With regards to the latest call-to-arms of sorts by one Jan W Butler, yet again another scree about how the romance genre should apparently take some kind of political stance against what is and isn't romance, I find myself wondering: what is it about romance novels that have some people believe that it should be all about their idea of morality?
I mean, let's look at romance novels. It's the biggest collection of stories involving premarital sex, unsafe sex, unplanned pregnancies, emotional manipulation of idiotic heroines by callous males, and some of the most unhealthy actions of self-debasement and self-sacrifice from female characters.
At the "renaissace" of the genre during the 1980s, we have Rosemary Rogers and her clones getting their heroines slapped and raped by our heroes when these heroines are not calling the heroines whores and what-not when these heroines are not being gangraped by everything that moves in the story.
Even today we make heroes out of adulterers, misogynists, and philanderers, although we of course "redeem" them by getting them to fall in love. Even the non-romantic erotica books have at least one instance of premarital sex between the hero and the heroine. We also have heroines wanting to have sex out of "curiosity" or for the sake of "adventures".
So, apart from insipirational romances that directly celebrate a specific kind of love among folks of a specific religion, is there any point in the evolution of the genre where this mindset arises that the romance genre is supposed to be a "moral" genre?
"Romance" in romance novels, if you ask me, should never be confused with romance in real life. I'm sure we all know what romance in real life is and we know that it is nothing like that in romance novels. While I enjoy reading about bad boys in romance novels, I'd not want to marry one in real life. So, I wonder, is people like Ms Butler confusing romance in real life with romance in her stories? Is anyone going to accuse Stephen King of being a Satanist because he once wrote about vampires, evil clowns, and underaged kiddies having sex in his books? No, I don't think so, heh. For all the controversy Lolita generated, civilization still stands and pedophilia isn't made legal.
If authors are worried that her genre is "polluted" by people of other race and religion coming in to write of people being and falling in love in ways that she finds unacceptable, perhaps these authors should take a step back and look at the books they are writing. Unless they can clearly claim that their books are 100% in conformity with their religious beliefs, with absolutely no scenes of premarital sex between the hero and the heroine, for example, they will be hypocrites if they cry about morality and virtue when, let's face it, the romance genre is not exactly Wholesome Living 101. And even if they write wholesome inspirational and devotional romances, maybe they should start focusing on the sins that are already in the genre (premarital sex, sex-fiend heroes, violence in romantic suspense) before worrying that all those shadowy perverted boogeymen will show up and somehow destroy the genre.
I don't know what Jan W Butler's intention is. Maybe she genuinely if misguidedly believes that somehow there is an esoteric absolute parameter of wholesomeness in the genre that has to be protected from gay oversexed infidels of funny skin colors at all costs. The problem with her line of thinking is, nobody owns the trademark on the concept of romance. And authors, at the end of the day, don't own romance just because they write stories about it just as horror authors don't own the ultimate canon in vampirism. Just as there are many variations as to the nature and the origin of vampirism in the horror genre, for example, why can't the romance genre has its own equally diverse idea and treatment on romance?
As an aside, how come nobody has leaked the recent infamous RWA clip online? I'm so disappointed with you people. I'd love to see a video of someone reading aloud Jan W Butler's letter as a voiceover over that clip. Come on, you people, get that thing up on Youtube!
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