Honey Badger Radio
The Problem with Lesbian Romance Novels! | Red Chill Cinema
Hey, and welcome to Honey Badger Radio. I'll be your host, Alison. And with me today, as always, is Brian, and we are going to be covering the problem with lesbian romance novels, which I know is a bit of a digression from our usual fair. Well, isn't really, I mean, because we do have media quite a bit. And this is a red chill cinema so we're doing some cool media. There you go. I think it's sus. It could work. Yeah, it's fitting. Yeah, we'll do it. We'll figure it all out. So we're responding to a individual who apparently is not fond of lesbian, or at least how lesbian. How it's written. How it's written. Yeah. And one wonders how you could really write lesbian romance in a way that isn't boring as hell. But regardless, perhaps she can enlighten us. Anyway, the channel is a sunny book nook. I don't know. Does she seem really. Ideologically. Um, counter postual to us. Well, she's not like. So I look through the opus clips. Mm hmm. And you don't get the sense that she's an angry person. Mm hmm. That's good. That's like, like walking around with a chip on her shoulder. Um, but I do think that she's certainly like got the woke mind virus at least so far as how it applies to. Let's be women and lesbians and women and queer theory and feminism, et cetera. So there's definitely that, but she's kind of like, um, I don't know, like, my, my in read on the surface is that she is an unfortunate casualty of, um, of a feminist dogma, essentially. Mm hmm. She learned how to be a woman from her, you know, university professors, her English teachers, whatever, and she's just following through on it. And, um, I don't know, you know, it's a little bit sad because she probably didn't have any other options so. Yeah, it's, uh, well, she's doing, she's doing the womanhood the way she's taught, essentially. So there you go. She's, she is, she is a product of the system. So exactly. That's exactly right. She's a product of the system. So great. Okay. Well, let's, let's see. Let's see the, just sort of the, the, the, what is now basically the factory standard. Yep. All right. Um, do you want to do the thing? Well, yeah, sure. I mean, yeah, go ahead. Okay. So if you enjoyed this, actually, you know what? I haven't done that yet. So let's, let's belay that for a moment. Um, I was going to say, if you enjoy this content supported feed the badger.com/support, but our current fundraiser is last month fundraiser. But, you know, if in the future, you go there, I might have the current fundraiser up. So just keep it in mind, put, you know, put a little pin in it. We'll get there. But if you want to send us a message at any time throughout the show, you can do so at feed the badger.com/just the tip that is feed the badger.com/just the tip. We get the full benefit of whatever funds you send us and you get the benefit of not sending your comment through YouTube's comment enhancement system, which is a euphemism. Yes, censorship. All right. So feed the badger.com/just the tip to send us those comments. And of course, Twitter, I don't think they have a way for you to send us comments yet or at least not to tip us and send us comments. So you can do so on Twitter. If you're watching us on Twitter at feed the badger.com/just the tip. All right. So I guess we just get started, eh? Yeah. Get the party. Get the party rolling. All right. Let's. So this is the first. So we put the video through opus clip and it like sort of like looked for highlights or what it thought were highlights. Okay, I think. And so this is the first one, which is kind of an introductory thing or at least it sets up her conversation. So we'll play it. As to why I think lesbian romance novels specifically are not that good. Why the genre doesn't really lend itself to good. Good writing. Looking at some of the specific lesbian romances that I've read over the years and how I think they just fall short and fail at doing the thing that romance novels are supposed to do and that I have gotten from romance novels of other sorts. Oh, man. I wonder if she got total shit for this. I mean, this is actually like slightly controversial. You know what she's saying that she's not totally fulfilled by romance novels that are all about the informed consent or never ending consent or like confirming consent, you know, like always taking the temperature every like 30 seconds, right? Are you okay with this? Are you okay with this now? Are you okay with this now? Which also is a high pressure sales technique is constantly asking questions to essentially erode people's ability to say no. So what you do is you just keep asking questions and then eventually you just exhaust people and then they just do whatever you want. And I'm guessing that feminists aren't intent. You know what? I was about to say that feminists aren't intending to promote something that's actually occult, sort of like a little sexually abusive. But then I thought about it and I'm like, of course they are. I'm done giving them the benefit of the doubt. Yeah. What are you talking about? Let me see here. I just wanted to make sure. So it is playing here. But the people watching on. See, the people watching on vertical want to make sure they can hear it because it is a separate set of things. So I'm just double check. I'm sorry guys. No, no, no, I think it's okay. I'm just making sure sound is fine. Yeah, our sound is fine. Okay, let me just. There we go. And we are. Go ahead. Go ahead. I apologize. I wanted to just say what romance is usually supposed to do. And with the romance, romance genre. And that includes also, for example, buddy cop films. So with romance, you're supposed to have, and I don't mean that in like a sexual way. It's basically two people who function as each other's biggest antagonists. And what I mean by that is they're the ones who are forcing the biggest amount of change in the other. And with a buddy, well, I use a buddy, buddy cop, for example, each of the two cops changes the other in a significant way. And that is what is the central pillar of romance. And of course, a traditional romance as acceptable to the romance writers of America is that it has to end in a happy manner. So they have to get together in the end. So for a buddy cop romance romance, they become friends. They become friends. They understand each other. And the idea is that it's two people who are coming together and learning to let go of an aspect of their individuality in order to put the relationship first. In order to make room for that relationship in their life. And with the buddy cops, they have to learn to work together with the traditional romance, the man and the woman have to let go of something in order to gain the relationship. And the first thing I write off the bat, and I don't know if she's going to address it, is with the new romance I've been seeing, they seem to have more of an emphasis on the man just changing for the woman. That's not actually traditional romance, both are supposed to change, put the relationship first, but what I've seen, and I'm there was a recent romance that I watched that it's just awful. It was it was just so destroyingly awful. And the entire thing attend things I hate about you know what was it 10 things about I hate about you. That's just taming of the shrew. Yeah, yeah, it was it was late. It was not that one. It was a it was one that was almost completely forgettable I'm sorry I can't remember the title, but it was something about hate. And it was supposedly enemies to lovers scenario, except of course the man was always secretly, you know, in love with her. And of course he's also like a high powered executive type. The premise is that he is part of a publishing empire and he goes and works at her little book nook kind of publishing indie publisher kind of thing. And he's he's bringing all that kind of corporate behavior. And throughout the course of the movie, she does absolutely nothing to earn him, nothing, like less than nothing. And he just basically turns into a completely spineless simp for her for some reason, falls for her for some reason. He does everything for her. He sacrifices his job for her but but but but he gets a better job so still got that I heard me going, you know. And she does not extend herself at all. She does not change a damn whisker of herself. And he just conforms to her ass, like a man shaped leech. And I mean I don't mean you don't know who's in it. I could probably get it or when it came out around like this is not romance, the essential component of romance is both characters are each other's antagonist but I was thinking like in this kind of modern take on non non Because I'm not going to call it romance, where the man just completely conforms to the woman. How do you actually, how do you actually extrapolate that to lesbians. Which one's going to be the man. Yeah, which one's going to be like totally debasing herself to conform to the other. Yeah, it's a real question isn't it. Yeah, I don't know what it's about I mean like I mean I don't know how and I don't know that this girl answers that question, this is the end of that clip. So it cuts off there. Yeah, this is like one of the later clips that maybe. Yeah, it's the last one on the list but it sounds like