I got my most recent RWR in the mail the other day, and since my entire job as a giant pregnant lady is to relax, gain weight, and sit around waiting, I read it cover to cover. Usually I skim it, check out the contest winners, look at the articles and who wrote them, and read a piece here or there. But hey, I sit down now, and I don’t move voluntarily for at least an hour, so bring on the reading material.
And hello, page 4’s Letters to the Editor! I laughed out loud. Did anyone else notice this one?
Madeline Baker, she doesn’t like the cussing:
I continue to be shocked by the language in some romance novels I’m reading. It’s unfortunate that more and more authors feel the need to use the “F word” in their books, but even worse, the word “Motherf…” has cropped up in two of my recent reads. It’s bad enough when language like this is uttered by the villain, but when it comes out of the mouth of the heroine… well, I’m just plain stunned. Surely it’s possible to write a gutsy heroine without having her talk like a gang member.
Here are a few choices of response that pop to mind:
1. Bitch, please.
2. Racist and classist undertones aside, I’m as offended by books titled Cheyenne Surrender as you are by the word “fuck.”
3. Fuck that!
4. Gang members? Only gang members say “fuck?” Seriously?
Perhaps the problem is the reading material she’s choosing, which she addresses in her letter:
Lately I’ve read several books that have ‘paranormal romance’ on the spine. In my opinion, a good number of them haven’t been romances at all, and that includes the one I threw across the room just last night….
Demons and vampires and werewolves, especially the ones that want to kill you, will totally stop if you speak nicely and say, “Please.”
I doubt if it will ever happen, but I’d like to see some kind of rating on books so that I’ll know what I’m getting before it’s too late.
Now that there, THAT is an IDEA. Why did we think of that?! We here at the Smart Bitch HQ, we got us some Photoshop. There need to be warnings on books!
Our advisories, let us show you them:
You can Has more!
Actually, I’d like to suggest one more SB advisory label: Warning! Sanitized for your protection.
Slap that on a book and see how quickly I stay away from it.
Since there is a great deal of controversy over this issue, I’ll expand on my initial response . . .
I think it would be completely awesome if there were Smart Bitches warning labels on romance novels. Hell, I think I might pick one up simply for the label alone if they did that.
Warning: Sexual content or something to that effect, beyond being redundant, is not what I’m thinking of. And I’ve noticed most erotica lines do specify some of what you’ll find inside, in case it crosses a reader’s line between ‘kinky’ and ‘creepy’.
I’m thinking about this. And I’ve been on some erotica e-book sites. They let me know the gender combinations of sex partners. So I can pass on the ones that don’t appeal to me. They also let me know whether there’s extreme BSDM or light BSDM, and this I appreciate. I would have to say I would be leery of reading erotica if I were surprised every so often by random sex in random combinations. In fact, I probably wouldn’t read erotica at all.
Since LadyP was surprised by the m/m action in her book, she had to have bought a mainstream book outside of the erotica genre.
And that must be what everyone is arguing against: labeling mainstream fiction/romance instead of trusting the author to write a story with sex and gender combinations appropriate to the story. Which is what I thought. And I agree with. That we don’t need warning labels on books.
But, help me out here—I’m totally fine with labeling Erotica. That’s gotta be wrong, right? But it doesn’t feel wrong. Is it not wrong because I am stepping out of my element reading Erotica and need someone to hold my hand and tell me it will be okay and not scary at all.
Robin, I get your point, but I think you miss the whole assumption underlying labeling/rating: that someone needs to protect us from things. Children need protection. Adults protect themselves. It is not immature to want to avoid descriptions of extreme violence. It is immature to expect someone else to wrap the world in cotton wool for you so you’ll never need to put a book down or skim over a scene.
I agree with this totally. I’m an adult. Do I let my 16 yr. old read some of my books? Depends on the content. I’ve yet to let her read most of them ( LaNora is the exception- and I’ve held a few of even HERS back!) But I’m an adult, and as such should be able to make my own decisions. Without any “someone” telling me my choices may be concidered “racy”.
Who will that “someone” be anywho? My Mom? My Hubby? The lady that thinks it’s a shame that people have sex before marriage? Someone living in a guilded cage??????
Nope- let me make up my own mind. I’ve been told it’s been educated. I’ve read enough books ( to fill several 18 wheelers!) to know what I like, and what I don’t. Use some common sense, and you’ll be just fine- thankyousoverymuch!
I need that last for ALL of my works! Do you deliver? In Bulk? Using hot naked guys for the couriers?
Oh! I thought the possessive referred to Ted Haggard’s sex scene. And that you were wondering if just hearing about his sex scene would ding LadyP’s squick factor and that now we might have to censor the news.
But only for some people. Right, Teddy Pig? For some people it is BRING IT ON. BRING IT ALL ON.
But only for some people. Right, Teddy Pig? For some people it is BRING IT ON. BRING IT ALL ON.
