Genre romance gets a lot of shit: “lady porn,” “cliterature,”1 “beanflickers,” and garners complaints such as “porn for men is reviled because it’s visual while porn for women is celebrated because reading.” These epithets are applied liberally by men and women, no effort to differentiate subgenres is made, love stories are confused with genre romance,2 and to non-romance readers, romance is just code for erotica, even if there’s no sex in it at all.
While that is true, in general, women’s art is seen with some disdain regardless of what it is, how well it’s done, or in what cultural/societal conditions it’s made, I’ll save you the feminist rant. For now. You’re welcome. Read more