Let's Talk About .... Physical Intimacy in Fiction
when do tHeY call it trash and when do tHeY call it art?
Hello readers! Today’s newsletter is about a topic that many people have a LOT to say about ~ physical intimacy in fiction. I’m going to be deliberately vague in how I talk about this so that every single one of you can be seen to be reading an ANALYSIS and not something filter-worthy.
It is absolutely no secret around here that I love reading and listening to romance novels with a lot of descriptive physical intimacy. We can also call them open door romance novels, or spicy or steamy stories. Whatever the term, they all mean the same thing. Bodies coming together in intimacy with every little thing described. In my favorite romance stories, these acts are beautiful and happy and advance the emotional relationship of the characters. Some of my recent favorite examples of this type of story are by The Chestnut Springs series by Elsie Silver and The Vancouver Agitators series by Meghann Quinn.
ExTrEmElY LiTeRaRy SeRiOuS™ readers absolutely adore to trash this type of novel and it never ceases to confound me. I have never understood this desire to raise oneself up by dragging someone else down, and I truly see a deep sense of insecurity in how staunchly some readers will defend their hatred of the romance genre. What are you even hiding? I love what
writes in her piece “More Than a Romance?” about this, and highly encourage you all to read it!All this to say, I just finished reading a forthcoming 2024 literary fiction novel with the following accolades already splashed EVERYWHERE:
NAMED A MOST ANTICIPATED BOOK OF 2024 BY OPRAH DAILY, PUBLISHERS WEEKLY, NYLON AND THE GUARDIAN!
The New York Times bestselling author returns with an irreverently sexy, tender, hilarious and surprising novel about a woman upending her life
“A brilliant, sexy, funny, ludicrously entertaining primal scream of a coming-of-middle-age story… Beyond-dazzling, eyes-wide-open fiction.”—Booklist, STARRED review
“A frank novel about a midlife awakening, which is funnier and more boldly human than you ever quite expect….the bravery of TITLE is nothing short of riveting.”—Vogue
“Hilarious, sexy, and wonderfully weird… a revelation.”—Publishers Weekly
Only three of those say “sexy” and NONE of them describe how much of the novel is extremely graphic and that in well over half of it the main character is in a state of sexual obsession. Acts are excruciatingly described that I have never even once seen in a super steamy romance novel, and the majority of the physical intimacy or self-pleasure is caused by multiple extramarital sexual obsessions followed by deep self-loathing. The acts described are not written in a sensual or sexy way ~ they are clinical and deeply messy and sometimes disturbing to me, at times even to the character involved.
To be clear, I don’t dislike this book. I have much to think about regarding it and what it has to say about many other things (marriage, work, motherhood), and I do see a lot of brilliance in those themes.
But what I hear so many ExTrEmElY LiTeRaRy SeRiOuS™ readers say is they don’t like physical intimacy on the page, so honestly I probably would never even think to recommend this highly lauded book to them. I know, though, that when I start seeing reviews of this book outside of review publications and magazines, that very very few people will mention this aspect of the book. People, IT CAN NOT BE IGNORED. It IS the book. This book IS ABOUT THAT. Yes, it’s also about marriage and motherhood and work and many other dEeP themes, but you can not ignore this aspect without seeming deliberately ignorant or purposely hiding something.
A main criticism of romance novels is that they’re only about relationships and nothing else, which is so very much not the case. They’re called trash because of the explicit physical scenes, and smirked at because middle-aged ladies (me) are reading them, and ha, we can only dream of a life like that, and also silly ladies, that’s not even what real life is like so grow up. But do ExTrEmElY LiTeRaRy SeRiOuS™ readers think or believe that all physical intimacy should look like what is depicted in THIS book? Is it only art if it’s followed by self-loathing or fueled by obsession? That seems deeply unhealthy and perhaps why there is such an fixation in our society on that thing that IS heavily filtered on your work computers???
Ultimately, there is a place in our literary world for all fiction, all depictions of physical intimacy, and whatever combination of those things that you would like. I would just prefer that readers and reviewers be open and honest about what sErIoUs books actually contain and why depictions of happy and beautiful romantic and physical love are so bothersome to the literati.
You will see my thoughts on the book described above in the month that it releases!
Thanks for reading,
I love to hear from readers, so please do reach out to me with questions or feedback at mindfullibrarian@substack.com . If we aren’t already connected on Goodreads, I would love to see you there as well!
A literary fiction writer once told a romance-writing friend of mine that the difference between sex in literary fiction and sex in romance is that in literary fiction, the characters don't like it. The sad thing is, I read a lot of lit fic, and I don't think I've ever seen sex portrayed in a positive, healthy, unifying light. I can't think of any examples, at least. I get that there's a lot of unhealthy sex out there, and that that can be a really rich source of discussion for a character, but perhaps it's become some unspoken rule that sex can't be a positive thing in lit fic.
I had a conversation with someone who said that she was incredibly confused by Kennedy Ryan's latest book. She didn't know what it was "trying" to be as she was primarily a literary fiction reader. Was it women's fiction or was it romance? I think that what surprised her is that it was messy, and it had emotions, and it had hard issues, AND it also had happily ever after. Because that's how Ryan crafts her stories.
But for someone who typically reads literary fiction, I think there is this idea that romance doesn't have these deeper themes in it and romance that plays outside the trope box is confusing. And maybe that might be part of the reason why people continue to be so dismissive of romance, but don't mind a hot mess in their literary life.