A morning cup of “WHAT THE FUCK” to go along with your coffee

Kate Rothwell recently posted a letter to the editor by one Jan R. Butler. It’s truly a masterpiece, invoking the usual homophobic canards. Despite knowing it’s the same old moronic bullshit parroted by bigots that basically boils down to “it’s wrong because it makes us really, really uncomfortable,” I still got good and pissed off reading it—because the logic so very specious, if nothing else.

For example:

(…) romance isn’t about just any “two people” celebrating “love in its many forms.” Organizations such as the Man-Boy Love Association would certainly refer to themselves as celebrating love “two people” (or more) finding love in one of its many forms” . . . while they actively promote pedophilia.

So, NAMBLA provides some sort of ringing and conclusive condemnation of all homogaiety, eh? If that’s true, then it has to apply to the flip side, too: all those pedophiles who identify as heterosexual (and the vast majority of kiddie-fuckers are straight) are a ringing condemnation of heterosexuality. Think about this, folks: next time you pick up a mainstream romance novel, have sex with your significant other or fall in love with somebody of the opposite sex who’s about your own age, you’re ALL condoning pedophilia. QED.

And, please, spare us the arguments about “censorship” and “inclusiveness.” Preference for “one man, one woman” stories represents what RWA has always claimed is romance’s target demographic: college-educated, married, middle-class, monogamous, and moral. . . .Only in recent years has a vocal (translate: shrill) minority tried to drive RWA’s focus off that path, under the guise of “broadening its horizons.” But refusing to define romance according to the parameters it has held for centuries doesn’t “broaden” anything . . . it only starts us down the aforementioned slope, and once we’re in that slide, heaven help us.

That bit about the demographic? Made me howl with laughter. HOWL. WITH. LAUGHTER. Since when was “moral” an explicit demographic for any American business other than the shills of fundamentalist money-making scams run by fucknuts like Jim Bakker, Pat Robertson and the crew at Focus on the Family? But more than that, I love how “moral” is suddenly tied in not only with marriage and monogamy, but college-educated and middle class. Brilliant!

Seriously, reading this shit just makes me want to make out with girls and donate more money to the ACLU and the Human Rights Campaign.

And as for the centuries-old standards of romance: Do tell, what are they? Butler seems to be an expert on so many things, no doubt supported by impeccable research and logic, I’m just agog to hear her opinions on this. Do let me know how the unwritten “no pre-marital sex” rule in romances has remained so steadfast for centuries.

What brought romance fiction to its present level of success is a collection of decades’ worth of one-man, one-woman relationships stories, in all their richness, variety, and power. RWA should be the first to endorse that, rather than attempting to placate fringe groups trying to impose their standards upon the rest of us. If anyone’s in danger of being “censored” here, it’s believers in “what comes naturally”: one-man, one-woman romance. We in RWA owe it to ourselves not to let that happen.

And here we see the magnificent set-up of a false dichotomy: romances featuring homosexuality, bisexuality and polyamory/group sex must somehow endanger the state of monogamous hetero romances. I’ve never understood how homosexuality in ANY way threatens or limits what a heterosexual person wants to do, by the way—and this applies for marriage, way of life and reading material. Don’t like gay marriage or gay sex? Then I highly, highly recommend that you not marry or fuck somebody your own gender. Don’t like gay romance? Don’t read ‘em.

The old “but we’re the ones being persecuted by being forced to accept this immorality!” argument also holds no water. By arguing that gay and/or polyamorous romances shouldn’t be published in the first place, a group of people are, in effect, being restricted, censored and disenfranchised. People who try argue otherwise are not only being stupid, but dishonest about their motives. Look, “because I think it’s gross” or “because my religion tells me it’s so” is not a good enough reason to impose your standards on everyone else. And I honestly don’t see how publishing gay/poly romance novels oppresses those who like only straight romances. I can assure you, gay and poly romances don’t somehow emit radioactive Immorality Waves in cartoony stink-lines and somehow corrupt all the surrounding books so that alla sudden, the cowboy is slipping his range-raised meat up the sheikh’s dark cavern instead of shagging the amnesiac virgin heiress.

Categorized:

Ranty McRant

Comments are Closed

  1. karibelle says:

    I can’t add anything to the more serious discussion about hate and prejudice.  It everyone else said it before I got here today.  I would, however say that I would love to read the sheikh/virgin cowboy romance.  Finally, a sex scene in which I could actually believe the virgin had an orgasm!

    Oh, and EAP, you are a fucking evil genius!

  2. Robin says:

    I would, however say that I would love to read the sheikh/virgin cowboy romance.  Finally, a sex scene in which I could actually believe the virgin had an orgasm!

    Maybe this could be the next SB contest. 