it's early in the video. So, you know what I mean. Like it doesn't it's not putting them in chronological order what it selects. It's kind of like setting up a set of I guess priorities. Yeah, the scores get higher as you go up. So. All right. But anyway, do you want me to go to another another one. Sure. All right. Okay, so they have titles. So there's the last one is why romance novels fall short analyzing the genre's writing. That was the clip we just played then there's exploring adult queerness navigating romance and identity. Then there's escape into the world of romance novels a level of literary escapism. Yeah, fascinating diving into historical young adult female female romance. Let's go for number two. Number two on the list. Yeah, let's number two on the list. Looks good. Mm hmm. What the. What the. What happened? Nothing. It's just it's the whole screen moved over and I don't know why it did that. And I don't see how I can just throw in with us. Yeah. All right. So this is number two is last night at the telegraph club a compelling historical lesbian romance. Let's go for it. Yeah, sure. Oh, because it is a, I mean, I think the peak example that combines all of the things that I'm talking about that is it combines old things I'm talking about in the sense of being good against all the ways that I think things are not good and are part of the genres that I think like lend themselves better to that aspect of female female romance historical young adult is fuck is last night at the telegraph club. We just were the technical difficulties by transitive property. A historical fiction novel and it's a romance novel at the heart of it, but it's also like a young adult story about the coming of age of our main character Lily who is Chinese American lives in San Francisco's Chinatown during the 1950s. And it's like the height of the red scare. She is studying like stem and the only other girl in her math class is this girl and Catherine who's this Italian and they both had that unlikely though I mean it's the 50s women were more likely to go into that time, get involved with the butch femme subculture there and I think like that's so beautiful and amazing and their romance is so compelling and sweet. We also talked about this book actually on the podcast. So you should check that out if you would be interested as well. That's I guess like an example of something that I found really compelling. I mean, so she's that's like an example of something that she thinks is good. Why because it checks boxes like it sounds like it checks boxes. Yes. That's what it sounds like. Do you want to listen to it again? No, I'm just like, maybe we should just go to the right to the main. The main video. Yeah, because it's almost sounds like there's nothing like it. There isn't like an organized like a skeleton to this like a a spine. You know what I mean. Maybe it's more in the. Yeah, maybe it's more in the actual video so. All right. Well, I mean, we could go me to go to the beginning of this. There are some. There are no chapters, but there are there are peaks and valleys. Okay, yes. So we could try that. Okay. Let's give that a go. Let me just make sure we're not missing any. Yeah, the opus is like it would be good if it was about hooking you in like hooking somebody into watch the content. But that means it's probably because most of the clips are not making a direct point, but they're hinting that there is a point. And so what works is that people are like, Oh, I want to watch the video now and find out what this is about, you know, so anyway, so we'll just play it from the beginning here and I'm actually really concerned about the one where she says, well, this does it right. Yeah. What was the, I mean, does it? Yeah, does it? Like, is it just checking boxes? Is there, is it, is it, is the ultimate conclusion of this is if it's salacious it's bad. Last night at the telegraph club is what the name of it is. All right. Book that she was recommending. Okay. Hello. Welcome to a sunny book. My name is Sunny and I have a problem with lesbian romance novels. I have a problem with layers, but I also have a problem with romance like lesbian romance novels. If I sought them out, I might have a problem, but I really have very little interest in it, although I did change my video. So did I screw anything up? Nope. Well, no, it looks fine. Nope. Okay, good. I read a variety of genres. I read basically every genre. I will admit that the majority of what I read is literary fiction and a lot of speculative fiction as well. Lesbian literary fiction is often not always, but is often pretty good in my, in my opinion. Do you really read it? No, like honestly, literary fiction. Do you read it or do you read like the first pack paragraph of every chapter and then tell everybody you read it? Look at the cliff notes. I don't know how anybody can read literary fiction. It's total drag. Well, literary fiction or modern literary fiction, modern literary. Let me, let me qualify that modern literary fiction. Because I actually understand the appeal of like older literary fiction, but modern literary fiction. I mean, it's basically people sucking farts out of each other's. Butts. Butts. But holes. Yeah, I mean, you can read literary fiction. If it's what I found is if it's written by somebody who went through a war, it's very readable. But if it isn't, it's, it's a lot of, it usually amounts to a lot of fart sniffing. So went through a war or ran a homestead on the prairies. Those are the two options. Everything else is huff fart huffing. Okay, let's do more of the video. Yep, okay. The thing is, I have a couple reasons as to why I think lesbian romance novels specifically are not that good. Why the genre doesn't really lend itself to good, good writing, looking at some of the specific lesbian romances that I've read over the years and how I think they just fall short and fail at doing the thing that romance novels are supposed to do and that I have gotten from romance. Okay, I'm curious what she thinks romance novels are supposed to do because technically I'm talking about possibly like 1%, romance is something that's very easy to do very badly. So, you know, Sturgeon's Law 90% of shit, everything is crap. Well, with romance novels, it's like 99%, 99.9% of everything in the genre is utter crap. But that's because there are the people who are attempting to write a romance in the traditional form, which includes things like pride and prejudice and, and stuff like that, which is actually pretty good reading. And then there are people who are simply making something to schlick to. Yeah, right. I don't know what she means by that. Yeah, so it's, it's like, this could just be like, you know, like, gooner material in the wearing the veneer of like literature. Exactly. And sipping tea with makeup but she's really so really you have to ask yourself what is it? What is it? You're saying that lesbian romance needs to do. Does it need to, I don't know, check boxes in your. How, you know how bad writing, you know how bad writing has gotten and I know this even though I don't read. Sometimes I see ads on YouTube. Okay. Sometimes I see ads on YouTube where there'll be like an ad before a video that's trying to sell a book. And they're like the worst tumbler blocky plot ever. Like there was one of a, of a, it even has animation to go along with it to sort of sell you on the book and it was like, I was the only wolf in my pack that couldn't transform. It was in heat. And, and I had this and no one could tell it was a girl right. And it was like, it was an ad on YouTube and I was like, what is going on and yeah it was, it was total like borderline. It was not very smart, but disguised as literature. It was a book. It was, they were trying to sell a book. Yeah, it's basically pornography. And there's, there are some seriously screwed up in, in, so what, right off the bat, what are you trying to say that you're, you want from this because most, but most people want is an encouragement. You know, like just to start gooning. Yeah, like what is it about? Well, let's see. Let's, I guess we'll listen to more novels of other sorts. I have read straight romance novels and male male gay romance novels. I've read historical romance novels and contemporary romance novels. I haven't read any fantasy romance novels really. I mean, I think I read like Akutar once, like years ago, and I thought it was fine and I read. It was court of thorns and roses. I want to see what that says. I read like Akutar. Sarah J. Maas, court, a court of thorns and roses. I actually attempted to read some of her writing. It looks bad. It looks bad. Just based on that. Because technically, I can say that I write fantasy romance in a technical sense. At least my editors encourage me to lean into the romance because the romance readers will tolerate all the weird time shenanigans to get their hit. But, so I was researching romance in the fantasy genre. So I read some sort of attempted to read some Sarah J. Maas. Let me see what this one is. Court of thrones and thorns and roses. Oh yeah, this is the one that was sort of like, you know how 50 shades of grey is like a, is a fanfic. Oh, I'm a fanfic of Twilight. Yeah. Yeah. Court of thorns and roses reminded me very strongly of the Hunger