Thursday, July 21, 2005
Don't let them grind you downI have a few words to say about attitudes, generalizations and language this morning as I wait for my coffee to brew. After that, I'll be forgetting this nonsense and getting to work on my current WIP.
Since erotic romance has begun going mainstream and Ellora's Cave has begun to shine in the ranks of publishing companies far and wide, our genre has been inundated with negative, nasty attacks from all manner of people – even authors within our own genre.
They have a right to their opinion...but so do I.
I will not go off on a negative, nasty tirade about boring romance novels that don't have sex scenes. I could, but won't. Why? Because there are people out there who enjoy sweet romance. I'm glad that books exist to satisfy them. I have my opinions about sweet and mainstream romance, but I won’t express them. There's no real need to do so. It would only hurt people and reflect badly on me.
What DO I do? Simple, I just don't buy them.
They're not my thang.
Recently, an author I had once liked and respected posited that Ellora's Cave produces porn, not romance. I do not write porn. Let me say that again, just so it's clear -- I do not write porn.
Not there's anything wrong with porn, it's just that I don't write it. Here's my problem with someone calling my work (and that of my friends') porn; porn is about one thing – getting the viewer off. Yes, I said VIEWER, because I don’t think of anything written as being porn. Porn, to me, is visual. It's entertainment with one goal, and is not (generally) concerned with things like character development, emotion, or plot development.
Now, I DO hope I get my readers worked up enough to pull out their vibrators. Yes, that's one of my goals when I write a book for Ellora's Cave. I want my sex scene with an extra heaping helping of hot sauce. What are my other goals? To make my readers feel for the characters, to engage their minds and make them think, to wonder what's going to happen to next in the plot. I strive to create a total experience for them.
Why does it seem that as soon as you inject sex into a storyline (especially explicit sex) suddenly the book is just trash? I have a real problem with romance authors WHO HAVE ALREADY battled this very attitude in regard to mainstream romance, turning around and doing the SAME thing to erotic romance – a sub genre of romance. (Of course, apparently they don't think we should be a sub-genre because we write porn.)
I know many people are afraid of sex. I do pity them for that. The thing is, lots of women are not afraid of their own desires and sexual needs. Those are the women I write for. I (hopefully) take their darkest sexual fantasies and breathe life into them. That's another one of my goals, and I think it's a good one. I feel that this upsurge in the popularity of erotic romance is a very good thing culturally, because I think that finally, after centuries of oppression, if shows that women are starting to view their sexuality as an empowering and positive thing.
Call my work smut, that's fine. I've come to terms with this word. I've made it mine. I've made it into something positive for myself. But NEVER insinuate that my work is all about getting the reader off and nothing more. Please, try to think in more complex terms. A book can achieve many different things at the same time. It's possible for it to have an emotional, satisfying romance, a fast-paced, action-packed plot…and have scorching, get-out-the-vibrator sex scenes.
Think bigger.
I hope you're capable of that because – guess what? – we aren't going away.
EDIT: If anyone chooses to post a dissenting opinion, I promise I won't delete their comments because they don't agree with me.
