We all have a Squick Barrier. Where this barrier lies varies from reader to reader, and the individual barriers can be somewhat fluid—some authors are so good that they take you down some truly dark paths, and you’re happy, if occasionally hesitant, to follow.
Some Squick Barriers in romance are pretty much universal. Reading love stories featuring a hero who seduces his eight-year-old cousin or a heroine who’s just a leeeetle bit too fond of her horse, for example, is right out for the vast majority of us. The cultural taboos against pedophilia, incest and bestiality are very, very strong, and well they should be, since they run up against very real, very thorny issues involving consent, abuse and exploitation.
But most Squick Barriers aren’t always so easily defined. Some people balk at hardcore BDSM, others become squeamish at group sex/polyamorous love stories, while yet others can’t get over the fact that vampires are dead people.
A while back, I started thinking about paranormal and erotic romances, both of which I love, and the more I thought about it, the more surreal everything became, especially when I started encountering quite a few people who expressed squeamishness when it came to erotic romance, especially the bits that involved BDSM or ménage scenarios. The explanations I saw being given ranged from “these are all expressions of pathological behavior†to “an HEA for these sorts of situations is unrealistic.†However, most of these people don’t even blink when it comes to romances involving vampires, shape-changers or aliens—as long as they’re monogamous and don’t spank their mates. Please: group sex or engaging in consensual bondage is somehow less realistic and less healthy than boinking something that’s technically (in most iterations, anyway) an animated corpse or something that’s not even your own species?
When it comes to shapechangers and certain types of aliens, I think the border that delineates bestiality is blurred. I mean, c’mon, werewolves aren’t horny when they’re changed? Based on my observations of canine behavior, I’d say that’s un-bleeding-likely, especially for unneutered males. So what do all these wolfies do when they need nookie? If they have a human partner, would having sex with them while in wolf form make it bestiality? Or if the werewolves opt to have sex with a real wolf or dog after they’ve changed, would that constitute cheating? And in turn, what would the implications be when it comes to informed consent, since werewolves are presumably smarter than the average mutt? This sort of awkwardness can be completely avoided by avoiding human/werewolf pairings altogether, but I don’t see that happening any time soon with paranormal romances.
And then that led me to further musings about the importance of informed consent and anthropomorphism in romance novels. Real-life bestiality makes us go “Ew!†not simply because of the inter-species sex that goes on, but because of the issues of informed consent, which the animal obviously cannot give. But would the ability to give informed consent somehow make making love to a non-human animal stay within the Squick Barrier?
And I came to the conclusion that the anthropomorphic aspect is every bit as important as the informed consent portion of the equation. For instance, I think a love story that involved a human and a distinctly non-human sentient alien race like the Tines (a wonderful alien type created by Vernor Vinge in his science fiction classic A Fire Upon the Deep, consisting of dog-like creatures that share a hive mind of sorts) would make most of us recoil. Most of us need our romance protagonists to be humanoid.
Man, the weird roads I go down while trying to figure these situations to their logical conclusion is simultaneously amusing (to myself, if nobody else) and creepy.
So, what’s your personal Squick Barrier(s)? Mine lie mostly with non-consensual sex, though I’ve read and loved books that tread some real grey areas, like To Have and To Hold by Patricia Gaffney.
No related posts.
Obviously you have not followed LKH’s Anita series as far as I have
There was an instance where one of her harem turned into his leopardy self but LKH makes them sound more like humans with fur than turning into the actual animal itself.
Yeah, I think I can say beastiality in any sense if the creature takes the actual shape of the animal. (I was one of those at your site that couldn’t image a half horse with a human!)
That said, I love those corpses but I have noticed I now over think where they are when the sun comes up. LKH has her heroine realizing that yep, they are dead. While others talk of a sleep. That is definitely messing with my mind. Also when it comes to vampires or immortals I need the human to change so that they can have a HEA. Who wants to think about their partner getting old while you remain young?