Games. Is it a super sexy Hunger Games? I didn't get to that point. It was just okay. The first chapter was really interesting, but then the protagonists martyrdom and whining got a little bit annoying. I think it's what happened and I was just like, yeah, I'm done. I'm done. Goodbye. I did read some of the, I did read some of the one star reviews. I really love that. I like going to read one star reviews from books. I'm pretty sure that YA novels are totally trash. Pretty sure. I'm not sure that this is even more. Pretty sure this has too much sexual content to be YA. Oh, okay. Well, I don't know. I mean, I think that they're moving in on that. I don't know. Yeah. Go ahead. Well, yeah, I'm done. I think we should just continue. All right, let's play some more of this. Once, like years ago, and I thought it was fine. And I read, what's the fairy one that everyone likes Holly Holly Black? Yeah, that one. I read the first book to that as well, and I thought it was fine as well, but I am a lesbian reader who reads lesbian books. What I identify as lesbian books and a lesbian not. Okay, I'm just pausing for the video. Okay. I've never thought you'd be like, I'm a lesbian reader. Well, here's the book section for you, I guess. I don't know. A lesbian reader. It's weird. It's weird. It is weird. It is weird. Latino reader. But are you though? Yeah, I guess. I'm Latino and I read. So, I'm a Latino reader. Yeah, I read Dragonberry. I'm being an asshole. Let's keep going. That's all right. All right. A lesbian literature, a lesbian romance novel is obviously at the center of it are two female characters who get together. Or a lesbian relationship that is at the center of the novel or lesbian dynamics and themes that are really present. That to me is what makes a lesbian novel, a lesbian novel. Of course, with romance novels, FF romance is its own thing. And like that is lesbian fiction. That is lesbian romance. That's the lesbian romance genre. Oftentimes, and this gets into my first point. I've noticed that. I'm pausing for the banana. We'll listen to her first point. What's FF stand for? FF. What do is the context that she said it? So, it's like a novel type of lesbian book or something. FF. Novel. I have female female. Sorry. The obvious. Female on female. Okay. It's the obvious. Sorry. So weird. Like that's like a porn genre. FFM, MMF, whatever. So you're saying that, no, I know. But so what you're saying is, is that what it sounds like she's saying is that lesbian novels are. Like, there are no lesbian novels that don't become sexual because like, how else do they exist? You know what I'm saying? Like, are they? Yeah, it just seems like these are all just smud. Like, I mean, they kind of have to be on some level. Okay. Anyway, wait, what happened to my sources? Hold on a second. Oh, there it is. There it is. Okay. So many FF romance novels, the two filming characters that get together are not lesbians. That's fine. Okay. That's fine. But I just don't think it is necessarily a good representation of reality, if that makes sense. Like, from what I understand, romance novels are, of course, a level of escapism and a way of inserting yourself into something that is appealing or experiencing. It's like all other forms of literature, right? One of escapism and is immersive. But something that I find is kind of takes me out of a lot of the romance novels that I read is that most of these love interests and main characters are both bisexual or pansexual women who have male Xs who sort of feature in the stories as well. Oh, no, that's interesting. Yeah. Well, what a surprise. You're basically the genre is basically just fantasy for the main amount of readers, which are women who do have relationships with men. Like, I mean, that's, that's who it's really marketed for. It's not really marketed for lesbians. So, yes, so for lesbians who have always been lesbian, these books are not for you. But if you're a woman who has, who's angry at an ex or is just angry at men or whatever, then maybe this book is for you. Yeah, or if you just want to explore the scenario. Yeah, or you just want to explore the scenario, sure. Yeah. All right. The goals that I'm going to bring up are actually, let me, I'm going to look on my phone for this because I have screenshots of like 25 different romance novels that I've read over the last two years or three years ish that I would identify as like having, having some of these things that I think are some of my problems, I guess, with lesbian romance, the lesbian romance, Sean. Yeah, I'm going to say one thing. I will say one thing for this person. She doesn't make me hate my life like manifest, though. Like, don't hate, yeah. I don't feel the onset of cellular death when I'm listening to her. I think, yeah, you're right. She's pretty, she's just pretty much bog standard factory setting. Yeah. I am what I've been taught. And, like, I think she's a bit delulu about freaking lesbian novels because they're never going to really feature, I guess, the pure lesbian. It's just, it's unlikely because it because the biggest part of the genre is going to be, again, women who do have relationships with men exploring the other side. Strangely, there's not a huge amount of that, you know, for men. No, not a lot. Okay, let's keep going. Simple in the book, Something to Talk About by Meryl Willsner, which follows this, it's like a fake dating, a Hollywood assistant, and an older woman who is a really famous actress, or an actress who's like, you know, pretty, pretty well known in the Hollywood circles. And the assistant is definitely, like, I think she has male exes from what I remember this a while ago. And Joe, the Hollywood actress, she just, like, vaguely does not have any exes or, like, no one knows her sexuality. And that feels to me, that's not really how lesbian romances are in real life. And I think, like, that's what makes it different from male male romances and... I just, you know, felt like I was going for long, I don't know. So... I think we need to get to a point. Yeah, that'd be nice. Yeah, pause them for the banana. Hopefully there'll be a point in the next minute. Is that, oftentimes, for those books, like, I haven't read any Emily Henry, for example, but, like, for other contemporary romances that I've read that aren't lesbian, these characters are coming from positions that make sense are realistic and that I encounter, you know? Like, people who are out and proud in a way that their identities are, like, really central to their life. And I think that a lot of the sexualities of characters and female female romances, that's not really necessarily the case I've noticed, which I think, like, doesn't really make sense. Every lesbian I know is really proud to be a lesbian, and also every lesbian couple I know is usually comprised of two lesbians, not two by women. Sometimes it's one by woman and one lesbian, but, to be honest, like, I just feel like it seems like a lot of these romance novels are kind of, even while being lesbian. You could get to your point. She's just... Waffling. Yeah, that's okay. That's bophobic in the way that... She thinks it's less bophobic because the characters are not full-on, super proud, hardcore, militant, butch lesbians. Well, I'm a butch. How do you... No, no, no, no, she's... I'm totally out there. No, she likes the butch stuff. She comes up in the opus clips. There's a lot of mention of that, although she doesn't appear to be butch, but then she does have the nose ring. I don't know. But, um... Yeah, I mean, I don't... I guess what I'm wondering about is... How do you... How do you even... Like, how do you even write... Like, when you write a... Let's... Okay, when you write a heterosexual romance... Mm-hmm. And not like the penguin book smut stuff that the women like, where it's... 'Cause they're all formulaic, right? It's like the same. You can turn to a certain page in the book, and that's when the sex is happening, and it's basically just porn for women. But if you want to write a real, like, a real story that has romance in it, like, that has a romantic theme that runs through it. I don't know, whatever it is, the Bostonians, or, um... You know, some... Um... And some Shakespeare, or some... You know, um... I don't know, just something like... Like, you mentioned Pride and Prejudice, like, it's not smut, it's... You know, it involves, like, let's say, for the example, it involves a man and a woman. Mm-hmm. And why do those work, and can you take that template and simply apply it to either two men or two women? And I don't think that lesbian... But I think that lesbian romance novels, and maybe also gay romance novels, if they exist, I'm sure they do. I think they are written, um... explicitly to kind of not be of, let's say, formulaic in a heterosexual sense. Okay. So you think that lesbian novels are not... Okay, first of all, one of the problems is, yes, you can apply it to men, but no, you cannot apply it to women. And the reason why is because women's characters are extremely limited in this particular orthodoxy that we exist within. And the range of stories, and it's even more limited when you're talking about lesbians. Because each of these characters is going to have to contend with being a lesbian and what that means in the society