    Arguments like Butler’s don’t surprise me anymore, especially since I think they’ve become way more common since the 2000 election, but they do make me wish there was more mainstream gay Romance, as well as more polyamory and fewer hetero couples ending up married within the genre.  And then I’d want all the ARCs—thousands and thousands and thousands of them—systematically sent to Anne Coulter.  That’s my shrill liberal fantasy, although I can’t really muster any erotic thoughts about Coulter, no matter how many slippery slides and slippery slopes are involved.

  3. l_prieto says:

    _I would, however say that I would love to read the sheikh/virgin cowboy romance.  Finally, a sex scene in which I could actually believe the virgin had an orgasm!_

    *laugh*

    Yes! I think it would be fitting if their names were Adam and Steve, too.

    Despite Butler, the romance genre is getting larger. Those books she hates will continue to get written, and we will continue to read them.

    I think that might be the best way to fight her and others who think like her—read, write, love.

  4. Nicolette says:

    Dunno. I grew up stealing my mother’s Patricia Matthews and Rosemary Rogers novels—I’d take them in the bathroom and find the “good” parts. A Stephanie Blake novel once filled in some blanks from my friend Brandi’s (she was a fine girl) explanation of the ways of men and women. (Oh, it gets hard, and juts out…That makes sense, because without that, um, awkward.) If I were to believe these books you know a hero from a rapist because a hero has a bigger “manhood,” and because the heroine would end up liking ite can treat you any old way until he discovers she’s pure. The bodice rippers only showe. Men and women don’t have tender moments, they have times when they fight less, but they never reach a point of understanding.

    Instead, I grew up to marry a good man, and I’ve have been with a few good women as well. Where did romance novels, those arbiters of morals, go wrong?

    Let’s not rewrite history, the stuff that went on in novels back then was pervy even by today’s standards. Back then it was hard to imagine these people having an future once passion died, and sex was only good if it hurt and degraded the heroine just a little. Which, okay, still hot, 😉 but hardly a blueprint for a relationship.

    Gimmee.a.break! Even if you go back to the early Harlequin Doctor/Nurse stuff there’s a whole world of wrong with the way relationships were portrayed. Back then the message was that good girls don’t, and if a hero thinks the heroine does, he gets to treat her any old way until he discovers her to be pure. The later bodice rippers just showed a different kind of disfunction: orgasm both as proof of love and as permission for a man to treat you badly. Remember? The heroine does the hero the honor of moaning his name, he calls her a whore, and proceeds to use her some more…until he calls her bewitching on the last page.

    The most loving story I ever penned is the only published story I have to date, and the lovers are two women. I would defy anyone to tell me that’s sick in light of what our fore-mothers penned. Two really nice people having really good, fully consentual sex vs. a guy sticking it to a virgin because he mistook her for a hooker, and then barely giving her an apology before he “takes” her again. (And both deserve to exist if the audience is there, and if one is near extinct it’s because fantasies have changed.)

    The fact is this: romances are fantasy novels. Some of the things that occur in them we really want to happen, and some just make us tingly in naughty places. And they change and evolve based on society. To act like they’re lost books of the Bible is ridiculous. Romance and erotica are what people want and need them to be—and for some people that means two people of the same gender, and as long as the books are clearly marked it’s all good. If I can read the back of a book and think, “No Vikings for Me!” someone else can make a decision to only select books with het themes. If enough people don’t want gay/lesbian themes that will be reflected in what gets published. The problem (for some) is that many people do want it.

  5. Candy says:

    EAP, in the immortal words of the Partridge Family: “I think I love you, but what am I so afraid of? I’m afraid that I’m not sure of a love there is no cure for…”

    Maybe also the fact that Romance is viewed by some as portraying an “ideal” love relationship.  And befitting the conservative origins of the genre, traditional Romance can sometimes be viewed as promoting the family as the microcosm of society, thus the controversy over what kind of idealized family the genre is representing.

    By Jove, Robin, you’ve hit on something very interesting there. I may have something more to add to this, I may not, but you’ve given me some food for thought.

  6. l_prieto says:

    You raised a lot of neat points, Robin. I always get cranky whenever anyone refers to romance as “those bodice ripper novels” but, yeah, it did have that period.

  7. Laura V says:

    befitting the conservative origins of the genre

    Which origins are you thinking of? The Brontes? Austen? Samuel Richardson’s Pamela? I’m not being sarcastic, it’s just that I’m not sure when the genre originated exactly, and if these are its origins in its modern form, then I’m not sure they were conservative for their time.

  8. Matdredalia says:

    People like this make me want to create my own genre of romance. I mean, more and more, there are people who want to write “out-of-the-box” romances. And there are, obviously, people who want to read them. People like reading stories that reflect their lives.

    As a polyamorous, bisexual aspiring romance novelist, I can’t even describe how frustrating it is to sit down at my computer to write and go “Okay, now…here’s a character, plot….” and knowing that if I write about a female character falling for another female character, or even having a crush on another female, I’ll never be published.

