. HuffPo + Romance Review = Unoriginal snark, sweeping generalizations, references to women and porn. Yawn.
You know what would be refreshing is if they would use those shiny intellects to write something real about the genre.
But no, as usual the so called “smart kids” took the easy laugh, the cheap shot. As I knew they would.

Oh and I hate to break it to men (with regards to romance genre), but It’s not about YOU! It’s about us.
Moriah Jovan said on 12.05.09 at 09:00 PM • [link]

@Jess Granger

And I will stick by the fact that men and women think differently. It’s a good thing. What is a bad thing is dismissing other sex because of a difference of opinion and placing one’s sex above the other’s as superior. I think this article subtly did that. That’s what I object to.

I don’t disagree with you at all. Maybe my analogy to drug trials was misplaced.
Jess Granger said on 12.05.09 at 09:18 PM • [link]

Oh, sorry Moriah,

I agreed with you there. There were a couple of comments that seemed to be saying that the men vs. women thought pattern argument was unfounded. Sometimes I do think the “you just don’t get it because your men,” argument gets thrown around as a dismissal as easily as the “that’s fine for you because you’re women,” patronizing tone seems to sneak in. I think we should all be smarter than that. There are differences in perception but no one should be writing the other side off easily.

I actually thought the drug trial point was brilliant.
JamiSings said on 12.05.09 at 09:39 PM • [link]

Those of you whom refused to reply are better then me. You’ll find a short reply to him from me - the one refering to him as “Dude.”

Part of me really wants to go to his house backed up by people from here (including a few of the men I’m sure are on this site) and Wendy: The Super Librarian, and give him an earful.

The other part of me just wants to roll my eyes and dismiss him as a putz.
Barb Ferrer said on 12.05.09 at 10:01 PM • [link]

Yeah, well, I gave in, although it was that Mrs. Missouri responder who finally broke me. And amazingly enough, my response got through. I thought for sure I’d be banned or something, since I essentially mocked her.
Cat Grant said on 12.05.09 at 10:17 PM • [link]

one engorged penis pretty similar to the next.

Well, at least we know he’s not gay.
JamiSings said on 12.05.09 at 10:34 PM • [link]

I don’t blame you, Barb. Missouri probably has never read a single romance novel in her life.

The whole thing, in a way, reminds me of an incident I had in college. I was taking a creative writing course - this was before I realized, I’m a terrible writer and should stick strictly to singing. The teacher was one of those women whom give real feminists a bad name. She only read that boring kind of fiction where no action happens, the wife gets cheated on but stays with the husband, cries a lot, and kills herself without ever confronting anyone. Anyway, I had just finished reading the book Hannibal by Thomas Harris. She got up and started bashing it (without knowing I read it) calling Harris a woman hater and praising Jody Foster for not being in the movie.

I asked her, “Did you even READ the book?”

She blushed and stammered and admitted she hadn’t. She judged the book solely on what other women, many - thought not all - who only knew how the book ended, had said/written. Decrying Harris as a woman hater who was against the feminist cause and wanted women to be slaves to men.

I proceeded to point out that the book actually praises Starling’s strength as a woman and is actually very empowering, and how Dr. Lecter is the only man who is brave enough to not only agknowledge her strength, but love her for it. (Though he does intend in the end to brainwash her into believing she’s his murdered baby sister. Instead, however, she gets one up on him by becoming his lover instead.)

TOTALLY humilated my teacher. She barely spoke to me after that and never offered an opinion as she had been discredited in the eyes of the other students. Judging a book solely on the reviews of others. Not reading it herself. Not only that, but judging the author as well.

That is what both MM and Mr. Elsner remind me of. My CW teacher who judged a book based on what others told her and her preconceived ideas. Without reading it.
sandra said on 12.05.09 at 11:31 PM • [link]

I would have liked Elsner to provide the names of the romances he read and their authors, so that we could have some idea of where his opinions are coming from. There is such a wide range of quality in romances, as in any other genre. He really should have asked someone with more experience for their recommendations.
I found his article much less interesting than the notice on the right-hand side of the page that Seth Grahame-Smith, author of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies has a new book coming out, entitled Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter :-D . Spamword is whether98 as in ” I wonder whether 98 romances recommended by actual readers would have changed Elsner’s opinion”.
SandyO said on 12.06.09 at 12:57 AM • [link]

I get so damn mad at these “liberal” publications like the HuffPo that are so gracious to grant me the right of anything.
I really don’t give a flying fuck if Mr. Elsner thinks it’s ok that women like porn or not.

