Monday, May 01, 2006

They're at it again...

Yep. You'd think that after the debacle of last year's 25th anniversary bash of the Romance Writers of America, they'd become more temperate, if only to spare themselves that kind of public embarrassment ever again. Nope.

The RWA has sent out the ratings for the first round of judging for the RITA awards. Again, they have embroiled themselves in a public conflagration. I just gotta shake my head.

For an explanation and for comments, go Alison Kent's page, or Jamie Sobrato's page since she is the subject of the... er, 'judging'; and for a bitingly witty comment on the whole situation, see the incomparable Paperback Writer and her SOILS (Sisters of the Immaculate Love Scene) entry.

My own thoughts, after I stopped rolling my eyes, are these: Women like to read romance, otherwise, it wouldn't be so popular. Now, here comes the tough bit, so prepare yourselves. Believe it or not, sex between two consenting adults... happens. It happens every day, whether the couple is married or not.

The judges, it would seem, don't want any books where it happens outside the alleged 'sanctity' of marriage. Obviously, in the modern era, the twenty-first century, they would prefer to hold on to their puritanical moral rectitude and deny that.

Erotica still doesn't have its own award, yet it's a growing area of romance. If people didn't like reading the stuff, they wouldn't buy it. We have gone beyond what happens behind closed doors, stays there; the readers want to be voyeurs (though I doubt many would admit it), thanks very much. We want the nitty-gritty, though not in stark, mean-spirited euphimisms, but real-life emotions and appropriately named body parts. It's a part of life, damn it - and occasionally, a learning experience. We want steam, we want sex, in our romance and our lives.

There are, of course, books out there that have the fade out as the door to the honeymoon suite closes. Fine. Read them if that's what blows your skirt up. But if this is the kind of book the judges want to see more of, then it is the death knell for romance books as a whole. You cannot put the genie back in the bottle and readers will not forget the sex scenes beautifully crafted by Nora, or Alison Kent, or Maggie Shayne or Christine Feehan or Rebecca York or a squillion other romance writers we've read; we'll simply continue to write our own if need be, and share the books their in.

It would not surprise me if the RWA membership roster started dropping with this latest insult to women and the fiction they read. Hopefully, the public condemnation of the judges, their bias, their prejudice and their rating system, will serve as a wake up call. Otherwise, more and more writers will refuse to enter their books and the RITAs will become an insular, self-serving, body corporate smug-fest, rather than celebrating Women's Fiction.

And FYI? I'm off to Kent up my work. (see Paul Darcy's comment on PBW's site.)

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