Consent seems to be a huge factor for me also. MaryJanice Davidson had a short story where the werewolf hero rapes the heroine. I know that there are people that have that kind of fantasy and that’s fine. I just notice that it doesn’t work for me. Especially in this story.
Having sex in anger however does not bother me in the least because usually both the hero and heroine get drawn into the desire. Sexy.
As for the ick factor being displaced if an animal could give consent. Hell no. No animal sex scenes for me. Yetch.
CindyS
Interesting questions you raise, Candy. And I have to confess that my squick-o-meter doesn’t work with any sense of logic at all.
For example, I don’t find vampire romances icky at all, but I’m not of a mind to enjoy werewolf romances. Mostly because when a werewolf is in wolf form, he (or she) is animal as far as I can see, and that involves a form of bestiality that just doesn’t appeal.
As for aliens, if the alien is almost completely humanoid (a la Superman/Clark Kent the Kryptonian), I’m cool with it. But when you get into areas of the characters having unusual body parts – even wings on elves/fairies/etc. – then things start to get strange for me again. Not that it squicks me out so much but that I can’t lose myself in the story because I can’t forget that I’m ready fiction.
As for erotica, I admit that extreme situations hold no appeal for me. I’m not into BDSM or multiple partners because my version (my very personal, subjective opinion) is that it’s too hard to find the HEA in such situations. And reading about sex within these scenarios doesn’t excite me so much as make me kind of cringe.
But, there is room for change in my psyche. Five years ago the idea of imagining homosexual sex between two men made my eyes grow huge, and I never could have imagined it being remotely sexy or romantic. But after five seasons of watching Queer As Folk, I find relationships between two men to be on equal footing as between a man and a woman as far as sexiness, romance, and the power to draw me in entirely. Proof that sometimes it’s just the not knowing that creates the mental block.
Sorry for waxing long. Great topic!
Great column, Candy! I think you’ve started to uncover the “dark side” of privileging certain values in Romance (fidelity, monogamy, the One True Love, etc.). We can find sex with a vampire/cyborgg/alien being/part animal character (and it’s usually the male character, let’s face it) perfectly, normally romantic, while polyamorous plots are seen as “unnatural” or at least unromantic. What we view as “natural” is pretty culturally informed, IMO.
I’ve asked myself some of the same questons as you regarding the rape scenario. How is it that readers can accept non-consensual sex in the genre while rejecting sexually promiscuous heroines, for example? Why does one seem romantic but not the other?
It’s interesting, because I think a lot of what may seem like a mish-mash of values in Romance is a product of the genre’s evolution. And some of it is quite interesting and even liberating for the genre (I think paranormals are definitely breaking some boundaries). But at the same time, you’re absolutely right that there do seem to be some core ideas that the genre won’t really contemplate, at least not directly. It’ll give us a boinking vamp but NOT a polygamous boinking vamp. Fascinating.
My personal Squick Barriers have little to do with sex, and almost all to do with the jerk alpha-male hero who treats his heroine like crap, but she loves him anyway.
I think when paranormal romance politely turns away from the implications of bestiality and necrophilia, it’s doing itself a disservice. After all, I think many of us are after that sense of connection with the non-human, be it an alien, fairy, vampire, shape-shifter or any other monster.
I think speculative romance is about love jumping over supernatural barriers. When we sweep the more interesting barriers under the carpet, we weaken the sub-genre.
I don’t have a problem with the consensual bondage, menage and multiple partner scenarios of erotic romance, nor do I have a problem with D/S behavior, as long as both parties know what their doing.
Other than the incest and ped taboos, I’d have to draw the line at watersports, bestiality and scat behaviors.
And even though I say I draw the line at incest, I’m a fan of Ted Sturgeon’s “If All Men Were Brothers, Would You Let One Marry Your Sister?” because of the way he makes his case.
[Look around nervously, noting that no one has yet chimed in.]
Er…anyway, my squick is rather pedestrian. Butt-sex.
Well, you asked.