    Love is something wonderful and beautiful, and I’m lucky enough that I’m programmed to be able to share it with many, many people.

    I want to share it with even more through my novels, and yet, if I write what I want to write, I’ll be boo’d of the stage because of people like Ms. Butler.

    Frankly, this reminds me of a bumper sticker I have that says “How does my marriage hurt you?”

    Instead, I’d like to make one that says “How does my novel hurt you?”

    Thanks for the post, Candy. It was definately refreshing to know I’m not the only one out there.

  9. Robin says:

    befitting the conservative origins of the genre

    Which origins are you thinking of? The Brontes? Austen? Samuel Richardson’s Pamela? I’m not being sarcastic, it’s just that I’m not sure when the genre originated exactly, and if these are its origins in its modern form, then I’m not sure they were conservative for their time.

    Well, actually I was thinking more of the morality tract and the captivity and conversion narratives, but even Austen’s P&P is a novel, IMO, that very much acknowledges and accepts the idea that social stability is attained and preserved through marriage (i.e. Lydia v Jane).  That Austen sought to infuse the social institution with its fair share of love and passion via Lizzie and Darcy’s courtship doesn’t, IMO, undermine the social value of marriage.  Keep in mind here, too, that I’m largely using the word “conservative” in terms of preserving certain social traditions (I tend to view my comments in one thread in a sort of totality, so I sometimes rely on earlier comments without referring back to them directly).

    Maybe also the fact that Romance is viewed by some as portraying an “ideal” love relationship.  And befitting the conservative origins of the genre, traditional Romance can sometimes be viewed as promoting the family as the microcosm of society, thus the controversy over what kind of idealized family the genre is representing.

    By Jove, Robin, you’ve hit on something very interesting there. I may have something more to add to this, I may not, but you’ve given me some food for thought.

    I really think this is the answer to the apparent conflict between those traditional RWA-approved Romances full of pervy hetero sex and the kinds of Romances objected to as inappropriate somehow.  It even, IMO, goes back to that whole Biblical/religious objection to homosexual sex as “wrong” primarily because it does not produce children (think of some of the states that prevent same-sex families from adopting or fostering children).  Ultimately, I don’t really think it’s about the sex; I think it’s about the idea of the family and traditional notions of societal preservation through marriage and reproduction (think about the controversy over Romances where hero and heroine don’t marry right away and how relatively unpopular adoption or a fatally infertile heroine is).

  10. Mel says:

    alla sudden, the cowboy is slipping his range-raised meat up the sheikh’s dark cavern instead of shagging the amnesiac virgin heiress.

    I love you.

  11. DebH says:

    OT to fiveandfour: My rating scale is 1-10.  So a 9 means I really, really liked the books.

  12. fiveandfour says:

    Robin, I, too believe you are onto something in re: the promotion of ‘the family’ and its importance to the romance novel.  When I think about it, this was indeed the expected (required?) goal of every story until some very recent years when things started to open up a little and let some books in where marriage wasn’t the expected outcome and/or a man-woman relationship wasn’t the norm (at least among the books I’ve read).

    Thing is, the structure of ‘family’ has been undergoing some radical changes over the course of the last few decades in western society alongside all of the other changes we’ve been experiencing a la abortion rights, gay rights, minority rights, women’s rights, etc.  As one part of society has been moving farther and farther away from the rules and structure and mores that were accepted as the ideal for so many generations, another part has been digging in, doing their best to pull society back towards that former ideal.

    I suppose this means to me that going forward romance as a genre will either keep pace with the people who are examining all previously inviolable ‘rules’ about family and society and deciding which to keep, which to adapt and which to ignore or it will continue to promote the old ideals as if they are the only ideals.

    As others have mentioned, publishing houses are in it to for the money so market forces will undoubtedly decide for the genre what it’s going to be.  So vote your conscience on what romance should be with your dollars, bitches – it may be crass, but it’ll work more efficiently than any letter to the editor ever could.

  13. Robin says:

    Thing is, the structure of ‘family’ has been undergoing some radical changes over the course of the last few decades in western society alongside all of the other changes we’ve been experiencing a la abortion rights, gay rights, minority rights, women’s rights, etc.  As one part of society has been moving farther and farther away from the rules and structure and mores that were accepted as the ideal for so many generations, another part has been digging in, doing their best to pull society back towards that former ideal.

    Yes, I agree, and I think this may be part of the reason that Romance is being targeted, even though the overall changes to the genre are, IMO, much slower than those in the general society.  Any cultural or artistic form that some feel is supposed to serve as an exemplum is under scrutiny. 

    What’s difficult for me is the assertion that the moral absolutism underlying some of the arguments like Butler’s is apolitical (arguments against so-called political correctness have, IMO, made brilliant use of this conceit).  I, of course, see that very assertion as a politicization of morality through the elevation a social construct to a universal principle of the “good,” and the seemingly broad acceptance of the “anti-PC” position is a little mystifying to me.  Like I said, the only way I can truly make sense of it is to see it as a fear-based response to complex social and cultural problems that otherwise make people feel powerless and vulnerable.

