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?
I’ll put my hand up and say I have a character/series that probably does a bit of slut-shaming, but it’s more a reflection on hating himself for who/what he’s become. Unfortunately tropes become tropes for a reason, and this series is my most popular. I completely agree we need to find ways to improve on these issues though. For me, it’s driven by the character, and I know that probably sounds like a cop-out but half the stuff he says and does *I* get disgusted at, but he is who he is.
In a different series of mine, the female main character has sex with three different people over the course of the book (and doesn’t lose her virginity to her main love interest). Two of the couplings were purely driven by a need to connect and be intimate even while knowing that she felt nothing more than companionship for the guys (and vice versa). The third was the main love interest when they reunited. The span of their time apart is almost 2 years. When they come back together, they have the “have you been with others” convo and they both confirm they have (there is regret that they were, not because they had other people but because they couldn’t just be together). I’ve had a number of messages and comments in reviews that the heroine’s bed-hopping ways was too much. Nothing at all mentioned about the MMC’s (or the MMC’s brother in the MMC’s series). I even blogged about it because the double standards of it shocked me. I dread to think what they’ll think about other characters coming up in future books who are from the fae world where casual sex is the norm and monogamous relationships are unusual.
I’m late to the conversation, but the article and comments are so thought-provoking, I wanted to add my own two cents.
I identify as a feminist. The double standard in both romance and real life has angered me for some time now (a man who enjoys sex and has experience = a stud; a woman with same = a slut or a tramp).
It’s wrong. Of course it’s wrong, no matter where you find it (and ignorant and unevolved).
But somehow it just feels a little worse, a little – okay, a lot – more discouraging when it comes out of a genre that’s primarily by, for and about women. When it’s a woman shaming another woman for having very natural desires and owning her sexuality. And in a genre that often has a lot to do with sex!
Several years ago, I read a review in RT for a book. I don’t remember the title, but it was an HQN by Victoria Dahl. The reviewer complained that the heroine acted like she was “in heat”. I wrote an angry email. Then I went out and bought the book. More than one copy. I gave some to friends and kept one for myself. I didn’t – and don’t – know just how much any of it helped, but somehow I wanted to show some support.
I despise slut-shaming and have for a long time.
There is something I’m also noticing that bothers me as much, and that’s the opposite: the shaming of women who are virgins, who lack experience or who happen to be celibate. To call these women pathetic or try to paint them as sad or somehow dysfunctional isn’t any better. What’s right for one person, what works for her may be completely wrong for someone else.
We all have different ideas, different thoughts and feelings, different experiences and beliefs.
Sexuality is highly individual. I just wish that everyone could respect that,
accept that, and stop name-calling and attaching stigmas.
*gets off soapbox*
There are a couple defenders of The Mistake. But I stopped reading Kennedy because she does what I think is one of the worst types of slut shaming, which is to give a valid excuse for the shaming but the message remains the same: “good” girls with little to no sexual experience get the guy while promiscuous girls are only used for sex.
That is the real issue for me. It’s the message running through a lot of romances that some women are worthy based on their sexual choices while others are not. I don’t have a problem with virgin heroines. I have a problem with them being compared and held above non virgins.
[…] Trashy Books about one of my absolute least favorite tropes in romance novels: slut shaming. Guest writer Linda eloquently rants about the trope, which is sadly common in a lot of romances, and I found myself nodding along and emphatically […]
Ahh, the comments here are so lovely and thoughtful and people are spot on.
@Shannon: to clarify, in the original rant, the reason I reacted so angrily to that hockey book was not because she didn’t want to have casual sex with the hero, but because she also dehumanized the women who did with slut shamey language like “puck bunny.” (Which my canadian friends tell me is extremely derogatory.) Also, according to someone on this site, the main villain of the novel was another woman who was one of the hero’s groupies. @AliceB explained it 100%
Also, in in the Penny Reid novel I didn’t quite touch on it, but two out of the three major female characters were depicted as bitches (the one who was not was the ~best friend~ who gets her own book), one of whom was pursuing the hero and randomly became rude to the heroine basically for the sake of drama. As I said, I mostly hit upon that book because the heroine claimed to be feminist, but her attitude was very first wave. (I also have another rant about how she also missed the boat on intersectionality in that series, but that’s another rant.)