And as for romances vs literary fiction or porn or anything else. I love romances because they let me sink into the feeling. I always equal a good romance to the end of Kevin Costner’s speech in Bull Durham. A good romance is like “a slow wet kiss that lasts three days.” Oh my.
Susanna Kearsley said on 12.06.09 at 02:50 AM • [link]

@ Sarah

Hmm, the last time a man disrespected the genre so blatantly we ended up with this:

http://www.smartbitchestrashybooks.com/index.php/weblog/comments/an-open-letter-from-sb-sarah

Not to suggest that Mr Elsner could ever rise to the level of our own DocTurtle (because, you know, Patrick IS pretty cool).

But methinks perhaps what Mr Elsner needs to hear is the slap of a gauntlet being thrown to the floor, followed by the thud of Lord of Scoundrels being delivered to his mailbox…:-)

Just a thought.
sandra said on 12.06.09 at 03:20 AM • [link]

If Elsner is really interested in stories of love that “has to fight for its existence against all the other challenges present in life”, he should log on to Ashwinder and read Miamadwyn’s Care of Magical Creatures . Its one of the most moving love stories I have ever read. Spamword his56 as in “his 56 novels couldn’t possibly be as well written as CoMC.”
KSB36 said on 12.06.09 at 04:21 AM • [link]

Elsner’s column is entirely predictable. Disappointing, but predictable. He’s a third rate nobody, so desperate for attention, that he has to trash an entire genre, without any real effort to be fair. Mr Elsner, it is romance novels that support the entire publishing industry. It is romance money that pays romance authors, and many others. To dismiss an entire genre in an effort to seem literary and above it all, only makes you seem small and bitter. You wouldn’t know romance if it bit you on the ass.
Sonic said on 12.06.09 at 05:48 AM • [link]

@Barb Ferrer:
(sorry, bit of a tangent here!)

My point? We’re all different. We (men and women alike) simply cannot be categorized or compartmentalized based on assumptions or sweeping generalizations.

FTW! It’s so funny that here is an article about not generalizing romance books, but yet, it’s okay to generalize about men and women - that we think differently. Who knows how much of that is socialization and culture? I really hate it when people tell me that I “think like a man” and mean it as a compliment. What does that mean? What does a man think like? It opens a whole can of worms - what women are like (emotional, nurturing, blah blah) and men (logical, straightforward, blah blah). So, thanks for your response!
Jess Granger said on 12.06.09 at 07:07 AM • [link]

Whether men and women are hard wired to think differently or not, there is one thing that has been scientifically tested, we do as a general rule respond to sexual stimulus differently.

Which is why I made the claim that men and women can see totally different things in a love scene.

Not all men think alike, and women aren’t all alike, and we don’t all respond to the same stimulus alike. It is literally different strokes for different folks.

What bothered me about the article is that it seemed to completely ignore this fact. Even if this guy read every romance in the history of romance, he still might not see what others see because his brain isn’t reacting to it in the same way as someone else.

I guess that’s his loss.

I guess it also means that any of these arguments about opinion are pointless in the long run. I’ll keep doing what I do because I love it.

As my husband would say, everyone else can go pound sand.
Vicki said on 12.06.09 at 07:18 AM • [link]

Did anyone look at his author page on amazon? He says that “In this book, I also have female protagonists which is also new.”
Wendy said on 12.06.09 at 07:54 AM • [link]

On the male verses female reactions thing, anecdotal evidence:

I sent the book I am currently editing for publication out to my 4 beta-readers - 2 men, 2 women. This book features, among other things, a “bromance” between two men, Simon and Hal. At one point during the book, they have a severe argument which sets off a chain reaction for later events.

The 2 female readers? A-OK on that. The 2 male readers? Wanted to know why Hal lost it at Simon at that particular point (as opposed to all the other times that Simon is an arsehole to him). The growing tension I thought I had subtly but clearly painted sailed right over their head.

Sample size of 4 doesn’t mean a lot, I know, but it is a minor example of how women respond differently to relationship cues than men…
salseradoc said on 12.06.09 at 07:57 AM • [link]

Vicki,

It looks like he means that for him as an author writing female protagonists is new, not that it’s a new idea in general.

