Thread by @BowTieWriter

This whole thread is fantastic but my gents. This this this.

Thus, my dudes, a very small primer in Romance by a dude who is still figuring this shit out.

https://twitter.com/_alexrowland/status/1209339587186872320

First, definition. A Romance, by definition of the genre, MUST have a HEA (Happily Ever After). Get out of here w your Nicholas Sparks or rando tragedies.

It might HAVE some romance, but it is NOT a Romance.

Seriously. This matters. It's a feature, not a bug.

Part of the appeal of the genre is *you know things turn out ok.*
You go on the ride because the journey is the fun part.

Next thing to know:
"But aren't those trashy sex books?"

Oooh my bro let's back up and unpack that shall we?

There's a LOT of rhetoric out there that is very dismissive of Romance as a genre. My SFF peeps, do you hate it when "Literary" folks turn up their nose at "those trashy space books?"

Don't be the equivalent of THAT person to another entire genre. ESP if you don't read it.

Like any genre, there IS a range of quality. Some Romance is definitely on the pulpier side of things. Sometimes the writing is... not great.

But like. How many shitty SFF books are there? You don't define an entire genre by the worst books.

And the best of romance is just as profound and moving as some of the best other stories out there. Straight up, I'll fight you on this.

They're not "Good for Romance", they're GOOD STORIES.

So right. That whole "Trashy sex book" - can we see how "Trashy" is just a qualifier that is rooted in dismissing an entire genre? And how that genre is predominately written by women FOR women? And how just dismissing that is a problem? K.

Moving on.
Let's talk sex.

My dudes. First. I'm not entirely sure why this is touted as a BAD thing. Like, how many random tiddies did GoT add just because some extra sexy things caught attention?

But here's the thing: Romance uses sex to highlight RELATIONSHIPS. It's part of the arc.

Good sex scenes are downright HAWT - and look, this is also an important space because they are written for the female gaze and centered on the woman's experience.

HBO's GoT tiddies? Yep. Clearly by dudes for dudes.

Romance centers sex on the woman's PoV. It's part of the fun! And look.

There's some deep issues, but let's take a smaller issue first.
Everyone has their taste! You can find your own heat level! That's part of finding out what you like in Romance!

There are chaste Romances with tasteful fade to blacks and nothing more. There's straight up erotica. People like what they like; my dudes, experiment.

But I'll be straight, sex scenes made me uncomfortable to read and it took me a LONG TIME to realize my reluctance. Fabio.

Er. Let me explain. So. If you went to a bookstore in the late 90s, early oughts, you saw that dude with his magnificent golden locks and sculpted abs looking out from EVERY romance cover.

All those sexy guys made me wary?
Wanna know why?

*societal homophobia is a biiiiitttttcccchhhhhhh*

No. Seriously. It took me some time in college to unpack it; but I worried those sex scenes (from the woman's POV) would just be these long descriptions of a dudes abs and his junk and that would be weird.

THAT gets into a super deep topic on a loooot of levels. And look, I'm more than happy to have a conversation about deconstructing masculinity and the built in homophobia oft associated with it another time. For now, let's stick to romance books shall we?

Broskies, the best thing I can say if you're uncomfortable on some level reading a Romance because you're afraid of long sex scenes about a guy's junk or whatever, you... should really just read some.

Skip it if it makes you uncomfortable. If you like it? Cool!

Point is: it's OKAY to read a Romance novel and go "Okay, this novel was cute but teh sexy was fun." Like, as a guy that's really hard to admit - at least, it is for me. Part of why I'm blurting out loud here.

(It's also okay to be like "That dude WAS hot" but also deep topic)

Romance novels are NOT, however, "Just sex." That's like saying Star Wars is just "pew pew."

If you hate people saying that about SW / whatever your fav genrefic book is / is just ____, then stop saying Romance is just sex.

"But Mike," you say, "I don't wanna read stories where some girl has her whole happiness hinged on one dude. I like my women independent."

"My dude," I reply, "Let's chat about that a bit more."

Romance novels - good ones, anyway - don't just revolve around a woman pining over a guy all desperate like.

There are women who are competent badasses at what they do; these are also roles I didn't see them in OUTSIDE of romance books that often.

Badass CEOs. Hyper competent spies (that aren't just ludicrous T&A femme fatals as they are so often potrayed in films by gents). Detectives. Cooks. Outdoors. Sporty. Etc.

It's not just about "the guy." There are outside things fulfilling them. Getting the guy is the extra perk.

That's another part of the fun - and honestly, for me as a guy, that was one of the most important things I learned READING romances.

I didn't realize how much I mentally blocked women out of. Like, oh, my default CEO: not a lady. Default secretary: lady.

I have a TON of inherited sexist biases from society (much like that built in homophobia, built in sexism is very much a thing. It's ok to realize that's you; it's not okay to just accept that and do nothing to change it).

