A warning about fair warning
Reblogged from The fiction of Amelia C. Gormley: So today, a popular review site posted a predictable and very, very tired rant about girl parts in m/m romance. Over on my Tumblr, I responded with my own rant calling them out on trans*phobia, biphobia and internalized misogyny. But what gets me more than anything else […]
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I disagree there. Yes, she is entirely free to review whatever she wants. I have no pain with that, except possibly where she complains every book reads similar, but then refuses to read variety. But that's a technicality.
However... I'm bisexual and bigender/genderfluid. No reviewer (or other person) gets to redefine my gender as per their preferences. A trans*man is just as much a man, as a cis-gendered man. Defining a pairing of
m/trans*man = het sex
or
m/intersex (XY) = het sex
is terminally offensive.
Statements like:
At this point I can only assume that some of our writers — and/or their publishers — don’t respect or care about M/M readers; if they did they wouldn’t insert into their M/M romances on-page het physical intimacies such as oral sex, full-on vaginal sex, or anal sex, with no warning in the blurbs.
or
Why are M/M readers treated so disdainfully? Are we not on par with het romance readers? M/M romance has been around for a decade, so why can’t our authors get it right? Clearly we are not respected because if we were this wouldn’t happen, and so often. Would authors insert graphic gay sex scenes in het romances? Not f*****g likely, unless the book is a ménage or a bi romance, and do you know why?
are not only factually incorrect, they are also misogynic, sexist and trans/biphobic. A reviewer may state this, publicly as well, but they need to accept there's going to be a response from the people they treat to this diatribe.
As to labelling, I will label for whatever is potentially triggering (a PTSD attack): rape, death, violence, and even sexual practices like BDSM or taboos.
Suggesting that I warn against m/f or f/f sex is asking me to put female-bodied sexuality on a level with rape and violence. And that again is deeply sexist. I won't do it.
The problem is that Wave demands authors and publishers behave in that manner. While she may curtail what she reviews, the onus is on her to make sure she reads the blurb or excerpt or possibly even directly asks the author or publisher whether or not a book contains what she doesn't like. That's entirely her job as maintainer of that site. Not that of authors or publishers. She wants to review, she gets to make sure she reviews what she wants to review. And of course she has every right to reject authors and publishers who tell her they won't be bothered to answer. That's always her option as well.
When authors and publishers send JW books to read, they know what her restrictions are. This is round 35871 of the same story on that site and it has been going on for years. Years. She has been clear about what she will review and what she won't review. Ignoring that or trying to slip in something that doesn't match her criteria is a kind of dishonest little game on the part of people who submit stories to her. It's her site, she pays for it, she can do what she wants with it. I don't care and I don't read it or any other book blog.
Wave has never said she doesn't want people to write bi, menage, trans*, f/f or whatever other story. She has said that what SHE and apparently most of her readers want to read is cis gendered m/m. Period. Now, she gets carried away and flings the same kind of insults her detractors do. I'm not defending her behavior. I'm defending her right to have a preference and to state it.
Every author with a dog in this fight lost my respect when they started labeling me and every other reader who has preferences about what they want to read and don't want to read.
I don't care what people write. The more options and directions they explore the better for everyone. But painting anyone who doesn't like het erotica as a misogynist scared of their own vagina, or someone who doesn't want to read f/f or bi fiction as an LGBT hater is going too far. Attacking readers for their taste is a) a stupid thing for authors who want to make a living selling those people books and b) enormously insulting. And yes, disrespectful.
If you don't want to label or categorize the relationships in your story, that's fine. Don't do it. It won't change anything in the long run. People will read it, they will comment on it. Those who stumble across aspects they don't like will inform others and at some point it will gain a de facto bunch of labels anyway.
Wave has never said she doesn't want people to write bi, menage, trans*, f/f or whatever other story. She has said that what SHE and apparently most of her readers want to read is cis gendered m/m. Period. Now, she gets carried away and flings the same kind of insults her detractors do. I'm not defending her behavior. I'm defending her right to have a preference and to state it.
