"Because I think a healthy romantic relationship is one of equality, it's a relationship between equals, I'm alway interested when I read — just for pleasure, when I read anything — in whether equality manifests in it. For many years, I've been noticing that. It's been a personal quest throughout my life to be in a romantic relationship …
"Because I think a healthy romantic relationship is one of equality, it's a relationship between equals, I'm alway interested when I read — just for pleasure, when I read anything — in whether equality manifests in it. For many years, I've been noticing that. It's been a personal quest throughout my life to be in a romantic relationship where I feel like the other person regarded me as an adult, which is possibly a unique challenge for a woman condemned to heterosexuality."
This passage has me thinking about how many recent memoirs and novels I have either read or received recommendations for that fall into the micro-genre of All the Straight GenX White Women Getting Divorced. Are these books so ubiquitous (at least in my algorithm and social circle) because there is a broader yearning for more egalitarian heterosexual relationships? And if that is true why aren't more works of fiction providing better examples or models of what those relationships might look like? Is this another area where it will take time for books to catch up with the culture, or is the culture not even there yet?
Wow, I would read this book (fiction or nonfiction). It's funny because I think there are examples of more egalitarian relationships, or at least interrogating historic hetero structures, in part via queer and/or fantasy and/or sci fi literature. (I'm thinking specifically The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin, which is not a romance novel but is about gender and the interpersonal relationship, among other themes.) But maybe these texts don't feel accessible or interesting to folks who don't identify as such. Someone could do a research project on this.
Yes! In my original comment I meant to add my gratitude that these models exist in work by queer authors and frustration that stories about straight folks seem intent on ignoring and/or not learning about them.
I got your vibe! I do wonder about why egalitarian stories (whether from queer authors or other sources, such as non-Western authors) don't get airtime. Is it the obvious, that it's not mainstream, or is it that their locations and contexts (perhaps fanfic as an example) make them unappealing, more than the actual content?
"Because I think a healthy romantic relationship is one of equality, it's a relationship between equals, I'm alway interested when I read — just for pleasure, when I read anything — in whether equality manifests in it. For many years, I've been noticing that. It's been a personal quest throughout my life to be in a romantic relationship where I feel like the other person regarded me as an adult, which is possibly a unique challenge for a woman condemned to heterosexuality."
This passage has me thinking about how many recent memoirs and novels I have either read or received recommendations for that fall into the micro-genre of All the Straight GenX White Women Getting Divorced. Are these books so ubiquitous (at least in my algorithm and social circle) because there is a broader yearning for more egalitarian heterosexual relationships? And if that is true why aren't more works of fiction providing better examples or models of what those relationships might look like? Is this another area where it will take time for books to catch up with the culture, or is the culture not even there yet?
Wow, I would read this book (fiction or nonfiction). It's funny because I think there are examples of more egalitarian relationships, or at least interrogating historic hetero structures, in part via queer and/or fantasy and/or sci fi literature. (I'm thinking specifically The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin, which is not a romance novel but is about gender and the interpersonal relationship, among other themes.) But maybe these texts don't feel accessible or interesting to folks who don't identify as such. Someone could do a research project on this.
Yes! In my original comment I meant to add my gratitude that these models exist in work by queer authors and frustration that stories about straight folks seem intent on ignoring and/or not learning about them.
I got your vibe! I do wonder about why egalitarian stories (whether from queer authors or other sources, such as non-Western authors) don't get airtime. Is it the obvious, that it's not mainstream, or is it that their locations and contexts (perhaps fanfic as an example) make them unappealing, more than the actual content?