That said, I don’t think it’s necessary for the other women to be depicted as villains for it to be a shitty attitude worth calling out. Reading these books is like going on a date with someone who seems nice enough but just little things are off and by the end of the date they’re enthusiastically telling you about how all their exes were crazy. So not necessarily “yeah I murdered all of them and buried them in a marsh” levels of red flags, but enough to ruin my meal. And it’s this subtle attitude towards other women that I think is really easy to internalize, hell, I internalized it.
When you encounter a shaming narrative in a romance novel, it can feel very personal. It’s not enough to shrug and say ‘Well, but it reflects life, and life is often unpleasant.’ I lost my virginity at the age of thirty… but all the sex I’ve had in my life to date has been essentially casual. As a result, both slut-shaming and virgin-shaming hit me very hard, and it’s really hurtful. I don’t like feeling shamed or judged by my own comfort reading, and I don’t think it’s necessary to put readers in that position if you want to write realistically about double standards and problematic attitudes.
We need more books that focus on the hero choosing the woman because she is the right woman for him, rather than because the other women are all terrible and she wins by default. We need more books where the hero chooses the experienced woman over the virtuous woman, and where the hero has slept around because he really likes women and not because he hates them, and where the heroine has slept around because she really likes men and not because she hates herself. I would also kind of love to see a book where the very-experienced hero turns out to be terrible in bed, because a lot of those men who sleep around are terrible in bed. It would take a very delicate touch, but done properly, it could be really good.
I think for me, my issue is woman shaming in general. Shaming female characters who are sexually experienced is unfair and sexist, but I’ve found that in order to make that point, sometimes the virginal, celibate, or inexperienced heroine gets put down and mocked as dumb, unrealistic, or pathetic, or sad. That’s really unhelpful as well, and it keeps reinforcing this idea that there can only be one or the other.
Not to mention women still sometimes get put into the two boxes even when it’s to point out how gross slut shaming is. They’re either virginal/inexperienced or experienced/own their sexuality. There are variations even within the two groups. Some women have a lot of sex, or a little, or no sex, or a medium amount. Some women love sex, or hate it, or are meh about it. Some women feel shame or pride or have mixed feelings. And so on.
Idk I feel like sometimes it can get boiled down to women must have/enjoy sex this way or this amount or feel like x all of the time. I once read something where the writer basically wrote if a woman doesn’t enjoy this sex act she’s frigid and must be shamed, but then they wrote if a woman does enjoy this other sex act she’s a big hoebag and needs to be shamed. Somehow they managed to prude shame and slut shame all in one go and I was amazed. Women cannot win sometimes and that sucks.
I don’t really know what the answer is, but these are just my rambling thoughts on the topic.
I HATE the trope where the lead feels a need to stop and stammer that they don’t usually have lots of condoms on hand but ain’t it convenient. Or be embarrassed about buying them on the way to have sex.
Also, I’ve noticed an increase in contemporary novels featuring women friends calling each other sluts and bitches (it’s usually plural) as terms of endearment. Similarly, otherwise sex-positive characters talk about donning slutty clothes to go to a bar or being “a bit of a slut when I’m drunk” with approval. I much prefer “club/clubbing” outfits (it’s a specific fashion style, not a comment on your sexual purity) and “horny when drunk “. Perhaps this is an attempt at “reclaiming”, but random “bitches” and “slutty nouns” just throw me out of a otherwise good books.
It took me a long time to notice slut shaming in books because I grew up in a very sex-negative community. My family is traditional, conservative Catholic and I went to Catholic school from 1st through 9th grades, so I always heard things about women needing to be pure and if they aren’t they’re used up, dirty rags that no one ever wants to love or marry. I remember being in the sixth grade and hearing about a girl in the grade above me being a total slut because she kicked her legs up over her head so that her underwear was showing. Who told me this? My mom. She was volunteering in the library when it happened and had first hand knowledge of the incident. This same girl was also ridiculed for supposedly having cyber sex in the 5th grade. I’m not sure how that would even have been possible since she didn’t have a computer at home and the school computers were not hooked up to the internet. Too bad none of us were that logical 20 years ago. The older I have gotten and the further away I’ve moved from the misogynistic teachings of the Catholic Church, the more I understand that women are not boiled down to what they have between their legs and whether or not they choose to have sex.