  14. Laura V says:

    I think it’s about the idea of the family and traditional notions of societal preservation through marriage and reproduction

    I definitely think there are a lot of romances which strongly push the idea that the biological family is extremely important. But, to be fair, if some of us don’t reproduce, then society wouldn’t be preserved. The question really is whether, once they’ve produced the children, biological parents are always the best care-givers. Nowadays there’s the possibility of creating families via new reproductive technologies and sperm donation, but that wouldn’t have been possible during most of the history of the romance.

    There are actually quite a few romances where a single-parent re-marries, and so you have step-families. That’s the case in The Tenant of Wildfell Hall. In Jane Eyre, Jane herself is an orphan, and her biological family haven’t cared much for her, while Rochester is caring for Adèle, who may not be his biological daughter. In Agnes Grey the heroine’s pupil makes a socially-advantageous marriage, and it’s not a happy one. She produces the requisite heir, but then pretty much feels that the child is her husband’s and his mother’s, not hers.

    I think the Brontes did explore alternative sorts of family structure than the biological family with mother, father and children, and they critique some society marriages, showing that some biological fathers and mothers are cruel and/or uncaring.

    Austen doesn’t mention her heroines reproducing, does she? If she does, I can’t remember. There’s certainly nothing which would be the equivalent of the epilogues in which hero and heroine appear surrounded by their vast brood. And in Persuasion Anne seems to care far more for her nephews than their mother does. Biological families are clearly shown to be problematic in Pride and Prejudice and in Sense and Sensibility. In P&P the Bennett parents aren’t fulfilling their parental role as they should, and Lady Catherine’s family pride is shown to be excessive. In S&S, Edward Ferrars is temporarily disinherited and told he’s no longer his mother’s son, though she’s later reconciled to him to some extent. In Mansfield Park it’s Fanny, who is no blood relation to Sir Thomas who is ‘indeed the daughter that he wanted’.

    So I’m still not ready to agree that romance has always been socially conservative (though in many cases it has been). For their times, some romances were really quite challenging, I think (especially the Brontes), and they still raise questions for modern readers about the importance of the biological family.

  15. Just to chuck a thought or two into the mix, I think it’s interesting to consider the way networks of power function in a gendered way at a social and family level.

    By this I don’t mean a powerful/powerless dichotomy, but more the way its modalities are gender-classified and negotiated as such. (Physical violence = “masculine”, patient suffering = “feminine”). The “traditional” gendered family roles are linked to biological traits that make them seem natural.

    Of course real families contain countless relationships which don’t fall neatly into these divisions, but romances often deal in archetypes. Besides, it’s okay to leave your place, as long as you accept what it should be.

    As a thinking point, take the way people in a same-sex relationship are sometimes categorised in a gendered way (butch/bitch). FWIW, I think this “two-by-two” business is one of the reasons why same-sex couples are slightly more acceptable (ie. can feature as secondary characters) than the polyamorous. I truly respect writers that don’t fall into this trap.

    Incidentally, I’m running the risk of generalising above because I’m aiming for brevity. For the same reason I’m leaving out a lot of exposition. But just as a last point, I don’t think there’s so much controversy about couples that don’t marry straight away (these days) in romances. But it still is important that they get married or have some sort of legal/social sanction for their relationship eventually.

  16. Robin says:

    I definitely think there are a lot of romances which strongly push the idea that the biological family is extremely important. But, to be fair, if some of us don’t reproduce, then society wouldn’t be preserved. The question really is whether, once they’ve produced the children, biological parents are always the best care-givers. Nowadays there’s the possibility of creating families via new reproductive technologies and sperm donation, but that wouldn’t have been possible during most of the history of the romance.

    I’m not knocking traditional marriage or childbearing; I’m simply saying that I think Romance is historically interested in norming a certain family structure and connecting that family structure to the notion of social stability.  I don’t think that either Romance or society is seriously interested in questioning the primacy of the blood relationship (courts still, for example, go out of their way to award foster children back to their biological parents, especially the mothers), and I wonder if all the progress we’ve made in reproductive technologies won’t at some level stir a backlash in Romance (back to more of the Romance conception where the heretofore infertile woman magically conceives with just the right hero).

    There are actually quite a few romances where a single-parent re-marries, and so you have step-families. That’s the case in The Tenant of Wildfell Hall. In Jane Eyre, Jane herself is an orphan, and her biological family haven’t cared much for her, while Rochester is caring for Adèle, who may not be his biological daughter. In Agnes Grey the heroine’s pupil makes a socially-advantageous marriage, and it’s not a happy one. She produces the requisite heir, but then pretty much feels that the child is her husband’s and his mother’s, not hers.