I know its all the rage in erotic fiction, but unless it’s the only viable option (gay relationship), it doesn’t work for me.
Regarding vampires: If the writer fiddles with the vampire archetype, instead of following the usual Bram Stoker model, they don’t have to be “dead.” They are, after all, imaginary, so a writer can imagine them however they chose.
Thanks for all these great thought-provoking comments. Here are some thoughts that kind of swam up and showed themselves as I read up:
Actual non-consensual sex, in the form of forced seduction and outright rape, was a staple of Romances for a long time, and while rapist heroes still cause some of us to recoil, their acceptance is relatively widespread, if for no other reason than they’re part of the history of romance novels.
But BDSM, which only approximates non-consensual sex and, to a degree, stylizes it while explicitly merging it with violence and power play, is viewed as taboo, even though BDSM is, by and large, consensual.
Isn’t that interesting? In some ways, BDSM takes the sub-text, makes it explicit and runs with it, and I think this is what makes a lot of people uncomfortable.
Robin: You’re right in that in much of mainstream Romance, the monogamous relationship rules supreme. Even really messed-up monogamous pairings, in which the hero verbally and occasionally sexually abuses the heroine, are somehow viewed as more normal and likely to last than a menage relationship between three protagonists who don’t engage in abusive behaviors.
Joyce, interesting observation about how we love to read about connections between humans and non-humans. I’ll have to ponder a bit more about this.
And Darlene: oh boy, my squick barriers when it comes to certain body fluids being used for love-play are very firmly in place. Mostly because I think “AAAAHHHH GERMS!”
i like almost everything, although i might get a little freaked out if a human had sex with a full wolf; however, LKH’s books rock my socks and i liked the group scenes and the guys with wings
:oops: and i love vampires and such. i guess i am just a kinky person 
oh, except i agree with the universal ones–rape, incest, pedophilia=ick!
For me there are different thresholds for different genres.
If I’m reading erotica (and I mean erotica not erotic romance or romantica) just about anything goes, though I’m not a fan of BDSM in any genre–too painful. No HEA necessary.
Erotic romance/romantica–again, nix the BDSM, and anything along the way is fine as long as we end with a monogamous 2 person HEA.
In romance I want to see a relationship between a hero and heroine grow into a loving HEA, no extra partners and no BDSM.
I’m with Joyce on this one. The hero being an Alpha jerk turns me off a lot more than any sexual activity. Call me wacky
My big squirk is sex that “isn’t” rape because the heroine had a stupendous orgasm! Actually, that doesn’t squirk me out – it just pisses me off.
Most of the sex stuff that grosses me out isn’t going to be included in erotica/romantica stories written specifically for the mainstream market. Darlene pretty much mirrored my sentiments exactly on those…..
OK, I read about every genre except high tech SciFi, so I’m not exactly a specialist for Romance, thus the reply covers my reading habits, not Romance alone:
I have a problem with whiny women who stay with bastards, and that includes the rape scenario with HEA (I’d chase him down and cut his balls off, not marry him).
I don’t mind reading rape scenes else. Nor the entire range from BDSM to downright torture. I don’t mind the paranormal stuff, either (I think I’m going to like that centaur book the Smart Bitches presented) and I admit I really like good gay sex scenes.
What I do not like is gratuitious sex, that is: sex scenes that look like added without real connection to the story (some of Auel’s and Gabaldon’s scenes come to mind); and I have a few problems with sex scenes that involve more than three people. Don’t know why.
I have no problems to write gay sex, BDSM, rape and torture, or something involving shapeshifters and the like. Funny enough, I think writing a good het scene is more difficult than all the kinky and dark stuff. Don’t know why in that case, either.
Vamps aren’t always dead. In some of the most popular series out now (e.g., Feehan’s Carpathian’s) they are another species, albeit a capable-of-interbreeding-with-humans one. I guess that would fall under the heading of “Superman-style aliens”.
