men should stop talking about smut

listen instead: *there is one small paragraph missing due to edits after posting.*

I have many thoughts on some of the book content that has been pushed in recent years. I think a lot of it is piss poor writing, the romantasy age gaps are concerning at best, and I don’t actually think romanticizing women being stalked and raped (Haunting Adeline) is a good thing.

I enjoy discourse on it, and I think really discussing it is beneficial. I don’t think fictional characters are capable of consent and a lot of censoring from various platforms boils down to anti-kink (and often anti-queer) rhetoric, and at the same time I think it is possible to push an idea of violent rape being sexy onto real life readers. I’ve seen couples online “trying” booktok scenes while completely disregarding safe bdsm practices, because these are not discussed in the books.

I was poised to write an essay on it, and then I remembered the things I’ve seen men say about smut, and I changed my mind.

My main problem: I know for a fact that the “critiques” men have about smut are not in the same realm of critique that I have. Men have an issue with smut because it’s something that women are enjoying that has nothing to do with them. It’s a secret that they’re not in on (because apparently they can’t read?) and that upsets them.

The cognitive dissonance of the men who hate that women read smut is beyond me. They will call it porn and label women dirty whores for reading it while they jerk their dick so often that it’s lost nearly all sensation.

They claim it’s nastier than the possibly trafficked women they watch get gang banged. I have asked them what they’re referring to and it’s not the literal stalking and rape that I referred to earlier, it’s romantasy. Namely, they bring up ACOTAR more than anything in my experience. Also, they’ve never read it.

If you think romance novels are gay and you’re threatened by women touching themselves without you I’m sure this is very upsetting. If you’ve convinced yourself that men are lonelier than women and this is women’s fault, I’m sure this is all very traumatic.

Men like this do not like when women seek sexual gratification outside of them. They do not view sex that doesn’t involve them as worthwhile. Moreover, they don’t view sexual gratification where women are in an advantageous position as acceptable.

When women are reading smut they’re in charge of the content they’re consuming. There are tags, reviews, and content warnings to guide you to exactly what you’re looking for. Now, this is also true of porn, but porn has famously been created with male fantasies in mind. Smut is geared towards women, there’s no question about that, and that automatically threatens men who require women’s only sexual experiences be with them and for them.

I can understand being a bit scared of smut involving massive blue alien cock. Most of the men who resent smut are cisgender and heterosexual and they’re not known for their sexual exploration. If you count various ways to inflict discomfort on women while ensuring they don’t reach orgasm, then maybe they are.

The second problem: Men have taken the knowledge that smut in books is becoming more popular and ran it into the ground. It doesn’t matter what book it is, if a woman is reading it, it must be smut. They’ve convinced themselves that every romance or fantasy novel contains sexual content, because they don’t read, when this is far from the truth.

I am aware that the criticisms I have for some books are not applicable to most. There is an obscene number of books out there and it’s absolutely moronic to think they’re a monolith or that one gender only reads one kind of book.

I’m also aware that these books are not destroying the world. I may dislike some of them, so I don’t read the most recommended when I know it’s a dark romance or contains some trope that I find unacceptable. Despite my distaste for some aspects of the booktok community, I don’t blame women for this. I know that just because women are the ones participating most, this is not a woman issue or any reason for misogynist thinking.

The resentful men seem uninhibited by these barriers.

Like anything women do, the hatred of smut has turned to anti-feminism. Surely, feminism must all be a lie if women enjoy sex and kink. It’s not very independent bad bitch to thirst after men with wings. It’s unthinkable that women, much like men, can express sexuality.

In these books, many times the man goes above and beyond for a woman’s love and sexual pleasure. I think men are aware of this, and this is another point of contention for them.

Women’s standards are rising, and this has often been blamed for the “male loneliness epidemic.” If they continue to get higher because of men that don’t exist, where does this leave real ones? Even lonelier. And instead of changing their behavior to possibly avoid this, they resent women for it. It makes sense to blame and denigrate feminism.

At the end of the day, women liking smut is not the fault of feminism. Even if it was, women liking smut does not make one a slut or porn addicted. Men are finding more excuses to hate women. They’re searching for reasons to explain why they’re failing and they’ll look at everything except themselves.

Another day of me not being able to talk my shit because men are doing misogyny.

ps. if you haven’t read The Knight and The Moth, you should.

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i want women to be meaner