and smashing the patriarchy. And that is going to end up consuming their individual personalities. With the heterosexual romance, the important thing is you've got two individuals who are contending with themselves and contending with the relationship. When you take away a man, or often if you have a man paired with a woman, you may end up with just one person, one individual, contending with himself and contending with the relationship. And the woman is just basically a metric by which he measures his ability to... Like, when I was talking about that woman who was part of the, I guess, the small publisher, and then this guy came in from a more professional publishing outlet. When I talked about that, there is two sides to that. On the one hand, he becomes entirely defined by her needs. But on the other hand, she becomes entirely defined by her needs. You know, and whether or not he is meeting them. So there's no sense of development of herself. There's no going inside herself and becoming stronger, being able to, in fact, change in the greater world. Being able to manage herself and her own bullshit. There's none of that. So there's no real development of the individual female, like the individual woman. Now, there was in past romances like Pride and Prejudice, not only did the main female character have to overcome her prejudice towards the main male character and actually see beyond the surface level, she also had to stand up to his very class conscious aunt who did not want him marrying a squire's daughter, basically, when she was based, like, descended from royal blood. It's last stuff. But she had to develop the chops to stand up for herself. She had to develop the chops to question herself and all of that. Or she wasn't going to be worthy of the relationship. You don't see that you get less and less and less the closer you get to the modern time of that, of that recognition of women's individual moral development in romance. Now, so with modern romance, you can have a situation where a man is the only one doing any kind of developing and only one developing himself as an individual. And the woman is basically just a blob of needs that he has to accommodate. But that starts to, like, the whole concept and the whole enjoyability of it starts to deteriorate. Then you have two women. Well, you got two women who are blobs of needs and who's going to attend to those needs. So even that tension is gone, right? Yeah. And then it's all about the victimhood because they have to, somewhere the movement has to come. So it comes from the persecution by a horrible patriarchal society, the, the hatred of men towards women, whatever that the, some sort of external force is the only place where you're going to find tension. Because you can't start to explore the individuality of these women and how they develop themselves because you're not really recognizing that. So a classical romance between two men is doable, although there's some horrendous crap going on there, just because you have, you don't get away from recognizing the individuality. Although, to be fair, women can screw that up really badly by simply over identifying one of the men with like a 13 year old girl, or making them both 13 year old girls, but, but you see what I'm getting at. It's like, when you have two women, the tension just drains out of everything, because now it's no longer about who they are as individuals, and there's nobody actually being an individual. So there's no real tension. It's just a mess. And the other thing is that it's going to be even worse when she's talking about, "Oh, I want this to be like pure lesbians." Well, you're just going to make that 20 times worse, because on top of being women, they are now lesbians, which means they have no agency whatsoever. And they cannot develop individually, because that would be lesbianist, I think. Okay. You said lesbian phobic is actually lesbian phobic. Lesbo phobic. You need to understand any recognition of individual moral worth is, the intersectionalists have a word for it for any particular group, except for men. Men can continue to be interesting individuals who develop, who deal with their own bullshit, who become stronger, whose stories are fascinating and compelling. And everybody wants to read, which is why male authors have a huge female viewership, readership, whereas female authors do not have a huge male readership. So we're going to continue to make men the best characters in fiction by constantly erasing the individuality of every other group. And ultimately, this complaint is ridiculous, because she's essentially saying, "Oh, because this is a genre that appeals to a subset of straight and bisexual women, and they are much larger in number than lesbians, I have a whole bunch of options that I wouldn't have if that weren't the case. Plus, you also have the classical lesbian romance, which you read one of them and you probably have read every single one of them. Let's be honest. But the truth is that lesbian romance, as a sub-genre of romance, is the size that it is because of bisexual and straight women's interest. The end. If they didn't have an interest, you would probably have three options. So, there you go. Let's listen to some more. They exclude lesbian experiences and are very still centered on previous relationships that women have with men in the aftermath of those things, which that is also a true experience of many people and many bi women and lesbians even in my life. But I think that a man turned them into lesbians. I just asked him after being with a man. Especially for the female female romance genre. I'm actually curious, because every time there's a shooting, there's some guy who throws himself in front of a bullet for his female partner. Notice that? Or tries to take down the shooter. I wonder in a lesbian relationship, which one of you throws themselves in front of the bullet? Do you have to detox a coin? It seems like there's something going on. And actually, honestly, that's a more interesting premise for romance, too. I know I don't want to over-encourage men's sacrifice for women, but men's sacrifice for women. Women's sacrifice for each other. And that could be a challenging book to write. A challenging book? Yeah, like if you, well, I'm challenging for by the standards today. But okay, let's keep going. We don't want to be challenging. Just explain. Well, what I'm saying is, like, if you wanted to explore lesbian romance, you could do it and involve a sacrifice. I don't know. Like I said, but in the beginning, I said that, you know, if you look at the way that good heterosexual romance stories are written, then look at what elements, what are the elements in them that work, and then see if you can translate, will that translate over to a lesbian relationship? And I think you're right, I don't think it will as well. And it's almost like that's why maybe they're, they just turn out to be, it sounds like they're just kind of political to me. Like they're just kind of political screeds like, oh, well, we got nothing else. So let's make it about the patriarchy, you know? Well, like I said, there's no other tension. So yeah, because again, like, I mean, it'll pass the Bechtel test. Maybe. Okay, specifically for like lesbian romances, when I feel like that's not really the case for gay romances and for straight romances. Your ex, oftentimes like the exes in gay romances are like also men or in straight romances. It's not like obviously there's not that issue of having to contend with your identity. And I don't know, I find it a little disingenuous at a certain point, I suppose. But I can sort of sympathize with this because I can see what's probably happening. They're using a straight and maybe bisexual women are using lesbian romance as a maybe catharsis to their romantic relationships with men and their gripes about that. And they bring that in and I can see why that would be annoying if you have a genuine interest in the romance between women that it's not a statement about men. You know what I mean? Yeah. But also, she says that it's also gay men have at least the way they're written. Apparently also are like, you know, they have men in their history. And I wonder if that's not like if that's not basically the constant throughout is that there has to be a background where there was a man and that man hurt them or broke them or did them wrong or something. And you can't do that with a woman exactly like that's that makes me wonder. And that's the funny thing is that how come all of these, how many of these lesbian romance books end up in a fistfight like I want to know how many fight scenes there are lesbians are so big on the domestic violence. No, but seriously, I think that that might be the reason I think that and it goes back to what I was saying about it possibly being political because there has to be like okay we're going to make this like if you create any piece of media. And you're trying to include a kind of identity in the story that is superficially intersectional like I'm going to make this about an Asian girl I'm going to make this about a, you know, a trans Muslim I'm going to make this about whatever. In nine times out of 10 that identity takes the front row seat in all of the story choices you make because now all