Culture Study Podcast - The Expansive World of Queer Romance

00:00:00.840 Hey everyone, it's Anne. Melody and I are currently planning the next two months of

00:00:05.680 podcasts and we just scheduled a whole bunch of recordings. So here's what's on the docket

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00:00:15.780 talking about like ski culture, how it's changing towns that are around skiing, like the transformation

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00:00:28.600 if you have questions about that please submit them also the rise of therapy speak and how

00:00:33.800 therapy presents itself on social media so we're talking about like carousels where there's lots

00:00:39.080 of different shareable options about like some sort of therapy something self-care is related

00:00:44.620 to this but then also like stuff like holding space and how that came into the popular lexicon

00:00:51.140 we're also going to do an episode about running culture which is weird and exciting and annoying

00:00:57.600 and then specifically contemporary ideas of self-care that's we're going to drill down on

00:01:03.420 that one and wow culture culture is in the name of all of these things we're going to have another

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00:01:19.480 specific recommendations for you based on movies that you've loved in the past 20 years so like

00:01:26.080 you submit okay here are three of my favorite movies from the last 20 years and then my co-host

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00:02:05.040 Thank you so much for helping us make this show that you want to hear.

00:02:08.620 And with that, here's today's episode.

00:02:15.700 This is the Culture Study Podcast, and I'm Anne Helen Peterson.

00:02:18.980 And I'm Adeeb Karam, an award-winning and USA Today best-selling author of queer fiction.

00:02:24.580 This is the fourth episode in our ongoing series about romance novels, and we've talked about

00:02:29.960 romance as resistance, romance in self-publishing, the business, like bookstore business of selling

00:02:35.800 romance, and today we're going to talk about queer romance very broadly. So, Adib, your first romance

00:02:43.800 novel for adults came out at the end of August, so can you tell me about it?

00:02:47.960 It did. It's called I'll Have What He's Having. It came out from Forever,

00:02:51.600 which is an imprint of Hachette Book Group.

00:02:53.180 It is a mistaken identity, friends with benefits to lovers romance

00:02:57.780 set in Kansas City, Missouri, about Farzan,

00:03:00.880 an Iranian-American gay man approaching his 40s

00:03:03.840 who accidentally inherits his parents' Iranian restaurant

00:03:07.160 but doesn't know how to run it, 0.62

00:03:08.620 and David, a black gay man approaching his 40s

00:03:11.420 who is studying for his master sommelier test.

00:03:13.440 And after they wine dine in 69

00:03:15.940 and sort out their mistaken identity,

00:03:19.440 uh they think they'll never see each other again but then Farzan says hey actually you feel like

00:03:25.020 you seem like you know the restaurant business and David is like yeah and you like drinking wine

00:03:29.620 why don't we like you help me study for my test I'll help you learn how to run a restaurant

00:03:33.200 surely we won't bone a lot and fall in love along the way and of course as with all best laid plans

00:03:38.220 it didn't work out and they boned a lot and fell in love along the way spoiler alert I guess it's

00:03:42.280 a romance you know they're gonna fall in love along the way that's what's beautiful about it

00:03:45.600 So I know that part of the reason you wanted to write this book was because you saw so many romances that were about like, I don't know, like a hot 20 year old living in New York.

00:03:57.200 Right. And you wanted a different sort of representation.

00:04:00.760 I am not now. And to be honest, nor have I ever been a twink.

00:04:04.960 And I was like, where are the romances for brown men that do not have abs and maybe never had them? 0.74

00:04:10.900 Where are the romances for people that are finding their first gray nose hair?

00:04:14.860 and i say that as if it doesn't exist uh my experience has been nearly everything you

00:04:20.560 you can think of does exist but often you have to like look really hard in indie publishing

00:04:26.500 and not something that my library has access to i mean there's like you know sentient door romance

00:04:31.700 i'm sure by now there's at least 12 different couch fucking parody romances out there with

00:04:38.080 like jd vance involved in some way exactly like degrading jd vance in the couch jp dunce or 0.86

00:04:43.380 something you know the thinly veiled reference uh i mean my my friend and fellow romance author

00:04:49.520 julie murphy is currently obsessed with a like 700 page basilisk shifter romance so everything

00:04:56.000 i think everything is out there but it can be really hard to find yeah and the advantage of

00:05:01.080 traditional publishing is that it has distribution and becomes easier to find and since i had already

00:05:06.300 had a bunch of children's books traditionally published i was like well maybe i should be

00:05:12.140 traditionally publishing brown gay millennial romance to make it easier for people to find.

00:05:18.480 Do you feel like you wrote some of your YA for like, like, because sometimes I feel like I do

00:05:22.980 this, like you write the book that you wish that you had at some point in your life.

00:05:27.120 I think pretty much always. And sometimes it's a book I wish I could have handed to 15 year old me.

00:05:32.140 Yeah. And sometimes it's a book that I really want now. I think like a lot of people,

00:05:36.760 I got very depressed during the pandemic. And I was really writing the happiness that I wasn't

00:05:42.620 finding in the world. Yeah, I actually told myself that 2020 was going to be my year of dating. I

00:05:47.560 had like recovered from my last relationship. I was ready to get myself out there. And then of

00:05:51.920 course, we decided to have a pandemic instead. And then we decided to have Mpox as well, like

00:05:57.800 on top of it. And so I kind of poured my my desire for love into writing about love and boning

00:06:04.640 instead. Did you grow up reading romance? I did a little bit. I think it was more that I grew up

00:06:11.680 watching a lot of romance on television, whether it be romantic subplots and shows I was watching

00:06:17.700 or romantic comedy movies, because I came of age in the 90s and early 2000s when Hollywood had

00:06:23.020 like, perfected the art of the romantic comedy. And we're still, you know, making kind of low

00:06:29.040 budget but high value romantic comedies and I did read romance some but I was I don't want to say a

00:06:36.000 sheltered kid but I was very deeply closeted and kind of uncomfortable with sexuality for a really

00:06:41.720 long time and so some of the romance novels were a little too racy for me they were totally too

00:06:48.500 racy for me I wasn't allowed to read um like Daniel Steele I always wonder like was it the sex