    In terms of the step-parent situation in Romance, again, you have this often idealized situation in which the natural parent is a super-parent and the step-parent the moves in to complete the family picture in that traditional white-picket fence kind of way.  The adoptive parent may not be blood, but he/she occupies the paradigmatic role of parent in a super-duper, Kodak moment way.  The key for me is not necessarily that every happy Romance family consists of parents who only have their natural children, but rather that the resulting family structure itself is as close to the “model” family as possible (mother, father, happy and well-adjusted children).  Even Emma Holly, who introduced one of the first sympathetic gay characters in historical Romance (Freddie in Beyond Innocence), gives him the perfect HEA with his partner and a pastoral life making wine in the hills of Italy, a twist but still an affirmation of the divine call to “be fruitful and multiply” (I think this goes to EAP’s point about gender roles being perhaps paramount to the actual gender of the person occupying them).

    And IMO books like Jane Eyre make the need for a nuclear family clear, because bad things happen to children who don’t have their families around.  I know that many read Jane Eyre as a triumphant and liberating narrative for Jane, but I see the ending as a powerful narrowing of her independence.  What power Jane has she exercises through her devotion and her role as a Christian example to the wayward Rochester (who regains his eyesight as soon as he cleanses his soul properly) and mother to his son.  Jane’s excruciatingly pious voice at the end of JE undermined for me a lot of the pontential social subversion Bronte was hinting at earlier in the book.

    I think the Brontes did explore alternative sorts of family structure than the biological family with mother, father and children, and they critique some society marriages, showing that some biological fathers and mothers are cruel and/or uncaring.

    To me, the most interesting Bronte book to look at in this context would be Wuthering Heights, because there is some serious neurotic contemplation of what it is to be a grown-up woman with grown-up sexual desires, and everything in Bronte’s book seems to be rebelling against that.

    As for the critical commentary on families that don’t work as they should, I don’t see that as a criticism of the family structure as much as a criticism of how certain individuals do not function as they are supposed to (i.e. the family is supposed to be a place of safety but it’s often not).  In Austen’s case, I think her truly subversive move was to reconstitute the traditional family structure as one in which two people truly are well-suited and well-matched on every level.  Although I do think Austen portrays the Bennett’s marriage as one that works on many levels, even if as *people* and *personalities* they are perhaps not suited to one another (and I think you could argue this, as well). 

    Although P&P and JE are often talked about in the same breath, more than 30 years separate them, and right between comes Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, a book I think serves as an interesting third point here.  Shelley’s book, IMO, provides a harrowing account of how science unchecked can ruin the family, not only with the mess Victor makes of his “creation,” but also in terms of the one intact family in the book that the “creature” observes, who occupy the dead center of the novel, structurally and thematically.  I think Shelley’s vision and George W. Bush’s objection to stem cell research have a lot in common.

    Personally, I don’t have any problem with the model of the family as a microcosm of society; I only have difficulties when a certain constitution of that model is prescribed as more “natural” than others.  I’m not saying that Romance has always reinforced what I would call the Anglo – Christian heterosexual model of the family (and I think we could have some interesting discussions of whether aristocratic of middle class families are preferred), or that there haven’t been plenty of subversive Romances in that regard.  I think it would be interesting to undertake an analysis of the way Romance both affirms and subverts some of the basic tenets around which it seems to be organized.  But I still think that to a large extent, Romance as a genre has and continues to aim at naturalizing a certain model of the family that resembles as closely as possible the Anglo-Christian heterosexual paradigm.  It’s up for each reader to decide how she/he feels about this, but I think it’s there and I think the fact that arguments like Butler’s are being made with more and more frequency and vigor reflect that assumption.

  17. Laura V says:

    Romance is historically interested in norming a certain family structure and connecting that family structure to the notion of social stability […] I still think that to a large extent, Romance as a genre has and continues to aim at naturalizing a certain model of the family that resembles as closely as possible the Anglo-Christian heterosexual paradigm.

    But there aren’t that many alternatives to families (whether natural or by adoption), are there?  Foster parents are still called ‘parents’ and although there are some communities where children are brought up communally, and there are children in care, the former isn’t an option in most of the usual historical/cultural contexts that romances are set in. The latter is thought more likely to have negative outcomes (not always, of course) than life in an adoptive/foster family.

    As for the nuclear family, I’ve found some of the romances which have multiple generations of the family present, all saying things like ‘oh yes, we could tell instantly that the secret baby was part of the family’ are more affirming of the primacy of biological links than a two-parent and child/children setup, where some may or may not be related by blood.

    I think, given the constraints of the romance (happy ending required and the main couple must get together) then children, if present, will tend to end up with the main couple, or a foster family will be found for them (as Mr Beaumaris does for an orphan in Arabella).