Besides the normal things that would make almost anybody raised in today’s society feel squicky, I’m pretty open. One thing I remember reading that made me cringe recently had to do with the hero having metal bar piercings in his penis and the “discomfort” they caused the heroine. I think I may have actually crossed my legs while reading it.
I used to not care for werewolves, but they’re growing on me. I think I’ve probably read some well-done ones lately that have changed my view on them. But they really have to be in man form while doing the deed.
And one thing that isn’t really squicky for me, but that I have trouble with is an HEA between multiple partners. Menages don’t turn me off, but I have a really hard time when at they end they ALL live happily ever after together.
Bondage-lite (?) in the “Me Tarzan, you stay” sense is a favorite of mine, but hardcore BDSM kinda frightens me. Especially in a book in which the hero and heroine have only recently met. For me, personally, that kind of sex play would require a huge amount of trust to enjoy. On the flipside, if they’re getting off on the dangerous aspect of being hardcore with virtual strangers, then I’m probably not identifying well with the heroine.
Oh, and whips, welts and blood still squick me out.
Interesting comments and here I thought maybe I was perverted, but seems all kinds of people like all kinds of “bad” things.
Now while Beastiality turns me completely off I remember reading Marjorie M Lui’s Tiger Eye, at one point while the h/h are haveing sex, he starts flashing into his Tiger being, for some odd reason I found that very arousing, but he didn’t turn completely, if he did, I think I would not have finished the book.
Hmmm, interesting topic.
Possible spoiler for Hotel New Hampshire by John Irving!
I have to say squick is one of those things “I know it when I see it.” Sometimes it just a matter of how the author handles a story. Incest, for example, generally gives me the heebie jeebies in a curl up in a ball and fee physically ill way, but I read “Hotel New Hampshire”, by John Irving and loved it. It helped that when I picked it up I did not know that incest was a part of the story. It also is not a romance.
I was just reading my first erotic romance with “menage elements” the other day and I put it down once they were getting to the “big scene”. Partially b/c the idea itself did not interest me and partially b/c the characters and conflict were rather pedestrian. If it had better written, I might have gone for it.
That being said, I do agree with the statements that I find it hard to buy into a HEA for menage groups. I think it can be done (both in real life and in fiction), but in both cases it is very hard to pull off well.
HEA is definitely possible in hardcore BDSM relationships. Trust me. I’ve got direct personal experience.
And I’ve read some wonderful HEAs in menage novels as well.
Squick? I’m obviously a little different so far from most of the commenters. But nonconsensuality in any form still squicks me–so the basics of pedophilia, bestiality, rape, and true necrophilia, rather than vampirephilia. BDSM is about consensuality, so it doesn’t count.
Blood is sexy when done right. As is heavy pain, if it’s what you like.
YMMV, obviously.
-Roseread
Hi Candy, interesting post. Some scattered thoughts:
While there are a lot of vampires and shapeshifters around, I don’t think they end up being that different from normal humans in most romances. So while they are technically dead or alien or whatever, it just doesn’t feel that way.
As for rape and forced seduction in romance. The former is definitely part of romance’s history (and there have been many discussions about why that is so), but I don’t think it’s really being published in romance these days. At least, I haven’t found it.
As for the Tines in Vinge’s A Fire Upon the Deep–I adored those aliens.
Great post. Good questions you bring up. They were making me laugh because they’re a bit tongue in cheek.
Some of the more off-the wall examples in the comments are making ME squeal. Esp Shannon’s with the metal bar piercings.
Butt sex really turns me off mostly because I get certain infections pretty easily, and I’m a biologist, so I’m screaming BACTERIA!!!!
camy
I think a lot of erotic writing comes from a fairly literary tradition – one which seeks to not only arouse, but to push the reader into new insights, etc.
When you merge that with the Romance tradition, which is fueled by the need for comfort, reassurance, satisfying endings – I think you may run into some problems.
Forgive me if the above statement appears to undermine Romance writing. I’m not anti-romance at all.