Every author with a dog in this fight lost my respect when they started labeling me and every other reader who has preferences about what they want to read and don't want to read.
I don't care what people write. The more options and directions they explore the better for everyone. But painting anyone who doesn't like het erotica as a misogynist scared of their own vagina, or someone who doesn't want to read f/f or bi fiction as an LGBT hater is going too far. Attacking readers for their taste is a) a stupid thing for authors who want to make a living selling those people books and b) enormously insulting. And yes, disrespectful.
If you don't want to label or categorize the relationships in your story, that's fine. Don't do it. It won't change anything in the long run. People will read it, they will comment on it. Those who stumble across aspects they don't like will inform others and at some point it will gain a de facto bunch of labels anyway.
I understand your outrage at what you see as a demand for a 'cleansing' of the m/m genre, but what I see as a demand for accurate labeling. I review about two books a month for JW and while I don't agree with all that Wave says in that particular blog post, I do agree with her that there needs to be a label for non-m/m sexual content that can be found in any particular book. She's been asking for years and I guess now she's frustrated. And it shows. You say it is on her to read the blurbs or ask the author or publisher directly. Her particular complaint is that this particular issue is not particularly addressed in most blurbs. As for asking directly: The blurb list I got last weekend with all the books that have been offered for a review is a word document 93 pages long. NINETY-THREE pages with roughly 3 books per page. Once a month or so she hacks 20 pages off the bottom, but the thing just keeps on growing. Good luck with contacting all the authors/publishers when this is not your full-time job. The author/publisher knows what it is in each book they offer, why not just label it correctly as a courtesy to the review sites?
You say you'll only label for potential triggers, including BDSM and taboos. If you can make an exception for BDSM and taboos, which some people like to avoid, I don't see what the problem is with labeling for other stuff. Just because BDSM doesn't turn me on, doesn't mean I judge people who like it, or do it. I just prefer to spend my reading time on something else. Just because people don't want to read about m/f or m/m/f or m/m/m or trans* characters or f/f in their m/m doesn't mean they are misogynist, transphobic, menagephobic, heterophobic or lesbophobic. They just want to spend their reading time on something else. Here are some of the labels I get in that 93 page blurb list. I really don't understand why it would such a hardship to add a 'non-m/m sexual content' label.
Alternative Paranormal Romance/ vampires/ spanking/novella/96 PDF pages/21.3 K words
Contemporary/fetishism – including medical role play/long novel/113K words
Alternate reality Regency Historical/Steampunk/Novella/Word count: 21,721/Page count (PDF): 84
Historical/European/novella/106 PDF pages
Dark Fantasy / Werewolf / Vampire / Mystery / BDSM (Light) / Ménage (M/M/M) / Novella (21k words)
Dark Fantasy / Werewolf / Vampire / The Arts / BDSM (Light)
Paranormal/ghosts/humor/short story/4879 words/20 pages
Paranormal/Fantasy/BDSM/Action Adventure/Novella/34.5 K words/136 PDF pages
Fantasy/paranormal/thriller horror/gay mainstream/novella/33 K words
I look at these labels and think 'non-m/m sexual content' would be more helpful than 'European' or 'The Arts' at the very least.
Kate wrote: "When authors and publishers send JW books to read, they know what her restrictions are. This is round 35871 of the same story on that site and it has been going on for years. Years. She has been..."Basically we agree. I have absolutely no beef with people deciding they want to read what they want to read, or review what they want to review. I really have no beef with that!
But the cited passages go way, way beyond that, as do her statements of what is a man and what not.
It's not as if she stated "I don't want to read about trans*men". I would be fine with that. E.g. I don't want to read college boys having it on, I don't like reading jocks, or alpha-males either, I hate those with a passion. So, sure, if someone states "I don't want to read trans*anything" I'm fine with that.