of that every choice you want to make in the story you have to consider how it impacts this political purse puppy that you've created for your story. So lesbian romance stories are going to run into that problem because I'm betting that most of the people who write them are doing it from that I'm going to write a story about a lesbian woman because no one's ever done it before. I'm going to do it. And then they sit down they're doing it and they're like well she's she's got a history, it can't be another woman because that's not good for the sisterhood. So we're going to put we're going to make it like some, you know guy used to beat her he drank all the time and all of the usual. I'm also all the stereotypes right he was a redneck, he wore a MAGA hat, you know he liked beer and watching sports, and all this other stuff. And she couldn't take it anymore and she fled to the arms of another woman who listened to her, who you know her no problems whatever she's like she runs up to an animal shelter. Like you know, you know all that stuff and, and I think that is like that I think that's her issue but she's not going to be able to identify it if she's concerned about the way that lesbianism is represented and not exploring the possibility that a woman who leaves another woman, someone was in the wrong there there was some problem and a good story with that kind of back story to it like where there was an old relationship and it went sour. It can't be like something simple like well we just didn't see eye to eye, it has to be something kind of dramatic because it adds to whatever the tensions are right. Like if they were controlling, let's say, and you do like a relationship where the lesbians break up because one of them is like really controlling and always plays the victim and uses it to control the behavior of the other. And the other one's like I gotta get out of this this is toxic whatever reminds me of my mother, you know and and they leave. And then like she meets the new girl the new girls kind of you know like the opposite of that whatever she's like more I don't know like not as controlling a better listener whatever. And then the controlling woman comes back into the you know into the picture and then it creates a but like you need that otherwise it doesn't work or like a rivaling. Yeah, otherwise it's boring right so that's just I'm just making that up but I'm thinking like this is what she's, she sees that there's a problem with it but what she doesn't seem to get is it is not an accident. It is it is kind of by design because the people who write this kind of stuff if you create this contest especially today, whether it's literature or television or film or video games or music even they're doing it from a specific. Um, kind of identity like oriented angle and that, and there are things associated with that that take precedent so it will affect the storytelling but they think it's worth it that's how you get lesbian space witches. That's how you get them. Oh, I'm gonna I'm thinking of watching that and maybe covering it. I have never watched it I had no interest. No interest, no Star Wars is dead. It is so dead but but but but yeah I mean like I know about it I know what the plot points are and stuff so. All right let's play some more of the video. I don't know maybe I'm wrong for that. This is just a general trend that I'm noticing like even in lesbian literary fiction. This is just for lesbian fiction in general. So much of what is published and what is on the market and the books that are out there feature characters who are not lesbians but get involved in lesbian relationships. Okay, all right, how many times is she gonna say this. I don't know how many goes to go jump to one of these humps he spikes. Sure let's jump to a spike and also like, yeah I think you I think you're on point there Brian the reason why they do that is because they don't want to have a woman acts who is a nutcase and you can do anything with a male you can make a real killer you can make him a stalker you can make him a rapist or a rapist you can make him a freaking genocide or you I mean the sky is the limit with the male x. Like you can make him any shades of evil. What can the hell can you do with a female x. Well she just she just I mean or or you don't even have to make it evil like you couldn't just have like say a scenario where in a heterosexual romance where there is a girl and there's a love triangle there's a love triangle there are two men they're interested in the same woman and there's a rivalry it's like you know team Edward or team whatever his name is like from Twilight right. And that is enough to get like readers and girls because they like start picking their favorites and then in a good writer will probably make both of them appealing right to the point where you don't know which one is good for her or whatever as long as the woman is not a pain in the ass because if the woman is unlikable then you're just going to want them to be a lot like what these guys they shouldn't be with her she's she's not worth it but if you make all of them appealing and you keep people on the edge of the seat you can make a rivalry look good there's another thing that they don't want to do and I think it's because they don't want less they don't want women in competition with women. They don't know women are always in competition with women. Yeah and the problem with the female X is even if you make a female X if you don't make them evil then why did they leave then it then it's bad on the person like you know it looks bad on the person who did it. Or it's just dull you just say well we just grew apart you know and then that's it right and then why are you even including them like why would you include an X unless they're the inclusion of the X actually increases the tension. Yeah, that's really interesting isn't it like a male X can add so much to a story that a female X just can't. Because the only thing they saw much with the characterization of a male X and you can also have it well you can blame him and you can also you don't have to blame the female character who left him as much. You know what I mean. Like you can you can have her leave him for superficial reasons and people will still buy her as a sympathetic character. You know but if she leaves another woman she becomes less and less sympathetic right. Yeah. Okay. Well one of the things they could do with arrival this is what they would like to do even if they did have something like where they need to figure out like you know what happened with a past female partner is that she could have gone to a man, which would make her a traitor in a way or something like that. So we'll go back to her old man her old ex boyfriend, who was not good for her whatever and she didn't know you know what she was doing I don't know something like that they're there. There are ways there are new ways novel ways to make men in fiction more and more unsympathetic. All right anyway let's yeah yeah that's why the male ex will always be more pervasive and always be more likely to be part of the fiction like I said he can add so much more tension without sacrificing the sympathy of the female protagonist so sorry lady. Like if you want to do if you want that to change then you're gonna have to accept portrayals of women that you probably wouldn't accept. Yeah yeah that's for that dark feminine man. Yeah you're gonna have to explore the dark feminine you're gonna have to accept fiction like that other than and like I talked about how when you when you have the women you have two women you limit how much you can do with those women for the same reason that when you have a female ex you're limited in what they can bring to the story for exactly the same reason, because the women cease to be interesting individuals and they become ciphers for a morality pilly. You can't do certain things with women because otherwise it's it's sexist. Right, you can't do things with women because I just I guess the the idea of women being totally evil. I mean how's this for a lesbian romance. One half or a woman who gets involved with an incredibly abusive lesbian partner who tries to suck her into a cult that kills boys. And then she has to escape that. And overcome it and then with her new FBI girlfriend she goes back and she goes back and there you go there you go that's good. I love like it would be actually interesting to listen but you can't do that. Can you do that could you even consider publishing that something like that in today's publishing industry absolutely not. So you're stuck with male exes for the same reason as every time the woke writers attempt to make male characters less interesting they make them more interesting. Because they're the only ones who have any flaws. They're the only ones who have to strive they're the only ones whose individual moral actions matter in a way that the others don't. And they keep doing this over and over again don't understand why. Oh man, we should call this the we should call this the interesting male ex theory hypothesis. Yeah, male characters are interesting for the reason why you're so many romance novels have ex boyfriends because you can just do so much with them and add and they add so much to the story. Yup, possibilities are