I’m only saying I know all the horrible scandalous tawdry sins I have committed.
I could see some really good writer making that about as much fun to read as it was to actually commit those repulsive socially unacceptable acts. It would be interesting to see them get a Romance out of it all on top of it.
I would hate for that great writer to not go there if she wanted to tell a story like that for fear of those labels.
But I am an open minded “pig” so do not listen to me.
Ah, well, yes, then there’s the whole censor the news thing. Especially with all these naughty Republicans getting caught in their ghey sex0rring. 😉 At least most Dems are honest enough to admit it when they’re gay.
I actually don’t think children even need that much protection, when we’re talking about protection from ideas. Assuming that they know the basic ins and outs (so to speak) of sex or whatever else they’re reading about, at least. Fiction has much less impact on a teenager’s behavior than what they’ve been taught by their parents does, as far as I’ve seen in my limited experience as somebody who was a teenager less than a decade ago. I was grabbing any book in the bookstore from any section that caught my attention by the time I was seven, and the only rules about my reading were things that I wasn’t allowed to read at school for fear of some adult disapproving (a Dave Barry book with a joke about Jimmy Hoffa on the back cover when I was in second grade comes to mind), and the only funny side effect I’ve noticed is a strange fondness for Jimmy Hoffa jokes.
And I’m glad that my mother didn’t read the books I was reading so that she could discuss things with me, either. Frankly, I still wouldn’t want to talk about the Arthur/Guenivere/Lancelot three-way in Mists of Avalon with my mother, much less when I first read it when I was twelve, and I can’t imagine any advantage that would have had that would outweigh the awkwardness. Actually, I can’t imagine any benefit at all from having had that conversation.
I’ve been toying with the idea of advocating we not call what Haggard and Craig did “gay sex acts.” Because I don’t think they are. I think it takes a level of self acceptance and awareness to engage in gay anything. That gay isn’t a proper designation for a single act or a sting of acts but the sum total of a lifestyle that includes sex, in whatever form it takes.
OF course, I can’t think of what to call it, though! Desperate acts of homosexual self-assualt? Sexual expresssions of self-hatred? Abuse of self and others?
Micki: You write the series, I’ll buy it. Guaranteed.
Robin, I get your point, but I think you miss the whole assumption underlying labeling/rating: that someone needs to protect us from things.
No, I haven’t missed that aspect of the issue; I just think it’s problematic at best to answer a charge of paternalism (labeling) with a condescending insult (grow up). Also, I think it would be interesting to unpack the paternalistic aspects of this issue a bit, because—again—I think we’re pushing the extremes of the discussion such that we’re skimming over all the ways in which genre Romance is driven by a number of moral assumptions and social conventions that are themselves quite paternalistic but aren’t so excitedly called out as such. Also, I’ve yet to see people railing against the ratings at Ellora’s Cave or Samhain or other epubs. I didn’t realize it until today, but those ratings actually appear on the ebooks, as well as the publisher’s sites.
But romance has NEVER been in it dispensing tea and pats on the head.
Well, I wouldn’t characterize “tea and pats on the head” with any kind of literary comfort. But there is a very conservative core of the genre (conservative in the sense of preserving continuity) in the elevation of marriage and children as the social and romantic ideal. There is a sense of emotional justice in having the villains defeated and the protagonists triumph. There are, as I said above, many moral assumptions in the genre that readers sometimes feel defensive about, in terms of their willingness to enjoy them in the genre (i.e. the protective alpha male who would probably by a bullying jerk in RL).
So the whole rapidly expanding argument seems not to wash too well.
But just because the genre has contained certain elements for a long time isn’t the same thing as having them be more and more prevalent. I think many of the old-time Romances are quite violent, but I still think that Romantic Suspense, for example, has created a whole new landscape for violence in the genre.
Robin, I don’t think it’s immature for her not to want to read books with strong language. But I do think it’s childish of her to associate bad language with “gang membersâ€.
I’d probably characterize it as something different than childishness, but in any case, I agree with your larger point about how illogical that association is. And extreme. Which is my point—that these conversations are easiest to have at the extreme, but on the middle ground, where they are most difficult is also, IMO, where they are most important.
Someone mentioned hate speech in a comment, and that’s a pretty good comparison. I am totally unpersuaded by the “I hate hate speech” sentiments, because, well, they’re ironic, aren’t they, and not really in a good way. I am much more persuaded by the arguments that hate speech codes are often ineffective (witness the increased rioting on university campuses in Canada following the implementation of hate speech codes), that they promote a sense of inferiority among the protected classes and promote more violence, and that they are inappropriate in a society that has the political culture of the US (witness the disconnect between the decisions of the Israeli high court and the conflicts in day to day life in the occupied territories).
