I received this email from Linda recently, and asked if I could run it as a guest rant. Linda mentions some specific books, cover copy, and plot points for romances she’s read that inspired this rant. If you’re a fan of these authors, or you love these particular books, we understand that using them as examples might tick you off. The point isn’t the examples; the examples highlight for Linda a larger point that’s been true in romance for a very long time: there is some slut shaming going on.
Dear Sarah,
I don’t want to become the resident crotchet, but a book rant burst out of me a little yesterday and has just been building up steam all day in conversations with friends.
I was skimming the description of The Mistake by Elle Kennedy that was linked in the deals post, and I ran across the line:
“If Logan expects her to roll over and beg like all his other puck bunnies, he can think again.”
What on earth is wrong if someone willingly and consensually hooks up with a hot hockey player, and how the fuck is the heroine any better for doing the same?
Are these women really doing anything wrong? Does engaging in casual sex with an attractive man or being a “groupie” make them dirty? If you want to bang the hot hockey player, go do it. If you don’t want to, or have reservations about him, or want a relationship, that’s fine too. Why the need for this dehumanizing language? And why is it always these faceless (or sometimes not-so-faceless) girls who get censure for their actions while the hero’s cachet is raised for doing the same thing?
Or, to paraphrase the words of a friend of mine, I don’t understand why a genre where books often hinge on a couple eventually having sex and enjoying it is so full of rampant slut shaming with a fixation on sexual purity. And I’m not trying to put Elle Kennedy specifically on blast just for her book’s blurb, because it’s a systemic problem in romance.
For example, Penny Reid’s Neanderthal Seeks Human has a heroine who organizes her comic books by how much they have been influenced by different waves of feminism, yet the protagonist refers to women who have had casual sex with the male hero as “slamps.” While it is somewhat balanced out by the fact that her friend who anchors the second book has a lot of casual sex and the heroine of this book gets called out for her attitude and says she doesn’t judge these women, it doesn’t change the fact the character used the word “slut” so often that she made up a slang term to allude to it. Using another word doesn’t change the meaning when the heroine thinks to herself, “I don’t want to be another of his slamps.” (Just like someone not using a slur when making a racist comment doesn’t change the racism. I believe the term d’art is “dog whistle.”) Or when the hero tries to “rescue” the heroine out of a nightclub because she’s “not like those girls.”
It is entirely possible to convey that the heroine is not interested in having sex casually in a non-slut-shamey way. Molly O’Keefe did it in Wild Child, Courtney Milan did it in Talk Sweetly To Me, Pamela Clare did it in Extreme Exposure and so on. You do it by not dragging other women down in comparison.
Let’s be clear that Neanderthal Seeks Human isn’t the only book that does it, but I’m singling it out because I read it in the last year and I hold books that make claims of feminism to a higher standard. The slut shaming in romance isn’t an isolated incident when it is literally more common than non-white heroes and heroines in mainstream romance.
TV Tropes houses this concept under Not Like Other Girls, which I think is often further emphasized in romance by the author also depicting almost all the major female characters as being a “bitch” or “slut” or some combination of both. And I understand. I used to be that girl too when I had no friends and escaped into reading books during recess and telling myself I was better than those girls anyway. After all, popular culture and certain YA novels taught me that, as someone who reads books and has quirky interests, all the hot men will eventually fall for my chasteness and intelligence and I shall inherit the earth (because obviously promiscuity and intelligence are mutually exclusive). Basically, I was a jerk, but I also grew up out of it by the time I was in high school and the romance genre as a whole should too.
When I talk up romance to friends, I always point them to authors I love, like Courtney Milan, Alisha Rai, Alyssa Cole, Lisa Kleypas, Loretta Chase and numerous others (all of whom SBTB introduced me to), but right now, when I look at the genre as a whole, I’m reminded of this College Humor parody where they make a Reddit themed cocktail with a giant piece of shit in it to symbolize all the racist and sexist subreddits and the man says, “Just ignore it, you’ll barely notice it.”
I wonder if I’m that man.
