Laughing at the Tragic Lesbian Romance Ending: Siera Maley's DATING SARAH COOPER

The romance community tends to agree that a romance is not really a romance if it doesn't end happily, or at least end "happily for now." How, then, can a subgenre of romance have a trope that's all about the unhappy ending?

When that subgenre is lesbian romance films. And perhaps Young Adult lesbian romance novels, too?

As blogger Danielle on The Radical Notion blog argues in "The Curse of the Tragic Lesbian Ending," the majority of lesbian romance films conclude with decidedly un-HEA moments:

Victims of the "Dead Lesbians" TV trope

If you identify as queer, you're lucky if you've got a handful of decent films to choose from, and even luckier if one or two of those films don't end with the protagonist dying, going to jail, or ending up alone. I can't tell you how many lesbian romances I've watched that have ended with one of the female characters meeting some awful fate.

The situation in young adult books with lesbian characters isn't quite so bad, at least in the books I've read. But still, the HEA, or even a HFN ending, is far from the norm.

Something that #ownvoices author Siera Maley takes dead aim at in Dating Sarah Cooper.

The premise behind Maley's novel is both high-concept and potentially cringe-worthy. On her way home from school in small-town Georgia, Katie Hammontree interrupts a football player bullying a fellow classmate, Jake, for being gay. Jake ends up with a split lip as a result of the encounter, and Katie invites Jake into her house to help clean him up. And invites her bestie, Sarah Cooper, over to help, since Sarah intends to go to nursing school after graduation next year. Jake, mistaking Katie and Sarah for girlfriends because of their playful physical closeness, invites them to come to a meeting of an unnamed school club to which he belongs: "if you guys ever wanted more people to hang out with and talk to and stuff... or if you just wanted to hang out with me and talk, you could come. You know, if you felt like spending time with people who can relate to you" (21). The girls, friendly but oblivious, accept. But when they find out from Jake just before stepping into the meeting that the club is a support group for gay students, impulsive Sarah decides to go with it. Dragging a reluctant Katie behind her, Sarah announces to the other students "Katie and I have been dating for about two months now, and we're ready to tell the world" (43).

Sarah's justification for her impetuous declaration is that it's a great way to get the guy she's been crushing on to notice her. "Guys like lesbians, right? And they also like challenges" (46). And because she and Katie are far more popular than the rest of the queer kids at school, "we'll be majorly boosting the confidence of the kids in that LGBT club" (46). Katie, worried about humiliating Jake and about being accused of making fun of the rest of the club, reluctantly decides to go along with Sarah's deception.

After Sarah and Katie out themselves to the wider school community, they learn a lot about what the queer kids in their school have to face every day. Word was that lesbians have it easy, especially compared to queer boys; homosexual boys get physically bullied, but everyone likes a lesbian, right? In fact, the straight boys like a lesbian a little too much: "Hey, Katie. Heard about you and Sarah... so what's that like and where do I buy tickets?"

Colton was the first of many, many guys that day who felt the need to gawk at us, tell us we were hot, announce their approval, or all three. We got questions about threesomes, questions about what we did in bed—all of which were completely invasive and inappropriate and absolutely qualified as "rude"—and questions about which one of us was the man in our relationship. We were whistled at, catcalled at, stared at, and shouted after, and I got called a "dyke" twice in casual conversation.  (57)

And that doesn't even mention the sexually harassing text and email messages that start arriving on both girls' phones. And the difficult conversation Katie has to have with her ex-boyfriend, with whom she broke up a few months earlier, appeasing his fears that he "turned her" gay. And the need to prove to a doubting fellow LAMBDA member that she and Sarah really are dating by kissing Sarah in the middle of a meeting.

That latter one is really the kicker for Katie, because "kissing Sarah just once had felt better than all of the hundreds of times I'd kissed Austin combined" (98). Might she really be gay? "What if my perfect boyfriend was actually a girlfriend? And how on earth was I supposed to know if that was the case?" (137)

Even worse, if Katie is gay, is she destined to be like one of the heroines of the lesbian romances that Sarah has been reading and watching for "research," a loser who falls in love with her straight best friend only to be doomed to rejection? As Sarah describes the pattern,

"Book number 1: one of the girls realizes she's straight. Book number 2: one of the girls realizes she's bi and loves a guy, and the other girl ends up alone. Book number 3: they both get murdered by vampires.... No matter what I picked up, there was always someone who got screwed over. I didn't want to end up like that. (242)

Neither does Katie. But one of these best friends is going to have to start being honest with the other if this book is going to have the happy, rather than tragic, ending promised by its comic tone.