    Maybe I’m missing something really obvious here. What other outcomes could there be for the children? If the main parent/parent figure remains single, it won’t be a romance, surely? I would imagine that the same dynamic would arise in homosexual romances, if children were involved. I suppose it would be different in a polyamorous romance, but there aren’t so many of them.

  18. fiveandfour says:

    If the main parent/parent figure remains single, it won’t be a romance, surely?

    This is precisely point.  Why can’t a story be a romance where the ending doesn’t automatically presume a marriage between a male and a female?  Even today, with all of the super sekrit babies and pre-marital sex goin’ down, the assumption is that for the ending to be happy, a marriage between a man and a woman – whether there will or won’t be children involved – is on the horizon.  It may not take place before the story is over, but there’s no mistaking that it’s going to take place.

    That requirement for marriage is one of the ideological ideals that is being turned on its head via same sex romances or erotica or polyamorous stories.  And the fact that it’s becoming more possible to see such stories?  Is probably the exact “slippery slope” that Ms. Butler is so very concerned about.  Because from the point of view that marriage=HEA=romance, if there is no marriage, it can’t really be qualified to be called a romance.

  19. Laura V says:

    Why can’t a story be a romance where the ending doesn’t automatically presume a marriage between a male and a female?

    I think it can. Maybe I wasn’t clear, but when I say ‘single’ I mean ‘without a significant other’, i.e. without a boyfriend/girlfriend/partner/spouse. I don’t think the couple (of whatever combination of male/female) need to be married to make the story a romance. I find the plots where virtual strangers marry because a baby must have two legally married parents very odd, unless it’s a historical. To me that seems extremely archaic, and I’m always surprised by it in a contemporary.

    That requirement for marriage is one of the ideological ideals that is being turned on its head via same sex romances

    Unless the romance is set somewhere like Spain, where gay marriage is legal, or the UK where we have provision for civil partnerships. But that would probably set people like Ms Butler off on another rant.

  20. Robin says:

    What other outcomes could there be for the children? If the main parent/parent figure remains single, it won’t be a romance, surely? I would imagine that the same dynamic would arise in homosexual romances, if children were involved. I suppose it would be different in a polyamorous romance, but there aren’t so many of them.

    I think where our points diverge, Laura, is basically where fiveandfour picked up; that is, I think we start with different assumptions.  I see the Romance = love + marriage + children equation to be sufficient but not necessary to fulfill the defintional requirements of Romance as a love story with a happy ending.  So I’m actually questioning the presumption that Romance has to end with marriage and a family.  No matter how far women may or may not have come socially, in Romance, very rarely do you see women actively choosing NOT to be mothers, for example.  Why is that?  Clearly there are plenty of couples out there that thrive without the inclusion of children in their unit (frankly, I think too many people who aren’t really parent material are having kids, but that’s a different topic, isn’t it?).  And there are single parent families that turn out just fine, as well.  While I am totally fine with the idea that Romance CAN be a genre that embraces the nuclear family as the ideal social unit, I don’t think it HAS to be, and that’s where my opinion diverges from that of Butler.  And I think Butler’s argument is basically that Romance HAS to be a genre that idealizes the Anglo Christian nuclear family, and I think the history of the genre has been more on her side than mine, for example. 

    As for the idea that gay Romance isn’t subversive in places where there are civil union legal privileges, I still see it as subversive in those places, because marriage just has so much more cultural and historical and spiritual privilege attached to it.  I mean, there’s a reason for the campaign to approve (and constitutionally ban) gay marriage in the US that goes way beyond legal standing.  It goes, IMO, to what constitutes the socially accepted definition of the family.

  21. Laura V says:

    I’m actually questioning the presumption that Romance has to end with marriage and a family.

    Oh, well in that case I agree with you. As long as there’s a couple who end up together, I don’t think either a marriage or children are required, and I wouldn’t specify the sex of either half of the couple either. I did say earlier that, as far as I could remember, there isn’t actually any mention of Austen’s heroines having children. I have a feeling that the now rather frequent epilogues in which the characters are shown several years later, surrounded by their offspring, isn’t necessarily something that was so common in the past. In fact, did a lot of romances of the earlier Mills & Boon style not end with a kiss, and not even get to marriage? The explicit mention of a decision not to have children is rare, that’s true, but it is sometimes present.

    I see what you mean about homosexual marriages, and I can see how they would be subversive in the current political climate in the US, I was just pointing out that the existence of legal provision for gay marriages in certain parts of the world does mean that it’s possible for a gay marriage to be portrayed in a contemporary romance (given the right setting). It would still be unusual in a romance, of course, but homosexual romances in general are still unusual, since the vast majority of romances are about heterosexual couples.

  22. Ruth says:

    I think I just fell a little in love with you, Candy. But let’s not tell Jan, might give her a heart attack.

    Fantastic responses and well thought out arguments in this comment section. Gives me some hope that this country isn’t as ridiculously homophobic as it appears.