Thanks for reading this,
Linda
Amanda: I think I touched on this in my podcast with Sarah on Tinder & Dating, that sometimes romance novels can still have these more traditional views on sex: heroines are virgins or mostly inexperienced and the dude that gives them ALL THE ORGASMS is their true love.
And there’s also this weird test: sometimes a guy wants a girl who will sleep with them pretty soon (maybe they just want to get laid and there’s nothing wrong with that), but if I girl DOES sleep with them, then she’s somehow unworthy or less worthy of respect than if she had waited a few dates. This was my central issue with The Master by Kresley Cole. Hero hires an escort, which is a frequent thing he does. Heroine is an escort to make some extra cash, but this is her first night on the job. Hero doesn’t believe her and shames her for lying and then also slightly slut shames her because she’s an escort. WHAT.
A lot of that concept of women who are chaste being more valuable is reflected in romances and I get where Linda is coming from. It especially bothers me when it pits two women against one another. For me, a book will automatically get knocked down a grade if the only other women in the book (aside from the heroine) are used as competition to get the hero. Usually the “villain” woman is aggressive or overtly sexual, while the hero can’t help but be drawn to the heroine because of her sweet and possibly virgin qualities.
Unfortunately, I have no solutions on how to fix things. Just let my wallet do the talking.
Sarah: I am still thinking about Linda’s email, days after I read it. She’s right: for a genre that’s written for women, by women, about women, we often maintain very narrow, particular standards for women, especially heroines. I think those standards are changing, and there’s a lot more fluidity when it comes to heroine sexuality and the expression thereof, but still, slut shaming happens. And like Linda, I didn’t always see it until I saw it and connected those individual books to the larger pattern. For example: in a romance, a woman who behaves as if the hero is her possession and belongs to her is often the antagonist. But a male who behaves as if the heroine is his possession is more often the popular hero, specifically the alpha variety.
Romance has long prized virginity, which is itself a kind of sexual fetish. Somehow, there’s often an expectation that sex between the protagonists will be The Best Thing Ever With Waves, Shattering, and Possibly Explosions, because their status as Said Protagonists has to be reinforced and highlighted by Magical Sexxytimes. Whether it’s actual virginity, the absence of sexual experience, or something else standing in for virginity, such as a more different sexual act or sex without protection (which, no thank you), the sexxytimes must be singular and a pinnacle experience to underscore the unique and meaningful coupling of said couple.
Thinking about the way in which romance focuses on virginity, and the ways in which women who actively own their sexuality are portrayed in romance makes me sad. The happy-ever-after could be built on choice and recognition of sexual compatibility from both individuals, and not on overwhelming waves of orgasmic sexxytimes that have never crested that high before, or on the comparison between sexual initiation and sexual experience. Women who actively seek their own sexual satisfaction (and who don’t have it – ahem – thrust upon them) aren’t sluts or “other women” or the negative against which a protagonists can be judged positively. They’re normal.
This is another area in which the divide between Actual Reality and the Romance Version of Reality is wide and vast. In some ways, that distance between the two realities is funny, as Elyse mentioned in a recent podcast. In Reality, we have to brush our teeth in the morning before we kiss anyone, and people should pee after having sex. In Romance Reality, there’s no such thing as morning breath and no one gets a life-threatening UTI, ever, in any era. Sometimes those two realities are closer together, such as the way that Romance Reality values normal human emotions and vulnerabilities. Contrary to social expectations, human beings of all genders have feelings, and romance celebrates them.
In portrayals of characters with sexual agency, though, the distance between the two realities is disheartening for me. In Actual Reality, any character should be able to possess agency over their own sexuality without being judged for it. In Romance Reality, that doesn’t always happen, especially when an antagonist is used to highlight the virginal suitability of the protagonist.
What do you think? Have you noticed slut shaming in romances you’ve read? Do you think it’s an indelible part of the genre, or is it changing? What’s your take?