endless. All right. A couple of like the dozens that I know that are like two bisexual women or two bisexual feminine women which is what is seems like to be the majority of these books. Most of Alexandra Bellafler's books and she is a mate she's saying they're not writing enough but lesbian stories are all like feminine lipstick lesbian stories. And I think it's because again, they're not for butch lesbians they're for like regular women that they just want to like explore the material. They like the idea of you know it's like Yuri isn't that what Yuri is I don't know. Yeah, so the girls and Yuri are very feminine, and like that like they're not and they're not explicitly lesbian, but lesbian things happen I guess I don't know. They're flexible. Yeah. Yeah. Well, honestly I think she's just repeating herself but let's let's see. I mean does she make another point. I don't know, I don't know. I got a super I made a rumble rant so I'm going to read that really quick. No Befan 21 thank you no Befan says for a dollar. Does she not know that even when her diversity fantasy is realistic it's triggering to others and when it's presented as empowering that the reader base still complain because real life still sucks. Yeah, I don't know. Thank you I probably not. I'll just say that she probably does not know that. All right, there is another peak coming so let's see where I was under Bella floors a major female female contemporary romance author and that's basically all of all of her characters and then with Ashley Herring Blake in the first book of her bright fall series, don't I agree and doesn't care. I mean she does a similar thing again like it's to to buy women who get together I think or it might be one lesbian and one by woman. It varies between all of her books, but it's always like two feminine women or too. Yeah see so I knew that she was gonna get into the Delilah is the woman who was sent in to destroy Samson something about like I'm gonna assume this is a feminist writer okay but you put me on a stake if it's not true. But there's something about feminist writers that they love to take the names of really evil women from like fairy tales and mythology and religion and then take that name like they love Delilah and you know Jezebel and Lilith and Kali Ma and I love them. I don't know what it is but feminist women they they love to embrace that like that dark feminine and then they are Medusa. They celebrate it like I there was a sculpture you guys probably remember this was like a years ago that someone made a sculpture it was like that there was a sculpture. I think it was Perseus holding the head of Medusa. Do you remember that it's an old classical sculpture Greek mythology somebody created a reversal of that where it was Medusa holding the head of Perseus. And all the women were like oh get it girl and I'm like do you know what the do you know what Medusa is like why are you you know putting these women on the pedestal they're always doing that anyway. So I just had to say that. Yeah more feminine than masculine women I guess getting together and I think that it's it's kind of again it's strangely it's it's less biphobic in some way because it feeds into this idea of like oh we're not like those ugly manage Harry fat bull dykes we are we're like pretty women just like everyone else like that's what a lot of these covers and I'm going to put some examples on here really give off I guess. This is more of this kind of surface level criticism like oh I don't like that they're pretty why aren't they like you know bull dyke Harry flannel wearing short haircut. Harry legs, Birkenstocks like why aren't they those lesbians it's like I don't know maybe it's the same reason why the men in romance stories don't have washboard abs. I mean they do have washboard as was regular men mostly don't you know yeah. Yeah it seems pretty superficial it's finished off the peak. I don't really have anything to say. I don't know that doesn't sit right with me and I think like this really encompasses the vast majority of the genre and I think it has to do with the publishing industry itself and it has to do with what people are writing and comfortable with writing in the Ashley Herring Blake books I also noticed that and actually on my podcast The Lavender Menace where we talk a lot about lesbian media and critically examining a lot of that. One of our listeners emailed us and mentioned how Into Leather Green doesn't care the first book in the series Ashley Herring Blake never uses the word lesbian ever. One of the love interests is a bisexual woman who has. I know you have a banana are we through the peak yet. Yeah there's another one right here though yeah this does just be like the biggest one let's just teleport over here okay. So like do you watch a lot of like if you had a podcast and all your podcast was focused on lesbian fiction. How much of that is there to get are you just looking at like fan fiction because I know there's a lot of fan fiction probably covers that. Are you looking at like editorials like I don't like I don't know I just feel like you're limiting yourself a little bit. Like do you just do you just like turn your nose up at like regular stories. She says that she does read it though. I'm just really astounded because this represents an explosion in romance related to lesbian themes gay themes but it's all written by women so. You know like 20 years women write the gay fiction as well I bet yes yeah they do yes which is why a lot of it isn't just awful but 20 years ago you wouldn't see any of this. And you're complaining for Chuck Tingle he's a genius yeah you're complaining about having this much choice because let's be frank. The actual representation of people who have women who have an interest in sexuality with other women is not. Right here like a gigantic blob on lesbian it's actually a bell curve. With their straight women there's bisexual women who are interested and there are a lot more of them so you're upset. That women interested who have sexual interest in women the fiction that aimed towards them reflects what they look like and what they want and how they are right. You cannot you cannot you are unbelievably entitled yes you want this to resemble your interests and no doubt you think you have the self righteousness belief that if they don't resemble your interests that there's something wrong with them. Well one you once you get rid of the male acts you have severely restricted your plot plot potentials because the male X represents such a variety in terms of stakes and tension and different things that he's bringing to the plot that a female just won't and if you want to change that then you have to challenge miss injury and the misogyny of low expectations but you're not going to do that. So you are going to look at this this entire gigantic genre of romantic fiction and you're going to say this resembles the people who are interested in it too much it should resemble me. You say that you are entitled to do that because why because you're a lesbian you don't own sexual interest in women that's your problem you think you own that you don't. There are straight women women who identify as straight who have a sexual interest in women there are bisexual women who obviously have a sexual interest in women and they outnumber you. I think that the genre of women with a sexual interest in women looks like the majority of the women who have a sexual interest in women get over it. Yeah. It's not going to look like you it's not an echo chamber to make you feel good. I go into a bookstore and there would be five books on lesbian romance or anything related to that and most of the genre of women with a sexual interest in women because it's not the lesbian genre it is that she is trying to own something that isn't hers. It is the genre of women who have a sexual interest in women it includes straight women it includes bisexual women it includes lesbian women. But if you think when you look at the demographics the largest demographic of women with a sexual interest in women probably is straight. And that doesn't mean they don't identify as straight I know that sounds weird but they just they don't want to identify with that particular aspect of their sexuality they just want to explore it fine. And then you have bisexual men and then you have a smaller proportion which is lesbian. So the fact that the genre resembles the majority of the people in it who consume it and who write for it that is not discrimination against lesbians your problem is you think you own the genre and you don't. Exactly. You are a small part of it and if you want to go back to owning the genre then you can get rid of all of the bookcases full and we can all go back to 25 years ago when you had five books and all of them were short stories. Not like we're compilations of short stories right yeah otherwise just enjoy the fact that you have choice and also again if you want to get rid of the male X then that the number of the types of stories are going to be slashed by 99%. They're all going to be the same damn coming out story of smashing the patriarchy like it's and you won't even be able to put a face to the patriarchy because that's going to be having an ex. Right, you get rid of the male X is you get rid of