When it comes to historicals, I have a higher tolerance for slut-shaming because that’s the world the books take place in–it would be unrealistic if Regency or Victorian aristocrats were alright with women having sex before marriage. There was one book that I recently read that surprised me by its depiction of sex in the 19th Century and it was A Wicked Way to Win an Earl. Aside from the title being a bit shamey the book was very sex positive. Yes, the heroine was a virgin, but she enjoyed sex with the hero and did not think there was anything wrong with her because of this. What I loved the most, though was that she initiated her first time with the hero. She wanted him and didn’t care what that said about her. It was awesome.
In contemporaries, I have a very low threshold for slut shaming because we should know better. As soon as I saw this post, I immediately thought of a book I read about a year ago. It was one of Jill Shalvis’s Lucky Harbor books (the one with Aubrey and Ben) and the heroine was constantly being told that she wasn’t good enough for the hero. The thing about small town romances is that at times they can be very judgmental and this wasn’t an exception. The entire town put Ben on a pedestal and Aubrey had to climb up to it in order to be worthy of him. A big part of her unworthiness was that she had a reputation as a bad girl, who took pride in looking good. Up until this book, there wasn’t a single Lucky Harbor book that involved slut-shaming or beauty-shaming, so I stuck with it, hoping that there would be some major groveling by the whole town, but there wasn’t. I was so pissed. They all judged her for having sex while nobody had a problem with the fact that Ben lost his v-card before he turned 13. Why was that okay for him, but not for her?
So nice to see people discussing this! I for one would like more novels from the perspective of the Countess rather than Maria. (Seriously, how did the Captain end up falling for Maria?)
If anyone wants another virgin hero, Courtney Milan has one in…. ahh, it has the word Duchess in it, and the heroine is the secret chess genius. Minerva? The Duchess War. The Duke, as it happens, is inexperienced and very sweet.
It’s too common a trope.
Can I offer this as a breath of redemption?
“No, Dmitri, it’s okay. Your friend is indeed entitled to his opinion of me. He’s ignorant.” I got into Wiley’s lean face, resisting the urge to pimpslap some respect into his smug mug. “You may think whatever you like about me. The fact is you know nothing about me. Nothing. You may see a tatted slut, bimbo, whatever blows your skirt up, but that’s because you are an ignorant fool. I don’t know what I did to piss you off last year, so unless you stop acting like an assjacket and tell me what the fuck is up, I won’t apologize.” Even in my anger I recognized this man smelled good. It just added fuel to the fire.
I almost touched his nose with my patriotic fingernail. Gods bless the Fourth of July with sanctioned pyrotechnics. After his snarky date remark, I planned on blowing the asshole right out of the water. “You don’t need to call me a whore, because unlike some people, I don’t cash in on free dinners in exchange for sex. I actually pay for myself, just so fucktard males can’t pull that kind of fucked up train of thought out of their pants with the fucking expectation of it being swallowed. Fuck assjackets like that. Like you. Chauvinist bastards like you are the downfall of a modern society evolution because you think its a God-given right to keep a female ‘in her place’, which is either on her back or in the kitchen, right? Fuck you, asshole. Why don’t you go have another beer?” I smiled when I spoke and used a pleasant tone. See, it is possible to tell someone to fuck off nicely.
I had nothing else to say to Mr. Choad.
After a little bat of my eyes and a cheeky grin, I turned around and snatched Kaylis by the arm to pull her inside the house with me as regally as I could, considering I wore nothing more than a bikini and sarong. If I stood out there one more minute with the jerkoff who suggested he buy me dinner so I’d get kinky with him, I’d probably rip the elastic waistband from his undies and McGuyver a garrote. Bad idea, considering asshole is not just a fucking scumbag, but a law enforcement officer as well. Yay oh fucking yay.
Asshole.
https://mandireiserra.wordpress.com/2016/01/21/an-excerpt-from-the-jetnia-phenomenon/
Despite being a romance lover, the rampant, casual slut-shaming in so many romance novels is a huge irritant for me. I and many others have been saying this literally for years on Amazon’s Romance Discussion Forum. I find myself getting less and less tolerant of it (and subsequently cutting the volume of romance novels I read) as the years go by. Yes, romance novels only reflect the slut-shaming and casual misogyny that is present in real life, but I feel like fiction, particularly romance fiction which is supposed to be written by, about, and for women, catering to our needs, can and should be better than that. I can’t immediately change the misogyny and sexism I encounter day to day in real life, but I want the books I read for relaxation, escape, and leisure to be less rife with it. And who knows, maybe real life will follow media portrayals. Isn’t that the idea with eliminating racial stereotypes, and slurs and increasing diversity in film and fiction? Don’t forget authors that your readers will come from diverse backgrounds with diverse experiences and sexual histories. Why would you want to alienate some of your readers and make them feel unwelcome by using misogyny or slutshaming (or on the other side of it virgin shaming) just to elevate your heroine above all those “slutty other women” in the H’s past?