Personally, I can identify with both sides of the coin. I have been the woman who prided herself on either selective-ness of sexual partners, out-right chastity or just being someone who wasn’t going to be seen as an object for sex alone. I’ve also been the woman who was wanting to have sex for sex sake and did it with no shame. So, it doesn’t bother me when a heroine doesn’t want to be having no strings sex with the hero. The examples given aren’t great. There’s a few books out there that are what I would say is outright slut shaming; Making the easy woman a villain, for example. I don’t care for that. But for a heroine to say, “I’m not going have a one-night stand with you like those other girls you’ve been with” is valid. Should we end all of those conversations with a Seinfeld-esque, “Not that there’s anything wrong with that” statement so everyone’s tender feelings don’t get trampled?
Yes, yes, 100% yes. I recently gave a talk on this topic, an outgrowth of my blog post Why I stopped writing bitches. It’s a similar bit of woman-on-woman hate and I can’t stand it.
@Elia Winters – I’ll definitely be checking out your post!
When we talk about tropes we’re hitting at ideas, beliefs, and emotions that are not always politically correct. Tropes go at the hidden agendas we’ve been programed with since birth. We respond instinctively. So while I understand all the comments and concur with many of them, I don’t think this trope – or really any trope – is going to entirely go away. It might not be in our DNA, but it certainly is in our collective unconscious and that’s why alpha/virgin will always work. And I believe, that’s why a lot of writers will continue to write this trope because readers buy it. A lot.
@Carolyn You nailed it.
@D.B. Sieders – Thanks! I just realized we’re Twitter mutuals. 🙂 I appreciate the support.
Thanks for all this post and all the comments! I share the habit others mention of DNFing (and returning!) books that rely on this cliched double-standard about sexuality in men versus women.
An aside: Lauren Dane is a favorite author of mine, for lots of reasons, but one BIG draw is how she treats the sexuality of all her characters.
Book I’m reading RIGHT NOW is Act Like It by Lucy Parker. And there’s a delicious scene where they tackle slut shaming in the most public way. The H/h are theatre actors, and they–along with the heroine’s exboyfriend (also an actor)–are being interviewed on a morning TV show where the female host attempts to berate the heroine for sluttiness b/c she’s dating men she works with. LOVE this book for all kinds of reasons, but reallly realllly love how this scene is handled!
I struggle with the romance genre because of these problems. It’s why my favorite “romances” are often complementary plots/subplots in other genres. When romance is the central focus, the most grotesque, sexist ideas in our societies seem rear their ugly little heads. I don’t leave such books feeling happy, that’s for sure.
All of this seems to be accidental on the part of some writers, though. These days, I think some intend to draw attention to double standards and sexism, but don’t handle it well, and so end up supporting, rather than refuting outdated ideas. I don’t know what we do about that other than push for more discussion and more critical editing.
It often doesn’t take long to figure out if a book is going to be horribly regressive, but I think there are nearly as many cases of sexism “sneaking up” on you in romance now—largely because of what I mentioned above. I’ve seen a number of complex female protagonists stand up for themselves, their desires, etc. in the first half of a book, only to become hypocrites in the second half and go back on all of their principles for the sake of a love interest. I occasionally worry more about these narratives, in the same way I (sometimes) worry more about institutionalized -isms. Problems can be harder to see, and easier to accept, once you’ve embraced half of a book that seems, on its surface, to be oh-so-enlightened.
So here’s my dilemma. Romance novels, as a genre, are extremely conservative, and I am not. I still love romance novels. Including really, really bad ones, imbued with regressive gender dichotomies, and total horror of the very concept of abortion, and so called protagonists who are incapable of a simple conversation. I suspect it’s because the lazy writing and the lazy plotting is part of what make them so comforting to me, when I want to be a lazy reader?
I enjoy Courtney Milan, for example, in a completely different way than I do Barbara Cartland, but I do actually enjoy Barbara Cartland. So yes, on the one hand the virgin snowflake secretary and the sexual predator boss is repulsive and wrong and not to be perpetuated, but on the other hand, I’ve probably enjoyed actually hundreds of books with that plot. There’s that whole weirdly racist Mediterranean hero fetish? It’s not my thing, but if all the Greek and Spanish and Italian billionaires were to suddenly retire…actually, you know what? I’d be fucking thrilled. And for anyone who still wants good old fashioned slut shaming, well, Barbara Cartland alone wrote hundreds of books, you’re not going to run out any time soon.