Of course, I could be wrong…
Sonic said on 12.06.09 at 08:36 AM • [link]

@Wendy and Jess: I just disagree that those differences are solely due to gender. Even if it happens to be true in a lot of situations, I just don’t see the point in generalizing because people are all different. Yes, Alan Elsner may have those viewpoints because he’s a male, but I’m willing to bet there are women out there who have those same viewpoints about romance books. Are they exceptions? If so, then overgeneralizing isn’t really useful. I just don’t really see the point in it. I think stressing gender differences is a lot of times, a bad thing. When an author writes targeting one gender, I feel like it pigeonholes both and keeps the non-target gender away. I think an author should just write a good story.

And you’re right ::shrugs:: These are all opinions so, I’m afraid we will just have to agree to disagree on this point.
stevie said on 12.06.09 at 04:41 PM • [link]

Miri said:

I wonder if it bothers HuffPo that they are a forgone conclusion? Even before I read the article I knew what it would say. HuffPo + Romance Review = Unoriginal snark, sweeping generalizations, references to women and porn. Yawn.

That is presumably why you didn’t bother to run a search on HuffPo for the term ‘romance’.

If I were Joanne Rendell, or Emily Cotler, I’d be a bit pissed off about that…
Deb said on 12.06.09 at 06:34 PM • [link]

(Might be a double-post, I encountered a computer problem and am rewriting from memory.)

One of the reasons I love this site is the thoughtful and articulate comments (along with the man-titty and cover snark of course). I hope someone posts the link to the comments section at the original Huf-Po article so that Elsner can see what dimbulbs romance readers are.

Taking my cue from Elsner by making a broad, sweeping generalization based on extremely limited exposure, I’m going to say that his book is a piece of crap. Not that I’ve read it (or anything else by him other than his Huf-Po article) and thought about it or anything like that, but I already know that it’s dreck.
Jody W. said on 12.06.09 at 10:59 PM • [link]

I am starting to wonder if critics of romance who dismiss the genre as porn do so because, when (if) they partake of the infamous random sampling, they get massively and humiliatingly turned on as a result. Hence, OMGS PORN!

I don’t really get a girlie boner when I read romance. Like someone mentioned upthread, the scenes more often read as symbolic and illustrative of the ‘state of the relationship’ to me. In well-written romances, they progress the story because are part of the narrative, not just a hompy hiatus from it. However, if these noobs have never been exposed to inventive, rich, nuanced sex (scenes) before, the poor dears probably can’t handle the stimulation.
teshara said on 12.07.09 at 01:37 AM • [link]

I agree he should read Care of Magical Creatures :D

congress48? Really?
Lexie said on 12.07.09 at 09:31 AM • [link]

@Jody: I was right there with you on that thought. I thought that was kind of odd as well. Personally, I think a romance novel is extra awesome if the sexxoring is so hot i get turned on… I read a LOT of erotica (for research, really) and so I’m not easily moved by much. I fingt the hottest sex scenes are the ones where the emotion is so palpable that you’re completely in their heads, in addition to being privy to their lust.
Vuir said on 12.07.09 at 02:56 PM • [link]

I can see Tessa Dare’s comments on Huffpo now. It may have taken the moderators a while to read through all of the comments and approve them.
XandraG said on 12.07.09 at 10:34 PM • [link]

This all comes back around to “OMG the little woman ain’t readin’ what she ought.”

When Elsner claims romance is sucking all the oxygen out of the room, I think what he really means is it’s sucking all the hot air out of pretentious windbags who talk out their asses about shit they don’t know about in self-important book critic blog posts. To which I say, “sluuuuuurrrrrp!”

spamword “standard37” standard response repeated 37 times is “Fsck you, I read what I like.”
Marie said on 12.07.09 at 11:22 PM • [link]

Oh HuffPo, you’re such a joke. I’m with the commenters who are like… what do you expect? Not that it doesn’t irritate me anyway, I just already associate HuffPo with screaming headlines, yellow “journalism,” and as many hot pictures of women as possible, even when irrelevant to the story or to, you know, the universe generally.