I was discussing this issue today with someone who was arguing that warning labels would simply make certain books more buyable, to the point where they would be sought out by authors and used as marketing tools by publishers. I think that’s an interesting issue to explore (and I definitely think that labels aimed at protecting teen Romance readers would raise the buyability profile of many labeled books). Also, I remember when Avon’s Claiming the Courtesan came out and there was much discussion about whether the book hinted at what was in the story enough. I thought it did, but Laura Vivianco referenced a book on Teach Me Tonight that seemed almost designed to disguise the rape of the heroine. As a reader, that stuff doesn’t bother me, because if I come across a scene I don’t want to read, I skim or flip pages. No biggie. But a heroine punished in the book for not being virtuous enough, for example, can really get me going. Do I want a warning label (ideologically offensive to certain feminist sensibilities)? No, of course not. As I said, I’m anti-label. But at the same time, I don’t think that every reader who talks about labels is looking to have the world wrapped in cotton candy clouds and baby blue rainbows, either.
And I think beyond the knee jerk reactions on both sides are some interesting issues. Does, for example, the outrage that people felt over Claiming the Courtesan, the angry letters I imagine readers might have written Anna Campbell, and the feeling of some readers that they were duped backfire on the ability of a book to sell more widely or promote it? Does it encourage the author to keep taking risks or make her more wary? Does it matter either way? What about the whole debate over the Juno Books release “Best Paranormal Romance” in which some of the stories didn’t have an HEA? Is that Paranormal Romance or not? Labels are used all the time to designate books for sale. Should readers be warned that a book labeled Romance doesn’t have an HEA? I’ve seen a number of readers express adamant opinions on the necessity of the HEA for the “Romance” designation, even though it’s not a part of the common definition (at least the one we all seem to use from the RWA). We tend to know that certain Romances will be more chaste depending on their line or cover (trad Regencies, for example). And what about the NASCAR Romances which can ONLY by PG-13 (only behind closed door sex). Again, I just think it would be interesting to unpack some of these issues, because I think they’re related, and honestly, I didn’t even start digging into the elements of this discussion until it started to look a little like a pile on to me. As much as I am opposed to the explicit warning labeling of books (but again am interested in people’s response to the EC, etc. type labeling), I think there are so many *versions* of labeling we accept easily every day (let’s talk about movie trailers, for example) that, well, maybe it would be interesting to look a little more closely at that, too. What are the substantive differences we see what’s the best way (this is my concern, of course) to keep the genre pushing the envelope and taking risks when readers have strongly different definitions of what Romance is or should be?
But I’m an adult, and as such should be able to make my own decisions. Without any “someone†telling me my choices may be concidered “racyâ€.
Because of the incredible power of marketing and advertising in the sales of books, I’m not sure any of us can really say we’re making our own independent choices in this regard, though. There’s this great passage in Althusser where he’s talking about how the most successfully interpellated are those who have completely internalized society’s messages as their own values and thoughts. And to some degree, I think the best marketing does this, as well. We joke about the covers of Romance novels, but apparently they are *incredibly* influential in selling a book. Just the designation “Romance” can be one that a publisher desires or avoids like the plague. I think this is, in part, why I find the “adult” argument the least persuasive in refuting the argument for labels. Because even as adults we’re being told all the time what and what not to buy.
I was trying to count the number of times “fuck”, or some derivative of it, was used in the response threads. My eyes started glazing over.
Because of the incredible power of marketing and advertising in the sales of books, I’m not sure any of us can really say we’re making our own independent choices in this regard, though.
I disagree because we are here debating this right now. I think we are now more aware than we ever were of the power of marketing. But with that awareness it is becoming less effective which is why sophiticated viral marketing and book trailers are being tried out.
You cannot use the same primitive tactics once used when your targets are not locked into only certain stores or certain departments or certain brands or certain magazines and now have access to anything they want on amazon.com at the click of a button.
What’s infinitely more offensive to me is dialogue, in a more or less modern setting, that doesn’t contain cuss words—at least for certain characters in certain situations.
It’s as unnatural as Eric Clapton singing “I Shot the Sheriff” and trying to go all Rasta.
I can’t imagine any contemporary author being worth a rat’s ass if she doesn’t have a keen ear for spoken language and/or is unwilling to incorporate it into her work.
I can’t agree with putting any kind of labels on a book. As has been said before me, that’s what reviews are for. If books started getting labelled, that can cause all kinds of trouble.
For example, I work in a library. Our policy is, we can only buy the clean version of music CDs. If there isn’t one, we don’t get it. How would that work for books? Does that mean I have to go in the fiction stacks and toss all the Thea Devine titles we own since it’s erotic literature? Who draws the line?
I mean, the Song of Solomon in the Bible is pretty steamy for the Bible. Do we put a label on that? Warning: talk of lover’s grotto and thighs within this book. Where does the line get drawn?
