Hello there, Hump Day! Hopefully we’re all enjoying some cooler weather, which means soft blankets, oversized sweaters, and some cozy reading time.
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Reader Karin sent us this really cute and cool fundraiser! She works for a non-profit in North Jersey that operates an environmental education center. Until October 21st, they’re doing a bulb sale fundraiser. The bulbs also come from a company called EcoTulips, which supplies individuals with organic bulbs that haven’t been treated with any sort of pesticides.
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Current Wonder Woman creator, Greg Rucka, recently did an interview regarding the queer narrative of Wonder Woman:
My personal politics are absolutely always going to influence how I write what I write. But at the end of the day, what I believe doesn’t matter. What matters is what you leave the book with.
It doesn’t matter if I say, “Yes, she’s queer.” Or “No, she’s not queer.” It matters what you get out of the book. Can you find it? Is it there? Is it on the page in action or in deed? Then, there’s your answer.
The interview also references a lot of the characters featured in the current incarnation of Wonder Woman, so as someone who hasn’t kept up with all the ins and outs of current comics, part of the examples referenced didn’t immediately click. FYI.
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In Bustle, author Sarah MacLean has a great essay on why bashing romance novels is another form of slut-shaming:
I don’t defend the genre anymore. Instead, I bite my tongue, because I’m more polite than most of these people, and it would be rude to say what I’d really like to say, which is: “What’s your problem with women and sex?”
In the years since I began writing, I’ve come to realize that the judgment that romance readers and writers receive for the genre they love is not about the writing. There are great romances and terrible ones, just as there are great works of literary fiction and terrible ones. I used to think it was about the fact that the genre was by and about women—and certainly that is a part of it. But let’s be honest, romance gets the literary stink-eye because of the sex bits.
Definitely worth the read!
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USB Wall Outlet Adaptors!
What do we want? More USB ports! Where do we want them? EVERYWHERE!
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Don’t forget to share what super cool things you’ve seen, read, or listened to this week! And if you have anything you think we’d like to post on a future Wednesday Links, send it my way!
“What’s your problem with women and sex?”
I am over meeting gratuitous rudeness with politeness so I’ll borrow this response.
I’m going to read the whole Bustle piece, but I have to say I disagree with the quote.
There is plenty of sex out there in thrillers, SF/F, whodunits, etc, and nobody bats an eye. I think it’s the LOVE STORY that makes people scoff at romance. There is a cultural prejudice against love stories. Love stories are, according to this bias, inherently unbelievable, and the characters in them are inherently ridiculous, therefore the people reading them are mock-worthy.
And when you look at the rest of our culture – e.g. how the tabloids make millions selling stories of infidelity and abuse and divorce, how even newlyweds are subjected to the break-up speculation from day one – you can see that our culture actually does not love a lover. Our culture wants lovers to fail.
On the other hand, our culture wants everyone to think that having sex a lot, and being sexy, is a Very Important Thing. Being sexy = desirable, being in love = undesirable, unless you are planning a $20K wedding.
IMO that’s why 50 shades of grey was such a success despite nearly everyone saying “this is crap.” Because it was about sex, not love. (And, moreover, about a sexual relationship in which every bad cultural message about consent and male/female power was underlined.)
Yay! Tulips!!
Since you asked, this:
http://wgntv.com/2016/09/30/cubs-wear-football-jerseys-on-final-road-trip-of-the-2016-regular-season/
has been making me smile all week. Win or lose, the Cubs are the best team in baseball. Honestly though, we’re all on our knees praying for the win.
Also, I, too, have given up defending romance. After 40 some years I shouldn’t have to explain why it is the superior genre. I just point out that I don’t have the bad manners to disparage their preferences in books, movies or clothes, and they should probably aspire to the same.
That would be the awesomest response to the side-eye romance readers get. Hmmm…do I have the nerve?
That was a really lovely essay. I think the shaming of romance readers also plays into a larger trend where things predominantly directed towards and enjoyed by women are denigrated. (Reminder that the new Jonathan Safran Foer novel features a woman pleasuring herself with a doorknob.)
That said, I had a huge problem with the last MacLean novel I read (Rogue not Taken) because it was pretty slut shamey. It wasn’t just the slut shaming from the (shitty) hero (since when did that just become de rigeur?) that bothered me; I was deeply pissed off by the fact that she said the heroine’s family was inspired by the Kardashians but then wrote about the flirtatious older sisters disdainfully while making the book about the pure younger sister who was just “above it all” and wanted to start a bookshop. Isn’t it just textual slut shaming when your heroine spends a ton of the book proving to a man that she’s “not like that”?
And in general, like many, many other romance heroines (hi, Eloisa James), all of MacLean’s “scandalous” heroines are actually just misunderstood and not “loose” after all. (I might love Juliana, but it’s true.) I’m also reminded of the scene in Devil’s Cub where the hero realizes that he shouldn’t have kidnapped the heroine because “oh actually you’re not a slut” and thus her humanity and worthiness were confirmed. I dunno, I was reminded of my annoyance at that MacLean novel because of all the horrifying shit people are saying right now about how Kim K deserved to get robbed.
I’m not saying this to invalidate anything MacLean wrote in the essay, but it’s important we pay attention to the things we actually do despite our words (myself included). There’s a ton of messy justifying for “scandalous” heroines in romance (trauma, betrayal, etc etc), which aren’t necessarily horrible from a plot perspective but it bothers me that they need this.
Why does it always hurt so much when it’s a family member who says it to you? A stranger can say it, and you can roll your eyes, but when a family member says it, it cuts so deep. Like the family member is trying to shame you when you’ve done nothing wrong.
’nuff said.
Thank you so much for the shout out for our organic bulb sale! What with everything else going on, I only got around to seeing it on SBTB today.