Why There Shouldn’t Be Controversy About “Spicy” Novels – A Ramble « PekoeBlaze

On a sleep-deprived afternoon in late March, I found myself watching random Youtube videos discussing – and sometimes expressing angst about – the popularity of “spicy” romance novels these days. And, whilst this isn’t really a genre I’m super-interested in reading, the fact that there’s even a “debate” or “controversy” surrounding it these days seems deeply dystopian for a number of reasons. Consider this article to be a bit of an “outsider” perspective on the subject.

The first reason is that the artistic freedom that novels of all other genres – horror, sci-fi, thriller, urban fantasy etc… – enjoy these days is thanks to people in the past fighting for the right to write, publish and/or read “spicy” novels. In Britain, this was the famous Lady Chatterley Trial in the early 1960s which overturned the previous ban on D. H. Lawrence’s “Lady Chatterley’s Lover” (1928) and helped to pave the way for the end of official censorship of novels. A basic freedom which writers in all other genres enjoy to this day. In the US, similar censorship trials and/or debates in the 1950s/1960s surrounding Henry Miller’s “Tropic Of Cancer” (1934) helped to cement writers’ First Amendment rights.

I may not even be much of a fan of the romance genre, but all of the freedoms that the genres of fiction I do enjoy can be traced back to the freedoms won by “spicy” novels. And this is a freedom worth protecting because novels are one of the very few “uncensored” mediums left in the world. Films and “AAA” videogames often have to pass censorship boards, who impose their own standards and restrictions and sensitivities on literally everyone. Politicians these days – on both the right and the left – love the idea of censoring the internet too. Radio censorship is still stuck in the 1950s. Albums have had those silly “explicit lyrics” stickers since the 1980s. Books are one of the few real bastions of creative freedom left to people these days. And this is all thanks to old “spicy” novels from the 1920s-30s.

The second is that, following on from this, literature has been “spicy” for literal decades. It’s really nothing new. Like how a surprising number of videogames in the 1990s – even “mindless” action games – often included puzzles, these types of scenes used to be more common in novels of almost all genres. Even 1980s horror novels, especially in Britain, often included at least one or two of them. Yes, they often formed part of a larger narrative – rather than being the primary focus – but the point is that none of this should really be even remotely “shocking” to readers these days. It has been a feature of popular fiction for more than forty years!

The third is that it is keeping people interested in reading novels. For all of the high-minded “Oh, people should read Serious Literature!” arguments, this has never been the motivation for why most people read novels. People enjoy novels because they are “larger than life”, because they are thrilling or scary or funny or escapist fun. Novels can be “serious” but – both historically and today – most people read them because they are entertaining. Because they are FUN!

Without “pulp fiction” – whether Victorian “penny dreadfuls”, 1920s-50s hardboiled crime fiction, 1950s-80s “Men’s adventure”, “Mills and Boon”/”Harlequin” romance novels, 1980s horror fiction, 1990s-2000s crime novels, 2000s thriller novels, 2000s YA fiction etc.. – the novel as an artform would have all but disappeared. The existence of “gripping” or “compelling” novels is what keeps the medium alive. In order to get people to buy and read novels, novels actually have to be FUN. They have to give the reader something more interesting than just their boring everyday life. Yes, shocking concept. And if the source of this is numerous “spicy” moments, rather than things like dramatic suspense, intriguing mystery, intense scariness, adrenaline-filled fight scenes etc… then who am I to judge? It’s keeping people reading. Realistically, most people don’t initially get interested in reading for “intellectual” reasons. No, it’s because novels are cool and fun.

Case in point, whilst I grew up around books, and I seem to have a bit of an “on-off relationship” with the medium these days, the main reason WHY I still read for fun is all thanks to finding literally one old 1980s horror novel on a market stall when I was a younger teenager during the early-mid 2000s. It was lurid and gruesome and rude and “Wow! I didn’t realise that BOOKS could be THIS cool!“. If the sort of people who criticise modern “spicy” books, who want to put age ratings on books etc… had any sort of power back then, I would have spent most of my life as a non-reader. Books are rebellious. They are shocking and thrilling and dramatic and risqué and all of that. This is literally what gets most people into reading them. If you censor or restrict that in any way, then the medium of the novel may as well disappear.

The fourth is that, by their very nature, novels put the audience in control. Yes, seriously. Whilst the author might be telling the story, it is just symbols on a page until you – the reader – re-create everything in your imagination. Ten people can read the same novel and imagine it in slightly different ways. And, like a traditional daydream, literally everything in your imagination is technically you. Even if you take a strictly scientific perspective, a coldly physical view of the world, then literally everything in a daydream is still just electrical signals within your brain. By virtue of being something you’ve re-created within your imagination, you technically become everything in a story that you read or write. No other storytelling medium gives you this.

But what this also means, and what pro-censorship advocates often forget, is that this gives novels a lot of built-in safeguards. Because you, the reader, can choose how you imagine what you read. If a novel gets too “dark” or intense, then you can imagine it in a more “distant” way, you can focus more on empathising with one character than another etc… You, the reader, have a lot more control than you think. So the idea of trying to “protect” people from fiction or literature seems especially silly and dystopian in this context. By the very act of reading, the reader has more control over their experience than in any other entertainment medium. So, to censor is to patronise the audience, to say “I know better than you” or – worse – “I want to be in control of YOUR imagination“. Creepy.

Finally, I think that part of the fuss about the genre is that it is literally the only genre of fiction which – by its very nature – only “works” for its target audience. If you are outside the intended target audience, it will do literally nothing for you – emotionally or otherwise. It’s limited and exclusionary in a way that no other type of fiction is. But the solution to this problem isn’t censorship. Quite the opposite. The solution is – within the limits of the law – for more of this type of fiction, written by a wider range of authors and – more crucially – aimed at a wider range of target audiences.

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Anyway, I hope that this was interesting 🙂