I am all for people reading what the want and expressing their opinion on the books. I’m not a hue fan of too many curse words in a book, but that’s because I can’t say hell at work in front of little ears. I just think going by book reviews or recommendations is a much better way for someone to see if a book might not be for them or not.
This is a large part of what I was reacting to. I’m not crazy about labels like “romance” or “erotica” showing up on book covers, either. I understand that they provide information for both bookseller and reader about the book’s content, and genre designations arguably help build and maintain an audience. But when those labels come with the kind of baggage that both “romance” and “erotica” do, the largely unspoken assumptions about who reads what and why, I shudder to think of even more labels going on the books I buy. I frequently feel like I’m wearing a “scarlet letter” as it is, every time I walk into the romance section of my local bookstore.
I don’t hate the idea of sharing info about books’ content. By all means, start a website. Review books for violence, sexuality, whatever. Make it a wiki so everyone can add their two cents and give the lowdown on which books feature women and children being assaulted, or same-sex sexuality, or whatever list of content areas you want to come up with. But when you put labels on books, you intrude on my freedom to buy and read books.
Sound crazy? Here’s my thinking: I hate buying books called Romances because of the negative connotations of the label. Same goes for erotica. But I like the content, so I put up with the baggage of being labeled every time I buy a book. But now you’re going to label books as having “adult content” or “scenes which may be offensive to more sensitive readers” or “explicit sexuality” or “non-vaginal penetration while atop unprotected equines” or God only knows what euphemism they’ll come up with next. And exactly like labels on movies and music, or stupid clinch covers, or man-titty covers, the entire book is reduced to one scene or one word that someone thought was “naughty” so you should be aware it’s there ‘cause God forbid you should stumble unaware on the word Dick in Moby Dick. So now I’m at the register with a book I had to go into the little curtained off area in the back to find, with a big red label slapped on it that says “READER IS OBVIOUSLY A DEVIANT, DON’T ACCEPT CREDIT” and I’m only just exaggerating a bit here to make myself laugh.
Just leave my damn books alone already. Don’t bowdlerize ‘em, don’t ban ‘em, don’t tell me what I should or shouldn’t read.
I’ve been toying with the idea of advocating we not call what Haggard and Craig did “gay sex acts.†Because I don’t think they are. I think it takes a level of self acceptance and awareness to engage in gay anything. That gay isn’t a proper designation for a single act or a sting of acts but the sum total of a lifestyle that includes sex, in whatever form it takes.
OF course, I can’t think of what to call it, though! Desperate acts of homosexual self-assualt? Sexual expresssions of self-hatred? Abuse of self and others?
Well how about… that troll (Haggard) is a very unhappy buysexual man.
He was seeing a gay male prostitute, doing gay drugs, and most likely having gay sex. He did seem to be able to procreate though so I side on one great big fugly buysexual who is not gettin any now.
So to get rating labels on books we’d have to set up a ratings commision to read each book and place a rating on it similar to movies..thereby delaying publication and increasing the price to pay for the ratings commision?
no thanks, I’m buying a book aimed at adults not young children. What kind of insulated world do some people live in where they arent exposed to bad language somewhere in life every day?
Maybe childrens books or young adult books should be censored and rated but not books aimed at adult consumers.
Having ratings on books is just a first step on censorship. Stores would quit selling books with a “bad” rating, pastors would condemn authors by name and foul mouthed authors everywhere would go hungry!
ZOMG I want that TSTL sticker! I’ll be slappin’ it on all the books I come across at the library! *insert evil laughter here*
Now that I think about it, I wish all my fiction came with this statement: BY FAR, THE MOST OFFENSIVE BOOK EVER WRITTEN.
Oh, revile me all the way to the bank!
I’m relatively familar with movie ratings as far as kids movies go. I work with kids and when I pick movies I should only pick G rated movies. My group had at one time 8 boys between the ages of 9 and 11. Think they wanted to watch G movies? Yeah, right. They watch all kinds of crap at home and assumed they could watch it with me if their parents agreed. I would have been fired so fast it wasn’t even funny.
There are ways around G movies, like an advance movie list given to parents to accept or decline with PG ratings so parents know. Because Harry Potter once caused an uproar.
Now, watching movies with an eye towards what should and shouldn’t be watched by kids specifically, in the context that this is my job is an eye opener. Beethoven 2 (the dog movie) has scenes which would never have bugged me before. But showing drinking and attempted seduction even if they were declined totally floored me, it was not something I should have shown them though I would have let my 7 year old stepdaughter watch it easily. There are movies I show my 4 year old nephew that I would never show the kids at work.
Parents make decisions about what their kids can watch and read. I totally agree with this. There are situations and circumstances where decisions have to made for other reasons.
Though labels and ratings can really help or define some situations they are far from perfect.
Happy Feet is a G rated movie. It was actually a pretty good movie, in my opinion. I liked it. The racial stereotypes at times completely disgusted me though. In that aspect I was uncomfortable showing it to an impressionable child. But in terms of rating it was completely safe.