00:06:55.740 or was it more like we didn't have a lot of like that type of novel around although my mom got

00:07:03.580 really into like star trek romance um did she accept the premise uh yes but like i think that

00:07:11.680 i that was okay maybe because it was like star trek i don't know or maybe like my brother was

00:07:18.220 all like the whole family like that would read like a star trek novel like when we would go

00:07:22.560 camping like it would pass around like everyone which is kind of cute right that sounds magical

00:07:27.040 but it definitely wasn't something that I like had access to on a regular basis and I think that

00:07:36.000 in her later life my mom has gotten super into romance and romance podcasts and all of these

00:07:42.220 things which is fantastic and I think a lot of people who maybe had internalized messages about

00:07:47.680 like this is too racy for me but also this is like quote-unquote trashy right or unlearning that

00:07:55.340 at so many different ages and i'm certainly still on that journey indeed i think definitely once i 0.50

00:08:02.740 came out and like a lot of queer people i kind of went through an intense slut phase um but like

00:08:07.800 once i kind of rounded that corner yeah i was just much more comfortable like reading about and 0.80

00:08:14.120 discussing sexuality and so i think that made it when i came back to romance novels um i was able

00:08:20.700 to appreciate it more because when it comes to like writing about sex and sensuality uh it's

00:08:27.180 about communicating it's about two people or multiple people or a person and a door communicating

00:08:32.720 yeah yeah and you know so is dialogue so are fight scenes and so i don't know i think i just

00:08:40.140 had to grow up a little and maybe unlearn a little puritanism. But now I really love romance novels.

00:08:47.080 So one of your YA books, Darius the Great is Not Okay, appeared on a list written by a Texas

00:08:52.200 state representative of books that should be banned in schools. So what has that experience

00:08:58.020 been like? I mean, it really sucks. And it sucks way harder for people who have been much more 0.93

00:09:04.700 heavily targeted than me um but it does suck nearly every author i know who writes for young 0.89

00:09:11.540 people writes because they care about young people and because they want young people to have

00:09:16.060 good lives and um they want young people to see themselves in the pages of the of a book

00:09:22.400 and so to be told that my books are harmful to children is really terrible to be called groomers

00:09:29.560 by complete strangers on the internet is terrible to live with the weight of that is terrible and

00:09:36.700 like from a financial perspective to have my books banned or simply not purchased in the first place

00:09:42.660 and to have my like school visits to talk to children about my books go away has made it hard

00:09:49.460 to pay the rent and you know there's a popular misconception that banning a book increases its

00:09:56.300 sales. And that may be true for one or two or three books, you know, out of year, but if there's

00:10:01.680 a list of 800 books that are getting banned, you know, some of them get media attention, most of

00:10:06.560 them get no attention. And then, you know, say that happened in one library system in Texas,

00:10:11.900 every other library system in Texas is going to be looking and saying, maybe I should just not

00:10:16.420 buy this and avoid a fight later. Yep. And that, you know, in a very different way, we've talked

00:10:21.640 about this in different podcasts about like the exhaustion of public officials who have to deal 0.99

00:10:25.560 with this bullshit all the time and at some point they're like well if this is even about a gay 0.94

00:10:33.140 teenager should i even like risk it right indeed i would encourage your listeners to look up uh 0.97

00:10:40.000 project 2025 and how some of its goals are basically to reclassify romance novels as

00:10:45.260 pornography and um like if you think book bannings are bad now just wait for they wait for them to

00:10:50.400 start coming for adult books too i mean this agenda is not going away right like this is true

00:10:55.760 very much part of like this large-scale desire to understand anything that describes sex as

00:11:04.120 pornography and pornography like it's going back to an age when pornography was criminalized in

00:11:09.700 ways much more severe than it is today indeed um so yeah nearly every state has some form of a

00:11:17.240 freedom to read project going on and so connect with your local one and find out where you can

00:11:22.100 like show up to support your local librarians or your local booksellers or your local teachers

00:11:26.400 whatever it may be all right so we're going to do a little hard pivot here to go into our

00:11:31.100 questions from listeners this first one is from rebecca and it is a perfect table setter

00:11:38.700 queer romance for a while there wasn't very much of it like i was scrounging and now there is so

00:11:46.140 much. What do you think led to the explosion? Are we at peak queer romance, or is there more room 0.99

00:11:52.600 to grow? So my initial reaction to this is no one's like, oh, are we at peak straight romance?

00:11:59.380 But then also, I think actually some people are like, oh, yes, the romance bubble is going to

00:12:04.080 burst just broadly. And in previous episodes, we've had all these questions about like,

00:12:09.180 is the market oversaturated, that sort of thing. But I don't know, like, do you feel like they're

00:12:15.980 actually is a boom in queer romance? What kinds of queer romance is there a boom in? This is an

00:12:23.020 important one. And like, why do you think people maybe perceive an explosion of queer romance?

00:12:29.400 I think I can mostly speak to the traditionally published side of this. And 10 years ago now,

00:12:36.980 a group of authors got together and formed an organization called We Need Diverse Books,

00:12:41.760 which started out focused on increasing diversity, equity and inclusion in the children's

00:12:45.600 publishing sphere. And that saw a wave of black and brown and indigenous and queer and disabled

00:12:52.660 and otherwise marginalized voices into children's publishing. And that has expanded into adult

00:12:58.960 publishing, both in new authors coming to romance, and in a lot of children's authors being like,

00:13:06.380 oh, I love writing. And actually, I think I have an idea for a boning book, let me write that as

00:13:10.160 well. That's, you know, something that happened to me, and I'm far from alone on it. I think,

00:13:15.520 I agree, there's no such thing as peak queer romance. And I think it's really impossible to 1.00

00:13:20.540 talk about any of this without addressing race as well. We may see tons and tons of white queer 0.99

00:13:26.600 romance, but that does not mean we're seeing lots of brown queer romance. We may see lots of 20 0.95

00:13:30.780 something city dweller queer romance. That doesn't mean we're seeing the older queer romance set in 0.86

00:13:36.680 red states and despite what a lot of people would have you believe queer people live in red states

