One of the things about being ace and aphobia in general, is that we exist kind of antithetical to the rest of the queer experience. In that, I can’t have the kind of rep I want without the appearance of shitting on what the majority of queer audiences who want to see themselves represented want.
Because what I want makes me look like a prude, pearl-clutching conservative who can’t handle explicit sex and wants everyone back in the closet.
What I want is queer romances that can stand on their own legs without smut being all they have to offer, and I’m not picking on any one story in particular. I make the same complaint about straight romances that are less “believable, multifaceted relationship” and more “Boy thinks Girl hot they fuck they’re in love”
But adored because there’s two dicks involved when it would otherwise be ignored if it was a straight couple.
You’re caught between “this is a country whose relationship with sex and the shame surrounding it is a systemic problem and having media unafraid to get messy with it is a good thing” and “ok but an epic romance that balances on the pinhead of only what they do in bed is unrealistic and unhealthy and ignores what keeps people together beyond just sex”.
If I speak up and say “yeah can’t they just be friends or at least have a mutual respect for each other first?” I’m accused of being homophobic.
There’s a bookstore near me that only sells romance novels, and the romantasy genre sustains its ability to pay rent. I submitted my book as a local author for the shelves and before I got redirected to the lengthy form that went nowhere, I was talking to one of the sales reps—I don’t know if she was a lesbian but she sure acted like a straight woman just horny for gay smut—and I got this… attitude.
And this question: “How spicy is your novel?” Both from her and on the form.
It’s not. I’m ace. It’s written through an ace lens. There’s two sex scenes and if it were on AO3 it would be rated T. Yes, it’s adult romance.
And I got that fake-ass customer service smile, and promptly redirected to the purgatory form with zero further questions about my novel and its world, plot, or characters, the likes of which I have a long list from independent bookstores that I shall someday blacklist when I become a bestseller for the simple disrespect of not telling me they’re not interested even in an auto-reply.
I don’t have a problem with smut, I really don’t. I’ll pick up a compelling fanfic whenever I’m bored. I just also need some compelling characterization to go along with it, particularly in an original work of fiction that can’t just rely on pre-established canon.
I don’t have a problem with horny romantasy as a subgenre, but I’m writing these books because I’m hungry for rep that exists beyond what they do in bed, and I don’t yet feel like we can coexist without people like that bookstore clerk turning her nose up at me for not writing her wank material.
Adult rep, in adult fiction, because if I’m writing YA, the lack of smut is a given. I don’t have to justify a T rating.
But I also just… hate being a female-passing (jury is pending here), white author, lumped in with my contemporaries who see gay men as playthings and gay sex as just a titillating caricature of a person and not one aspect of an entire sexuality.
I absolutely understand the frustration and wariness that comes from “another middle-class white woman has written a gay romance” because there’s not been a great track record.
I mean I’m not straight or cis, but I sure don’t look that way and while I don’t have a problem saying that on this hellsite, I shouldn’t have to say it in public to justify my credentials to write queer romances.
I wrote the books I wanted to read, and the crux of the central romance that crashes and burns spectacularly is the unstoppable force of a desperate allosexual who thinks he’s “the right person” colliding with the immovable object of an ace who just doesn’t see him that way and tried his damndest to make it work with all he had to offer short of his bed, and it’s not enough.
I’m screaming about aphobia from the top of my lungs and I will never forget being diminished by that twit at the bookstore by how spicy my book is as if that's all that could possibly matter to my audience.
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