So what does that mean exactly.
I didn’t write this post with a specific point in mind, I’m just making conversation.
Also, though I swear occasionally I don’t do it front of kids and I don’t appreciate swearing in books and movies for the sake of swearing. Not all people talk like that, even the “tough” ones. In most books I barely notice it. In a PG movie I may show the kids I notice damn and hell though I must not consider them swear words because I’ve said them in front of kids (though not at work).
Interestingly, in another thread right here many of us related stories of having read Lindsey and other authors at VERY young ages… yet we all survived.
It’s just silly to get this twisted up over language in books that include explicit sexuality, and Ms. Letter Writer doesn’t skirt the naughty moments in her own books. (Frankly, I have found some of her books offensive for completely different reasons, but never mind.)
It’s romance. She specifically says she was upset by paranormal romances recently. WTF???
I wasn’t kidding. If you can’t figure out whether to read something by scanning the back cover, you should stop reading adult fiction of all kinds. Sorry, you aren’t bright enough. We regret to inform you your application has been rejected, but you are free to reapply when you get a fucking clue. It’s not complicated. Fill out this clue-application request in fucking triplicate, then shove it up your ass and sit on it til the tweaky itch makes a lightbulb appear over your head that reads
IT’S A BOOK FEATURING SEX
then, remove it and sleep with it beneath your pillow til you dream up a better fucking argument than “I can’t figure out how to buy grownup books without special instructions.”
Sweet fucking unfrosted cupcakes.
keyword: although74
as in…
“although she was 74, she still enjoyed romance novels with the word FUCK right there on the page, in stead of drowning in innuendo that belongs upyerendo.”
But when those labels come with the kind of baggage that both “romance†and “erotica†do, the largely unspoken assumptions about who reads what and why, I shudder to think of even more labels going on the books I buy. I frequently feel like I’m wearing a “scarlet letter†as it is, every time I walk into the romance section of my local bookstore.
To me this goes back to the point about the stigmatizing effect of labeling, rather than some differentiation between an adult and child sensibility. One of the frustrations for me around the marketing of Romance is the incredible tension between the genre as an art form and the book as a consumer product. I can see how some readers would view labeling as merely an efficiency, especially given the arguments regularly made about how Romance is primarily entertainment and/or commercial in nature, rather than literary or artistic. I see Romance as part of literature in the broad sense, so my knee jerk objection to the labeling proposal was the book banning one (like when Tipper Gore went on her campaign to label music). Then as the discussion unfolded I started to think about all the ways in which the dual nature of the Romance genre as both commercial and literary means that sometimes opposition to a particular issue won’t be divided along neat ideological grounds. I wonder, sometimes, how my book buying habits would change if I didn’t have the disposable income I do to spend on my reading addition. Right now I don’t really care if I dislike a book or not. But if I was really limited in terms of my funds, how much would I rely on the marketing of books, and how reliable would that be. In a way I think it’s a luxury for me to not have to rely on the marketing to make choices among books.
This has been a very fascinating discussion. But I do have to point out that book labeling is already happening. I’m not sure how many of you are aware of this, but in the descriptions of books available through the National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped, you can find warning labels for strong language, violence and explicit sex. And they do strike me, as a consumer, as fairly arbitrary. Particularly the one about explicit sex, since there have always been varying levels of explicitness. I’m not sure why the warnings are given in the book descriptions, or who designates them, but they are there, and they are sometimes not all that helpful.
Also, speaking of NLS, since the last time I checked, there wasn’t any erotica at all in their collection unless you count some of the stuff Anne Rice wrote. But by God, they record scads and scads of inspirational fiction, and I’ve always hated that. I am blind, so, what, I have to be sheltered from reading something naughty? Oh, please.
Thank God for the Internets, and the advent of ebooks, which I tend to like better and which allow me to more easily get my hands on (ack, bad Braille-related pun not intended) the type of books that the Library of Congress collectors frown on.
The warnings are more of a problem for me because they’re for genre fiction and not literature. People would freak out if that happened. It seems like you can (wrongly and shallowly) argue that rape/teh buttsecks/language are an essential part of a Piece of Literary Fiction from Serious Writers who shouldn’t be shushed—a key element of their opus.
Uncomfortable, taboo things are a part of a lot of great books—Lolita and Goodbye to All That both have squicky underage sex situations. It’s part of a work of fiction and there as a part of that particular story and character.
To label romance and not everything sets it further apart as books unworthy of literary consideration and respect. Any labeling implies that there’s something wrong with the act being warned against. Why on earth would we want to give authors pause when they are crafting a story that leaves the rigid formulas and stereotypes for things more complex and true to life?