00:13:41.600 queer people fight for their rights in red states queer people fall in love in red states it's very

00:13:47.040 easy for people who have always been majoritized to look around and say ah everything that i can

00:13:54.040 possibly think of exists now nothing else can be thought of by anyone ever and we have reached the 0.89

00:13:59.180 peak yeah we often i often see this in um in white queer folks who uh will like unilaterally decide 0.63

00:14:07.560 that queer joy is over and it's time for queer rage and like just because your joy is over

00:14:11.500 doesn't mean all the black and brown people are done exploring their joy and sharing their joy 0.90

00:14:16.560 with the world so that was a really roundabout way of saying i think there's always room to grow

00:14:22.300 and again i'm traditionally published but the the world of self-publishing of indie publishing

00:14:28.360 is vast and beautiful and we are always finding new and exciting voices there and there's always

00:14:34.240 a room for more because one thing about romance readers is that they read a lot yeah and um

00:14:40.420 if you read a lot you need a lot of books that's the thing we actually we just recorded this

00:14:45.740 episode on um book talk and one of the questions was like all about how this like an almost

00:14:53.560 an infantilization of people who read romance because it's like they're lying they must not

00:15:00.020 be reading this many books without understanding like how many books you actually can read if that

00:15:04.940 is your main hobby if I if I only read books every night like if I didn't watch television

00:15:10.280 if I didn't I don't do there's so many other things like I could read a book a day absolutely

00:15:15.620 same and I don't in any way want to make it sound like romance books are not

00:15:21.400 deep uh nuanced or layered because they are but they are also not like a physics textbook

00:15:26.560 at the end of the day like uh like yes you have to think about them you have to digest them but

00:15:31.160 it's a different kind of brain work imagining than it is like synthesizing data if that makes sense

00:15:39.880 yeah yeah yeah and so you can i at least i can read them i can read a romance novel much faster

00:15:44.520 than i can read a non-fiction where i'm like constantly checking the footnotes

00:15:47.780 or being like oh let me put it down and have to go google something yeah like i mean occasionally

00:15:52.240 in a romance novel you might have to google something but it's usually in incognito mode

00:15:57.280 and kind of funny or weird uh do you feel like from the type of romance novels that you want to

00:16:05.860 read there are a lot of those romance novels that are directed towards a reader like you

00:16:11.600 uh there are more now than there used to be but I am quite voracious yeah and so no I don't think

00:16:18.200 there's enough yet and I don't know if there will ever be enough yeah um but I would love it if it

00:16:23.320 got to the point where I wasn't constantly like excited about the next release and instead had a

00:16:30.160 backlist that I could reach for I'd be like oh you know here's other 12 brown queer romances that I

00:16:35.260 can that I haven't gotten to yet uh instead of yeah waiting for the three or four year what are 0.96

00:16:41.160 your favorite tropes oh okay i am absolutely just trash it like if i could put it in a little iv

00:16:47.940 baggie and carry it around on the little like wheelie cart like at hospital and inject it into

00:16:52.340 my veins that's what i would do with only one bed um i just melody too melody loves only one bed

00:16:57.920 it's just it's so good i am i really am a sucker for second chances um maybe because i really want

00:17:05.120 there to be second chances like in real life um i also love a good hurt comfort uh especially if

00:17:12.880 the comforting involves either sex or food um or like bandaging wounds i don't know that's a very

00:17:18.540 specific one yeah um i don't know if anyone remembers the andrew garfield spider-man but

00:17:22.740 like when he shows up all beaten up and uh emma stone is like oh let me clean you up like that's

00:17:27.120 that's yeah that's my jam um like do you like contemporary or historical i like almost

00:17:35.140 everything but i do gravitate more toward contemporary yeah i think i reach for some

00:17:41.520 sort of speculative element more than i reach for a sort of pure historical yeah and i will say one

00:17:49.300 thing that i like have read a few ones that really did it for me but don't usually work for me uh is

00:17:54.060 kind of darker romance um whether it be like mafia or like when there's sort of violence on

00:18:00.580 the fringes of the romance yeah uh even in fantasy like fantasy romance with too much violence i'm

00:18:05.080 like i don't want to read about this kind of sword um yeah i always skim past the sword stuff

00:18:12.080 yes fine um but i think i don't know i really contemporary is just my jam yeah i keep coming

00:18:18.760 back to it over and over uh one of the historical ones that i've recently read is called a marvelous

00:18:23.740 light and it's like harry potter but like they're in the real world and they practice magic and it's

00:18:33.220 the 19th century and they're gay interesting i know and it goes like the first book is two

00:18:43.060 male magicians and then the second book is two women like it it kind of is omnivorous in the

00:18:52.640 direction that it takes nice but yeah no I would recommend and I've recommended in the podcast I

00:18:57.240 appreciate that as soon as someone says magicians I immediately think of Job from Arrested Development

00:19:01.120 and Final Countdown starts playing in my head I mean this is the thing is I'm not like a big

00:19:07.640 like magician it's like what if magic were kind of weird so it's not like magic is cool

00:19:12.960 it's like weird magic but also like wearing natty suits like there's something that always gets me

00:19:19.620 about that and like old houses and old money and that sort of thing uh okay so we've got a bunch

00:19:27.380 of questions it's going to be like a huge part i think of the meat of our podcast episode is about

00:19:32.020 the phenomenon of women both straight and queer writing male male romance so we're going to spend

00:19:38.420 a little time on this with a few different iterations of this question and this is where

00:19:43.440 we're not going to get canceled just by the way i will ask any listener to at least give us a little

00:19:47.940 grace and understand that all of us are working through a complex issue with no clear cause or

00:19:54.080 answer. Absolutely. So one of these questions came from Jordan, and Melody's going to read it.

