when was the last time you read a romance novel? no, i'm not trying to be bitchy, but the rape'n'ravage trope that you mention as being "still not uncommon" in historicals...
Last week, approximately I actually read quite a few romance novels. It's true it's less common than it used to be, but I've definitely seen it in historicals published within the last decade. And I've seen it in reviews of historicals on a fairly regular basis, so unless romance fans are going out of their way to find bad books, I dunno.
but I am so glad to hear that you don't think the ENTIRE Romance genre is bad. I mean, as long as it knows its place and doesn't get too uppity, right? i mean, a genre written by women for women ... fuck, there's gotta be something wrong with it, amirite?
I didn't realize one couldn't critique certain portrayals of women and of romantic relationships that are common but not universal in the romance genre without being anti-woman and anti-romance. I've seen these tropes critiqued regularly on websites by and for romance readers, like Smart Bitches, Trashy Books. There are many excellent romance novels. There are also many problematic ones. Critiquing the problematic ones is not equivalent to dismissing romance as a genre, any more than critiquing politically problematic scifi (which I do a lot more often, honestly) means scifi as a genre is worthless. But the problematic tropes of other genres is not relevant in a discussion that involves problematic and inappropriate m/f romance tropes being applied to m/m romance.
Do you really think there are no negative or problematic stereotypes that are unique to the romance genre? If that were the case, it would make it unique among genres.
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Last week, approximately I actually read quite a few romance novels. It's true it's less common than it used to be, but I've definitely seen it in historicals published within the last decade. And I've seen it in reviews of historicals on a fairly regular basis, so unless romance fans are going out of their way to find bad books, I dunno.
but I am so glad to hear that you don't think the ENTIRE Romance genre is bad. I mean, as long as it knows its place and doesn't get too uppity, right? i mean, a genre written by women for women ... fuck, there's gotta be something wrong with it, amirite?
I didn't realize one couldn't critique certain portrayals of women and of romantic relationships that are common but not universal in the romance genre without being anti-woman and anti-romance. I've seen these tropes critiqued regularly on websites by and for romance readers, like Smart Bitches, Trashy Books. There are many excellent romance novels. There are also many problematic ones. Critiquing the problematic ones is not equivalent to dismissing romance as a genre, any more than critiquing politically problematic scifi (which I do a lot more often, honestly) means scifi as a genre is worthless. But the problematic tropes of other genres is not relevant in a discussion that involves problematic and inappropriate m/f romance tropes being applied to m/m romance.
Do you really think there are no negative or problematic stereotypes that are unique to the romance genre? If that were the case, it would make it unique among genres.