But, help me out here—I’m totally fine with labeling Erotica. That’s gotta be wrong, right? But it doesn’t feel wrong. Is it not wrong because I am stepping out of my element reading Erotica and need someone to hold my hand and tell me it will be okay and not scary at all.
I had been thinking about that as well. The focus/acts of the erotica I’ve read has been clear from the outset. Porn’s obviously hyper-categorized into any number of specialties (I hesitate to say flavors) for people to find just what they like. Knowing that you’re in search of explicit sex from the outset makes it different. It’s a helpful service more than any sort of implied warning. Ellora’s Cave does it online (dunno who else), and it’s great.
But what if the heroine has turrets? Hmmm?
But what if the heroine has turrets? Hmmm?
*bastard whore crap fuck asshole cunt*
Oh sweet sweet Rose! *whore* Your sheath is so wet and ready for me. *poo* Tell darling, *fucker* tell me what *crap* you want.
*shit fuck cunt whore asshole jerk*
Reginald, Reginald, *fag* my love.*asshole* Please take me *cunt* with your *dick* weapon of pleasure.
*slut fucker ass butt muncher fag*
Oh my love *snatch* you so so *bastard* tempt me. *bitch* It’s your sweet innocence *fucker* that drives me to lose control. *fag*
To the argument that swear words are just a collection of sounds and letters that each individual person assigns a connotation to, I would argue this, there is a social and biological reaction to a taboo word whatever your personal feeling is about it. This is why people with Tourette’s syndrome are inclined to repeat swear words over and over and not innocuous words like corn or pillow. That is also why it feels just so gosh darned good to say FUCK when you are really pissed off rather than bummer or even damn.
There are times when swearing grates on me and I really don’t like it when God’s name is abused, but I can edit those words out as I read. I have the power to skip and, if it is really bad, put the book down.
I have to say, I’m with skyerae on the subject of swearing, and was mildly surprised by the number of people here who insisted that any “modern” conversation must necessarily include lots of swearing. Okay, okay, I suppose that maybe this point of view isn’t 100% surprising given the name of the site, but I will say that there are plenty of us out here for whom this is not the case. While I don’t get shocked or offended by swearing, I will say that I only swear when I *mean* it and I try pretty hard not to swear around kids. So gratuitous cursing, unless the situation really calls for it, doesn’t necessarily make a book sound more “real” for me.
Ask the old bitch to take more time in choosing what the hell she is reading?
Put the responsibility back on their lazy fat asses where it belongs.
These thoughtful words make it awfully hard to want to share an opposing opinion…
I find myself more in Robin’s camp, and Peyton’s, even though I see the points many of the other posters have made.
Yep, it’d probably be impossible to find a standard everyone could agree on. Yep, I could see where these labels could be used to censor.
And even I would admit – in the case of strong language, for example – that I hardly notice what another might think was nothing but one curse word after another!
And yet…
I first started reading e-published erotic romance a few years ago. I can’t “flip through” the books. I can’t “skim for content”. Chapter One (or even non-Chapter One excerpts) usually don’t do more than offer a teaser for the plot.
After trying a couple, I decided BDSM books are not for me. Vampires, too. Those are pretty easy to get from the book genre and/or description. So the “genre”, cover, book title, and/or blurb generally give me enough clues to make an informed choice.
But I found I loved the shapeshifters. Bought ‘em up like candy. ‘Til I found the first one with wolfie sex in wolfie form (guy was wolf, woman was human). Oh, ick. Bestiality, in my opinion, and not a mental picture I want in my head!
I wrote the publisher and was given the more polite version of many of our posters’ “grow up and shut up and stop trying to oppress me” opinions.
So, I stopped buying shapeshifter stories from epublishers. If a story sounds so compelling that I just have to read it, I’ll write the author and ask (although that doesn’t always work out well, either).
But if I can’t get an answer from someone I trust, no sale. I know I’m not alone in that decision (although for some of my online friends, it would be for different issues). So how does that benefit the author?
Yep, I’m sure I’m missing out on some great wolfies and felines and dragons and whatnot. But I find bestiality – however it’s “packaged” – appalling and I’m just not willing to risk finding it in yet another erotic shapeshifter story.
I for one appreciate the “advisory” notes that a couple of the epublishers put on their books. And while there have been a few books I’ve avoided because of the label, there are more I was willing to try because the label didn’t contain anything on my particular list of dislikes.
So, this “old bitch” is taking her time choosing what she buys. But it means I’m buying a lot less – at least in epublished and erotic romance – than I did a couple of years ago. I got tired of buying books that I couldn’t skim for content ahead of time, and the publisher wasn’t interested in giving me the tools to make informed choices.