Here are some great discussions on slut-shaming, double standards, and misogyny from the Amazon Romance forums for those interested:
http://www.amazon.com/forum/romance/ref=cm_cd_pg_pg1?_encoding=UTF8&cdForum=FxM42D5QN2YZ1D&cdPage=1&cdSort=oldest&cdThread=TxW06MAIA18TOD
http://www.amazon.com/forum/romance/ref=cm_cd_search_res_ti?_encoding=UTF8&cdForum=FxM42D5QN2YZ1D&cdPage=1&cdSort=oldest&cdThread=Tx3MI9MKXYMQMSM#Mx3B5091JNPMBQW
And here is a thread with a lot of great recommendations for books with experienced or promiscuous heroines without the usual attendant slut-shaming:
http://www.amazon.com/forum/romance/ref=cm_cd_search_res_ti?_encoding=UTF8&cdForum=FxM42D5QN2YZ1D&cdPage=1&cdSort=oldest&cdThread=Tx9FEMJAVG1LEG#Mx1HAPEXU6HYTPP
I would really not want to be a romance author in today’s world. I understand what everyone is saying, but an author’s first job is tell a good story, and if that story includes various tropes that upset some people, so be it. I’m a little perturbed by a society in which everyone has to practically twist their tongues in a knot to avoid offending anyone.
I’m in the minority here, because I don’t want to read about a heroine with tons of sexual experience, and I certainly don’t want to read about a heroine who thinks nothing of doing it in her office on the conference table right after she and the hero meet. (Yes, there was a book like this – yuck.) However, I also don’t think the hero should get a free pass for all of his exploits.
One of my favorite books is “Devil in Winter” by Lisa Kleypas, because Evie doesn’t let Sebastian get away with his usual nonsense. If she hadn’t set limits and made him respect her, he probably wouldn’t have fallen in love with her. In fact, I like many of Lisa Kleypas’ historicals, because the heroes fall wildly in love with their women, but realize they can’t treat them disrespectfully.
I don’t particularly like the term “slut-shaming”, but the truth is that we all judge others, from what they wear to how they behave, talk, etc. There are always certain phrases and tropes that bother me, and most of the time I just roll my eyes for a moment and then I keep reading. But that’s just me.
I’m usually a lurker, but I had to speak up because I’ve been calling my upcoming release “anti-slut-shaming-manifesto-romance” ever since I felt compelled to write it by the rampant slut-shaming and virgin-sanctification in reality television – which makes my brain explode. (And reality TV is the world of my series.) I do, unfortunately, see these slut-shaming tropes in romance, but I also see a lot of amazing romances out there that don’t play on that kind of woman-on-woman denigration – and those are the authors that bring me back again and again.
[…] smart bitches, trashy books schreibt über slut shaming in Büchern. […]
In Tangled by Emma Chase, the hero (who’s chock full of sexist bullshit) picks up a random woman to give him a blowjob, then after boasting about the encounter with his guy friends, he actually says “if a woman wants me to respect her, she should act like she’s deserving of respect”. Asshole!! What about him, he participated in that blowjob just as much as that woman. Is he undeserving of respect because of that? What a jerk. A lot of readers were surprised and upset that he cheated on the heroine in the second book, but I wasn’t. I knew he was a misogynynistic asshole from the beginning, and that was just a natural comsequence of his utter lack of respect for women. He doesn’t treat them like human beings who are his equal, just like disposable sex objects he trash talks after he uses them.
@PamelaClare Oh thisthisthis. “You know, Kate [Shugak] sleeps with everyone.” This uttered in reproachful tones by a male fan. And I’m thinking, well, no, but even if so, so what? It’s the whole women-as-property thing and it isn’t only women who knee jerk to it. Men are trained to like their real women exclusive to them and their fictional women to be exclusive to one man, too. Otherwise, their whole ten thousand years in the making world view is upset. The little dears.
PS I just downloaded six books off this discussion, including one four-book collection. Thanks a lot, guys.
But @SandyCo, don’t you think an author could write about a virgin heroine (for instance) without also going out of her way to make up other women characters who exist for no other reason than to just be “slutty” and highlight how pure the heroine is?