So many great posts already, and so much I agree with has already been said.
Recently I’ve come across a couple of romances featuring women who run sex shops, or write sex columns, or otherwise make money off their deep knowledge of sex — but who also happen to be virgins (or at least incredibly inexperienced about sex). [See also the ‘Everyone thinks I’m a sex worker but I’ve really only had sex with one or two guys’ plotline.] And that premise is increasingly landing on the squicky side for me, for many of the slut-shaming reasons mentioned above.
I mean, set aside the fact that a virgin writing a sex column or running a sex shop is kind of a preposterous premise. I’m starting to feel that, by making their protagonists virgins, these authors are trying to, IDK, hedge their bets? Like, there’s this unspoken assumption the author’s making that if a heroine has sex, likes sex, and also trades on her sexual expertise, then clearly she’s a slut and not suitable to be a protagonist. Only by making her a virgin can she be made appropriately sympathetic.
What I want to read is a story about a woman who likes sex and sells sex but ALSO experiences a fantastic romance to boot. Would that be so terrible?
I was actually just thinking about this issue yesterday when I finished “Twice Tempted by a Rogue” (Tessa Dare). The heroine in that was a widow, but had been married to a man older than her father for just a couple years. Reading this I was like heeeeere we go, another “widow” who never actually had sex/an orgasm/any meaningful sexual experience whatsoever and is basically just a virgin with brighter clothes. But then we find out that the heroine has actually had a bunch of lovers since, and– to my absolute shock– no one says anything about it. The hero doesn’t complain, no one thinks she’s a lax-moralled hobag, she runs a business without being pelted with condoms or making babies cry, and it sets up scenes where she even gets to be the sexual aggressor because she’s very attracted to the hero but doesn’t know if she wants a relationship with him. When I finished the book, I was kind of embarrassed by my expectations that this dark past of the heroine’s (having taken lovers as a 28-year-old widow…!) would be anything other than the non-issue it deserved to be. Unfortunately, though, my terrible expectations are usually justified.
What amazing timing! I had this rant about 3 weeks ago to my boyfriend – about how I didn’t finish 3! 3 romance books in a row!!! Because I could not STAND how the heroes were RAKES (and not lovable Rogues but just straight up RAKES) who were all “I have tons of women at my beck and call ALL THE TIME” and take one look at the heroine and (a) assume she’s a SLUT like the other women and (b) they can treat her badly because of it. (And ultimately that because she *isnt* a slut, that she’s *different* and *special* from the other women.) The double standard! It BURNS!!! And these were Regency Romances.
One was definitely “A Good Debutante’s Guide to Ruin” by Sophie Jordan. And you know what – maybe by the end the Hero is redeemed – he’s learned his lesson – he turns around and starts treating all women like humans and not disposable objects but you know what? I dont want to read all the way through a book to find out.
I cant really remember the rest, they all sort of blurred together. I read them one after the other after the other.”A Good Debutantes Guide” was the last one I read, which is why I remember it.
So many great comments here that I agree with! I think the requirement on authors needs to be two-fold:
1. not to slut shame as a lazy shorthand to scapegoat women who aren’t the heroine and set her apart
2. not to be lazy in the fact that the sex being earth shatteringly “good” as the proof in the pudding of the HEA
I think Amy Schumer has a great line about this in Trainwreck where she is talking to her sister and is scared of being with the hero and says, “the sex is great, but not like, the best sex of my life” and her sister says something like “you dont’ want to marry best sex of your life guy! That guy is probably in jail!”
And I know genre fiction is not real life, it’s fantasy, but writers should challenge themselves to write more about the genuine experience of what makes for life-altering sex. Some of the best orgasms of my life have stayed with me as meaningful memories but far and away above those are the times that I can’t remember the climax but I remember the intensity of the connection- and that is so much rarer! Even with the same partner!
As readers I think continuing to hold writers to higher standards is right on the money.
“…I think is often further emphasized in romance by the author also depicting almost all the major female characters as being a “bitch” or “slut” or some combination of both.”