00:19:59.940 How should I feel about queer romance written by straight people? Historically, a lot of male 0.90

00:20:05.680 male has been written by women, many of whom have publicly self-identified as straight. On the one

00:20:11.460 hand, I hate that the industry is dominated by people writing about marginalized identities

00:20:16.200 that aren't their own whether that's sexuality race gender or other on the other hand a lot of

00:20:21.780 these books are very enjoyable to read any thoughts on how we as readers balance this

00:20:26.960 where do you want to go here i will say um yes like there is just data that this is true i will

00:20:36.780 say that authors never owe anyone their identity and there are lots of people who publicly self

00:20:42.820 identify as straight, who are in fact not, and they are allowed to write it. I think the broader

00:20:47.700 question of who gets to write what story is also complicated. There are countless axes of

00:20:55.580 privilege, domination and oppression that go into the formulation of every story. And ultimately,

00:21:01.200 I think it's up to each writer to figure out where they fall in that line and where their

00:21:04.620 moral compass leads them. My personal experience is that people are rarely harmed by someone

00:21:11.120 sharing in a joy that is not their own and are often harmed by people exploiting a pain that

00:21:16.180 is not their own and so i that tends to be my guiding principle as far as how you as a reader

00:21:22.860 should feel i think you get to feel whatever way you want to about it um once the book is written

00:21:27.380 it is out of the author's hands it is your book once you have bought it and you get to love it

00:21:33.160 you get to hate it you get to feel some kind of way i reject the notion of guilty pleasures but

00:21:37.480 i also won't ever tell anyone like how they should feel and if they need to feel guilty that's allowed

00:21:42.380 uh as far as balancing this i think there uh i hate i hate to say this but math is the best way

00:21:49.720 to balance it keep a spreadsheet or use goodreads track your reading and every three to six months

00:21:55.400 do an audit of not only what you've read but where you have actually put your money because if you're

00:22:01.280 buying a lot of books that don't seem to be written by queer people, uh, and getting from

00:22:09.500 the library, all the books that are written by out and visibly queer people, then your money is

00:22:14.460 flowing in a very particular way. And if you wish to, you know, correct that imbalance, you have to 0.99

00:22:20.260 use your money differently. Yeah. Yeah. And the other thing I would say that sometimes I think

00:22:24.420 people, um, don't think about is if you read something from the library and you love it and

00:22:29.340 you're like oh i want to support that author there's so many ways you can support that author

00:22:33.260 you could recommend that book you could gift that book right like buy three copies of that book and

00:22:37.780 give it to your friends or donate them to local queer shelters you can also i don't know if you're

00:22:43.760 listening to this you won't see my quotation fingers lose the book uh so the library system

00:22:49.980 has to buy more and uh actually like don't tax your library systems resources now that i say

00:22:55.140 that out loud that sounds like you're just asking the libraries to subsidize it but asking the

00:22:58.540 library to buy extra copies or asking them the library to buy that author's backlist especially

00:23:04.080 if it's an indie or self-published book they really rely on patron requests to know which

00:23:10.740 indie books to put on the shelves because they are much harder to find uh and much harder to vet

00:23:16.500 like library journal and kirkus and publishers weekly do not cover indie publishing nearly as

00:23:23.100 extensively as they do traditional publishing oh that's such a good point and i did like sometimes

00:23:27.900 I think people don't think librarians take these requests seriously they take them very seriously

00:23:32.200 they do my library has bought so many books I've recommended it's great yeah they're like this

00:23:37.400 person knows how to recommend books like that we that maybe are outside of like their reading

00:23:42.520 specialty or something like that like you can become a reliable recommender for them uh okay

00:23:47.920 there's a lot more to say here and I think this next question tees up some of these like follow-up

00:23:53.240 questions. So this is about broadly sexuality of character and sexuality of reader and all

00:24:00.620 of those things. So this particular iteration of the question comes from Tori, and Melody's

00:24:05.200 going to read it. Why is male male so popular? Asking for myself, a queer woman who has always

00:24:11.540 been into male male romance, despite having no personal interest in, well, males. But I know so 0.98

00:24:17.800 many straight women into it too. And I've got to assume that gay men don't mind it, though let's

00:24:22.820 be real these male male characters written by women can feel like women in male bodies why as

00:24:28.960 a woman who loves women am I so hesitant to try female female romance I love literature with queer

00:24:35.860 female characters but I've never read romance I tried to wade into the scholarship on fan fiction

00:24:41.720 and it did not turn up the satisfying answers I was looking for hmm I'm interested that this

00:24:47.320 person went into the literature on the history of fan fiction and slash in particular because

00:24:51.720 there's a lot of foundational literature that looks at like what was going on with the readers

00:24:58.700 who were putting together specifically Spock and Kirk right the premise which yes the very

00:25:04.660 basic understanding and I think this is very broad but still useful is that these characters on the

00:25:13.540 show were very masculinized and did not seem like very sensitive or loving in ways that would make

00:25:21.460 them feel like a good partner or able to access characteristic traits that are often understood

00:25:27.920 as more feminized. And so when you allow them to love one another, you see a different side of them

00:25:35.840 that is incredibly attractive. What would you add to that? I would say

00:25:40.920 this is such a tricky topic because we're dealing with, you know, centuries of patriarchy.

00:25:48.840 yes and uh heteronormativity on this i think one thing i don't see talked about as often but i think

00:25:55.620 plays into why kirk and spock uh and many of the most popular fanfic pairings are both cisgender

00:26:04.180 men is that historically a lot of popular culture has had very flat or non-existent female characters

00:26:11.720 to draw from in the first place yeah uh the star trek the original series uh only had uhura as a

00:26:18.020 regular and then nurse christine chapel as a frequent guest star and nichelle nichols brought

00:26:24.060 so much beautiful depth to that role but textually ohura never had much to do and i think you can

00:26:32.800 look at other popular franchises archive of our own was i think largely founded to like be a safe

00:26:40.700 place to post supernatural fan fiction yeah all the main characters in supernatural i've never

00:26:44.700 seen supernatural all the gifts i've seen on tumblr of supernatural have men in them

00:26:48.840 looking at um even you know the transphobic wizard books two boys and one girl are like

00:26:56.880 the main trio and the girl kind of exists to soften the edges of the male characters

00:27:02.740 um so i think simply a lack of female and femme representation early on made it so that sort of

00:27:11.100 the de rigueur of fanfic pairings was mm i think beyond that i agree like seeing using

00:27:18.720 fiction to deconstruct toxic masculinity is a really heady drug yeah and and i think is useful

