On Romance, Morality and Respectability
Romancingtheblog has a rant about how impossible the writer finds it to read and enjoy books featuring adulterous heroes.
Her reaction, when added to a great many other attitudes I've seen on various romance sites, message boards, lists and Yahoo!Groups over the past year, annoyed me. I responded, but I'm going to expand on my response here.
***
Frankly, I think that the romance genre and the people in it fuss entirely too much.
Some people consider fictional adultery wrong. Some go into spasms about gay relationships being portrayed as involving love as well as sex--because romance is ONLY about one man and one woman. I've seen romance fans--for lack of a better word--have conniption fits over the concepts that a hero could sexually desire his wife if he loved her but didn't want to have children with her; that decent people could possibly get married as a business arrangement (which marriage was for much of history) and still make an amiable go of it; that love is not always of the true variety; that love does not fix everything wrong in a person's life, and can create some of the most cruel agonies of all.
I don't mind escapism; it's a perfectly valid reason for reading a story. But nevertheless, romance is hemmed about with too many issues. This does not count as romance. How could you believe that a person like THIS or a person who committed THAT act could possibly be capable of love? There is an annoying tendency to try to trim love down to fit the existing and somewhat limited preconceptions of the genre...even though love itself defies all restrictions, and always has.
I don't understand this. I don't know why it is, but it seems that on every site, list, group or blog related to romance, there's always someone--either an individual or an organization--who wants to restrict the definition of love solely to his, her or their idea of what's decent, moral or comfortable. It baffles me.
I can see shunning cheaters in real life, for a multitude of reasons. I can comprehend not reading certain kinds of stories if they don't appeal to you.
But...
The myriad arguments in the field about what's acceptable or moral, about what a writer should write or a reader read, about what love isn't seem misplaced.
Love does not come with a rulebook. It does not stay safely behind fence posts, never straying beyond its borders. It does not strike solely when it's desirable or convenient. It is not an emotion solely issued to the virtuous, the well-behaved, the respectable.
Love IS. End of story.
Can we please declare a moratorium on confusing personal taste with moral judgment? What's wrong with a genre novel that lets you explore avenues you wouldn't in real life, allows you to consider points of view you'd never previously imagined, that makes you THINK?
Her reaction, when added to a great many other attitudes I've seen on various romance sites, message boards, lists and Yahoo!Groups over the past year, annoyed me. I responded, but I'm going to expand on my response here.
***
Frankly, I think that the romance genre and the people in it fuss entirely too much.
Some people consider fictional adultery wrong. Some go into spasms about gay relationships being portrayed as involving love as well as sex--because romance is ONLY about one man and one woman. I've seen romance fans--for lack of a better word--have conniption fits over the concepts that a hero could sexually desire his wife if he loved her but didn't want to have children with her; that decent people could possibly get married as a business arrangement (which marriage was for much of history) and still make an amiable go of it; that love is not always of the true variety; that love does not fix everything wrong in a person's life, and can create some of the most cruel agonies of all.
I don't mind escapism; it's a perfectly valid reason for reading a story. But nevertheless, romance is hemmed about with too many issues. This does not count as romance. How could you believe that a person like THIS or a person who committed THAT act could possibly be capable of love? There is an annoying tendency to try to trim love down to fit the existing and somewhat limited preconceptions of the genre...even though love itself defies all restrictions, and always has.
I don't understand this. I don't know why it is, but it seems that on every site, list, group or blog related to romance, there's always someone--either an individual or an organization--who wants to restrict the definition of love solely to his, her or their idea of what's decent, moral or comfortable. It baffles me.
I can see shunning cheaters in real life, for a multitude of reasons. I can comprehend not reading certain kinds of stories if they don't appeal to you.
But...
The myriad arguments in the field about what's acceptable or moral, about what a writer should write or a reader read, about what love isn't seem misplaced.
Love does not come with a rulebook. It does not stay safely behind fence posts, never straying beyond its borders. It does not strike solely when it's desirable or convenient. It is not an emotion solely issued to the virtuous, the well-behaved, the respectable.
Love IS. End of story.
Can we please declare a moratorium on confusing personal taste with moral judgment? What's wrong with a genre novel that lets you explore avenues you wouldn't in real life, allows you to consider points of view you'd never previously imagined, that makes you THINK?