  23. Robin says:

    . I did say earlier that, as far as I could remember, there isn’t actually any mention of Austen’s heroines having children. I have a feeling that the now rather frequent epilogues in which the characters are shown several years later, surrounded by their offspring, isn’t necessarily something that was so common in the past.

    I wonder if this is because it was simply assumed that a married couple would try for children, whereas now the point has to be driven home, so to speak, with the epilogue.  What do you think, Laura?

    That society is itself a reflection of the relationships people share on an individual level requires no leap of logic, of course.  And I don’t think anyone could argue that the family unit hasn’t played a central role in the history of every society.  What I find so interesting about Romance, though, is the way the happily ever after ending seems traditionally and explicitly tied to a certain acculturation of the hero and heroine into a specifically defined family structure.  It’s like Romance isn’t just reflecting the importance of the Anglo Christian nuclear family in social continuity, but that it’s insisting at some level that a woman’s happiness and everlasting love is to be found there (Crusie’s Fast Women is an intersting counterpoint to this idea, I think).  I have to admit that many of my favorite Romances end up with the hero and heroine married with children, and that there are some authors who really create that comforting “all’s right with the world” feeling for me (Jo Goodman, for example). I just get nervous at the idea that a genre written largely by and for women might still be prescribing our ultimate happiness as essentially domestic (a la Catherine Beecher’s American Woman’s Home:  http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/6598).

  24. I just get nervous at the idea that a genre written largely by and for women might still be prescribing our ultimate happiness as essentially domestic

    I’m not sure how many romance authors have the deliberate agenda of encouraging people to have children. Some people (quite a lot of people, actually) do seem to think, or say that they think, that having children is one of the best/most rewarding things they’ve ever done, so it could be that many writers feel the same. Or maybe they feel that their readers feel that way and they’re responding to that?

    I wonder if […in the past] it was simply assumed that a married couple would try for children, whereas now the point has to be driven home, so to speak, with the epilogue.  What do you think, Laura?

    I’m not sure. It could be, but it could be that in the past people perhaps didn’t see children quite the way we do now. I mean, there were no treatments for infertility, and children still died quite often before reaching adulthood, and women died in childbirth more frequently, so perhaps if the author was being realistic, they’d just stop at the happy part and not let potential unhappiness intrude. Nowadays we maybe take children not dying and the possibility of having children when we want them more or less for granted. Not everyone, of course, but for a lot of people this isn’t something they worry about.

    I also get the feeling that there’s something almost consumerist about the sheer numbers of children you sometimes get in these epilogues. It’s like the massive fortune, the extreme beauty of both characters and the ducal title isn’t quite enough – they must also have extreme fertility.

  25. BeaV says:

    “Don’t like gay marriage or gay sex? Then I highly, highly recommend that you not marry or fuck somebody your own gender. “

    YOU GO GIRL!!!! I did not stop laughing until this evening… I think you basically broke it all down to this one phrase…  😆

  26. Raven says:

    Candy said:
    “Oh, OK, the gay/poly romance idea is better. Anyone have recommendations, besides Kate?”

    I recommend Stephanie Vaughan, Jules Jones, Emily Veinglory, Willa Okati, Ally Blue, Jet Mykles, J.L. Langley, Matthew Haldeman-Time, Rachel Bo, Luisa/L.M. Prieto, and I’m forgetting numerous others because I’m tired.

    For an mfm poly relationship (or the start of one, anyway), Vaughan’s “Home for the Holidays” is a great short read.  She branches fully into m/m starting with “Jumping the Fence,” which is a nice take on the budding relationship between a cool computer geek Ben and coworker Kevin—who’s trying to figure out why he can’t stand his girlfriend and keeps daydreaming about other men.  The followup to this story is “Crossing the Line,” one of my all-time favorite books.  Jamie, the ex-boyfriend of Ben (from “Jumping the Fence”) accepts the truth of life—guys like him need to buy affection.  He’s a self-made man who knows his Rolex and nice car gets pretty boys to pay attention, and since that all he can offer, he figures the exchange is fair.  Ben seemed different, but now Ben’s gone and fallen for Kevin, so that’s a lost cause.  Then Jamie meets Ryan, the beautiful waiter who’s so much more than he seems.  Issues gained and ingrained throughout a lifetime don’t magically disappear in this story.  There’s no brilliant scene where Boy 1 takes Boy 2 to a mirror and points out everything beautiful about Boy 2, and Boy 2 says, “Oh, cool. Great, my issues are gone and the self-image is fantastic now. Thanks for the fix.”  (That’s one of those cliched romance novel scenes that drives me bugnuts.) The characters are real in their flaws, and Jamie will break your heart. (Though if you pay attention, Ryan will do some pretty effective, if subtler, breakage too.)