It’s not the inexperienced heroine herself I take issue with, it’s the accompanying attitude that women who enjoy casual sex are less worthy of love than she is because they’re slutty. @Anonymous (10:03p) really nailed why this sucks: women from all walks of life and with different experiences, all read these books for comfort, fun, and pleasure, and if you happen to be someone who has had and enjoyed casual sex? It can really sting when women like you are casually dismissed as inferior. It wouldn’t be so bad if it was only ever once in a blue moon, but it’s a common trope for a reason and I’d really like more options where I don’t have to be faced with literal insults to my character while I’m reading.
I’m loving this discussion. I’m a newer author of New Adult romances, and I have tried not to fall into the trap/trope of virgin heroine, slutty bad girl, promiscuous and proud hero. My books (so far) are college based, so there are lots of different female characters. Some nice, some bitchy, some who sleep with more than one guy, some who sleep with just one guy. To me, that’s what college relationships were all about. Young people feeling their way around their sexual freedom. In school I knew women who embraced their freedom and enjoyed sleeping with a variety of guys, I also knew girls who ended up regretting sleeping with multiple guys. And, like it or not, there was also slut-shaming. Ignoring that it exists would be pretty unrealistic. But acknowledging it, and perpetuating it are different. I try to do the former, and not the latter.
@Kathryn: I agree, ignoring it isn’t the answer because it exists. And is pervasive in our society.
This discussion has been great. It has me thinking about a sidebar to all this.
To me? problem isn’t the virgin heroine. It’s the way she’s contrasted with the hero and his behavior. The double standard is breathtaking.
The NA genre in particular seems to filled with this very one note type of story telling. The hero’s sexual behavior is treated very differently than the girls he sleeps with, while the heroine is his personal property put on the shelf until he has sowed his wild oats and is ready to claim her.
She’s not given any agency. All these other woman are thrown in her face but the message is to wait patiently because he’ll come to his senses.
Meanwhile, her youth passes her by watching his antics. Why this is considered romantic is beyond me.
I’m in my early 50s, sometimes when I read these NA stories I’m reminded of the 70s Harlequins except now with sex, drugs and rock and roll as the saying goes.
For me the real problem is the heroes, not the heroines. Virgin, not a virgin, that is all well and good. It’s how the heroes are held up as hot and fabulous while they treat the supposed love of their life like dirt, sleeping with women he clearly doesn’t respect. And these women that the hero sleeps with? They are written as one dimensional.
I often wonder why these type of men are the standard bearer for heroes? Does it continue to put forth the idea that the love of a “good” woman can change a cad?
I talk to my teenage daughter about this a lot. I tell her I’d much rather read about a hero who respects himself and others than somebody who treats everyone around him like dirt.
I don’t care how many people the heroine or hero sleeps with, I care about how they treat them during these encounters.
I don’t think a hero should be shaming his partners or the heroine.
I really noticed the Alpha and Virgin trope in Christine Feehan’s Spider Game. The Hero knows what he wants and is super pushy about having sex with the Heroine (a virgin in every way). It made me super uncomfortable and it got me thinking – who finds this creepy, domineering Hero sexy? Are writers continuing this trope because it is perceived as popular or is it actually popular with a small subset of readers?
This is such a great post and discussion. I have one more thing to add (and I hope this is not too personal):
I don’t think many romance authors, and definitely not people in general, realise that casual sex and meaningless sex are not always the same thing. They can be, certainly, and that is fine, but they are not always.
The fact that a sexual encounter doesn’t lead to a happily-ever-after, or that it was a one-of, doesn’t mean that it didn’t mean something to the people involved. I once had a one-night stand with a casual acquaintance because both of us were sad and we decided to make each other feel better. That meant something to me. Sometimes connections can be ephemeral, but nevertheless significant.
I may have never had sex inside a serious relationship, but I have also never taken sex for granted, because every time I have sex I am aware: this could be the last time. I may never have sex with this person again; I may never have sex again, beyond this one time. And so I give it everything I have. That is not meaningless. No, sex does not mean to me what it means to a more traditional woman, but it still means a great deal to me.
When I read books where men and women casually dismiss women who “put out,” I know that those women might be just like me: women who are taking some precious moments to find pleasure and joy and — yes — connection in a problematic world from which so many of us feel alienated. And I also know when I read these things that this book is telling me, if indirectly, that the author considers me worthless and my sexual expression utterly trivial because I am not Forever In Love with the men I sleep with.