Some e-book publishers display their ratings/warnings on an early page of the book. If this is taken to print in the same way (and I don’t know if it is, because I don’t ever buy the print version if I can get it on e-book) I think it is somewhat less obnoxious than warning labels posted on the cover. Basically, it serves as quick content warning for people who are specifically looking for the information. But it isn’t screaming for attention and won’t make anyone raise their eyebrows when you are checking out. It of course still raises some of the censorship concerns that were stated earlier…
Yep, I’m sure I’m missing out on some great wolfies and felines and dragons and whatnot. But I find bestiality – however it’s “packaged†– appalling and I’m just not willing to risk finding it in yet another erotic shapeshifter story.
Well, I hate to say it but if you honestly see fictional wereform sex as bestiality… I think you should have rethought the shape shifter love.
Someone even glancing at reviews for these stories would realize that category does lend itself to a crossing of that line.
I read tons of shape shifter romance and I have run into stories that were way way too furry oriented for even my taste, but that just meant I stopped reading that particular author or that particular publisher if it happened enough times. I did not stop fully buying eBooks about shape shifters.
You are right though, if Epubs noticed a dip in sales I am sure they might rethink the labels but I think most consider those labels silly.
I think they are doing what they can since you can not skim the book but I do not see absolutely any labels by Kensington and the major print publishers and they seem to be fine not labeling their eBook versions either.
“Who defines the unacceptability? For me, these censorship issues always come back to that: who defines the censorship? I sure don’t want anyone less liberal than I am defining my entertainment options.”
“And I can say that the labels do give bookstores a reason to censor. How do I know? One of the indie bookstores in my hometown refused to carry my Samhain books in their local author section because of the warning on the back—explicit language, sex, and violence. (Well, it’s a VAMPIRE book, people!) They felt their readership might be offended and politely, but firmly told me they wouldn’t carry my work.”
(I really wish I knew more HTML and could put in the italics tags…)
My basic objection to warning labels is just what Sarah said – who gets to be the judge? And once there are labels – how are the used? To keep books out of bookstores or libraries?
And think about it – if people use hot mantitty romance covers to patronize romance readers what would they do if it also carried a warning label that said “explicit sexual content” or “M/M buttsecks”?? It boggles the mind…
Having some sort indication of what the contents of the book are spelled out on Amazon or the publisher websites or in a review is not the same as slapping a big yellow label on the front (or back) of a book.
Voluntary labeling is fine, and it’s how it SHOULD work. In fact, it DOES work if you are not an idiot.
It’s when uptight morons—who think the word FUCK is some sort of line of demarcation across which no “nice” people should stray—start throwing around words like “some sort of rating” that we end up in the Tipper Twilight Zone. The very fact that she followed that phrase with “so I know what I’m getting before it’s too late” is not just insulting. It’s a level of ignorance that should be viewed as dangerous to anyone creative.
Books come with blurbs. End. Of. Fucking. Obligation.
Look at the phrasing! “Before it’s too late” has such a menacing tone it’s comical. Anyone so sensitive to the real world that she can’t read the word FUCK without taking a damaging hit or becoming emotionally a-twitter with angst needs to be careful enough to read the fucking blurb, rifle through the fucking pages, and make safer fucking purchases. This is too hard? And… holy fucking crap, this leads to something so dire it’s causing her to have an existential romance crisis?
I’m sorry, but no. No, we will not put up with labels so that lazy people don’t have to be personally responsible. The genre implies enough that anyone purchasing a romance novel should look beyond the cover and title. And COME ON—does ANYONE buy that a member of the RW fucking A doesn’t know how to assertain content of a fucking book before she buys it?
That’s a little soapbox hissy fit and it’s fucking disgusting.
Is there going to be a prize of some sort for the invoking of the word? That would fucking rock.
Oh and since I am all about people making up their own minds about old nasty arguments like werewolf romance is nothing but bestiality porn.
Compare and contrast between say an EC werewolf romance and the real stuff then go check out Nifty Erotic Stories Archive.
They have a category there.
Be very cautious it can be stomach turning.
I find myself more in Robin’s camp
I just want to make it clear, though, that I’m personally opposed to advisory labeling. But I’m sympathetic to many of the readers who would like to see the EC and Samhain type labeling on print books. And I think that this discussion is so worth having, because it brings into play all sorts of issues in the genre, from its current marginalization as not-literature, to the more traditional foundations of the genre, to all the ways in which the genre—and readers—are being sorted and classified and directed and sifted by cover art and other forms of marketing.
I got tired of buying books that I couldn’t skim for content ahead of time, and the publisher wasn’t interested in giving me the tools to make informed choices.
How many readers, do you think, actually DO skim most of the books they buy? I don’t, in part because I buy most of my books online, and in part because I don’t care to take the time to do so. Does skimming work for readers who are more concerned about encountering certain things, or does reading certain things out of context actually make it more difficult to choose books that will ultimately be satisfying reads?
Here’s my pearls, for what they are worth. I’m addressing several points so try to stick with me. I’m tired and damn I hope these are coherent.