Anyway, men are people too. I think it’s ludicrous that we as a society often act like they are somehow hardwired to understand “feelings,” OMG. Because Nabokov, Shakespeare, Neruda, Donne, etc., didn’t understand every lousy nuance of human feeling? Right. I do think men and women are different, though I’m not going to attribute it to biology when we’re brought up so ridiculously differently, and our lived experiences *are* separated by a vast gulf. I don’t think it’s an uncrossable one though, and in fact I think the very possibility of crossing it is at the heart of romance. At any rate, I think saying men “just don’t get it” is both untrue and excuses a type of intellectual and emotional laziness that is so prevalent in our culture right now. Men just don’t get Jane Austen? No, many of them just have no interest in exerting themselves to do so, because they’ve been told all their lives there’s no reason they should, just as I’ve been told all my life that NASCAR is not for me (it’s been very effective too). But it would be wrong, and worse, LAZY of me, to assume that therefore NASCAR is worthless trash, and that if I went to one race an thought it was awful I’d have the right to dismiss the whole thing. A man asked me and another woman once why he should read Pride & Prejudice since, “It’s just a love story, right?” Aside from the pure folly of that comment, I think our response was instructive—both our jaws dropped, and then I said, “No! It’s about money and status and power too.” And the other woman said “And it’s about communication and first impressions and well, about pride and prejudice!” And beyond that it’s certainly a historical document at least as entertaining as say, Pepys’ diaries, which are about a lot of the same themes. And not one of those themes pertains only to women.

Anyway, end rant. I’m just mad because the whole thing is so lazy and casually insulting. If you’re going to insult my reading, you’d better READ it first, and have a real critique. And even then I’d like to point out that even if some of my reading is akin to eating Hot Cheetos, both of them bring in millions of dollars a year and are enjoyed by thousands, so maybe you’d be better off analyzing the appeal and exploiting it. And don’t even get me started on his “permission” to enjoy what he considers smut. Ugh!

And I do join with those who think this fellow merits a “care” package and an open letter, perhaps containing Lord of Scoundrels and Naked in Death… except that really I feel like he deserves a lump of coal and such a nice present would be better for someone more deserving.

Spamword was really94… as in, “Really??? I can think of at least 94 reasons why this is ridiculous!”
Marie said on 12.07.09 at 11:24 PM • [link]

Oops, hardwired *not to understand feelings. Twitchy typing fingers!
ReneeHenry said on 12.07.09 at 11:47 PM • [link]

Plenty of men feel threatned by what they perceive to be ‘porn for women’ as, I would gather, plenty of women aren’t into the porn industry targeting male fantasies. The question is whether the perception is correct - are romance novels porn? No - but, it exists and is called ‘erotica’ Maybe the line is becoming blurred.

One thing I do know is that romance is advertised as porn, light-porn, call it what you will. Even this website’s homepage has some cover of a man with his pants down and some guy seated right at his penis! And the covers & titles and the blurbs, etc. If I’d never read a romance I’d think it was all about sex, too. I’ll admit when I started reading my mom’s as a teen that is why I read them! And discovered it was much more - it was indeed ‘romance’ in the end.
Claudia said on 12.07.09 at 11:59 PM • [link]

Since romance is one of the few genres experiencing growing sales during the recession, I expect even more of the “it’s just lady porn” articles.
Jess Granger said on 12.08.09 at 12:12 AM • [link]

I think men experience feelings and emotions very deeply. I think they understand them perfectly well, but I think they respond to that differently than women do. Is it biological? Is it cultural? Is it social upbringing?

I don’t know, probably a strange mix of all those factors and more. And every individual is different.

So when one individual doesn’t get the point of a style of writing, that is one thing. Wholly dismissing millions of people who do get it as somehow vacuous is another.

I don’t get horror. Don’t get it at all. I try to get it, but I don’t. Now I’ve just given up and I don’t want anything to do with it. It scares me and I don’t like that feeling.

I could have horror enthusiasts parade the best of slasher flicks in front of me, and I don’t think it would change my response. And you know what? That is fine.

But I’m not posting on public forums that all people who enjoy horror are obviously disturbed individuals with gore fetishes who will probably end up a danger to society because they enjoy seeing people dismembered as a form of entertainment.

