I think an experience I had at a book club recently exemplifies the problems faced by today's romance novelists. One month we read a historical romance novel from 2021 that was fairly typical of 2010s historical romance in terms of gender/sexual politics. The heroine has sexual experience, her own money, and a group of female friends who are supportive but have their own stuff going on. The hero is a decent hunky guy whose worst fault in the relationship is emotional avoidance due to a Big Secret. There are background lesbians and the protagonists are chill about it. The sex is enthusiastically consented to. Most of the book club had a very "meh" response to it, mainly due to reasons that didn't have much to due with said politics (like not finding the relationship very interesting or thinking there weren't enough sex scenes), but, crucially, some people zeroed right in on two moments that could be considered in bad taste. The first one: the hero admires the heroine's silhouette while she's changing behind a screen and talking with him. The second one: the hero tries to curb his sexy thoughts about the heroine by getting her a glass of warm milk, reasoning that this is a very unsexy thing to do because it's the sort of thing you would do for a sick child. I personally thought the first thing was a total non-issue in context (he's looking towards her because they're talking, she knows he's there and how shadows work) and the second was kind of a silly, overdone joke but not creepy or offensive. But the people who took issue with it were genuine in their disapproval, even citing our current climate of misogyny as why it rubbed them the wrong way.
The following month, we read a dark romance where the hero (who briefly met the heroine while she was dating his friend/roommate and became obsessed with her after she started commenting on his kinky online account where he wears a mask but no shirt) uses his near-supernatural hacker skills to put secret cameras in her house and otherwise stalk her. Her reaction is "this guy is fucking insane and probably dangerous...but this is really hot and actually I have a feeling he's not dangerous." Which is validated by the story. The handling of the dark subject matter is basically a shrug before a continuous jerk-off sesh. And the book club LOVED this story. Everyone was like "oh, he's not really a bad guy and this is barely a dark romance."
And it's not that I think this is an entirely unreasonable response. If something's labeled "dark romance," most readers willingly engaging with it aren't going to be bothered by the romance being dark. Whereas an iffy moment in a "normal" romance novel might be an unpleasant surprise. But it does create a situation where characters in a "regular" romance novel can't do anything problematic or even anything giving the appearance of problematic-ness, even if it would be natural and/or interesting for them to do so, and where characters in a "dark" romance commit shocking crimes and it's never taken seriously either by the narrative or the audience. So the stories that get rewarded are (a) frictionless, pedantic "regular" romance and (b) equally frictionless set-ups for erotic scenarios. Which is a shame if you want to read a real fucking book, however lighthearted or pulpy.
gracieabrams
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