1. On the subject of ‘R’ rated movies. Up until recently it was assumed that a movie receiving the dreaded ‘R’ rating from those idiots on the MPAA review board, would mean a box office disaster. But this is consistently proven incorrect. One of the most notable recent exceptions to this rule was the Vince Vaughn, Owen Wilson film “Wedding Crashers”, which raked in over $283 million dollars worldwide. The key to making money with an ‘R’ rated film is it must be a GOOD film and sadly this is not always the case. If you make an entertaining movie, keep the budget within reason *snort, I know*, get it released at the right time, and get good reviews, then people will go see it. Sadly, most films don’t follow those guidelines and thus they fail at the box office.
2. As for the labels on the products released by epublishers, since most of the epublishers started out releasing books in ebook formats only, they had to give consumers some idea as to the content of a book. Most of the time you are able to read an excerpt, but it is short and since the book is in e form you can’t stand there and thumb through a copy. You have to give them some other way of identifying the content of the book. A back blurb piece of copy, probably wouldn’t do it. Thus they came up with their labeling system.
Then when they started having success and ventured into publishing their works in traditional book form, they carried over the same labels their customers were used to seeing and adding them to the books found in bookstores. I don’t think it is anything more, or less than that. Most readers know what they are in for when they see an Ellora’s Cave or Samhain book on a bookshelf. If you don’t know all you need do is open it and read a few pages, the subject matter will become clear.
3. Like Estelle Chauvelin, I had a mother who never, ever censored my reading habits. Mom is a reader and she was bound and determined I would be one too, and I am. Thanks, Mom. So when through my library hauntings I came home with William Peter Blatty’s The Exorcist when I was 12, she didn’t say a word. My college-age brother was horrified that I was sitting around the pool during summer break, reading THAT book. He asked our mother if she had any idea what was in that book? She calmly told him, yes, and to mind his own business. She went on to tell him, I was reading and that was all that mattered to her. I love my mother anyway, but I seriously love her for that one. I think a lot of adults assume kids can’t handle adult concepts. If they can’t handle them, the subject matter won’t interest them. As for the sex scenes? They will read them and move on, it isn’t as big a damn deal as people make out.
4. As for the further labeling of Romance fiction, oh please, catch a damn clue. No, seriously. Madeline Baker/Amanda Ashley picked up a paranormal and was offended by the language? What the hell did she think she was going to be reading, one of her books? I’ve only seen two posters who have copped to reading her work, I would be the third. I read one of her AA books, don’t remember which one because it was a boring piece of drivel. The heroine was too virginal for words, the hero (a vamp) was too perfect and made me want to stomp on him and the sex, what there was of it, was boring and late in the book. Yep, it had a HEA, but I didn’t care. I was just glad it was over. It’s one of those that I should have wallbanged and thrown in the trash, but dope that I am, I kept reading. It’s a bad trait I’m trying desperately to overcome.
But getting back to the topic, as has been pointed out, these are books about vampires, demons, werewolves, shapeshifters, devils, and all manner of things that go bump in the night. They should be a bit gritty and dark, I don’t care if they cuss. Since I am the original Potty-Mouth Grrl (who happens to be married to a former altar boy who hardly ever utters even a darn), I don’t have a problem with it. In fact if someone utters a “poo”, or “drat”, or “darn”, I tend to find it much more distracting. The language goes with the subgenre. Is it in every book? Nope. Should it be? Naw. It’s up to the author and if they create a world distracting enough, I don’t care what I run across.
But when I plunk down my hard earned dollars, I have a good idea what I’m going to get. If I don’t know, I try to thumb through it in the bookstore, or better yet sit awhile and read. What is so darn hard about that? It involves reading the back cover, then opening the book and skimming through it. Chances are very good, if there is something there that will offend you, you will find it. Then you get to put it back on the shelf and walk away. If on the other hand you are buying from Amazon, you should know what you are going to get before you put it in your shopping cart. That entails some research on your part, generally not hard to do in this internet based world we live in. None of that involves a label on a book. It does however, entail you being pro-active and doing a bit of work. You do research when you buy a couch, why should this be any different?
5. Finally, while in this instance someone was offended by the word fuck and now feels the need to be protected from further instances when this can happen again, I say tough noogies. As as been said previously, if it bugged you so much take it back and ask for a refund. They will do that. But I, myself, am heartily tired of those sanctimonious souls who feel that it is their right to be protected from anything offensive and thus try to foist their ethics on the rest of us. That is offensive to me!
6. As for the brilliance that is the SB Warning Labels, I’m thinking they would look great on a shirt. SB’s, get thee to Cafe Press and work it up for us. Black shirt, sassy label on the front, they will sell like hotcakes. Try to make one in a sleepshirt, cause that would be the ultimate in sleepwear. Pretty please?!
Dang, I’m a long-winded beyotch. Sorry.
Sarah said: “And feel free to borrow and use on your sites.”
Thanks, ladies! 😉