I think it all comes down to intimidation, or wanting what someone else has, and not having the guts to grab it. I think, and please don’t misunderstand me here, but, I think women in general are willing to tear each other apart to get what they want. Whether its the girl in the office who makes all the snide comments and is a total b*** to others, especially the quiet employees. Or the women who make fun of other women because they stutter or are awkward, or are painfully shy.
Honestly, it’s like some women never grew up. And then all these tropes of one evil woman who sleeps around to get what she wants begin. Then it becomes the evil ex who will stop at nothing to get the hero back. Because, let’s face it, at some point in our lives, we’ve all met a person like this. We’ve probably ranted to our friends about them.
And, men perpetuate the stereotypes as well. Because they see women in touch with their sexuality as “competition” of sorts. They know what they want and how they want it, so it intimidates them too. It’s a vicious cycle. One that doesn’t honestly end, because there will always be someone who uses these kinds of tropes, good, bad, or indifferent. Why? Because as bad as it is, we all know people like this, and some authors will play to what they know. I think, we probably won’t see the end of it until there is a shift in society where everyone accepts each other for who and what they are, not what they perceive them to be.
This doesn’t entirely explain the phenomenon, as several others have pointed out that societal conditioning and other factors do play a role, but I can speak from personal experience and trading stories with others that some of these tropes are perpetuated by agents and editors. I’ve seen a LOT of these kinds of tropes on manuscript wish lists. I’ve also been asked to ‘tone down’ alpha heroines in order to avoid making their heroes seem ‘weak’ (read: equal), as have other authors in my network. Are these requests driven by market forces, do they drive market forces, or is it a combination of both? Tough questions.
As far as recommendations from me, I adore the heroine in M.Q. Barber’s Neighborly Affection series. It’s BDSM menage that features Alice, a young woman who enters the relationship between a thoughtful male dom/male sub as a means of exploring her sexuality. The psychology and character motivations are deep and fascinating, and Alice’s own previous experience and ownership of her sexuality really spices up the sex scenes. No shame, no guilt, no working out abuse or self-esteem issues, just exploring unconventional pleasures and unexpected intimacies. Definitely recommend!
Romance novels reflect society. We see slut-shaming in novels because it’s so bloody prevalent in our society, from the shaming of rape victims (inexcusable) to the shaming of women who simply enjoy sex without pursuing marriage.
The slut-shaming mentality is prevalent among romance readers, too, who are just a segement of society. I cannot tell you how many emails I got through the years asking whether Holly (Seduction Game) actually “slept with all those men.” Some readers suggested she was lying about all her sexual relationships and was actually a virgin. If that’s not shut shaming, what is?
Good column. While I don’t expect every author to write with a feminist perspective in mind, I definitely prefer authors who do.
Fantastic post. I’ve read hundreds of romances from the 70s-present and although it’s amazing how far we’ve come, it’s evident we have a ways to go.
In my romance writing, I try to find sources of conflict somewhere other than in a rival, male or female, though I’ve read books where this is done well. I don’t have a problem with stories of inexperienced women being with more experienced men, but I try to be careful with how these tropes are presented in my work. Romance books should be fun. Being shamed isn’t fun.
I wrote a novella about a woman whose mother and sister had demoralizing romantic relationships and she didn’t date much because she didn’t want to “walk their path”. Not because they had casual sex, but because in their minds the sex was never intended to be casual. They were looking for some dream HEA in men who lied to them about wanting the same.
That’s a tough write, though, and one that could walk the line of slut shaming. I only hope I expressed my true meaning well enough…
Sometimes a writer swings and misses.
In defense of the Mistake, the heroine believes that the hero is a ‘slut’ too. So it’s not all one-sided (and if I recall the plot correctly, she’s someone who believes in having sex only when in monogamous relationships because her father cheated on her mother).