In  "From Problem to Pride," Blogger Daisy Porter suggests that there are three types of YA books with queer characters:

• The gay problem novel, in which a queer character comes to terms with their own sexuality, the sexuality of a relative, or deals with coming out of the closet
• The "gaytopia" novel, in which being queer is not a problem
• The "Big Gay Book," in which queerness is the focus, but in a celebratory, rather than problematic way

Porter's first category includes many lesbian protagonists. But the "gay" in the "gaytopia" and "Big Gay Book" categories is telling; girls who love girls still rarely feature in novels in which being a lesbian is not a problem, or in which lesbianism is celebrated.

While I can't say that I love the idea of holding up characters who, in Katie's words "manipulate and use a minority group for their own gain" (76) as heroines (Katie and Sarah get off pretty lightly when they finally admit their ruse), I can definitely get behind more lesbian YA romances with HEAs. Or even HFNs.


Photo/Illustration credits:
Dead Lesbians on TV: Autostraddle
"Hand Holding": Chaos Life

Siera Maley

Dating Sarah Cooper

indie published, 2014

Lesbian Romance By the Numbers?

In the comments to last week's post, "Do You Read Lesbian Romance?" a reader (thanks, Jill!) questioned the numbers I posted that the number of m/m romances published over the past five years to the number of lesbian romances published over the same period, numbers which I came by after doing a very quick search (via the "keyword" and "date" categories) on amazon.com. I've since gone back and done some additional searching, and refining of search terms.

Turns out, you get quite different results, depending on the search terms you use. Or whether you use quotation marks around your terms or not. Or whether, after your initial search, you refine your results (say, if you're looking for SF f/f romance, or Teen & Young Adult f/f romance).

Here are the figures for lesbian romance, using four different keywords to search.The second line shows the numbers if each category is then refined for "romance" or "lesbian romance." Not quite sure why "lesbian romance" is a subcategory of "lesbian romance," but it is...


          "f/f romance"  f/f romance  "lesbian romance"  lesbian romance 

2015:        23                  3,334              3,986                       13,901
                 17                  2,835              2,552                         2,527

2014:        29                  2,175              2,128                         9,069
                 27                  1,850              1,141                         1,117

2013:         3                   1,493              1,308                         4,817
                  1                   1,177                 698                            677

2012:         5                    1,436                833                         3,547          
                  5                    1,133                383                            369

2011:         0                      610                 418                        1,508
                                          406                 213                           207


Looking at the actual titles that turn up in each search, it's clear that if you search without using quotations marks around your search terms, you get a lot of heterosexual romances, not just lesbian romances. Not to mention a lot of other, completely-unrelated-to-romance things (Tchaikowsky's Romance in F Minor Op. 5, anyone?) But using quotation marks isn't all that better, especially if you use the relatively new term "f/f"; hetero romances come up in those searches, too.

Is this because Amazon allows authors to tag their books with their own keywords? And authors are putting in keywords that aren't really relevant to their titles?

It would be nice if Amazon allowed searchers to refine their search to exclude certain things (so you could differentiate romance from erotica, say, or from Tchaikovsky sheet music). But given the way search parameters are currently set up, this doesn't seem possible.

So, after compiling all these numbers, I'm feeling that they are ultimately not all that helpful in thinking about lesbian romance publication numbers, or LGBTQ numbers in general. In fact, they're pretty useless. So I'm not even going to bother to do a similar search on m/m or gay romance (with or without quotes).

Perhaps this kind of research is something that a larger organization has, or should, take on? I've sent an email to the Lambda Literary folks to check if they have done any investigating. If not, I think I'll be emailing RWA Board members to ask if their "Romance Industry Statistics" page might be updated with some additional research, so LGBTQIA books don't have to be the rainbow sheep of the romance family when it comes to statistics.

Unless any readers out there have other ideas about how to find accurate publication information on the number of lesbian, f/f, gay, m/m and other LGBTQIA romances are being published today?

Do You Read Lesbian Romance?

In putting together the RNFF Best of 2015 list, I was more than a little aware of the imbalance in my LGBTQ selections: 6 books with two male protagonists, but only one with two female lovers. This is due in large part to my own reading choices; I read far more gay male romances this past year than I did lesbian romances. Why, though, was that, precisely? I began to think about some of the reasons why this might be:

• Because there are more m/m romances being published than lesbian romances?

Nope. Turns out that a search of m/m romance published in 2015 (via amazon) turns up 12,112 titles, while a search for lesbian romance for the same period returns 14,002 titles.


• Because fewer lesbian romances are available as e-books, and thus tend to cost more?