But that is unfortunately not what she does. She states that trans*men or genderfluid men or intersex men are no men and that them having sex with cis-gendered men means it's het sex. That is completely different from stating "I don't like to read about trans*men". Completely different, and it is extremely offensive, especially when done within the LGBT crowd.
As to publishers and authors, and what they send her, it's still her who has to make sure. Caveat emptor. She can't force people to label in a manner these people feel is sexist or misogynic (and in my opinion labelling for m/f or f/f sex definitely is sexist, no one does this in general het fiction for gay sex for instance).
She can however refuse to review any book which isn't labelled in the manner she likes, as well as any book she doesn't get a clear-cut statement about. That would cut the whole problem very, very short.
There have to be oodles of smut m/m books and erotica which very clearly label the way she likes it. And there also must be many authors who strictly write cis-gendered m/m sex who will be happy to confirm that to her. She may lose out on a lot of the genre's big names, and I dare say this will become more pronounced rather than less, but again, that's a choice which has to be open for these authors and publishers as well. As far as I know there are by now at least 2 publishers and quite a few authors unwilling to submit books to her. Isn't that what she wanted?
LenaLena wrote: "I understand your outrage at what you see as a demand for a 'cleansing' of the m/m genre, but what I see as a demand for accurate labeling. I review about two books a month for JW and while I don't..."Because there is (apart from what I stated to Kate about these insufferable judgements about what men are and what they aren't) a distinct difference between labelling/warning for a potentially triggering content (rape, child abuse, domestic abuse, violence, taboo practices, deaths and so on) and labelling/warning for something which is perfectly fine and not in any way, shape or form close to rape or abuse!
Fact is that the momentum is really against her, and the only thing she can do, is make sure herself. Have the authors or publishers expressly confirm, preferably in writing, that they read the rules and that the book contains none of what is excluded from being reviewed. And refuse to even look at any submission which doesn't follow this.
It's as simple as that. No labels necessary. As I foresee it she will lose out on many of the excellent writers out there, but that is her own choice, right?
Steelwhisper wrote: "It's as simple as that. No labels necessary. As I foresee it she will lose out on many of the excellent writers out there, but that is her own choice, right? "
Be careful that you are not looking for what you want to see. This issue spins up every 6 months or so on that site, and it creates a week or two of widespread drama, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. She still gets her fair share of interesting new writers and a growing number of requests for review.
What it does do is create little writer-cliques within the m/m community who get into self referencing circles of petty behavior. It's destructive and stupid, and from the outside looking in it is also distastefully unprofessional.
I have had a number of PM's and other private conversations where people have linked me to twitter feeds, virtually rolled their eyes and said "can you believe how bat shit crazy they all are? WTF is going on with them?"
Believe me, while JW may be losing readers, several authors are losing just as many or more.
Be careful that you are not looking for what you want to see. This issue spins up every 6 months or so on that site, and it creates a week or two of widespread drama, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. She still gets her fair share of interesting new writers and a growing number of requests for review.
What it does do is create little writer-cliques within the m/m community who get into self referencing circles of petty behavior. It's destructive and stupid, and from the outside looking in it is also distastefully unprofessional.
I have had a number of PM's and other private conversations where people have linked me to twitter feeds, virtually rolled their eyes and said "can you believe how bat shit crazy they all are? WTF is going on with them?"
Believe me, while JW may be losing readers, several authors are losing just as many or more.
That may or may not be so. It's all drama llama at the end of the day. What it amounts to is that she can ask, but isn't entitled to get what she asks. Which essentially goes both sides. The main point is that no one will be able to put the jack back in the box regarding this. I observed her rants for a while now.
The genre is by now too big, and getting rapidly very diverse and very inclusive. Just as m/f has begun to accept m/m, you'll get m/m which includes m/f. It's not going to lessen, if what I learn among fellow authors is a hint the opposite will be the case.
