if you wanna be my lover
you gotta get with romance
all i’m asking is for a little respect
I’m starting this Substack with a tale as old as time: while in an online space, digitally surrounded by people I know to be intelligent, critical thinkers, I am still confronted with romance genre slander.
“silly stories” // “cheesy little HEAs”
when confronted with slander such as this, I am compelled to act. I don’t enjoy confrontation but I don’t really see this as confronting. Whenever someone says something ill-informed, I see it as an opportunity: to educate, to empower, and to deshame. Because that’s what romance slander really is, it’s shame.
Let’s be clear. Shame is not guilt. Guilt is the feeling you get when you know you have acted outside your moral or ethical principles. Guilt is what I would feel if I were to do nothing, say nothing, when someone slanders romance. Shame is what we’re made to feel by someone else, by societal or cultural expectations. Shame doesn’t belong to us, but we’re forced to wear it.
no shame in our game
So, what do we say to people who clearly feel shame about reading romance? I mean, idk, but here’s what I said most recently:
“if reading romance is what your head/heart/nervous system needs right now, you should do it!”
and also (I have used iterations of this in the past and find it helps folks understand how romance functions within our economic and cultural ecosystems):
“the economics of publishing speak for themselves: romance as a genre out sells every other genre except gen fic. there is no publishing industry without romance, the genre and all its subgenres literally keep the lights on for publishing and allow publishers to continue to invest in books outside of romance. by reading <insert favourite author here> you're helping keep all the other genres you love in print!”
i promise not all of these will be so repetitive.
if you’re reading my Substack you’re probably already a pretty big fan of romance, you probably didn’t need to hear this story at all. I promise not all these newsletters will be about my attempts to colonize digital spaces in the name of Romance, but thanks for reading this one.