Apparently not. Another amazon search for the period 2015, limiting the format to "Kindle edition" returns 10,180 m/m ebook romances, and 13,097 e-book lesbian romances.

• Because m/m romance is newer, the hot new thing, while lesbian romance has been around for the past 50 years?

Amazon hits for m/m romance published in the past five years, by year:
2015: 12,112
2014:   7,482
2013:   4,646
2012:   3,559
2011:   1,641


Amazon hits for lesbian romance published in the past five years, by year:
2015: 14,002
2014:   9,082
2013:   4,821
2012:   3,545
2011:   1,508

Pretty similar growth trajectories, no?


• Because, as lesbian romance author and publisher Radclyffe suggests in her essay during 2014's Queer Romance month, lesbian romance is a niche market, and hence far less visible to those outside its niche than are other types of romances?

A general Google search turns up 128 million entries for "m/m romance" but only 26 million for "lesbian romance." Yes, visibility is definitely an issue.

• Because lesbian romances are marketed primarily to lesbian audiences, while m/m romance has its eyes on female, as well as male, readers?

Don't know if there is a way to test this one out—perhaps by conducting a survey of publishers? Or of self-publishing authors? A project for the future, perhaps...

• Because lesbian romance as a genre dates back to the 1970s, and often follows the format of heterosexual romance from that period (i.e., short category romance a la Harlequin and Mills & Boon), while m/m romance, which emerged far later (around 2000?), was born in a time when the romance format was less restricted? And thus m/m romance often feels richer, character-wise, than lesbian romance?

My own far from thoroughly-tested theory, based on the (admittedly) few lesbian romances I've read in the past few years. One I'd be interested to hear from lesbian romance writers about.


• Because lesbian romances have fewer, or less hot, sex scenes?

Again, far from any sort of expert on this topic myself; would love to hear from lesbian romance readers about their perception of how the portrayal of sex in their romances has changed (or not) over the years...



• Because I'm uncomfortable, if not outright homophobic, when it comes to lesbian sex? Or, to put it more kindly, I'm more turned on/interested by sex scenes where at least one male (my primary object of sexual interest) appears?

Could well be.



My goal for 2016 is to more actively seek and out and read lesbian romance. Would love to hear your recommendations...


And a question for of you: heterosexual readers who enjoy reading m/m romance, do you read lesbian romance, too? If you don't, do any of the possibilities I've mentioned above sound like the reason why? What other reasons might you not seek or enjoy out lesbian romances?

LGBTQ readers, do you read lesbian romance? Why or why not?

Switching Sexism's Gender? Nell Stark's THE PRINCESS AND THE PRIX

If someone handed me a romance, telling me it was about an aggressive, hard-partying, womanizing race car driver with a troubled backstory who reforms after falling for a shy, brainy philanthropist/princess, I'm pretty sure I would hand it back with a "thanks, but no thanks." Alpha-hole heroes turning over a new leaf just because they've found true love with a good girl storylines typically do not have much in the way of feminist moments to celebrate.

But what if that aggressive, partying, womanizer happens to be a woman? Well, I might just have to reconsider...

Lella Lombardi, the only woman to score
points during a Formula One race (1975)

Thalia De'Angelis's life dream has been to race on the Formula One circuit. The result of a British racecar driver's one night stand with dancer at an American club, Thalia has spent most of her life being ignored by her father, and more than a little angry about it, too. She's also angry about being passed over, yet again, for a promotion from the GP2 circuit to Formula One:

Conventional—and therefore misogynistic—wisdom demanded she maintain a positive attitude and keep on keeping on. she had at first believed, and then catered to, that wisdom for years. By now, she was sick and tired of it. No one told men to suck it up and be patient. They were tacitly and explicitly encouraged to be downright aggressive in pursuit of their goals. To suffer no fools and show no mercy and take no prisoners. Why should she behave any differently, just because one key chromosome had an extra leg? (Kindle Loc 92)

So it's hardly surprising that being asked one too many times by reporters about her male teammate being given the spot on the Formula One team instead of her, despite his second-place finish in the overall GP2 rankings, Thalia's temper explodes:

Look. Terrence Delmar is not a better drive than me. He's not even close. His instincts are all wrong—he's too loose when he should be running tight and too tight when he should be running loose. Ferrari hired him for what's between his legs, not what's between his shoulders....
     "Are you suggesting that Ferrari is a chauvinist organization?"
     "Suggesting?" Thalia laughed into her mic without humor. "No. Asserting, yes." She stared out over the murmuring crowd. "I'll probably lose my job over this, but it's true. And it's not just Ferrari, either. The glass ceiling is alive and well in Formula One. Women have the ability to drive at the highest levels. We're not there because the owners and team managers—and even some of the drivers—don't want us to be." (121).

