(no subject)

[erastes]

Oh dear. Erastes is ranting again. I've just been reading THIS REVIEW over on Dear Author on "Forbidden Shores" which I actually am considering reviewing for Speak Its Name as it's a regency with a threesome in it. (Please, writing world, stop using the term MENAGE. Use ménage-a-trois if you must (and sound pretentious in so doing), but stop labelling books as having something to do with training horses. Menage means "household;establishment" or "horse training arena." NOT hot monkey sex with three people, however much the term has been hijacked. Please. Or I'll start using "Ewwwww" as a label for heterosexual books.

But that's not really what I'm steamed about today, it's this attitude that some people have that Romance Readers are fragile creatures totally unable to be shocked. Firstly Janine says that it shouldn't be labelled a Historical Romance - I disagree. Several people have told me recently that when they see Romance they expect sex of some description.

THEN - Janine says: I will add that at some point, there’s a sexual ménage in Forbidden Shores, too. I’m mentioning this even though it happens far into the book, because I think it’s the kind of thing that readers like to know about a book in advance

Well - der. Considering that the blurb (on Amazon, at least) mentions a triangle, and that ectasy, passion and forbidden love are spoken about a blind BAT could have worked out that there's three people in this relationship. But are Readers such delicate flowers that they can't read this without a fit of the vapours? Possibly. "Jennie F" goes on to say: "while there is m/m interaction, it doesn’t involve anal sex. I wondered if Lockwood’s omission of any m/m anal sex was a concession to potentially squeamish readers - somehow I don’t think so. Readers who are interested in erotica featuring m/m scenes probably wouldn’t draw the line there. So I tended to see it as more a decision to stay true to the characters rather than go for that extra shock factor, which I respected"

Romance is - I understand - read by all ages - but considering that most women alive are of an age to either have been THROUGH the sexual revolution or have been born SINCE then, so why in God's green earth is anal sex considered a shock factor? It's like - I was watching a CSI the other day and there was a man on a slab, with all of his chest and torso cut open showing everything with blood everywhere - and yet his cock was pixellated over.... such hypocrisy.

But all in all - Deary, deary me. Are we really back in the days when the very thought of ... (cover your eyes coz the next sentence is not for the faint of heart) ... two men naked in each other's company was enough to frighten the horses?

Gadzooks.

Comments

[cassiopaya.livejournal.com]

XD "It's Brokeback Mountain...from the Horses' Perspective!"

[erastes.livejournal.com]

*laughs*

Sorry for the delay in replying to this!

[lunalelle.livejournal.com]

Sadly, yes, I think so. After the 70s, the 80s and 90s were radically conservative, and we may still be in that phase. Everything is about women's delicacy and gullibility and protecting the children (even when it's not for the children). Two same-sex people holding hands are shoving their sexuality down people's throats, and anal sex, despite being one of the main methods of birth control for centuries, continues to be considered sodomy, the dirtiest form of sex. I'm sure that the AIDS scare continues to give it that stigma. Maybe you don't see it so much because of the people you hang out with. I lived and breathed conservatism until recently, and I still see its marks on everything around me.

[stacia-seaman.livejournal.com]

The U.S. in particular has taken huge steps backward. The Sci-Fi Channel here routinely bleeps words from their rebroadcasts of shows that originally aired on network television years ago.

Not only that, but the fear of huge government fines caused the cancellation of a 50th anniversary reading of Allen Ginsberg's Howl--which was found to be not obscene in a court challenge--by a US radio station.

[asphodeline.livejournal.com]

*swoons*

[galadhir.livejournal.com]

It does seem quite silly really, but then I remember that my 'who cares what the sex is like as long as it's by mutual consent?' attitude is probably in the minority even today. And anal sex *is* a squick for some people (it used to be for me, until I got used to the idea) where mere frottage is not.

*Shrug* - I think the rest of the world has not had the exposure to slash fiction we've had, so remains a great deal more shockable.

[logophilos.livejournal.com]

I guess since some publishers still consider gay or poly sex too outre and ghastly for them, there's some basis for worrying that Romance readers might come down with the vapours. The menage a trois is probaby more shocking for Romantics than the butt sex, since it interferes with those hated golden rules of Romance writing that the hero and heroine don't put out for other people.