And you know, casual sex can also be meaningless — and so, for that matter, can committed sex. That’s okay too! But this immediate equation of “casual = meaningless” is wrong. Humans, human sexuality, human relationships… all these things are way more complex and nuanced than that. Sex is like a tactile conversation: it can mean and be many different things.
There are biological imperatives that drives some of this. Women preserve their virtue unt the choose a male of strong genetic material who will then produce strong offspring. And men value virginity to ensure said offspring are truly their offspring. Also, the male playboy who gets any woman he wants is an over the top exaggeration in books. But what theyike about the woman is not so much thir virginity but how much they value themselves and value him – that he isn’t just a trophy fuck for the woman who hooks up with him. She may choose him because she senses some genetic superiority and why not partner with a man you can almost guarantee pleasure with. All that said, their are predatory men and women who poach and use sexual prowess to gain access. So. This dance has been going on since we stopped dragging knuckles. There is an I conscious biological basis for sexual behaviors. And it becomes a trope. Anecdotally speaking, I know many women who engage in ondiscrimate sex and it hurts them emotionally. So it’s not all good all the time
I’m sorry, I just can’t let that last comment be the last comment in what is such a great thread.
There are not, in fact, biological imperatives that drive this behavior. That isn’t how science works. That isn’t what biological, or imperative, or biological imperative mean. That’s ignorant hate speech in the form of specious postulating.
[…] More recently, on the Smart Bitches Trashy Books blog, I recently read a post talking about slut shaming in romance—which, unfortunately, is still much more prevalent than it should be. If you dig into the […]
@jw
I love this discussion because it’s really something a lot of us should think about and not just glance at the words on the page and shrug it off. I think there IS rampant slut shaming happening in lots of mediums and one would hope that a woman-driven one such as romance novels would get better about it.
In your rebuttal you mentioned Penny Reid again using a different example (though I think your Slamp one had more merit). You said that 2 of the 3 main female characters were negative characters made bad for the sake of drama. I think this argument is unfair. The series is about 7 very smart, very kind women. The 2 other leads you are speaking of were not part of this LARGE group of positive characters. It’s coming across as criticism of any female author who dares to write another female in a negative light. Some women ARE grasping and vindictive. Some women ARE crazy and desperate. Sometimes women like this cause problems. The book also shows several men in a negative light, like her ex-boyfriend. Should I get angry that PR decided to paint a man in a trite, cheater and sister-screwer role? No. Sometimes men cheat. With sisters. All of these roles are valid and yes, they are there for drama…that’s kind of why we read them.
I think that Penny Reid’s heroines in the Knitting Series do a lot more good for woman-kind than bad. It would be a shame if readers of this blog discounted her because of this rant. Penny Reid’s heroines are the kind of women I would strive to be, wish I could be and would want my daughter to be like. They are smart, compassionate and VERY strong. The heroes almost never save the day–the women do! The men are there to love them, not complete them.
“I’m 57. I wonder if younger writers are doing a better job of allowing women to be self confident in their sexual relationships than do writers of my age?”
Yeah, sure!
The Twilight generation is more misogynistic than any generation since the beginning of feminism. Stephenie Meyer’s “all blondes are dumb, nasty, slutty bitches” theme carried on into Fifty Shades, and almost Every Single New Adult book ever written.
I’m thin. I’m blonde. I’m also smart, have a degree, have lived and worked on three continents without being a prostitute, I Do Not have plastic breasts (as almost every blonde in contemporary romance these days does) and I certainly do not rub them on random men in bars (as every blonde in contemporary romance does these days).
I would happily read heaps of contemporary romance, but almost all of them are so sexist I want to cry. The last few years I’ve been almost exclusively reading historical romance (and even then it’s pretty flipping sexist – you know how to sew? What a dumb bimbo slut!).
I have no idea why women hate women so much.
“I’m loving this discussion. I’m a newer author of New Adult romances, and I have tried not to fall into the trap/trope of virgin heroine, slutty bad girl, promiscuous and proud hero. My books (so far) are college based, so there are lots of different female characters.”
You see, the thing I remember from university (“college” if you’re American) is the female friendships. We certainly don’t have the sorority culture that is in the US, but what we had was very close friendships with other young women with similar interests. My memories of university are of all-night parties only the girls/women attended, lots of fun, stupid jokes…
But then you read NA books, and every female character is a nasty megabitch and all the females hate all the other females, and I don’t have a bloody clue what planet the author is from, because that is the total opposite of my university experience.