"Grid Girls": The Cheerleaders of Formula One.
As Alix describes them: "The gird girls were objects to be
consumed, not subjects to be conversed with. That was the
problem, Alix realized—that the girls were content to be
repeatedly objectified. It was their occupation, not an
occupational hazard. (1064)

The reporter goes on to ask Thalia how she thinks the misogynistic culture of racing can be changed, a question to which Thalia has no good answer. Thalia's not really into being an advocate for women's rights: "she didn't want to be some pretty, quasi-famous chess piece in the struggle for civil rights. She wanted to push the boundaries of speed" (168). But her chances of doing either seem pretty slim after she's fired for her post-race outspoken words. Thalia drowns her sorrows at the after-party, drinking and picking up a grid girl for another round of energetic, no-strings-tied sex. Just like the majority of the men on the racing circuit do.

Her Serene Highness, Pomelina Alix Louise Canella of Monaco, knows all about being a role model. The least attractive, and most well-behaved of Monaco's royal siblings, Alix has spent her life serving her country, in particular by supporting charitable work. Having just completed her degree in public health, Alix is on the brink of establishing her own charitable foundation, one focused on empowering women in rural communities in East Africa. So when she meets Thalia at a wedding, then watches her race, Alix immediately recognizes that "Thalia's position in such a traditionally patriarchal sphere seemed like a golden opportunity from which to demonstrate gender equality" (842). Especially after Thalia wins a place on another racing team, a place driving not on the GP2, but on Formula One.

Thalia has participated in charity appearances, but only because that's part of her job, a means to an end: "If she were being honest, she rarely thought of anyone except herself and her own goals" (1181). When Alix challenges Thalia about her aggressive behavior—slugging a fellow driver after he "accidentally" nudged her off the racetrack—Thalia confirms her distaste for being a figure of social justice: "I like to drive fast cars and fuck fast women and drink too much and watch the sun rise before I sleep. That's who I am. I'm here to win, not to be a hero or make a point" (1453). Not even Thalia's attraction to Alix will make her change her hard-driving ways.

Does a professionally groundbreaking woman have a duty to be a positive role model, to act squeaky clean, to never get in trouble? Are Thalia's hard-partying, womanizing ways really "scandalous"? Or is that judgment "completely a product of the pervasive double standard that denied women the same social freedoms as men"? (1512) Is Thalia breaking feminist ground? Or just reinforcing male chauvinism from her position of power?

And can a woman who has no desire to be a role model even have a chance of making a romantic connection with a princess whose life has been entirely focused on working for the greater good?

I love that Nell Stark is able to ask such questions in the midst of a wonderfully appealing opposites-attract love story. And that not only bad-girl Thalia, but also unselfconfident Alix, are both given chances to change and grow as their friendship, and later their physical attraction and romance, develops. The Princess and the Prix may be a fairy-tale romance, but it's a romance that packs a surprisingly feminist punch.


Photo credits:
Lella Lombardi: Wikipedia
Grid Girls: Drive Spark

Nell Stark

The Princess and the Prix

Bold Strokes Books, 2015

Celebrating Queer Romance Month

A quick post today, to give a big shout out to Queer Romance Month celebrations. Check out the posts at queerromancemonth.com for intelligent, funny, heartwarming and heartbreaking posts about the current state of queer romance, and for recommendations for future reading.

And check out these past posts for queer romance reads from RNFF:


Complicated Identities: Sara Farizan's Tell Me Again How a Crush Should Feel

Complicating Dominance and Submission: Alexis Hall's For Real

Countering Orientalism: Sara Farizan's If You Could Be Mine

Feminist Guidelines for Reading M/M Romance?

Gay for You or Out for You?

Gay Romance and Professional Sports: Sean Kennedy's Tigers and Devils

Hiding In/From the Man Cave: Amy Jo Cousins' Off Campus

Late Bloomers? K. J. Charles' Think of England and Sarina Bowen's The Understatement of the Year

Lesbian Allies, Heterosexual Romance: Meljean Brook's Riveted

Lesbian Romantic Suspense: Mason Dixon's Date with Destiny and Andrea Bramhall's Clean Slate

Love in the Limelight: Nell Stark's The Princess Affair and Lynn Ames' All That Lies Within

