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My love-hate relationship with romance novels

"But Lindsay, you write romance novels. You can't hate them!"


I kinda do. Let me elaborate.


There are different kinds of romance novels. Here are three of them.

  1. There are the kinds with really good stories that make you love the characters and fall in love with them. You could have the spice or not, but they'd still be good stories. That's a romance novel.

  2. There are the kinds that are mostly sex, where the plot is a vehicle for the sex. That's erotica.

  3. Then there's this weird in-between where the story would not be as good without the spice, but the story is still really important and it is still technically a romance novel.

I love the first one. Those first ones tend to be the most excellent, because the plot and the characters matter more than the sex. For me personally, there is a time and a place for the second and third.


But I'll tell you what I hate. I hate it when sex is what makes the relationship and the plot work.


Now I'm not saying I hate it when there's sex and it helps carry the story along. I mean, I wrote Love in the Time of Covid. That's sixty pages of smut. What I hate is when two character's entire relationship is built on sex. They have nothing but sex tying them together.


I've read so many of these. Sometimes you don't even notice you've read it until afterwards and you think about it and realize that it's literally just sex pretending to be a romance novel. If it's just erotica, okay, fine! I don't care! Have at it! But don't mistake it or make it look like a soul-shattering romance when it's not.


Some examples of this:

  • Characters who fight all the time but stop fighting once they start sleeping together

  • Characters who have sex every time they have an issue come up in their relationship, and all is forgiven and is suddenly okay

  • Characters who have been through traumatic situations but having sex with this person will fix all that

  • When one character starts to "change" another, but the only thing that has happened is sex scenes, no real communication or working through issues

That's the shit that pisses me off. I'll give a few examples.


I read Dark Torment by Cassie Hargrove. The tension was built beautifully, the plot was solid, and the potential was high. The FMC finds out the MMC is a serial killer and is totally unphased and okay with it, and immediately sleeps with him. Nope, honey, no. You'd at least have a day or two where all that sexual tension is masked by discomfort and fear, before you made the decision to screw. Let alone the switch from a sweet innocent girl to several chapters later screwing covered in your brother's blood.

Then there's The Dragons' Bride by Katee Robert. I loved this book up until the first sex scene. Holy eggplants, such a good story, so much potential, so much tension built. So much character development! But she's just come out of a highly traumatic experience (physically and sexually) and suddenly the only thing she cares about is screwing the monster.

Now I get it. Everyone processes trauma differently. But making your character's reactions realistic is important if you're going to make people care about them. And if they're going to react that way, they should have a reason. Hence, Audrey Rush's Crawl.

Crawl was about a serial killer who stalks and falls in love with a girl, and intends to pin his crimes on her. He ends up falling in love with her instead. There is a lot of graphic, violent, disturbing, edgy sex, but it fits with both of their characters. Of course he puts a noose around her neck and makes her crawl in a parking lot until her knees bleed. Of course he locks her in a cage. Of course he makes her kill her abusive stepdad and then screws her covered in his blood. And yes, of course she gets off on it. It works because the characters have been developed that their reactions make sense with who they are.

This is not meant to bash the above authors. I enjoyed both of the books I mentioned. They are simply examples that came to mind when I decided to write this article.

So what is it that pisses me off about romance novels?


Characters who don't make sense. Undeveloped, nonrealistic characters who do things that don't make sense based on how they've been developed so far, or who are simply shells of people placeholders used to tell a story.


Thank you for coming to my rant. That is all, goodbye.


What is this nonsense about the subs having all the power?

I'm no expert on BDSM. I'm really not. I've only been on this journey for a few years, and I got involved because Reuben Weston showed up in my head and I didn't want to be another E. L. James (*shudders*). But I've at least got a few things figured out.


This idea of "subs having all the power" has been going around the community for a while. From what I understand from others, it pops up every ten years or so and we have to smash it again.


That's fine. Let's smash.


There are many kinds of power exchanges but there are two major categories. In one of them, both parties have the same amount of power. In the other, one party has more power than the other.


D/s Dynamic - Equal exchange of power

Dominant and submissive share both their needs (priority) and their wants (secondary) and agree on what aspects the submissive will hand over control. The Dominant must agree to take control from the submissive, and the submissive must agree to hand over that control to the Dominant.

Now obviously this is extremely simplified and there is a lot more to it. But the key here is that both parties consent and negotiate on exactly what is given up and taken. The submissive can, at any time, safeword, renegotiate, or end a scene or dynamic... but so can the Dom.


Because think about it. If the Dom doesn't have power, and the sub has all of it, the sub is then just using the Dom. The Dom is dehumanized and made into a "kink dispenser" or a "vending machine." Doms have power because the submissive gives it... but also because they agree to take it.


That's why it's equal.


M/s Dynamic - Negotiated unequal power exchange*


(*Please don't freak out and jump down my throat until you get to the end)


Submissive sets aside their wants in order to serve their Master. M/s dynamics are highly debated because they are not quite as common, and tend to be highly unique. They key here is the slave has given consent for the Master to make all decisions and take as much power as they see fit. Generally speaking, slaves give up their limits, and sometimes their safewords. This is something that usually happens after years of a strong dynamic, good communication, and a lot of trust. M/s dynamics should never be jumped into.


Now a good Master will keep their slave's needs in mind, because breaking your most prized possession isn't just unethical, it's stupid.


But they key here is that in this dynamic, the power that the submissive has is to say "no," or "this isn't working," and exit or renegotiate the dynamic (because, just in case you forgot, slavery is illegal in most countries). So a slave still has that power... but that tends to be it. However, even though this is unequal, it is not total!


TLDR: Any dynamic where one party has all the power is an abusive one.

Unequal, total power, with one party having zero control, is called slavery. Not consensual slavery, but straight-up slavery. It is illegal in most countries, and is abusive and unethical, regardless of your religious beliefs.


That is all, goodbye.

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