This helped me unlearn that a LOT.

Right, I've talked a lot about really DEEP issues. Can we just take a moment and back it up a little bit though? Like, time out I want to underscore something for my dudes:

Romance books are FUN.

Like, yes, they helped me deconstruct sexist gender norms. But framed another way:

Whatever kind of framing story you want + whatever kind of teh sexy romance you want you can find.

What that means is given your interests, you can probably find a romance novel that has a protagonist that ties into your interests. Hell, I read a novella about a woman into anime who meets a guy who designs ESCAPE ROOMS.

Like. How hyper-specific awesome is THAT?

I also personally love sweet stories. My own sweet spot is actually not all that high on the heat level (my Mom, who reads straight up erotica, would just laugh at me). I love my quirky contemp rom-com style romance.

Like. I don't need grim dark world ending. I don't need random bad things happening. Sometimes you just need happy fun low stakes stories, and that is what I am after. That's what I love from Romance.

Okay. Here's the other thing I want to be straight about though:

It took me a LONG TIME to come around to Romance. And honestly it's not until the last year or so that it really clicked for me.

Here's an abbreviated version of how I came about to it.

My Mom and Grandma read a LOT of Romance. I made fun of my Mom for that (I feel so bad for that to this day). I just saw Fabio EVERYWHERE and was like "blah cheesy sex books."

In college, I realized I might have some biases.

I asked a good friend to build me a "sampler" platter of Romance novels she had. She gave me three. One Harlequin, one contemp Romcom, and honestly I forget the third one.

(Harlequin pushes out some of the... er... pulpier titles. They're slim books typically red or purple, the title is often a pun. Some folks it's their jam; just know romance is WAY MORE than those).

I could barely stand the Harlequin book, which is totally fine. I LOVED the contemp (Tall Tales and Wedding Bells. I read a LOT of books. I still remember that book precisely like 10 years later, it was sincerely that happy-making). The third was just alright.

Honestly, that wasn't enough to get me into it more. But I married a librarian who started unpacking her own baggage with Romance (@just_hebah that would make an awesome blog post btw), who also knows my shamelessly light tastes and would shove stuff at me.

@just_hebah So every year or so I'd drift back, pick up something and go "That was nice. I should find more." Or I'd read like YA contemp and be like "That was nice, I should find stuff similar to that" not realizing THERE'S A WHOLE GENRE WITH THOSE ELEMENTS YOU LOVE.

@just_hebah TO BE CLEAR: I'm not saying YA == Romance (but it can be?). The stuff I did love often had a romance in it, and I loved the low stakes contempt.

If I looked in contemp Romance, I would see all those elements + some for the awesome.

@just_hebah I'm actually making a reading goal for 2020 to explicitly read more romance intentionally. Because, well, it makes me happy.

@just_hebah ALSO, @ClaireOdell99 brought up a good point: Romance isn't just f/m. There's increasingly more f/f, m/m, and poly romances.

I've been simplifying for sake of this thread, but that nuance and diversity DOES exist (not always as much as it should), and it's v important.

@just_hebah @ClaireOdell99 I'm not at all the person to judge the quality of representation of PoC, LGBTQ+ etc issues. I do know it's something Romancelandia deals with. But I know people ARE dealing with it

(even if some orgs take 10 steps back... :/).

@just_hebah @ClaireOdell99 OKAY this thread is way waaaay longer than I thought it would be, and I'm missing out on some snugs for this.

But here's a final bit:
"Okay Mike. I want the cuteness. How tf do I actually START? It's a BIG GENRE!"

@just_hebah @ClaireOdell99

@just_hebah @ClaireOdell99 First, broadly, do you want historical Romance? Contemporary? Romantic Suspense? Get an idea of the sub genre you want. A bit of Googlefu produced this:
allthekissing.com/2017/10/differ…

@just_hebah @ClaireOdell99 Pick that first. Then honestly I'd ask a friend, librarian, or bookstore seller.

"I'm looking for books in __this subgenre__ of romance. I'm trying to learn, could you give me 3 recs of different heat levels?"

@just_hebah @ClaireOdell99 It's like doing a flight of beer - you try multiple romance novels of intentionally selected variety to start honing in on what you like. If you don't like some, that's totally okay!

@just_hebah @ClaireOdell99 And look, if after all this you're still thinking of romance novels as "Nope, hard pass." That's ~fine~. You like what you like, you know?

Just too often (esp gents, but not exclusively) people don't HAVE an opinion besides "They're trashy sex books."

No. Stop it.

@just_hebah @ClaireOdell99 TL DR:
Romance novels are very sweet, it's a genre wide enough anyone can find something they like, and dudes should read more of it. We don't because society gives us baggage and that baggage is DUMB.

/end

@just_hebah @ClaireOdell99 (For those wanting to read a condensed version, @threadreaderapp unroll plz).