That being said, I definitely see this relatively often, and the women who are the ‘sluts’ are always ALSO portrayed as being evil bitches to other women/in general. Like rubbing in the face of the hero that they’ve slept with him (off the top of my head there’s a scene in Rock Chick by Kristen Ashley where the heroine gets in a fight in a restaurant with a woman who used to sleep with the hero, because the other woman tells the heroine about sexual things the hero likes in a catty way)
While I don’t think authors should have a list of boxes to check to meet “PC requirements” or to “reflect reality,” I do think (in fact, I KNOW) there are ways to write virgin heroines and rake heroes without tearing down other women. I know, because I read books that accomplish it! It’s one thing to write to reader preference (e.g. readers who prefer virgin heroines), but another to play into internalized misogyny. Art reflects life AND life reflects art, and if there are enough authors out there who choose to set the example of being TRULY woman-friendly and sex-positive, attitudes can and will change. I believe we are seeing a watershed moment where more and more readers are demanding pro-feminist messages in their romances, and they don’t even need to be overt! Just the simple omission of all of the “sluts” and “whores” does a whole hell of a lot to stop reinforcing messages that we take with us outside of fictionland.
@Dana: I’ve read a couple in the last year where the hero is a virgin or is very inexperienced (as in his sexual experience was limited to one occasion) – The Game Plan by Kristen Callihan and Ripped by Edie Harris. Both I’ve reviewed, so maybe they might be up your alley.
I completely agree with this. I hate the slut-shaming and the need to justify sex before the heroine met the hero.
None of my characters are innocent and sweet, in fact, they enjoy sex and aren’t shy about it. However, it’s also not the main point of their personality either and I think that’s where some are failing with this. They seem to think that sex is the defining point of a person when it’s not.
@Kate L: My love of Act Like It is well-known at this point, but YES. That scene is just so incredible, both for the way they turn the tables on the tired sexism of the questions, and the way they highlight the double standard of women dating vs. men dating coworkers. I loved that it was on live TV, too.
Someone mentioned Sarina Bowen as an author who gets this right – I would argue the opposite. Yes, Bella was an awesome character, and I really enjoy Bowen’s NA books. But there are two things I find troubling about them: first, she writes one character who’s sexually experienced and one who’s either a virgin (Scarlett, Rafe) or close to it (Lianne, Graham who has never had sex with a man). It’s not realistic and it’s frankly annoying. But that’s my smaller complaint. The bigger one is the references to puck bunnies and the bitchy girlfriends. Apparently, only women whose love for hockey is true and pure deserve a long-term relationship. Just wanting to hook up or date a hot hockey player, well, apparently that is unacceptable.
This is especially unfortunate because there is so much that Bowen gets right, and I expect better from her.
And as a more general comment, I don’t like slut-shaming, and on the flip side, I don’t like it when readers go on about how virgin/relatively inexperienced heroines are unrealistic or pathetic (while virgin heroes seem to be many readers’ catnip). One end of the sexual experience spectrum is not better than the other, and people should do whatever is right for them without being criticized.
Thanks, Linda, for a spot-on rant. And thank you to SBTB for running it.
Please could we have a “no slut shaming Rec list” follow-up to this brilliant post and set of comments?
@Jazzlet yes please
@Rose — props to your point about the flip side of slut-shaming.
Slut-shaming = terrible
Calling virgin heroines pathetic/unbelievable = also terrible.
I love romances that celebrate characters’ sexual agency and expression, whatever form that takes (caveat: safe, consensual,etc.)
How about virgin-shaming? I’ve seen this mostly in YA/NA books, whereby if a character is a virgin by the time they reach college there has to be a REASON, because it can not, just-can-not be the product of a rational, free decision. It bugs me a lot, also because it appears in a much more insidious way than slut shaming.
SOO glad to see this, it’s been bugging the hell out of me.
What I want from my stories is SEX EQUITY. Both the hero and the heroine have similar sexual histories, or there’s a reason for a wide difference. Any story where a man is manly because he’s had lots of partners and a woman is womanly because she’s not is plain sexist. The double standard is horrific.
(Plus side to this thread: learning some historical authors that make it work. Have avoided in general because the woman always has to be a virgin and the man always got his experience from when his buddy took him to the whorehouse. Who are these unnamed whores in the shadows of all these historical romances? I would LOVE to learn their stories.)