everything they have to a story, tension, stakes, questions, other aspects I mean I guarantee in each one of these stories the male X is probably bringing most of everything to it. And that's probably why she's complaining about it while you want to change that challenge, challenge misinjury, recognize none's issues and challenge the misogyny of low expectations and demand that your female characters have every bit as much moral individuality as men, which means that their consequences they can be just as evil as men and do not soft pedal it with bullshit about patriarchy. Okay, that's what you want, but this is the consequence of living in the system that we do women's moral choices are boring. They add nothing to a story and you make it worse by saying, well, it's the patriarchy, the patriarchy is responsible. Well, you're just blending women out more. You're making them more worthless as human beings, more just just blobs that are pushed or pushed around by the miasma of evil with men's thinking and actions. What do you think is going to happen? That's going to come out in storytelling. Yeah, people are going to add a male X because they need a bit of tension. They need a bit of a heavy, you know. Okay. Yep. There you go. That's the best I can do. No, that's good. That's good. No one's again when the characters are yet another representation of something that I've seen a million times before that doesn't feel realistic to how people actually engage in the lesbian community. But, I'm like, okay, how far until we get the bifobia? Well, we were already well passed. I didn't say anything because it's just like I'm not going to turn my freaking experience into a sword. But honestly, how dare you say you speak for the entire community. You are a part of it. You don't own it. Okay, you don't own it. Get off your high horse. And if you want to own it once again, we go back to 25 years ago, five books on a shelf, all of them short story anthologies. All right. Shut up and enjoy the plenty. I think specifically about adult romances here because young adult romance novels, I have a lot more leeway. I feel like they are often a better written and be much more compelling because they're dealing with other themes besides the core of just romance. And oftentimes they're dealing with family and loss and growing up and being in an environment of like school or, you know, working, like oftentimes that's what a lot of these young adult female female romance novels are doing. I think a lot of times they're done really compellingly and really well. Pausing for the banana, but I think this is almost the end of this hump so I don't know if she's going to say anything. I don't think that is the case for a lot of adult contemporary female female romances. For example, I mean, I think young adult romances that are done really well are by Kelly Queensland. And perhaps some of the things that I'm identifying as I think are like problematic a little, or that I find concerning a trend within lesbian romance might be identifiable in some of Kelly Quinlan's work. But I think that as a whole, the writing and the characters like kind of make up for it. Whereas a lot of these other books like there's no redemption for that in that regard. Like in Kelly Quinlan's books, like to the party and her name in the sky and just another one about the basketball player and the cheerleader, like all of them feature characters who are even if they're not grappling with their sexualities within the context of these books. They are in environments that are like restrictive of like you're in high school. Some of these girls are like out and or out to certain people and trying to navigate that. And I think all of that is really interesting, whereas I don't know if this gets a lot deeper. I mean, you know what, you know what, this is the end of this hump by the way. You know what I think is funny about this. I think these are all like, these are essentially feminist criticizing the work of other queer feminists, and they're just, you know, because like, I don't know, I feel like this is nothing to do with me. Like, this is all like, you know, it's like the people who were on Tumblr have become, and we're writing fan fiction are now writing books, and now the people who read those books that are fan fiction are criticizing them. And it's like a competition for who is the most inclusive and who is the least problematic amongst this small subset of writers that are trying to make you know, content that's apparently, you know, just lesbian friendly enough. And yeah, it's like, it's just becoming another competition. Mm hmm. Although I do appreciate, I'm about to ruin this woman's whole career. I do appreciate the shout out to Angel Reese there. Although I don't know if she'd appreciate being cast as a lesbian. Oh, really? Well, white basketball player right there up in the. Yeah, yeah, no, I, oh, oh, are you referring to the basketball player. Yes, yes, Angel. Isn't it Angel Reese? No, you're talking about the really popular one right now. Yes. That's upsetting all the other female basketball players. Lindsay's a big Lindsay's up. Yes. Well, actually, she's not just good. I can't remember her name now that you say it, now that you said that it's not, it's not what you said, though. No, it's not. It's a different, I'll get the, I'll get the name. All right, get the name. Caitlin Clark. Yes, that's right. Caitlin Clark. The thing I was going to say about Caitlin Clark is that not only is she a really great basketball player that happens to be white, which is whoof, that's a problem. But she's also very sportsman like, she's very, like the reason why her team kills is because she cooperates with the other players. She comes up with plays and like, you know, like they works with the team to score. This is what professional. Sports teams are supposed to do, they're supposed to come up with a plan, they're supposed to, like, I think sports is actually more about, it's actually more tactical than people think, and it's less athletic. And athletics are important, obviously, but it's less of a focus, you know, then like being a good part of the, of the team. So, yeah. Yeah. And I think Caitlin Clark recognizes that. But yeah, it is, it is funny that that's, I thought it worked too when I saw that cover. But we got, we got a Caitlin Clark Angel Reese story. Is that what that is? No, no, absolutely not, absolutely do not. No, I'm taking the pass out early. Okay, this is, this is a bunch of wintering and basically an object demonstration and why stories are only interesting if men are involved. So let's keep going. I don't want that to be the case, but it seems to be. Do you want me to jump to another hump. Yeah, jump to another hump. It's hump day. It's hump day, you know, we had the same thing. Guess what day it is. Oh, I got a super chow, super chow from Richard Beare, he gives us five bucks, and says she has yet to bring up whether the author is authentically lesbian enough. This stream has been sponsored by and the Minotaur as well. Burger King and fries burger King and fries and the Minotaur, you know what? I can the Minotaur. Yeah, this seems like a lot of inside baseball. So go ahead. This is, this is deep lore from the discord. But incidentally, if you want to join the discord, you can see you so it. Badger nation dot online, you can help us with, or you can enjoy our resources and all that other stuff that we give that put together. If you're interested in any of the statistics that I talk about on the stream, the best place to go to get them would be the discord so Badger nation dot online. And Badger, or sorry, Burger King and fries was one of the craziest posters I have ever met. One of the craziest craziest people in the discord. I actually made a labyrinth at the center of the discord, the Minotaur, and we put, yeah, and the Minotaur. We are talking about lesbians. Yeah, no, no, he used to constantly talk about the lesbian. You know how some people talk about certain notices, you know, like in particular. Yeah, that kind of his conspiracy was the lesbians, the lesbians are at the center of it all. So, he'd go on and on and on about it, among other things, and he'd also challenge, he's just really obnoxious so I constructed a special role for him that left him at the center of the maze. And then, amusingly, at one point, we had, I don't know, like, I think it was Rose Rist or Rose Rist, that guy who kept wanting me to identify as an intersectional. Remember, we got into that fight with him. Rose Rist. Rose Rist. What about him did he end up in the Minotaur? I think so. I think it was him. I think it was one other feminist who ended up in in the actual. I'm like, you got to be careful because you'll release the Minotaur. And then they did. And then the Minotaur got into their discord. And it was hilarious because you could just see them like trying to crawl out of their discord. And like, this is your fault. I'm like, I warned you. I warned you. You're the one who went into my discord and then crashed it and then released the Minotaur. And then you had the Minotaur on your ass. That was all on you. Nothing to do with me. All right. So, as well, as also, I recall several audio book apps that were advertising their app with these cookie cutter, young