Yesterday I re-watched The Sound of Music for the hundredth time, casually after reading this article, and I was amazed by how much of it I could find in the movie! Something I’d never considered before. Virginal Maria is put against an experienced woman (the Baroness) as a way to underline her innocence and purity. Although Captain Von Trapp states that being (in what is obviously a sexual relationship) with the Baroness has saved him from the depression which had followed the death of his first wife, he doesn’t go on marrying the Baroness but instead chooses a virgin bride as Maria.
I haven’t read Maria von Trapp’s actual book about the Trapp choir, but somehow I doubt the Baroness was a real life character. I suspect she was invented in the play as a foil to Maria. Thank you for showing me this attitude!
[…] Over at Smart Bitches, Trashy Books, there was a spirited discussion about slut shaming in romance. […]
@Sonya Heaney, I agree with you. College friendships are built to last, and that’s reflected in my books. There are great women, but also not so nice women in my books, but it’s not virgins vs non-virgins. (In the first book of my series, the heroine is definitely not a virgin, without apology. And in my second book, the heroine calls out the hero when she thinks he’s being judgmental about her losing her virginity.) I’m not trying to plug my books, which is why I’m not naming them. I’m just saying that there are NA authors that are fine with their heroines being sexually active.
Ok I just watched a recent film, The Entourage, and that has many choice examples of slut shaming, male and female.the only movies that don’t exploit slut shaming as a substitute for conflict is the Hallmark Channel.
@Shannon Brown, I agree that some women can be malicious and manipulative, and not all portrayals of women need to (or should be) positive, just as for men. But in my experience other men (OMs) tend to be more nuanced, positive, and well-developed. They normally are introduced after the hero screws up in some fashion and the heroine breaks up with him and tries to move on with her life. While they are often there to serve as a contrast to the hero, they normally are more well-developed, positive ones, even though the heroine ends up getting back together with the hero at the end (sometimes to my consternation lol). Sometimes the heroine has an abusive/cheating ex, but he’s normally just mentioned or shows up briefly in the beginning, or once in a while shows up at the end to kidnap the heroine as the villain/conflict for the hero to come and rescue her.
Other women (OWs) on the other hand are almost uniformally and 2-dimensionally malicious, promiscuous, bitchy, catty, vindictive, and evil. They are almost always promiscuous and this promiscuity is somehow always tied to their evilness and a reflection of their character (even though the hero’s identical level of promiscuity is never a reflection of his, and only enhances his sex appeal) and there just to serve in contrast to the pure virginal heroine. They are significant characters in the novel and often show up multiple times in the book to sabotage the hero and heroine’s relationship so that she can win the hero back for herself.
They remind me of this quote by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
“”We raise girls to see each other as competitors / Not for jobs or for accomplishments, which I think can be a good thing / But for the attention of men / We teach girls that they cannot be sexual beings in the way that boys are”
Look I’m not saying the evil OW trope needs to be eliminated, and I’m well aware they serve as drama. But maybe give them a little more nuance and remove the whole promiscuous = evil thing.
[…] http://smartbitchestrashybooks.com/2016/01/guest-rant-slut-shaming-in-romance/ […]
I’ve always thought that so far as these are two people who are doing ‘whatever’ they are doing in a consensual way, where both are getting what they want out of the relationship and they aren’t cheating on anyone, then have as much sex as you want.
I think sex should mean something to the people having it, it doesn’t have to be love and if what it means to you is having a lot of fun, then that’s fine.
I have a lot more problems with someone having sex when they don’t want to, or stringing someone along without being honest, than with someone having lots of casual sex for fun.
And, as Melina Marchetta says in Saving Francesca: “People with lost personalities will suffer a lot more than those with lost virginities.”
[…] an interesting discussion going on right now at the Smart Bitches Trashy Books site right now. A “guest rant” complains about slut shaming in novels. I hadn’t […]
Shelley Ann Clark’s ‘Have Mercy’ is a great book that takes a hard look at slut shaming in our current culture. Highly recommend!
Anything For You by Kristan Higgins takes on slut shaming. Just finished it. Very sad.
[…] Bitches, Trashy Books host a discussion on slut shaming in romance, then follow up with recommendations for sex-positive […]