Nancy Garden on my Mind

Negotiating the Gender Politics of Military Life: Lauren Gallagher's Razor Wire

Paying it Forward: Heidi Cullinan's Love Lessons series

Phyllis M. Betz's Lesbian Romance Novels and the state of romance scholarship

The Politics of M/M romance and Alex Beecroft's Blessed Isle

The Power and Limits of Labels: Bill Konigsberg's Openly Straight

Romance at the Roosevelt: Heidi Cullinan's Carry the Ocean

Spotlight on the Lambda Nominees: Karin Kallmaker's Love by the Numbers

Spotlight on the Lambdas, Part 2: Ann McMan and Salem West's Hoosier Daddy

Ways of Being Gay... Ann Herendeen's Phyllida and the Brotherhood of Philander

You Don't Complete Me: Solace Ames' The Submission Gift

Negotiating the Gender Politics of Military Life: Lauren Gallagher's RAZOR WIRE

It seems almost impossible to imagine that fewer than four years lie between the repeal of the American military's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy and the U. S. Supreme Court's decision legalizing same-sex marriage. Until September 20th of 2011, gays and lesbians who disclosed their sexual orientations could be discharged from service for creating "an unacceptable risk to the high standards of morale, good order, and discipline, and unit cohesion that are the essence of military capability" (10 U. S. C.  654(b)). But by June 26, 2015, gay personnel were not only free to talk about their sexual partners, they were also guaranteed the right to marry them.

Given the short span of time the American military has had to adjust to such a head-spinning change, it should be no surprise that military culture does not often provide support to or even tolerance of its homosexual members. Particularly if those members are women. Just by being women, lesbians challenge the traditionally male-centric culture of the military. And by refusing to desire the men who embrace that male-centric culture, lesbians in the services are doubly "tainted." As naval police officer Kim Lockhoff explains to her partner about her former posting:

"I was . . . I didn't party with the guys, that's for sure. I pretty much kept my head down. When a guy came on to me, I tried to be polite about not being interested, but somehow that got turned into me being a cold fish . . . . One of the guys spent half the Naval Ball hitting on me. When I turned him down for the hundredth time that night, he went and told the others he couldn't get through the razor wire in Lockhoff's pants." She laughed bitterly. "And the [nick]name stuck" (58).

To Kim, "Razor Wire" is more than just a disrespectful moniker. It's a potential threat: "A few times, I overheard guys in my command saying I just needed a dick to pound some sense into me so I'd stop being such a bitch" (59). And so when she is posted to Okinawa, Kim decides to present herself entirely differently, a friendly, hard-drinking party girl. But this self-presentation doesn't mitigate the problem:

"I tried to be what I thought they wanted girls in the Navy to be, and . . . It's like, now that they think I'm a slut, they're offended as hell if I reject them. All the guys at my last command thought I was a bitch for shutting them all out. All the guys here think I'm a bitch because they think I'm sleeping with everyone but them" (61).

Given Kim's reputation as a "whore," it's little wonder that she's more than a little reluctant to report a sexual assault she experienced. Add the fact that her attacker is a respected superior officer, and reluctance turns to outright rejection.

Readers might expect that a fellow woman serving in the naval police might have more sympathy. But when Kim turns to Reese Marion for advice, she's hurt, but not all that surprised, to find that culture trumps gender. Reese has already formed an opinion about Kim Lockhoff, and it's not a flattering one:

Alejandro always thought it was entertaining as hell, watching me straighten out girls who had no business in the Navy, never mind as cops. Especially when the girl in question was a vapid twit like MA3 Lockhoff. The kind who used her pretty little smile and her petty not-so-little tits to bend every man on the island to her cute little will. MA3 Lockhoff was one of the reasons we got emails before every formal event reminding the female service members to please not dress like whores this time. Women like her drove me insane, and Alejandro lived to watch them do it. (10)

As Reese has learned over her years in the navy, "fitting in with these guys was the safest approach. If they're being crass, be crasser. If they're drunk, get drunker. If they think a girl's a slut, declare her a whore with a pussy like a wizard's sleeve" (45). Even if you're nauseated by the sexist motto espoused by many of those same guys, that "you can't rape the willing," it's almost impossible not to let the assumptions behind it infiltrate into your own unconsciousness, to automatically assume that any woman who makes an accusation of rape must be lying.

Even, horrifyingly, when you've experienced sexual assault yourself.

Only when Reece forces herself to step back from her own preconceived judgments, and truly listen to what Kim has to say, can the two women take the first tentative steps toward friendship. And then toward something even stronger. . .

A former high school teacher of mine often argued that you "can't legislate morality," a contention I frequently challenged with no little vehemence. As the Supreme Court's decision this June shows, you can legislate morality. Culture, though, may take a little more time to catch up.

Photo credits:

Master-at-Arms t-shirt: Cafe Press

Navvies kissing: The Virginia Pilot online

Lauren Gallagher

Razor Wire

Riptide, 2014