    She has several more m/m stories coming out soon, including hot rebel merc boy meets computer genius/politician’s son when both are in some way exiled from their government-controlled, homosexuality-punishable-by-death, corrupt world. I believe the title is “Off World,” but I can’t swear to it.  If male-dom D/s is your thing, try “Dead Man’s Party.”  If fem-dom D/s is your thing, try “Cruel to be Kind.”  Her entire list of pubbed and upcoming titles is on her website (stephanievaughan.com), along with which publishers to look at.

    Jules Jones has a decidedly different take on storytelling, but it’s equally enjoyable.  She ranges from fantasy/paranormal to antisocial systems administrators practicing D/s and exhibitionism in space, with many stops in between. I won’t detail it all, since I’m sure 80% of you fell asleep after my comments on the first author. But Jones’s title list is on her website (julesjones.com).

    Emily Veinglory (veinglory.com) ranges all over the place, from shapeshifters, to blind artists and incarnate muses, to paranormal coalitions. And gay cowboys.  Well, sort of.

    Luisa/L.M. Prieto is a new author, but she has one book out, with more to follow soon.  She thrills me because she works in a relatively neglected subgenre: romantic horror.  (Yes, it works. *G*)  Her first book is a good start-up offering, and its followup (not out yet) improves upon this. In a world overflowing with vampire and werewolf stories, hers is a creative twist. And did I mention the zombies? …

    Willa Okati’s ongoing “The Brotherhood” series offers shortish stories about the relationships begun by a group of men who don’t realize that one of their fellow members in their lonely-hearts club is actually an ancient, romantic-at-heart, incubus who taps into his mother’s (Lilith) influence to steer of his lost friends toward the love that’s right for them.  This ranges *everywhere*, from the pierced-and-inked rebel boy and his vampire lover, to the self-avowed slut and his nifty new alien friend, two cursed guy who’s been stuck in the bar for years, to the two dragon-men in the backroom, to the boy who’s lost all hope and just wants life to stop.  There’s a fascinating journey through vast and varied characters and the relationships they find themselves in. (willaokati.com)

    J.L. Langley’s (jllangley.com) first all m/m release is “The Tin Star.” Gay-but-not-loudly-out rancher takes in – and falls for – his best friend’s little brother. A little brother who’s only just now starting to realize what all those tingly feelings about other men mean. There’s some good realistic showing of the sometimes less-than-open-minded reactions of the inhabitants of their small town – and the brothers’ father. Its sequel is coming out soon, along with a werewolf anthology with Willa Okati and Ally Blue.

    Ally Blue (allyblue.com) does a great job with the emotional turmoil in “Forgotten Song,” and takes that skill into her other works, as well.

    Rachel Bo’s (http://webpages.charter.net/rachelbo/releases.html) “Strength in Numbers” series started with two buddies looking for the right woman to share and then realizing they want to share each other, too.  The next book moves to the father of one of those buddies, a man who discouraged his son’s bisexuality and, in his own youth, turned his back on the man and woman he loved, because of his fear of the world’s reaction. Now, seeing how happy his son is, he finds himself reuniting with his former loves, but all three must fight together and alone to conquer the fears and reservations he still has from a lifetime of hiding his true self.  The third book lets us in on the relationship between a young woman and the m/f married couple she meets.  She’s never had any bisexual leanings, and the development is a bit of a surprise for her.  More surprising to her, though, is the growing realization that she’s deeply submissive and the perfect partner to this dominant couple. The author has an interesting take on the werewolf theme in her “Wolf-bound” series.  Werewolf boys are born in sets of twins, and they find and secure a mate to share.

    Matthew Haldeman-Time (http://www.matthewhaldemantime.com) is currently published only by himself.  He has one book in actual print, for sale, but the rest are pretty much all free online.  The book is full-length, but the online stories (except the disturbingly fascinating boy-band saga, which is over a million words long) are mostly shorter bits of various lengths.  The greatest thing about MHT is that he’s a romantic and it shows in almost everything he writes.  Like Stephanie Vaughan, he has the gift of often creating characters so real that you truly feel like they’re someone you know.

    Anyway, these are just a few people, but maybe it’s a start.  Just like in traditionally straight romance, their stories cover the spectrum of plots and characters and quirks.  They make m/m no longer a subgenre of the m/f “norm.”  Instead, they create romantic subgenres of the M/M norm.  Horror to farce to high drama, and everything in between.

    Thanks for letting me ramble.

  27. Raven says:

    And please please forgive the sloppy writing in that post.  I’m ashamed of them, but it’s 7:30 am and I haven’t yet gone to bed, so I claim exhaustion as the root of those bloody typos.  *sigh*

  28. Kate D. says:

    I think everyone who enjoyed this post needs to read Susan Jane Gilman’s “Kiss My Tiara.” In particular, the chapter entitled “So What’s Wrong with a little Lesbian Wedding?”

    Fabulous.

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