Those fucking rules suck. (And in case anyone reading this, wonders what they are, have a look at 'Tina's Guide to Writing Romantica' [sic] here
http://www.ellorascave.com/authorinfo.pdf

More than one publisher uses this drivel as hard rules.

[angelabenedetti.livejournal.com]

On the terminology, give it up, hon. :/ No amount of explanation, hinting or outright derision got the romance folks to stop calling SF romance "futuristic," despite the fact that it sounds incredibly dorky and doesn't cover the entire range of science fictional possibilities. "Menage" is just as silly, if not moreso for being actually inaccurate as you pointed out, but I doubt the romantic establishment will budge on that one either.

On the sex... yeah. [sigh] I was reading a blog entry the other day by an editor who posted a list of genre definitions. According to her, a "Romance" is about "a man and a woman." One and only one of each, period. Wow, I guess I'm not writing romance after all. Nor are the people writing lesbian love stories, nor the people writing poly love stories. I wouldn't have minded if it'd been, "This is what our house publishes:" but it was presented as a list of general definitions. I was more than a bit annoyed.

Given that level of conservatism and the narrow compass of what is and included in A Romance, I'm not at all surprised that anal sex is considered shocking and icky. And I agree with lunalelle that it's gotten worse since the sexual revolution, not better.

I read a romance in the late seventies, when I was in my mid-teens, which went a lot farther (as many did back then). I forget the title but it was a bestseller and you could get it at the supermarket, which was where my mother bought it. I didn't get all the way through it because the actual story was boring, but in one of the very early chapters there was a rather extensive snowballing scene -- vagina to man to woman to man and back to vagina -- which I thought was pretty gross at the time and still don't consider terribly sexy, to say nothing of a bit unrealistic. [cough] But I'd love to see what the commenters you mentioned would've felt about a modern romance with that sort of scene in it. Maybe yearning for the clean vanilla flavor of anal sex...? ;)

Angie

[gehayi.livejournal.com]

I was reading a blog entry the other day by an editor who posted a list of genre definitions. According to her, a "Romance" is about "a man and a woman." One and only one of each, period. Wow, I guess I'm not writing romance after all. Nor are the people writing lesbian love stories, nor the people writing poly love stories. I wouldn't have minded if it'd been, "This is what our house publishes:" but it was presented as a list of general definitions.

What's the name of that editor's blog? I think that I might need to discuss the matter with him/her.

[angelabenedetti.livejournal.com]

Ummm.... [squint/think] Hang on, let me go hunt for it.

OK, got it. It was linked from someone else's blog so I had to dig around -- Definitions of genres, and when to use them posted on the Novel and Short Story Writer's Market site.

Angie

[jane-lockwood.livejournal.com]

Erastes, thanks for the menage rant; it drives me crazy too.

Part of the controversy over Forbidden Shores is that the book doesn't look like what it actually is. I was contracted for, and wrote, an erotic historical romance. Then it was given the, uh, retro cover and I found out three weeks before release that it was defined on the back cover as a historical romance. This was after RT creamed it, harrumphing away about how it belonged in erotica--well, duh. It was, of course, reviewed by a historical romance reviewer.

The catalog blurb (up on amazon etc.) is inaccurate in a number of ways. You really have to read between the lines to figure out what this book is about--three people, each of whom is in love with the one who cannot love them back. You can get a better definition of it on my website, www.janelockwood.com. Yes, I'm doing damage control bigtime on this book since the publishers decided on this odd marketing ploy.

There is some fairly tame m/m stuff, and it occasioned a hilarious exchange on the AAR boards (Handjobs, ladies! Handjobs!). Apparently in the world of romance real men don't take it up the arse; my take was that a real man might, but a heterosexual (mostly) upper class gentleman in 1800 might not, when such activities could get you hanged and he's only there to get at the heroine (mostly); so Jennie F was right.

But no one seems particularly worried or repulsed by the fact that the heroine takes it up the arse, but I guess it's ok because she's in luuurve.

[erastes.livejournal.com]

Hello Jane - and welcome!

I'm sorry you are having to do such damage limitation, but it has meant that the book has had publicity you couldn't buy, too!

Don't get me started on RT, just.. don't. I'm in enough trouble already!!

I agree with you about the reasons why the more het man wouldn't take it. It's nice when novelists accept this fact (the death thing...) so many m/m writers don't

I'll be getting a copy as soon as poss!