180: Labels and gatekeeping in romance novels

Is it rude to refer to a romance novel “smut”? Not to me ;) You can call my books whatever you want! …BUT, there’s a lot of nuance to this (and context matters) — so in this episode, we’re exploring important questions we need to ask around the labels we use, our intentions behind our word choices, and the problems with gatekeeping in the romance novel community. 

Examples we discuss in this episode include: Smut, enemies to lovers trope, spice levels, smutty vs spicy vs sexy, and “fairy porn” in romantasy.

Resources mentioned in this episode: 

• Small Town Stilettos and the Polyamorous Passions series: SaganMorrow.com/books 
• Sagan’s burlesque persona (Babe Maverick) on Instagram: Instagram.com/babemaverick 
• Connect with Sagan on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/saganlives 
• Connect with Sagan on Threads: https://www.threads.net/@saganlives 

Transcript

You’re listening to the Author Diary Entries podcast — formerly known as Indie Author Weekly. I’m your host, Sagan Morrow, and this is episode #180.

A new friend recently mentioned how she’s excited to check out my books because she reads a lot of smut, and then she immediately backtracked and said something like, “oh, I don’t mean your books are smutty — I like smut!”

I get it: Some people take a lot of offense to that word, but to me, I actually don’t care what kind of label people use for my books. The words we use matter, and also there are SO MANY different interpretations and definitions of words, and different connotations or meanings we might apply to them. We can also reclaim words that used to be considered offensive or insulting — there’s a lot of power to reclaiming words and proudly embracing them. How we choose to wield words is what matters at the end of the day.

What matters most to me is the intention behind the word, rather than the word itself. And when she said she reads a lot of smut, she so obviously meant it with affection. So in that context, absolutely, refer to romance as smut! Again, I’m a huge fan of reclaiming words like “smut,” and my characters will also refer to themselves as “slutty” and that sort of thing as well. 

Now, the labels of things gets tricky on a different level, when it comes to “what constitutes a book as smut.”

To me, this is where things get tricky, because after we’ve reclaimed words, then it’s about meeting reader expectation with the words we use. That’s the only reason why I am sometimes hesitant to use a word like “smut,” because I don’t think there’s enough sexy scenes in my novels to necessarily warrant the use of that word.

This is also why I have a very tough time, as an author, referring to my novels as “spicy.” There’s no universal definition for spice levels. Some readers think my books are very spicy, others think they’re super tame. It completely depends on what you’re used to reading. 

I would be more inclined to refer to my novels as “sexy,” I think, rather than “smutty” or “spicy,” because the word “sexy,” ironically enough, doesn’t actually imply that there’s sex itself in the novels. So I’d say it’s a more accurate moniker. 

SIDEBAR: This comes up in another aspect of my life, as a burlesque dancer. Some people refer to it as stripping or sex work; others are very offended by that. Personally, I believe that burlesque IS a type of sex work. And yeah, as a burlesque dancer, I’m also a stripper! BUT, I also want to be very respectful of sex workers who do not also do burlesque — because there’s a chance that they would not consider burlesque as a type of sex work, for example. There’s also the tricky aspect of trying to explain to people that it’s not bad to be a sex worker or to be a stripper. There’s no shame in those professions. 

If someone has a lot of preconceived notions — such as a woman who attended one of my burlesque shows and raved about it and then told me that she defended the show against her friends when they called it stripping — I’m probably not going to stop them and get into a whole discussion about it. This woman was very sweet, very drunk, and in my opinion a bit misguided around her ideas of stripping, and that was definitely not the time to try to get into a conversation about it! 

I wanted to mention that because it speaks to some of the nuances and complications around this whole topic, AND it speaks to how it’s not always going to be realistic for us to have conversations about it in a given situation.

…End of sidebar!

If you’re involved in the book community at all, you will see a lot of passionate discussions taking place regarding the labels of novels and how we define different tropes. One of the biggest ones I've seen lately is a conversation around how the “enemies to lovers” trope has become very diluted, for example. And again, spice level is another big problem a lot of people have. 

Here’s where I see the problem arising in this: We, as authors or readers, run the risk of starting to veer into gatekeeping territory. It becomes a pretty big problem when you tell people they can’t use this word or that word to describe a novel — and as an author, I will say that it makes things really challenging because it gets to a point where I can feel myself fighting against myself: it makes me question, “can I say this trope is in the novel, or will readers think that there’s not *enough* of that trope to make it “allowed”? Can I call my own novels smutty or spicy?” 

From there, we run the risk of authors simply not promoting themselves at all (because it gets too intimidating or they don’t want to step on anyone’s toes), OR we run the risk of authors doing a bad job of marketing (because they’re too hesitant to use words that may or may not be viewed as acceptable or accurate descriptors). 

I don’t have an answer for this. And yes, it is also an author’s responsibility to get over themselves and be able to talk about their books regardless! But it still creates this unnecessary barrier. 

We ALSO run the risk of readers being unwilling to share about the books they’re reading, because they don’t want people to be dismissive of their labels. For example, with the recent rise of romantasy, some readers have been referring to certain novels as “fairy porn.” And I’ve seen numerous people on social media kinda rolling their eyes at that, and saying things like “oh, you clearly don’t have a background in romance novels, because there’s barely any sex scenes in that book.”

If a person wants to label it as fairy porn, and they enjoy that definition, then what’s the problem, you know? I don’t want authors or readers to feel as though they’re walking on eggshells when they use labels affectionately. 

I’m not saying that we SHOULDN’T have conversations about labels and definitions of different words, in any context, including how we talk about romance novels. These dialogues can be useful and interesting to have, but I believe they are much more interesting and useful when they are CONSTRUCTIVE. When we approach the conversation through the lens of, “What do you mean by smut? Interesting, because my definition includes XYZ. What led you to your definition? Oh, your reading history has a totally different background from the subgenres I’m used to reading, that’s cool! What brought you to read this specific book? What do you like about it? If you like those novels, you might like these ones over here!”

That type of conversation provides additional context and information and, again, I think that makes it more interesting because we start to learn why and how people’s definitions and understanding of certain labels have been formed over time. Plus, we can start to share recommendations and help people get more of the type of book they WANT! More reading is great!

Is there space to have conversations to that degree on social media or in a book review on Goodreads? No, not really. But does this give us an opportunity to take those things into consideration and get curious about other people’s perspectives in general, and to have those conversations when the opportunity presents itself to us, such as at an in-person setting? Absolutely!

All of this is to say: 

1. Words are POWERFUL and deeply nuanced — the intention behind them AND the meaning we apply to them AND the context in which we’re using them can shift the interpretation of them significantly. 
2. Let people like what they like.
3. If someone is using a label that’s different from yours, get curious about it and use it as an opportunity to have a conversation, rather than jumping to conclusions.
4. Embrace the words and labels and definitions that speak to you. Language evolves constantly over time and it is incredibly cool — you don’t need to limit yourself.
5. As long as you’re saying it with affection, you can call my books whatever you like!

That’s a wrap on today’s episode! Find me on Instagram & Threads to share your thoughts on this episode — my handle is @Saganlives. As always, you can access the show notes and transcript of this episode at SaganMorrow.com/podcast. And if you are enjoying the Author Diary Entries podcast, please take 2 minutes to rate and review it on your favourite podcast platform. 

Thanks so much — I appreciate you!