In defense of The Mistake, it gets a little more complicated, but I agree that the cover copy is…ugh.
I freaking love Tawna Fenske’s novels for many reasons, but not in the least because her female characters own their sexuality and are proud of it. She doesn’t often go into detail about their sexual history, but you get the feeling they’ve had orgasms before, with other men. And yes, Lauren Dane’s another who treats her female characters’ sexuality with respect.
In terms of non-romance stuff, the comic book Sex Criminals is FANTASTIC and the heroine has had many, many orgasms (starting with masturbation when she was a young woman) before she meets the hero. Also, I love the TV show You’re the Worst – the main female character is just as experienced as the guy, if not more so, and it’s not a big deal.
Thank you for exploring this troubling issue and providing a place to talk about it. I see it as a kind of horizontal violence. When women are objectified, marginalized, and not valued for their inherent personhood, I think sometimes there’s a tendency for women to put each other down, lashing out at one another, instead of turning their collaborative energies into fighting injustice. “The world values me and other women as less. I then internalize that and see myself and other women as less. Therefore I see more value in men…”
It doesn’t have to be this way and I think calling this kind of slut shaming for what it is whenever we see it is really important.
I have come across this in romance novels (and real life) and it always makes me feel angry and sad.
If we have empathy for one another we can say, “Hey, maybe I would not make the same choice she is making in regards to ________, but that doesn’t make her a bad person.” Solidarity.
No matter what our worldview, spiritual beliefs, or cultures, if we can just be kind to one another, whether in the pages of a romance or in real life, wouldn’t that be wonderful?
At an airport, I overheard a man tell his friend about a classmate in high school who had sexual relations with, as he put it, many of the male students. The scorn in his expression and in his voice was so horrible. And he was saying this across from me and my daughter who was just a little girl. I became both furious and heartbroken, of course. It was okay for the boys to have lots of sex but the girl would have scorn heaped on her? I leaned forward, glared at him, looked at my daughter and then back at him, and I told him to stop.
He did.
But even if he became a father of a daughter one day… would he ever get it?
And that girl he was talking about — how did the other girls talk about her, treat her?
Hmmmm. So I did a good bit of thinky-thinking about this. I don’t think it’s a problem only with romance – this is something that is pretty universal, in both genre fiction and lit-fic. Pretty much the only place I don’t see it as often is YA – which is an interesting thought all by itself.
Certain authors do a better job of avoiding this than others, of course, but I think it’s also important not to go too far the other direction. Experiences and attitudes on sexuality are wide and varied. Romance (and all writing) would be a poor reflection of reality if it didn’t reflect that. Some attitudes are going to be more mainstream than others, and as the mainstream shifts, attitudes don’t always follow. A great example of this is to look at the role of women in early romance – what jobs/careers were these women doing? That’s a reflection of mainstream at the time. The spectrum is different now. The same is true of sexuality – things which were once taboo are now not, but that doesn’t mean that everyone accepts those changes. To what extent is it the responsibility of the writer to be an advocate for the change s/he wants to see?
Interestingly, I have gotten the most blowback for a character I wrote who was a virgin – though it wasn’t a moral issue, but rather that she’d been too busy to bother. The fact that she’s a doctor evidently means that she should have had sex before the point of the book – but that’s just as much a stereotype and dehumanization as if she’d been banging every weekend to relieve the stress of med school and been characterized as a slut.
It’s a difficult line to walk, because I don’t see my job as pushing a certain agenda, but rather as telling stories. Sometimes those stories have more mainstream elements, sometimes not. Do I try to be careful about language and treatment of characters? Sure. But if writing is a reflection, however distorted, of reality, then I’d expect it to reflect all types of reality.
I think the point, though, is that one segment of reality is overrepresented in fiction- and I think that’s true. But it’s true of many segments of reality. White people, Western people, Americans, wealthy people, etc., are all overrepresented in romance. Hell, cowboys and SEALs are ridiculously overrepresented in romance.