00:27:27.480 and when we live under a system that harms us it is nice to use our imaginations

00:27:32.800 to think of ways to dismantle it or to imagine a future where it doesn't exist

00:27:37.420 yeah and that these two very masculine men who are frequently getting their shirts ripped

00:27:41.660 can also be in love i also think there is something to be said for television used to

00:27:47.760 be in a four by three aspect ratio and so everyone had to stand much closer together and uh

00:27:54.860 it's such a good point right like a good point yeah like you look at these close-ups like

00:28:00.620 spock and kirk are basically mouth to mouth if they have to talk to each other in frame

00:28:05.720 without it being like a wide shot of the bridge i think that's really beautiful and i think when

00:28:11.460 it comes to like why we like to read what we like to read i think i can never know what's in another

00:28:17.980 reader's heart when i think of like i went through a phase where i had a hard time reading ff romance

00:28:24.660 and i have uh like i realized that because i audited my reading and i was like oh like it's

00:28:30.020 been a while since i've read an ff book and so i actually went to the library and got a stack of

00:28:33.680 only ff books uh to read them and like figure out which tropes i liked and which authors i really

00:28:37.660 liked yeah uh and i think that was probably my own internalized misogyny and um you know we put 0.92

00:28:44.540 the l first in lgbtq uh for a reason in large part because lesbians were the ones who stepped up

00:28:51.580 and protected the community during the aids crisis which is a vast flattening of the entire history

00:28:58.040 um but despite that gay men often get the most attention in the queer community particularly

00:29:03.260 white gay men and i think that's racism and the patriarchy at work there and some of us just have

00:29:09.800 to we all i think have to do work on unlearning yeah messaging that tells us that stories featuring

00:29:16.880 women and femme people are less interesting than stories featuring men also this may be crass

00:29:24.460 but there's also a lot of learning that all of a lot of us have to undo around sort of puritanical

00:29:30.800 notions that sex must be penetrative yep and if it has to be penetrative it's useful to have a

00:29:37.440 wiener it's not necessary but it is very useful it makes everything like it just removes a layer

00:29:43.220 of logistics yeah otherwise do not have to consider yeah i think there's two things that

00:29:48.960 i would add to that which is that i think women are conditioned to identify with male characters

00:29:57.240 because of the way that so much media is directed towards us, right?

00:30:01.380 So there is a conditioned identification with a male character

00:30:05.320 that feels more, quote-unquote, natural.

00:30:09.100 Absolutely.

00:30:09.780 So there isn't that necessarily like that,

00:30:13.020 oh, I shouldn't be identifying with this character.

00:30:15.180 You're like, yeah, I'm always identifying with strong male protagonists.

00:30:18.000 It's like my job as a person who watches media, mainstream media.

00:30:22.980 And then the other thing I think, 1.00

00:30:24.420 and i'd be curious to hear other listeners thoughts on this i think straight women 1.00

00:30:30.560 aren't always exposed to different types of sex and are like oh this is hot 1.00

00:30:37.820 that's very simple right but like i think especially depending on your age and where

00:30:45.260 you grew up and how and what conditions you grew up you might have had a lot of people telling you 0.96

00:30:50.760 that like gay sex is gross and then so when you encounter it and you're like this is incredible 0.97

00:30:55.400 and this is hot like understanding different types of sex on the page as hot does that make sense 0.98

00:31:01.380 it does and i think it also ties into something that i have uh heard other people talk about 1.00

00:31:07.740 in particular women is that also there's a lot of conditioning around like the role of a woman 0.97

00:31:14.500 in sex and uh it's often one of service yeah because men are often gross and 0.67

00:31:23.100 and simply removing it is in some ways like healing a trauma that they don't have to be

00:31:30.640 reminded of any of their own experiences that in some ways it's like it's just a totally foreign

00:31:36.940 thing yeah when you read about two dudes boning do you know much about the the readership of your

00:31:43.400 books i do not um i try to really keep reader spaces as sacrosanct as possible yeah and so i

00:31:52.060 only engage when i'm invited to and i tend to have pretty strict boundaries about what i

00:31:56.480 will and won't read and what i will and won't engage in but i hope anyone can enjoy my books

00:32:04.060 yeah i think at the end of the day yeah okay to to continue going deeper on this question this

00:32:10.840 This sub-question comes from Livia.

00:32:14.460 In the queer romance genre, many women writers end up writing MM romances that have little to do with the reality of gay men or masculinity, regardless of their identity, LGBTQ+, or not.

00:32:26.800 They write a romance that, if you remove the scenes with crossed swords, could be between any gender or genders.

00:32:33.260 Yet, so few women romance writers choose to write FF, and nearly always fail to add spice and passion to these stories. 0.91

00:32:40.260 why queer women already lack representation so what's up with this gap is it the perception of

00:32:46.960 the quote-unquote market where straight women the majority of the audience is thought to prefer

00:32:52.200 reading about men than women or some other patriarchal structure okay so i want to ask

00:32:57.940 you first about that first part of the question which is that these male male romances often have

00:33:03.680 little to do with the reality of gay men or masculinity what's your take on that i uh

00:33:10.660 i don't feel equipped to judge yeah whether people are like accurately inhabiting the reality or what

00:33:18.340 their relationship with the reality of uh lived experiences but i do think there there's a gay

00:33:25.160 author named nathan uh bergogna who once wrote a really lovely essay uh called the shoulder check

00:33:32.640 problem which is that he was writing queer romances where the men usually looked over

00:33:37.940 their shoulder to see if it was safe for them to kiss before they did so and that he would often

00:33:43.840 get reviews or complaints from readers saying that it took them out of the fantasy of the story

00:33:50.020 and i think when you perceive queer life as a fantasy that you can be taken out of instead of

00:33:57.260 of a reality that people live in, I think it can be harmful in ways you probably do not intend

00:34:03.520 for it to be. Nathan also had this beautiful phrase that basically summed up that he has no

00:34:11.540 problem with people writing whatever kind of queer stories they write, as long as you don't

00:34:15.500 also erase us. And he says, not about us without us. And so I do think most queer people have had

00:34:25.200 to come to their queerness through some kind of trauma. Not necessarily like big, like bold-faced 0.99

00:34:33.720 trauma, but if you grew up in the United States, there is a large societal pattern that says that

00:34:41.840 something is wrong with you, and that hurts you, and it takes a long time to unlearn that.