So what she wants to review essentially will become a subset of a much more inclusive whole. People can and will live with that, and rather than bend to her demands, there will be those favoured by other reviewers. That's life.
Readers will sort it all out with their cold hard cash. I refuse to try to predict what the majority of them want, since the average romance reader and I don't like anywhere close to the same things.
Because there is (apart from what I stated to Kate about these insufferable judgements about what men are and what they aren't) a distinct difference between labelling/warning for a potentially triggering content (rape, child abuse, domestic abuse, violence, taboo practices, deaths and so on) and labelling/warning for something which is perfectly fine and not in any way, shape or form close to rape or abuse!Shifter books are perfectly fine and not rape or abuse and they get labeled. So do vampires. BDSM. Paranormals. Ghosts. You saw that list I posted. There are so many labels out there that have nothing to do with triggers/rape/abuse, you can't just claim that they should only cover what is potentially 'not fine'. Labels are there to help people choose. Just because we're discussing the non-m/m sexual content label and not the shifters one that should not make a difference for the argument.
I'd like a warning label for "proper therapy, and partners who slowly but surely work through their psychological problems with each other and the trauma" because I don't want to read it, and why I love Steelwhisper's review of Safeword telling me it's in there.I want only magical healing penis.
Does this mean I've internalized therapy-hate?
LenaLena wrote: "Because there is (apart from what I stated to Kate about these insufferable judgements about what men are and what they aren't) a distinct difference between labelling/warning for a potentially tri..."First off, and without this being any sort of quality statement, I do not write fanfic. I write books. I have a general problem with labels, warnings etc.. I suggest you go there:
The Line of Beauty
The Ocean at the End of the Lane
Dead Cert
The Mermaids Singing
and show me which warnings and labels the authors or publishers have put on these books. They contain underage sex, rape, murder, gay sex, het sex, torture, and I'm not even done. Show me the labels, please. You can't? Well, that is because most books don't come with labels. I gave you a mix of literary (gay) fiction, urban fantasy/paranormal, mystery and thriller. So, by no means is this just literary fiction. I included several different genre novels, just to make sure you see how ubiquitous the *lack* of labels and warnings is in the world of literature.
Labels/tags/warnings are something which have been dragged in from fanfiction writing. No, romance as a genre didn't have those either! I recently re-read an old Harlequin novel, one of the first I ever read, sort of inherited when I moved into my last apartment. It is Castle in Corsica. See any labels and tags? Warnings? No. This book contains sexual harassment, abuse, kidnapping, and aborted rape. There were a couple more in that bunch, it was a big cardboard with several hundred romance paperbacks, all dating between 1960 and 2000. Stowed in the attic and forgotten. None of them had any labels or warnings. I also just checked quite a few recent m/f romances I read, e.g. May 1812, Heat, Tangled. No warnings, no labels.
So see, that is where I come from. A world of writing, books and literature were labels and warnings quite simply do not exist. It's a vast world of books out there, and 99% or thereabouts do *not* have any warnings and labels. And I happen to agree with that lack, on principle.
Having stated that, I hope you understand now when I say that any labels, tags or warnings which I'm at all willing to implement on my books are a surplus. An add-on. Being polite to a certain subset of readers. No one is entitled to get them, I dislike them as a rule, but I bend to a very narrow cause and *only* to that! I will warn for the most important triggers: abuse, rape, violence, death.
The reason for that is not that I agree with labelling in general, or the tag-sauce readers have started to feel entitled to. It's because I agree that these four instances can result in triggering someone with PTSD. However, it is very unlikely that I will do this in any form or manner similar to how fanfiction (slash and a lot of m/m) gets labelled. I'll be more likely to include this in the blurb.
What I tag a book on a seller site for (e.g. BDSM, erotic romance, LGBT etc.) is a process entirely apart and has nothing to do with warnings/labels the way you talk about them. These tags on seller sites are simply to file my books where they belong genre-wise. Much of it will still be faulty, because e.g. I write BDSM as it happens in real life. Not glitter-kinky stuff or torture-porn. So I am leery even of that much--because my experience with tags is that they are faulty anyway!
