If Romance is Smut It’s All Smut
March 1, 2013 10 Comments
So the other day another romance author admonished ABC News via Twitter for the headline they placed on an article. The title: Emerging ‘New Adult’ Book Genre Puts Smut Fiction on Bestseller Lists. Although I re-tweeted in support, I got to thinking. (Never a good thing)
If romance novels are smut, then we really need to call out all the other smutty outlets filling our minds with filth!
I mean, when you consider it, smut is EVERYWHERE!
Soap operas: Because really, there’s a lot of hooking up and sexing going on.
Night time dramas: Yep, Grey’s Anatomy and Scandal are big culprits. Every time Fitz and Liv get it on in a closet is just filthy (in all honesty the follow up to that scene was wrong)
Sit Coms…sorry, you’re smutty too. Time to stop loving episodes where Penny and Leonard end up in bed. Gah, did we really subject ourselves to the filth that was hoping Eliot and J.D. would finally hook up on Scrubs?
Romantic comedies must now be stocked in the porn section. I mean, they’re full of couples falling in love and having sex! Beloved tales such as When Harry Met Sally, Love and Basketball, and Pretty Woman need to share shelf space with Deep Throat.
And yes, even some dramas must go on that smutty shelf. Rose and Jack’s tryst in the back of that car in Titanic…just nasty!
Don’t bother to disagree with me. I don’t care if I’ve insulted one of your favorites. I’m not the one setting this rule here. If people are going to call books written about two people who fall in love and in the course of falling in love have sex with each other smut. Then you’ll have to call everything else with that same theme smut as well.
Fine print: The opinions in this post do not reflect the real opinions of the author. Synithia is attempting to be sarcastic and has yet to master that trait.
About Synithia W
Synithia Williams 
ROFL. It does become a bit difficult to sort out all those lines. I think for me it all comes down to how and why it’s done. Smut is when anything like sex and violence is indulged in for now profitiable or good reason. It is only there to be as gross and in your face as possible. I think that if we try never to have romance or murder we will become flat and dull. It’s all about the focus and the way it’s handle. That’s where the lines are drawn. And the difficulty and the beauty of it is that is different for different people. Someone may have no problem reading romance but can’t read thrillers, or can read thrillers but not romance. We all need to know our strengths and weaknesses and make honest choices.
As an author who writes about serial killers I’m always weighing what I write in the balance of being violent but not bathing in it, being honest about my subject matter without glorifying it, etc.
Thanks for the early morning sarcasim!
It is a fine balance, Abby. I removed a sex scene in Worth the Wait because I had it there just a filler. I want the sex in my books to mean something to the characters. I’m sure it’s the same when you put murder in your books.
Exactly. I way toned down one murder cause I felt like it distracted from the story. It was too much. (It also sounds funny when you say “when you put murder in your books.” Not sure why, but it made me giggle.)
The key, sad to say, is if the book is written by a man or a woman. James Bond could kill people and have sex with women and it was all part of the super spy plot. And I bet we can all come up with other examples. Put a woman’s name on the spine, and it’s ROMANCE, therefore SMUT. Sad but true. Thanks for a great blog and yeah, I got the sarcasm even without the sarcasm font (still haven’t found that one, have you?)
Goes right back the the old argument about supressing female sexuality. I don’t like to get deep, but you hit the nail on the head!
I rather enjoyed this post, sarcasm and all! So, let me add to the smut pile:
Nearly every song on the radio is audio smut because I have to listen to details about clothes being ripped off, positions performed, places it’s done in, what exactly the singer is fantasizing about, and how I should feel about it! All of this is put to the tune of mind-numbing music to set the mood and accentuated with voice overs and moans and groans. I must now rush to change the station because my children are in the car. I have no control of what my kids listen to if I’m not in the same room so that is just forcing audio smut into our children’s delicate ear drums. Yet, a well-written sex scene placed in a novel that deals with life in general, and used not as filler, (as some novels do intentionally, but that’s another topic!), but as a means of story procession (which is exactly how I write them!) is smut????? And as an adult, I have the right to purchase said ‘smut’ if I want to….yet my children are forced to listen to it every time they turn on the radio….and don’t get me started on Victoria’s Secret commercials!!!! Smut is even being used to sell gum!!!
Okay, my smut rant is over! 🙂
Oh my goodness the radio! I completely forgot about the “filth” of some songs. Let’s Get it On, Sexual Healing…so sad. Excellent point M.J.!
fun post! but as a smut writer i object to the inclusion of so many others into our already crowded field. smut, as opposed to pornography or erotica, implies a victorian prudishness against the simple showing of a piano leg, or the depiction of two people having *gasp* improper relations outside of wedlock. i would rather we didn’t confuse “filth” with smut as that can cover a whole lot of other depictions, possibly not even concerned with sex.
i think the main thing that bothers me with labelling art is that people are so wrapped up in how bad it is for impressionable people to be exposed to depictions of sex and love, but have no trouble with the continual glorification of violence from cartoons to most major movies and tv shows.
smut, not just for breakfast anymore… 😉
LMAO! Loved this post. It’s SO TRUE though.
Pingback: The Best Moment Award! | Author M.J. Kane