00:34:48.080 I think a lot of queer people, especially queer boys who grew up into queer men, also deal with

00:34:53.340 the violence of toxic masculinity and there is violence too whether it be you know not like

00:34:59.520 literal violence but like emotional violence in breaking out of toxic masculinity and i think

00:35:06.780 people who have not experienced what that violence does to your psyche cannot always

00:35:12.860 capture what the lived experience is and i don't know that everyone has to try to capture that

00:35:18.180 lived experience like if you want to write a fluffy story about two boys boning where the tall

00:35:22.420 one is the top and the short one is the bottom and the bus driver lives at the bus station which

00:35:25.700 is also his house that's fine but i do think as with any kind of marginalized identity like

00:35:32.980 thought and care are useful i'm thinking of that the book i mentioned earlier a marvelous light

00:35:38.220 and it's like part of it is just like what if what if these characters in this imaginary space

00:35:43.540 that also has magic also didn't really have to care about other people finding out that they

00:35:49.160 were gay right yeah I think queer normative worlds are really exciting too yeah but I think

00:35:55.960 it takes talent to pull off yeah a queer normative world it takes deep thought and care in the writing

00:36:02.380 to get it on the page that this is a queer normative world instead of this is our world

00:36:08.540 and I've never considered how queer people have to move through it safely yeah yeah yeah and

00:36:13.960 historical spaces too right like like you can't just be like oh but what about the 19th century

00:36:20.160 without oscar wilde right like um that it takes a lot more work than that and i think yeah people

00:36:29.080 just got to do the work yeah what do you think okay this part about how there's not enough

00:36:33.200 female female romance especially female female romance with spice i wonder if that's also

00:36:41.860 internalized homophobia with female readers i could not say because i'm not part of that

00:36:48.900 community i will say as with all things um check out indie publishing yeah there's very spicy

00:36:56.020 very racy femme ff queer stuff out there um stuff that makes me blush and i don't blush very easily

00:37:04.100 but i do think there is just empirically less of it uh i do think yeah internalized homophobia 0.98

00:37:10.720 internalized misogyny is a big part of it yeah I also do think you know the question

00:37:16.880 Livia's question mentions the perception of the market I don't know if it's a perception so much

00:37:21.040 as it is a an empirical list of how much money various things have made yeah in some way you

00:37:28.500 have to you have to put your money where your want is and if you're not finding exactly what

00:37:33.900 you want you find the next closest thing and put money into that so that it is deemed successful

00:37:39.020 so that more people can write more things like that.

00:37:41.460 Yeah.

00:37:42.180 So our next two questions are going to be like a little bit more fun

00:37:46.200 and maybe slightly less complicated.

00:37:49.580 And it'll give us a chance to do some recommendations.

00:37:51.800 So this first question comes from Ember.

00:37:55.500 I'm so glad you're looking at queer romance.

00:37:58.020 I take great pleasure in the romanticcy genre,

00:38:00.880 the spice, the moody book boyfriends, the dazzling world building,

00:38:05.280 but they do tend to be breathlessly heterosexual.

00:38:07.960 In trying to seek out more queer narratives, being myself queer, I haven't found very much in this space, despite some digging.

00:38:15.800 There are woman-forward fantasy series with gay subplots.

00:38:19.140 There are marketed, cozy books about lady orcs running bookstores and talking about their feelings. 0.75

00:38:24.740 And of course, there's tons of weird gay erotica. 0.92

00:38:27.180 But the big, dark, sweeping epics with Spice and an HEA? 0.98

00:38:30.660 Crickets.

00:38:31.400 What gives?

00:38:32.880 What are your recommendations here?

00:38:34.680 I will first say that I know that you told Melody when Melody asked you about like ACOTAR. 1.00

00:38:39.520 You're like, I don't care about these like these straight fairies. 1.00

00:38:43.880 Oh my gosh, now I really am going to get canceled. 1.00

00:38:47.580 Truly, I actually wish I had Rex.

00:38:49.920 It's weird.

00:38:50.700 Romance fantasy has existed for a long time and fantasy romance has existed for a long time.

00:38:55.360 But what we are coming to call romanticy is, I think, its own very particular subgenre with its own tropes, its own rules.

00:39:04.680 and it's very new in this case um sort of the the genesis of a lot of this genre has come from

00:39:12.860 white and straight stories and sometimes christian right like that's the other thing 0.97

00:39:18.820 like something like the fourth wing like there's there's christian shit going on i didn't know 0.92

00:39:23.680 oh i knew i knew okay i knew there was like a lot of military propaganda and like i don't remember 0.57

00:39:31.000 if that one was super pro cop or not but um i i actually haven't i haven't read very much

00:39:37.380 romanticy because i usually don't read books by white people unless they come vetted to me

00:39:43.560 by like three outside sources that they're worth reading um that there just won't be racism or that

00:39:49.580 like the book just won't be all white characters and i'm like oh i wonder if they're racist or if

00:39:55.020 it simply didn't occur to them that brown people exist in which case they're still racist just a

00:39:59.500 different flavor of it well and like the thing about the akatar books is that like i think some

00:40:04.140 people are like well these these like batmen are also like darker skinned right but it's like

00:40:12.460 oh but why straight from jrr tolkien's playbook yes yeah that's interesting that the men with 0.94

00:40:19.420 like the large penises like you're racializing them in your mind right and in the ai like 0.54

00:40:25.280 generations that they people make of these characters and that sort of thing say no to ai 0.92

00:40:30.420 there's a lot going on indeed but i do think i think they're part of the problem is it is a

00:40:36.760 fairly new sub-genre and so it just is still getting populated in the traditional space

00:40:43.460 publishers are still acquiring lots and lots of romanticity and more and more is being written

00:40:49.060 by black and brown people and by queer people of all stripes and so i think maybe the problem is