So this just to elaborate where from I enter this discussion. I might add that I'm from the other side of the pond, and while we share a language, we don't share the same culture. I come from a background where labels could be and were distinctly harmful. Where denial of a status also might kill or make your life miserable. I'm absolutely not label-friendly, and I hate it when people, art, literature and ideas get boxed and sorted. That reminds me too much of art and literature being sorted into deviant and Aryan, for instance.
Just because we're discussing the non-m/m sexual content label and not the shifters one that should not make a difference for the argument.
And again--I disagree. There is a deep, intrinsic difference between demanding a label/warning for something which is so atrocious that you suffer through a major PTSD episode if you stumble across it, and demanding a label for any minuscule kind of content, or worse, for something which is a perfectly normal physical activity. I don't label/tag for someone eating pizza or brushing their teeth either. I don't label for skin colour (which is the level of fail that asking to warn for m/f sex is!).
And on top of this I am then asked not just to label for something which I do not consider offensive or problematic, I'm also asked to label according to one single person's *erroneous* assumptions of what constitutes m/f sex and what isn't. I really don't think so.
I am upfront though. If you read my profile you'll see my statement that I will not warn of m/f sex in my books, that indeed it is quite likely to happen because I like writing characters who aren't heteronormative in their sexuality or expression of gender.
I would never send a book to a website to review which doesn't approve of m/f sex in their m/m, but then I define my books rather as LGBT or queer fiction/romance than as m/m. I openly say so as well.
I can also state that as a bi-gendered/genderqueer female-bodied person, who gets negated by such attitudes and labels, I quite simply take offence with such (warning of m/f content) labelling. As I stated on my blog, if I happen to come across it my reaction will not be friendly. I'll return such a book and will make sure the publisher and author knows why.
I don't think this is unreasonable. Again, replace m/f with skin colour or confession of the characters and it's very easy to see where this offends.
Emma wrote: "I'd like a warning label for "proper therapy, and partners who slowly but surely work through their psychological problems with each other and the trauma" because I don't want to read it, and why I..."Well-made point! And one I forgot. It is the reader's job to decide to like or not. A well-written review of someone with your own (or *smirk* opposite or tangential) tastes is far more helpful than anything else, including labels.
This whole discussion, for me at least, was never about labeling books to death for the readers, it was about clarifying content for the sake of a swamped review site. I can see that this discussion is different for you, much larger and much more personal and frankly, I do not feel qualified to discuss the larger issues of labeling in the m/m genre vs general literature. I am sure most of your feelings are valid, but I see little point in discussing them with you, especially if we are going to bring WWII into it. That is never a sign of good things to come in any internet discussion in my personal experience. For your information, though, my profile is not my life story. I am European and have lived in Holland for the first 30 years of my life. Chances are we are still from a different culture, because Europe is so culturally diverse, but my parents were born in the early years of Nazi occupation, my grandfather was a resistance fighter and the family I grew up in has been permanently scarred by the events of WWII. I sincerely hope you didn't just label me as 'california bimbo with no sense of history' based on a (false) assumption.
Why should I consider you a "bimbo"? I wouldn't, and I don't think I've lacked showing respect to you in this discussion.However, definitely yes. I think what some people are oblivious about is that for many if not most queer authors this is a much larger and much more personal thing than Ms. Wave thinks. And I'm frankly very happy that so many authors, and there were and are many, finally spoke up about this!
About the rest, please read my PM.
I took so many authors off my possible to read list over this ongoing Twitter-Jessewave feud it isn't even funny.
I find it appalling that so many people are quick to label sexual preferences with words like transphobia and misogyny, and the lack of understanding and tolerance there is appalling.
Write what you want, label the fricking stories, let people pick what they want to read, and stop judging people's inclusiveness by what turns them on or off.