I’m asked my opinion on the proposed Erotic Romance RITA/GH category quite a bit, perhaps due to my office as President of Passionate Ink. My thoughts are often not agreed with, but here they are:
Do I think RWA will ever establish an erotic romance category for the RITAs or GH? I doubt it, and I would be very surprised if they did. Who’s to say what is erotic romance and what isn’t? I’ve had writers tell me Blaze and Bravas are not erotic. Others say they’re close to porn. No one can even agree on what the definitions of erotica and erotic romance are. How can we define a category when we don’t know what subject matter fits the criteria or not? How much romance is required to make it an erotic romance? I guarantee that one judge’s erotic romance is another judge’s “not a romanceâ€Â.
And that’s not the only problem with having an erotic romance category. While the other categories are based on genre, the ER books would be based on how much sex was going on and how it was worded. Is that what we want? Do you want the erotic romance RITA for your vamp story? Or the Paranormal RITA? What does the erotic romance RITA mean? You write better sex?
When I ask proponents why they want an erotic romance category, they say it’s because prejudice against the sexual content lessens their chances of winning in other categories. Does creating a category that holds the sexual content up as the criterion for winning combat the prejudice? Or does it feed it by saying the most important thing about the story is the sex?
What about authors of sweet romances? Should they have a category for books with less sexual content than norm? Perhaps they don’t have a fair chance because so many romances feature a certain number of sex scenes and theirs have none.
After all, if you have a category for ‘excessive’ sex, then surely there should be a category for ‘minimal’ sex?
To me, the Erotic Romance category is an impossible, and not necessarily desirable, goal.
Hi!
Wow! I think that you hit it right on the nail head with your ending. An ending that I believe applies to so many things we encounter in life.
In this issue alone there are hundreds of ways you could divide it all up. And if you are going to start seperating to such a degree, it all needs to be so that its fair. But then where do you stop? One kiss or maybe two? Or maybe a touch or maybe one look. (It could really get out of hand!)
Like you said, everyone is going to have varying degrees of thought on this but I think they should keep it general.
Good Post!
Cole
on February 9th, 2006 at 7:05 am
Great points. I do feel that ER writers are treated a smidge differently. I wished that weren’t the case, however, it does seem true. But, I do think ER books should be considered for a RITA, if they don’t want their own category, then put them against the mainstream.:shifty: There are some fabulous ER books out there that definitely deserve the recognition.:clap:
on February 9th, 2006 at 6:11 am
You make a lot of very valid points. Since I’m not entirely sure, I have to ask. Do publishers handle erotic romance differently? What I mean to say is, are there some books with “erotic romance” printed on the spine as opposed to just plain romance? If so, that may be the yardstick needed. If the publisher is marketing the book as erotic romance, then that’s how it should be judged, because I do agree with Emma’s comment that many (not all) erotic romances are structured differently.
The possibility of a separate RITA category is quite the conundrum, and I do agree with you in the doubt that it would ever happen. Heck, many folks were shocked when Passionate Ink received chapter recognition (CONGRATS on that, by the way).
It would be nice if RWA recognized *all* genres equally, but simply based on the separate historical and regency categories Emma cited, it doesn’t look like that’s in the cards.
on February 8th, 2006 at 2:13 pm
I hear what you’re saying, and I can’t disagree, BUT how do you rationalize Inspirational Romance having their own category? Is there a certain amount of “Godliness” that has to be in it?
I think that erotic romance is structured differently than a “traditional” romance and that’s what should set it apart - not sexual content.
But then again, I also think most of the other categories are absurd (historical AND regency - last I checked regency was a historical period) and the whole thing should be redone completely.
on February 8th, 2006 at 1:44 pm