00:40:55.520 we just don't have it yet but we will have it and if you see it buy more of it and if you see it buy

00:41:01.040 more of it um i think like one of the very first i guess it's i don't know if you would call it

00:41:06.400 romantic or like cozy romantic fantasy yeah the very secret society of irregular witches is like

00:41:13.040 one of my favorite things that i've read this year and it's actually a couple years old and

00:41:17.300 there's finally a sequel coming out i think next year but it took me a it took me asking a lot of

00:41:21.700 people being like can you name a romanticy for me that's written by a brown person and they're

00:41:26.200 always like uh crickets crickets crickets and i think similarly it's taking a while to populate

00:41:33.340 them with queer stories and i think a big also another part of that is that queer people have

00:41:38.560 been writing these stories and indie publishing them because they were told they didn't sell

00:41:42.340 which is kind of the constant refrain in a lot of queer stories is it doesn't sell go indie

00:41:47.460 publish it uh and i think i don't seek out romanticity enough to make any like to give

00:41:53.000 any good recommendations um just because i don't read a whole lot of romanticity i think this will

00:41:59.180 be a great thing to talk about in the comments too so we can get yes we can get some more there

00:42:03.080 okay come with your rex if all else fails there is the basilisk shifter romance i believe it's

00:42:08.720 called split or swallow so good our next question about finding stuff to read comes from cat

00:42:15.540 i'm an afab and be heavily into mm xm romance because it means no dysphoria for me however

00:42:22.760 i'm curious how are the queer guys finding own voices books among the absolute torrent of mm 0.97

00:42:29.380 books written by ladies like as a genderqueer person the trans bestseller lists are a horror 0.78

00:42:36.760 show of fetishization, and it's hard to find romance rep that resonates. And I think it may 1.00

00:42:42.900 actually be worse for queer guys than it is for me. I want to be prioritizing Own Voices MM,

00:42:48.560 but my Google foo hasn't been up to the task. All right, can you help Kat here?

00:42:54.460 Ooh, uh, I will give a shout out to one of my favorite websites on the entire internet, 0.77

00:42:58.800 which is Dahlia Adler's

00:43:01.000 lgbtqreads.com

00:43:03.300 which is an extensive

00:43:05.100 searchable database of

00:43:07.320 queer literature by trope

00:43:08.740 by pairing by microtrope 0.77

00:43:11.780 by age category by genre

00:43:13.520 by just about anything you could want

00:43:15.060 and Dahlia is one of the most well read

00:43:17.200 I wouldn't

00:43:19.680 call her a librarian but she has a librarian 0.99

00:43:21.380 that like she just can 0.85

00:43:23.540 recommend you things

00:43:24.420 so I think that's a great

00:43:26.720 way to find it as far as kind of the deeper question about like how it feels to read books

00:43:32.620 that feel like it gets um like the sex wrong yeah uh which i feel like is maybe the

00:43:38.340 the sub question there the sub question i often i don't know if anyone on the podcast has ever

00:43:43.220 seen arrested development which i guess i think about a lot um but every member of the bluth

00:43:47.980 family has like a chicken dance they do and none of them yeah sound anything like a chicken

00:43:53.740 and that's sometimes how it feels like reading mm sex is uh there's a line where michael booth

00:44:01.760 where everyone in his family is doing the chicken dance and michael booth says has anyone in this

00:44:05.580 family ever seen a chicken and sometimes i just feel like i feel like him but it's like has anyone

00:44:10.720 in this family ever seen a butthole like right like every time i see spit used as lube i'm like

00:44:15.980 no that is not healthy or safe uh or loving uh for a partner i don't know there's the reality 0.99

00:44:23.220 of sex and there's a fantasy of sex and i think every author and every reader has to decide

00:44:26.760 where they want to fall on that line and i think even book by book you can decide i mean there's

00:44:32.060 some very unrealistic sex that i still was like oh this is fun let's read more of this so

00:44:37.820 i don't want to ever tell anyone go read something that might trigger your dysphoria

00:44:43.140 i don't know you have to kind of carefully find authors who you resonate with and find friends

00:44:49.940 who you like have the same taste as you so you can swap recommendations yeah I mean that's really

00:44:54.680 a lot of what I do is like I find I know who reads the kind of books that I want to read and

00:44:59.820 they read things in a different order and so they can recommend things to me and having like a good

00:45:04.280 network for word of mouth is actually one of the best ways to find new books yeah do you find that

00:45:10.580 like searching by trope that it's satisfying do you find that you set yourself up for a certain

00:45:16.720 sort of expectation for how the trope is going to play out and then it doesn't necessarily meet

00:45:21.100 that expectation i actually um i think because i grew up in a time before archive of our own even

00:45:28.540 existed there was no searching for things by tropes i i read things if the back or if the

00:45:34.260 flap copy describing the story sounded interesting to me and i would be pleasantly surprised if there

00:45:39.800 was only one bed at some point like that would be a special very special treat for me yeah yeah uh

00:45:45.060 so i never search for anything by trope yeah i don't know that i've ever experienced that like

00:45:48.920 disappointment of a trope being poorly executed except i will say and i'm gonna this is going to

00:45:53.580 be very controversial i think a lot of times enemies to lovers really feels like enemies to

00:46:01.860 should have been reported to hr um especially in contemporary yeah um because i feel like a lot of

00:46:08.420 people do that without examining power dynamics yeah and so those feel gross i feel like i'm

00:46:14.920 often disappointed by enemies to lovers but every so often i read a really good one where it makes

00:46:19.020 it makes perfect sense why they're butting heads and there's like no imbalance between them and

00:46:24.960 then like it does get really hot and they come around and and fall in love and you're like yes

00:46:28.880 also if it's in fantasy and you can involve knives or like fights to the death um it's even better

00:46:35.000 i like when it's less about the power differential and more about like oh they're actually so similar

00:46:41.880 like they actually are very like they care about the same things like they um have similar like

00:46:49.340 characteristics that sort of thing melody do you how do you feel about searching by trope

00:46:53.640 i don't know it it's i'm sort of ambivalent about it like it doesn't really i don't search i don't

00:47:00.960 search books out by trope i guess i should say that um if that is something that speaks to you