What do we do about it, if we want it to change? If you read a book that you think is off-base, then write a note to the author, or be specific in the review you post on Amazon or Goodreads or whatever. Specific criticism is valuable stuff – and if a bunch of readers have the same issue, then many writers will consider that in future writing. Not all. But some. After all, that’s how we got open-door sex in romances in the first place.
@Brigid: I love that phrase: sex equity. And I’m going to use it forever.
Oh my god. Stay away from Time Served. I nearly threw my Kindle. The book has a built in bad guy (a horrible corporation that was poisoning its own worker) but for some reason the author decided to ignore that in favor of a pretty blonde coworker who is always referred to as a bitch, slut or other derivative. Awful.
Also, the hero is super rapey but it’s okay.
Such a great and necessary post! I just realized this in a book I was reading (Winter Stroll by Elin Hilderbrand) and I was just in shock. There is such a double standard in romance and it pervasive and becoming increasingly worse, almost.
I have noticed it, but also enjoy paranormal romance and such, so I don’t really read for the reality…
Great article! Interesting comments too. Made me think of a different thing slightly, but it ties in. The other day I read an article where a version of Hooters for women was being discussed. The amount of women who came BTL to say they’d never go and it was disgusting having half naked men serving, but they went to Hooters all the time because that was ‘good clean fun’. They loved to go with their husband and kids, and liked seeing the pretty girls serving. But they’d never go to one with hot guys because that is just wrong and their husbands would hate it. They really couldn’t see the double standard. *sigh*
Having read through the comments, I’ve ordered The Shameless Hour and A Gentleman in the Street – thanks for the rec’s ladies 🙂
Yes!!!
A subset of this trope is found in the second chance genre.
The men go out in to the world having multiple partners before returning. Of course in their mind they stayed emotionally true to the heroine. The heroine on the other had usually has the hero’s secret baby or is so attached to the memory of the hero she remains chaste. Never attempting another relationship until the hero returns to claim her.
To add insult to injury? The hero is usually a gazillionare while the heroine never realized any dreams of her own and is in need of his rescue.
I really wish this would stop.
1. I wholeheartedly agree with the rant over the rampant sexism on women by other women. It’s disheartening at best, and damaging on the regular.
2. The only time I can accept “the woman must be pure” is for historicals, where society plays a major role.
3. I read this online somewhere, but can’t find the link, but here’s the gist: Women aren’t supposed to have sex, but men are supposed to get a lot of practice in. But men are also not supposed to have sex with other men. So it’s basically society and the world telling men to go fuck themselves. Seemed apropos for this conversation ^_^
” “Obviously intelligence and promiscuity are mutually exclusive.” I think that is my favorite line of the romance blog post ever. It sums up all my feelings on the subject. Chastity, in a sense, promiscuity, intellect, sex drive, and knowing one’s body and desires have absolutely nothing in common with literature Please excuse my typos, I’m dictating, interpret at your own risk. In a sense is supposed to be innocence. For example. Thank you Siri. Anyway, women have let this so purveyed our literature, that it has become an epidemic. We judge others through it, we read by it, we read for it. We need to stop it. If that is your thing in literature and that’s what you look for, that is your thing, but when we transfer this to how we perceive other women in reality, and we do this, then it becomes. A societal problem that we let continue even though we know about it and we have the power to change it.
I wrote a romance with a capture fantasy, and in a nutshell, the heroine is taken to a country where sex is seen as something positive and to be celebrated and she learns a lot about being in touch with her own sensual side, and she has to let go of her own strict mores that she was brought up with. I went to great lengths to show that her distress at her situation was not caused by having sex, but by being kept away from her family while she was a captive and by the actions of the bad guy. I even included paragraphs where other women would tell her how wonderful sex is and if she could just relax and enjoy it that she would be so much happier. And the backlash that I got from both men and women when I initially published the story was amazing. They could never see her as anything more than a “sex slave”, and never imagined that she could enjoy having multiple partners or giving and receiving pleasure with many men (and women). They forever saw her as a victim, and not as a woman who had learned how to set her sexual side free, and wondered if the man she falls in love with would really love her after all those other men had “had” her. I guess the moral is, even if you write the sex-positive story, readers will sometimes do the slut-shaming for you!