My personal squicks aren’t to different – pedophilia, incest, rape. In paranormal I’m pretty open to vampire sex, even werewolf sex, (I read Tiger Eye and I was fine with the one scene mentioned above), BDSM. I read the MJDavidson werewolf story with the alpha wolf rape scene in it and was seriously turned off. Forced sex isn’t acceptable in my fiction. And LKH’s sex scenes are too creepy. Overall, I think it’s up to the writer to bring me into the scene and convince me that their story whether it involves poly- or mono- lifetstyles can lead to a HEA.
It’s all about the metaphor. Shape changer stories – “Beauty and the Beast” – are metaphors for the “beast with two backs” where the animal nature represents sexuality. Similarly, vampire romances can be seen as a metaphor for the “little death” of orgasm or the scary sacrifices that come with lifelong comitment (what if it were forever, and you’d never be the same?).
As long as the author keeps even a taste of the metaphor in the story, I’m good. But by themselves, corpsef*cking and beastiality are just gross. Also, anything – real or fictional – that involves a lack of consent is a no-go.
And, for the record, I think actual polyamory is borrowing trouble. Fictional polyamory is at least one too many names for me to have to remember while I’m reading a love scene.
Aside from the tremendous liberties one can take in paranormals, such as different moral customs on different planets (perhaps a marriage is solidified by a night in which many men pleasure the heroine as the hero looks on), anthropomorphic sex, and special body types that enhance the experience, the existence of bonding rituals and a true mate is a very convenient device found in many, if not most of these stories. So while a vampire hero and the mortal heroine whom he converts are now stuck together in eternity, we are usually reassured by the fact that they will never be dissatisfied because they were intended for each other by the fates or because they have mated and are now inseparable. And I think that this device works very well. We’re reading romance, so we need the HEA. What better way to ensure that this happens than by sealing the hero and heroine (or two heroes, or two heroes and one heroine, etc.) in an unbreakable union? Immortality might be a scary concept, but if one is guaranteed to have an everlasting love connection, it starts to look pretty good.
You guys have already mentioned my two biggest squicks … non-consensual sex and Complete Jerks who masquerade as socially acceptable Alpha Males (and aren’t they usually the Boss, which is another squick factor for me … some of these “heros” out in real life would be defendants in sexual harrassment law suits!
Other than that, I guess my “ick” factor would have to be a common thing in many category romances (at least in the past), and quite a few historical romances: the size difference between the hero and the heroine … classic cliche is that the woman is “small” and “fine-boned” and “looks like a woman-child” when the big mountain of a man hero first meets her.
I just can’t help but think of me (I’m 4′10″, the size of a skinny 12-year-old)and how guys in the past have had to really struggle to see me as an adult woman. Most of the very few men in my life (I’ve been happily married for 15 years, and found Mr. Right after a short search of Mr. Nice-but-Not-Rights) admitted that they feel a little like a child molester for being attracted to a petite woman.
So when I see a romance hero start out by admiring a woman’s petiteness and feeling attracted by that very quality, I think of the hesitance of the guys I knew, and wonder if Mr. Hero is sublimating pedophilic urges. Yech.
Not to mention, ahem, the mechanics of the deal. Trust me. Slot A needs to line up with Tab B or nobody has any fun!
This is a great conversation for an author to fall into! As a writer of some of those BDSM stories some readers find “icky,” I’m fascinated by what turns readers off…and what they don’t mind.
I have to agree the line between “rape” and RAPE is often blurred in traditional romances. Just as the line between “consensual” and “non-consensual” has been blurred in too many BDSM novels, both those with HEAs and those without. It’s a line I traverse every time I sit down to write, trying not to fall off on the wrong side.
Do I have any personal “squicks?” Only bad grammar… and I find it in far too many books. Nothing pulls me out of a story faster than a misused word or poorly written sentence, no matter WHAT the genre. Give me tight sentences (and heros with tight rear ends!) every time.
Thanks for letting me listen in…
Diana