00:47:06.900 i recommend the romance book subreddit because you could find literally anything you could ever

00:47:12.900 want there uh the only time the only time a trope would turn me off is like i'm not interested in

00:47:19.340 like secret baby or like one night stand results in baby never baby i never want no baby yeah i

00:47:28.260 never say never uh and so i'm also not a big like secret baby or accidental baby fan uh but i'll be

00:47:34.920 damned if a holly jolly ever after didn't pull me in okay it's okay it's the second in julie

00:47:43.120 murphy and sierra simone's christmas not series about what how basically the the parameters of 0.98

00:47:48.760 making a hallmark christmas movie and the parameters of shooting a porno are basically

00:47:52.100 the same yeah and so what happens when uh a pornography producer has to put his kids through

00:47:57.400 college and decides to start making lifetime type christmas movies but with adult actors and like

00:48:02.900 burnt out boy band members and so this is the second one about like the funny one from the boy

00:48:07.720 band filming a christmas movie uh oh sorry he regains his notoriety after a sex tape is revealed

00:48:14.440 uh is leaked and so he ends up in a christmas movie paired with um a girl who was like a famously

00:48:21.180 like super conservative christian child star uh who was trying to like break out of that

00:48:25.920 and so they like he has to like teach her about her own pleasure along the way as they pretend

00:48:31.560 to fall in love in a movie and then sorry spoiler alert I guess but there's a secret baby it's not

00:48:36.440 even a secret it's a surprise baby uh due to expired condoms so make sure you check your

00:48:41.700 expiration date people don't keep it near your phone don't keep it in your pocket don't keep it

00:48:45.860 in your car's glove box like I don't know safe sex is very important I will say while I was reading

00:48:52.600 that book because I love that whole series isn't it great oh my gosh I'm gonna reread it this year 0.80

00:48:57.600 so funny and the third one just came out last month and i have it on my shelf i'm saving it

00:49:01.840 for december yeah um but even while i was reading it i was like this is the only book that i could

00:49:08.280 read with this trope in it because it is still so charming and delightful i don't even mind

00:49:13.780 right and i think also like they handle the baby in a very like realistic way in a way they're like

00:49:21.200 oh i now have a baby i have logistics to figure out um like it doesn't magically solve things

00:49:28.260 yeah in fact it complicates them instead but in a way that felt really honest of like oh now you

00:49:32.700 have another life to look out for and both characters have to kind of grow and adapt around

00:49:36.800 it and figure out what it means for them instead of just being like oh i have baby trapped you now

00:49:41.240 we will be in love forever so this is the sort of conversation i actually think this is a great end

00:49:47.040 to the show not because a secret baby is about queer romance in any way but because people have

00:49:53.740 babies too even secret ones no the more that you can talk about like with people who you trust

00:50:01.500 about what you like and what you don't like and what makes you feel weird about things and what

00:50:11.000 makes you feel it's actually a fantasy space for you like having those people in your life and

00:50:15.920 they could be strangers on the internet or they could be actual close friends like find those

00:50:20.140 people in your life and that can be of tremendous value indeed and it's fun to talk about books with

00:50:25.480 people yeah that's the thing it's so fun and it's fun to disagree about books too i think sometimes

00:50:31.300 we're like oh we can only talk about books that like we all like or something like that but i

00:50:35.460 as long as you're not like being super mean about other books that people like i think that it's

00:50:41.140 great i think you should never yuck someone else's yum but you can say why it was a yuck for you

00:50:46.180 and let them know that they're allowed to still enjoy it just like i find mushrooms terrifying

00:50:50.540 i don't like their little gills but i don't judge other people for eating them the mushrooms might

00:50:54.920 judge when they gain sentience and murder all humanity um but but i'm not gonna judge i mean

00:51:02.400 i judge people who like black olives it's just it's a it's character flaw

00:51:06.000 uh where can people find you on the internet if they want to hear more from you

00:51:13.240 oh they can find me uh my website adib karam.com or my monthly newsletter which has a sign up on

00:51:19.380 my website or you can find me on instagram at adib karam or on blue sky at adib karam

00:51:24.600 or on tiktok at adib dot karam because tiktok was mean to me even though an adib karam didn't

00:51:30.500 exist they still made me add a dot to my years of name and it threw off everything and it's very

00:51:35.340 annoying i also am really bad about posting to tiktok i get like one idea a month for tiktoks

00:51:40.400 oh i mean also just like the whole process of like i'm gonna film myself like yeah like i film

00:51:47.520 myself if i have something i want to say and then i don't do a whole lot of production for it which

00:51:51.300 is maybe why all of my tiktoks have 12 views what what are your favorite tiktok channels do you have

00:51:58.160 like oh um i mean i really love the pasta queen i love the drama of that god i really like chef

00:52:05.220 john kung i think all the food they make is so delicious also they're very beautiful um

00:52:11.500 i get no food content i get the weirdest shit yeah i think i have a very for a while i was 0.62

00:52:17.940 getting a lot of sheep shearing videos yeah same um those were very fun yeah um especially that 0.95

00:52:23.820 scottish guy that wore like yeah short shorts and gave his sheep cuddles yeah that was very fun

00:52:28.820 um i mean i do get a lot of star trek content and a lot of lord of the rings content because

00:52:34.420 i'm very nerdy this has been amazing thank you so much for coming on thank you so much for having

00:52:39.460 me it was a pleasure yeah i think we navigated that very complicated conversation uh really

00:52:44.460 admirably and surely no one will want to throw tomatoes at us but if you want you could just

00:52:50.180 throw a metaphorical tomato or black olives and mushrooms at us in the comment section

00:52:55.000 become a paid subscriber and you can throw everything you want exactly

00:53:04.420 Thank you so much for listening to the Culture Study Podcast.

00:53:07.340 Be sure to subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.

00:53:10.140 We have so many great episodes in the works, and I promise you don't want to miss any of

00:53:13.940 them.

00:53:14.540 If you want to suggest a topic, ask a question about the culture that surrounds you, or submit

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Culture Study Podcast - December 11, 2024

The Expansive World of Queer Romance

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Transcript