And by the way, I absolutely don’t believe that is true. I believe horror enthusiasts get some sort of catharsis from facing fear and death. I don’t get that same experience, and that’s fine. Maybe it’s because I’m a girl, maybe it’s not, but it doesn’t matter. Men and women alike should watch slasher flicks to their heart’s content.

I don’t have to put them down to bring myself up. That’s the hallmark of a bully. I don’t have to put myself in a position of moral superiority because clearly horror fans are disturbed *snort, yeah right* to make myself feel like I’m not disturbed.

All of that applies to romance. Just cut out anything I said about horror and fill in the blanks with the flack we get from romance.

Again, this is why usually these type of arguments are pointless, because usually a bully doesn’t want to be set straight.
Randi said on 12.08.09 at 12:16 AM • [link]

@ Susanna Kearsley:

That is EXACTLY what I was thinking. We were able to convince DocTurtle, why not Elsner? In fact, what if DocTurtle laid down the gauntlet to Elsner? I’de be all over that.

enough28: enough with the dissing of Elsner. Let’s help him read 28 great love stories.
pooka said on 12.08.09 at 12:44 AM • [link]

You know, call me simple, but I think there is a very simple explanation here to what he wrote and it has nothing to do with the romance genre.

The man wrote a novel titled ROMANCE LANGUAGE that was published by a small press with a small print run and nobody noticed. So he wrote an incendiary blog entry with the soul purpose of, A) making it clear that what he wrote wasn’t “that trash” (since people evidently asked him if he’d written a romance) and B) selling his own book.

He doesn’t care about romance, and never would have wasted any time thinking about it, much less reading (or pretending to read) a few.

He just cared about using romance as a platform to promote himself. By saying, “I am not them. I am better. Buy me.”
ReneeHenry said on 12.08.09 at 12:53 AM • [link]

I don’t get mystery genre either - why on earth do you want to sit for a few hours contemplating all the various reasons a handful of people would want to kill someone? The acutal ‘mystery’ thrill of trying to figure it out I can get - but, the way you get there? Yuck! Secondly, what really gets my proverbial goat is that these genres frequently have racy, explicit sex - between folks usually not in love, in fact frequently salacious & affairs, etc.! And then they turn their noses at ‘romance’? Ah, well. Image is everything - and I cringe at most covers, titles, blurbs. Even this site admits it: ‘trashy books’!
Valky said on 12.08.09 at 01:22 AM • [link]

dragging out that tired old chestnut that, since the limited sample he read were “chick porn,” therefore ALL romance is sucky, icky “chick porn,” is like saying Dracula must suck, because Twilight is horribly written. Head, meet desk. I have a feeling the two of you will be spending a lot of time together in the near future.
GrowlyCub said on 12.08.09 at 01:32 AM • [link]

Marie, since you doubt that there a biological differences may I recommend you check into some accounts of women undergoing testosterone treatment to become men? Some truly interesting insights there on how different emotion and perceptions are depending on the primary sex hormone.

There’s no doubt there is also cultural conditioning, but to negate biological differences is just not supported by the scientific evidence.
DS said on 12.08.09 at 01:54 AM • [link]

Looks like the Huffington Post is being a bit of lightning rod. Alan Kaufman has a blog post about ebooks called Google Books And Kindles: A Concentration Camp Of Ideas http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alan-kaufman
I confess to not having got past the first rather overwrought paragraph but it seems to be causing a bit of head shaking.
Wendy said on 12.08.09 at 03:03 AM • [link]

He just cared about using romance as a platform to promote himself. By saying, “I am not them. I am better. Buy me.”

Well said, @pooka. This bears repeating.

Perhaps he needs a refresher on Marketing 101: if trying to sell a book, do not alienate the people who buy lots of books.
Randi said on 12.08.09 at 06:02 AM • [link]

@DS: Well…that’s inflammatory, huh? Equating the Kindle and ebooks with the Nazi holocaust? Hyberbole much? Also…what’s that term when someone decides to compare something to Nazism or Hitler?

Today’s moral: Don’t ever read HuffPo.
Randi said on 12.08.09 at 06:06 AM • [link]

It’s ‘Godwin’s Law’ and Mr. Kaufman has already rebutted the law.

“As not a few comments on this and other sites have invoked Godwin’s Law in response to my article, as though it were Holy Writ, I’ve fornulated my own law:

KAUFMAN’S LAW: “Efforts such as Godwin’s Law to thwart the finding of contemporary relevance in the Holocaust is a form of Holocaust denial.”

