{"id":17961,"date":"2025-08-19T12:24:38","date_gmt":"2025-08-19T17:24:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/?p=17961"},"modified":"2026-02-23T15:09:42","modified_gmt":"2026-02-23T20:09:42","slug":"de-gustibus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/blog\/de-gustibus\/","title":{"rendered":"De gustibus non est disputandum"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Painting

\nThe Clinch\u2122, starring Fabio and whoever the girl is, I don’t know.<\/figcaption><\/figure>Genre romance gets a lot of shit: \u201clady porn,\u201d \u201ccliterature,\u201d1<\/a><\/sup> \u201cbeanflickers,\u201d and garners complaints such as \u201cporn for men is reviled because it\u2019s visual while porn for women is celebrated because reading.\u201d These epithets are applied liberally by men and women, no effort to differentiate subgenres is made, love stories are confused with genre romance<\/a><\/em>,2<\/a><\/sup> and to non-romance readers, romance<\/em> is just code for erotica<\/em>, even if there\u2019s no sex in it at all.<\/p>\n

While that is true<\/em>, in general, women\u2019s art is seen with some disdain regardless of what it is, how well it\u2019s done, or in what cultural\/societal conditions it\u2019s made, I\u2019ll save you the feminist rant. For now. You\u2019re welcome.<\/p>\n

Complaints about genre romance are generally phrased as \u201cromance is trash,\u201d not \u201cI don\u2019t like romance because I think it\u2019s trash.\u201d I\u2019m told these two different phrasings make a significant difference in reaction to some people, but come on. We all know they\u2019re exactly alike.3<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n

\"Painting
Because these people are in no way idealized, sexualized, hyper-masculine, or hyper-feminine.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

While these complaints prick my soul a little, they\u2019re valid. I\u2019m not even going to get into the male wish-fulfillment fantasies of pulp novels and comic books: spycraft<\/a>, cowboys<\/a>, space captains<\/a>, superheroes, anything sporting a Boris Vallejo cover, and sportsball,4<\/a><\/sup> because a good half5<\/a><\/sup> of what\u2019s classified as<\/em>6<\/a><\/sup> romance is objectively trash.<\/p>\n

Now, I\u2019ve tried to write straight-up smut because that\u2019s where the money is and rent\u2019s gotta get paid. The two people who read it said I\u2019d done it very well, had my usual depth, and was very distinctly my voice. It was, in fact, some of my best work, and there\u2019s some measure of very smart, intellectual erotica out there. But it made me feel oogey, and if my own smut could make me<\/em> oogey when I was 45 and as horny as a 17-year-old boy, it\u2019s bad. So I tucked that away in my external hard drive, never to be seen again.7<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n

I even tried to write a clean<\/em> (no sex) reverse harem<\/a> book, because that\u2019s a popular subsubgenre (\u201cclean\u201d or \u201cwholesome\u201d is its own thing), but the concept made me feel oogey for an entirely<\/em> different reason.8<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n

De gustibus non est disputandum, sure, but objective truth can be applied to some of it:<\/p>\n