scarr

gratuitous

By

,

a confluence of situations on bluesky is responsible for this post

EXAMPLES What's supported by project type CATEGORY 01 Publishing & Comics ALLOWED Romance novels and erotic fiction with mature themes Erotic comics are allowed, but all project page imagery, including cover art and preview pages, must follow these guidelines Photography books presenting nudity in an artistic, editorial, or body-positive context Educational guides on intimacy, sexuality, or wellness
https://bsky.app/profile/rosalarian.bsky.social/post/3mllshuvz5c22

watching people talk about sex scenes in romance novels on social media causes my blood pressure drop. Snyder, a romance author, writes about sex scenes from a craft perspective – one I appreciate! She shared this on bluesky; authors and readers were quick to agree about what these scenes are doing for story or sharing specific scenes that, for them, stand out.1

the Kickstarter news is not a surprise to many adult creators, but it is still a blow because they are forced, once again, to find another platform due to ever restrictive terms of service. at least romance is “safe”.2

why does my blood pressure drop when I read these conversations? because romance readers and authors will say sex scenes are important elements of storytelling then allude to, or outright say, “we’re not porn! we are better!”3 I agree sex scenes are meaningful aspects of storytelling and character development: bad pacing can render an otherwise exciting or revealing sex scene to a jumble of body parts and unintentionally awkward dialogue. all elements of the story matter.

and/but I do not believe sex outside of romance, or erotica, is any less significant. bodies and unsimulated sex acts are part of storytelling in adult content:

screenshot from bluesky: Lorelei Lee @loreleilee.bsky.social • Thing is, when you say porn objectifies, all that sounds like to me is that you see porn performers as objects. If you actually watched our performances, you'd see we are individuals, with individual skills, performing styles, and aesthetics
https://bsky.app/profile/loreleilee.bsky.social/post/3lstgfhy3as2

what do these things have in common? I was previously writing and deleting bluesky posts for the past two days, usually saying something snarky and unfocused, the Kickstart TOS helped to clarify what I previously struggled to express.

Romance novels are literature. They are not pornography. Pornography is explicit sexual content made for the purposes of sexual arousal and 99% of it is made to sexually arouse MEN. This is not me judging folks who like pOrn. This is me repeating definitions. From those starting points, a nuanced, complex discussion that touches on human sexuality and what constitutes art can be had. In theory, that is. Here on Threads, not so much.
— a romance author

the asinine belief that genre romance is real art, not porn, is not new; this shit is old and persistent. I see the reduction of porn in romance circles often. for instance, last week I saw a post by a romance reader about how romance and erotica are not like porn because porn is male/capitalist gaze4. too many people I follow liked or reshared this post which was disappointing because I thought they were smarter. some people who show up for sex scene discourse find ways to say, “porn is bad” or whatever, without having to say those exact words. maybe something like “gratuitous” or “unnecessary” is used.

or whenever a romance sub-genre has a popular crossover or film/tv adaptation5, the same tired promotional lines are repeated: that sex in romance is superior to sex in porn because porn is purely titillating, it objectifies women, whereas romance has the female gaze (this assumes women do not watch and enjoy porn or that all readers and authors are cis women. and I wish we, as a society, used XYZ GAZE less, it is imprecise):

From the New York Times, Sex Had Become a Chore. Then They Started Reading Romantasy.
And, in what should be an automatic coda to any article about women's consumption of sexual material, anything good in erotica most certainly could not apply to porn. For ... reasons. Sexy words: good. Sexy pictures: bad. Society has so many weird rules about how women get off.
I was talking to Hanna [Puley], our costume designer, about that exact thing. I was like, "Wow, it's predominantly women [who are already fans] from the book." Obviously, I think the gay men demographic has gone up because of the show, just because of the visibility and not [because they knew] of the book beforehand. But she was like, "Well, I think there's something about this type of story and this type of love and this type of sex that has a lot to do with this almost prolonged foreplay and yearning, which kind of differs from this more pornographic idea of sex, and I think that's what the female audiences are really drawn to." She was like, "I think it's more so geared towards a feminine gaze," which is super interesting because it's true. I

I do not believe genre romance is more deserving of a place to exist online than adult content, I do not believe romance is doing more important work than adult content. I believe they are both valuable forms of speech, worth protecting. sex scenes are craft, porn is art.

companies like Kickstarter, like Instagram, like Youtube, like TikTok, like Patreon, etc. etc. etc. will not distinguish between romance sex scenes and other adult content, do not believe them. do not stand by while sex workers and adult content creators (often queer and disabled folks) are kicked off every platform on the internet, or while age consent laws continue to be passed, state by state. romance is not a shield that can protect the art you love from these laws.

  1. some authors thought their work was superior to others, which is a strange and condescending way to market your work. ↩︎
  2. this is a joke. ↩︎
  3. to be clear, I do not believe Snyder’s piece, or any of her comments, were doing this! she’s not interested in holding water for SWERFs ↩︎
  4. the person says they are a history scholar and cited Audre Lorde in their slides. ↩︎
  5. How Bridgerton Celebrates the Female Gaze – Keke Magazine ↩︎