adult novels, but about either the werewolf romance genre, or the husband struggling at work and people propositioning his wife, but he's connected with a powerful mafia family, but is trying to make his own way without using his connections to establish himself. Yeah, right. But I can see how that could become its own trope. Yeah, the werewolf thing. I don't know. It's just, it's so, it's cringe, man. All right. So, should we play some more? Yeah, we'll see. Let's see if there's any. Let's see if there's any. Anything left of these humps. Yeah, I don't know that there's a. There's like a little one right here. So, I'm going to jump here. Well, let's see. Bromance and whatever. Like, I know it can get bad, but there's some things that I'm like, this is not. How is this being published? I feel like I'm reading fan fiction that is better than this, you know, and me and Renaissance talked about this in terms of reading Mel Wilson, something to talk about. Yeah, Mel Wilson recently came out with your pornography ability. Yes, because it's porn. Like, do you not know what the genre is about? Okay, this is dumb. What's another hump? Is there any other further humps? There's like little ones over here. Can you see what I'm looking at? Yeah, I just wear like these are some pathetic humps. Yeah, they are. They're more like. A mild rise. It's really into like the book from lesbian subculture in a way. It's about as stimulating as the books that she is critiquing. There's no erections because this is all lesbian stuff. That's why there's so few. That most a lot of lesbians and a lot of people in lesbian communities aren't necessarily, but I think like the fact that this, the huge swathes of like this genre just have no acknowledgement of. Even the existence of like gender non, like truly gender nonconforming women. Right it. And gender nonconforming lesbians. Okay, who is this person? All right. Does she have a new book, something sunny, something? Book a nook. Let me, let me, let me take a look. Because these people always write. Take a look. It's in a book. Reading rainbow. My name is Sonny. Sonny Lushu. I'm guessing that she's got a huge following on Twitter or something. Sonny. I never heard of him. No, I mean, because you know, this is book talk. Oh, incidentally, there's a big controversy with book talk. They're drooling over Wade Wilson, not the Deadpool actor, the guy who murdered two women. Did you know that? What? Book talk, book talk. It's all the, it's a whole bunch of women who are fans, usually of dark romance. They're on a place called Book Talk, which is like a community on TikTok. And a lot of them are drooling over Wade Wilson, not the guy who plays Deadpool. Not Ryan Reynolds. But the man who was recently condemned to death for murdering two women. Oh, yeah. I mean, I'm not that surprised. Okay. All right. You find anything? Yeah, I'm trying to find library reviews for children's books, workbooks, and that must be her general or somebody else's. Yeah, this might be some, this might be somebody who has absolutely nothing to do with the evils. Um, here we go. Good reads. Let's see. Do you actually write is what I'm trying to get at? Uh, read currently reading, doesn't look like she writes best anti-capitalist fiction because of course. This is one of her, her, her, her last best anti-capitalist fiction. Yeah, it's like I said, it's political in nature. I knew it was from the get when she said lesbian romance. I was like, this is political. And I knew it. Like, I, I, so I'm not surprised. I'm sure that, and that's, and by the way, that's why it sucks. You know, that's why it sucks. That's why, like all of these, all of this, like, woke garbage sucks because the, the political is the precedent on which or it's the foundation of whatever the product is, whatever the art is. And so if it undermines it, because it's a weak foundation. Anti-capitalist books. Do you pay for these books? You've already lost. How much are these anti-capitalist books, Alison? How much do they cost? Is it nothing? Who's going to make, who's going to make the products in your anti-capitalist utopia? Oh, well, who's going to pay the taxes? Let's face it. Like, yeah, well, and the, the problem is that, I mean, I, honestly, I think today's version of capitalism is so, it's, it's, well, I mean, it's, it's not exactly real because it's all like the money is printed. So they're manipulating everything. But, um, but I'm not against the idea of the necessity of a meritocracy in society. People need to get what they earn. God damn. Do these people ever bore themselves to death? Like, they don't want any kind of strife in their life despite constantly creating it. No doubt. That's probably why they, yeah, but okay. So I got another super child from Richard B. Air. He gives us five bucks and says, Wade Wilson's swastika face tattoo just put those women over the edge and makes him absolutely irresistible to those women. To be fair, he didn't have the facial tattoos when he was murdering the women, but he did have neck tattoos. It's like there you go. There's a big, big, big red flag. Um, yeah, like he's a, and there's a lot of women drooling over him right after the man versus bear meme. Yep. I guess people are too boring. Or sorry men are too boring. Okay, let's, let's, is there any, because she's just back on the same topic. Is there a. I don't think, I don't think that this really gets, I don't, I don't think there's anything else to this. I think we've done it. Like, I think we've squeezed everything out of this, out of this lemon. Yeah, we squeezed all the things. We've got it all. Yeah, so, so in short, lesbian fiction sucks because they can only write men in an honest way. And so if you can't, if you can't write women. As compelling as you can write men, then your lesbian fiction will always have male ex boyfriends, or male antagonists, or the whatever the conflict is because that's what I'm wondering about too. Like, what is the conflict in a, in a romance in a, in a lesbian romance. Without the conflict, then you got nothing. So yeah, and of course, you're also limiting your potential. That's why what stories remain probably all look the same, because there's only so many ways to skin a cat. So, well, I think ultimately what I'm getting from this is she believes that the genre of women with a sexual interest of women, it's not lesbian fiction, that genre should resemble her. Should just be a gigantic echo chamber determined by her interests. Well, no. And you don't, I mean, you have every right to say that because, you know, no censorship, but everybody has an equal right to completely ignore you and say, yeah, but we also exist in the space. Unless you're going to talk about some kind of purity or you're the pure woman who wants to have sex with women, therefore you get to define the entire genre, and everybody, even women who don't want to write what you want them to write, they have to write what they, well, they're not going to do it. Right, no wonder an anti capitalist wants slavery, or thinks that she's entitled to it to enforce norms on other people to enforce things on other or ask for things from others that they have to labor to create. Let me put it that way. Yep. Entitlement to others labor. Okay, all right, so what's going to happen now is we're going to move over to my channel, which I believe you can find at, it's at gender attic on YouTube I did check that out gender attic. It's erratic with two R's not two T's two R's erratic gender erratic, okay, but you might also be able to do it with a search on typhon blue, and we are going to talk about more house of the dragon, because it's almost the same as this. It's almost the same problems that we got here, like the women just cannot be characters they just, they're functionally non existent as moral agents but anyway if you want to join us for that, go over to my channel. And if you want to send us a message at any time after the show is over feed the badger calm slash just the tip is the very best way to send us that message, and to send us whatever funds you'd like to give us as a tip to tell us we're not screaming into the void, because it often feels like we are. Once again, feed the badger calm slash just the tip to send us a message in a tip, and back to you Brian. All right, I did get one last super child before we wrap it up from great indoors for five bucks and he says you will own no lesbian books and you will be happy, some old German misogynist posing seductively. All right well if you guys like this video please hit like subscribe if you're not already subscribed to the bell for notifications leave us a comment let us know what you guys think about what we discussed on the show today. And please please please share this video because sharing is caring thank you so much for coming on today's episode of red chill cinema we'll talk to you all in the next one. An official message for Medicare. A new law is helping me save more money on prescription drug costs maybe you can save too. With Medicare's extra help program my premium is zero and my out-of-pocket costs are low. Who should apply single people making less than $23,000 a year or married couples who make less than $31,000 a year. 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