Same. 10 year old me was fascinated with Rebecca Paisley's and Susan king's work 🤣... definitely romance this days is actually less smut than what we used to read... it's just that no one was the wise because they were marketed as "books for women" 🤣
Also, everyone has a different definition of what constitutes smut. And that's even assuming smutty is a bad thing. When, honestly, I find even very graphic descriptions of sex to be less problematic than many "wholesome" traditionalist narratives.
They totally missed Brenda Joyce, Virginia Henley, Susan Johnson, & Bertrice Small too! Old school Historical Romance is the reason I’m the writer I am today 🤣🤣
they're on tiktok en masse trying to get AO3 taken down if they don't censor what fics are allowed. They really are the spiritual successors to boomers who were all free love until the moment they weren't.
but it also allows you to filter out anything you don't want to see. its the very epitome of don't like it don't read heck you don't even have to see it.
I've been thinking about that and lately I wonder if it's because romance is becoming more associated with erotica, but they're two completely different genres I think.
SO challenging. I think that's why I keep going back and reading older titles. Also, I remember Siren Publishing. When I was at RT, we'd joke that their books were like m/m/m/m/m/m/f/m/goat. 😂
Comments
https://bsky.app/profile/hippychick.bsky.social/post/3liubuphy222g