Well, aren’t we a smartypants?
Mary Anne said on 12.08.09 at 06:30 AM • [link]

Y’all were nicer to Poor Mr. Elsner than my blog entry. I think he’s a MAN and equates descriptions of sex with porno. That explains why the winner of the Bad Sex In Fiction Award is also ........a man.

I also think we should keep patronizing Poor Mr. Elsner. After all, he spent so much time in his piece patronizing us.

Someone should tell him that there’s a difference between “Dick Leapt Jane” and “Dick Kept Jane.”
Beatriz Williams said on 12.08.09 at 06:33 AM • [link]

KAUFMAN’S LAW: “Efforts such as Godwin’s Law to thwart the finding of contemporary relevance in the Holocaust is a form of Holocaust denial.”

Proving, in fact, the relevance of Godwin’s Law in the first place. Sheesh. Randi, you Holocaust denier, you.
Randi said on 12.08.09 at 06:50 AM • [link]

Beatriz: LOL. Based on the comments to his article, I’m in good company.
Susanna Kearsley said on 12.08.09 at 08:14 PM • [link]

@ Randi,

In fact, what if DocTurtle laid down the gauntlet to Elsner? I’de be all over that.

Ditto. :-)
Katharine Ashe said on 12.08.09 at 11:36 PM • [link]

My husband is an intellectual by profession who lives in his mind 99% of the waking day. And, well, he’s definitely a man. When he reads my books he laughs when it’s funny, gets teary where I wish readers to get teary, and turned on where I hope readers will get turned on. He engages his complete human person in reading fiction (and non-fiction), just as I do in writing, and as I hope my readers will.

Perhaps Mr. Elsner is missing two-thirds of the equation. Romance definitely has a cerebral quality about it. But to separate the mind from the body and heart in any endeavor… Well, that’s just living without the full richness of life.
Marie said on 12.11.09 at 01:01 AM • [link]

GrowlyCub—I’m aware of the vast array of studies aiming to show how biological differences result in cognitive differences between men and women. I’m also aware of the vast body of critical scholarship that finds even the basic premises of such studies deeply problematic. There are multitudes of warring camps on how to think about identity and gender, and I wasn’t trying to launch us into the endless debate on the topic. My comment was just a disclaimer that I personally don’t care to attribute whatever differences we do experience to biology when it appears impossible to separate the influence of nature from that of culture.

That said, my gut reaction, both academically and experientially, is that to a hammer everything looks like a nail—the first problem with studies looking for essential differences between men and women is that they’re studies looking for essential differences between men and women. I often read them with great interest, but that *is* the lens I view them through.

I’m sorry if this is a snippy response—I did read it over and tone down the first version!—but honestly I found your comment condescending. I’m sorry if I interpreted your tone incorrectly over the internet and I hope mine doesn’t sound even worse! Still, despite the privileged position science occupies in our culture and in my own life, I don’t think it is (or ever will be) able to offer final answers on how people tick. If we’re recommending reading though, I suggest Joan Roughgarden’s Evolution’s Rainbow for a nuanced, entertaining (and occasionally controversial) look at the issue.
GrowlyCub said on 12.11.09 at 01:21 AM • [link]

Marie,

I was recommending no studies, I was specifically talking about first person experience to do with hormones and perception of self and others, anger and aggressiveness during the transition from female to male.

You found me condescending, I’ll not share what my feelings are in regard to your effusions. Looks like a stalemate to me.
PillowTalk said on 01.22.10 at 02:29 AM • [link]

And I guess that women have as much right to enjoy pornography packaged to their liking as men.

He has right to dislike romance, but he has NO right to discriminate romance as ‘pornography’.

I’ve met these kind of douchebags all my life. They are all the same; came from such a snobby literature world, think that what they read represents the best, and… bore the hell out of me. But I find it more interesting when I do the same thing to their booklist. Most of it is ‘safe’ category in such a ‘high literature’. These jerks only read what world claims as ‘best’.

If I were you, I choose not too care. He was already HATE romance just before he read the books. So, all those negative feelings stayed in his head to wait until the perfect moment to say ‘told you so, alan’. No matter how hard we try to fight, he still as dumb as rock when it comes to romance.

Whatever, Alan… :)