Latest / Radio 831: A Romance Podcast / "Realistic" Is the Wrong Word, Adrie Rose on Sex Workers in Romance, and The Pairing Homework

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"Realistic" Is the Wrong Word, Adrie Rose on Sex Workers in Romance, and The Pairing Homework · Radio 831: A Romance Podcast

0:06
Speaker 1: Hi, and welcome to the Radio eight three one podcast.
0:09
Speaker 2: We're your hosts, Sinjon Obasker and Tyler McCall, and we're
0:13
Speaker 2: so excited to talk everything romance, from the novels and
0:16
Speaker 2: the tropes, to the book, to screen adaptations and of
0:19
Speaker 2: course the drama of it all. You know, unpacking what
0:22
Speaker 2: the genre says about who we are and how we.
0:25
Speaker 3: Love big stuff, important stuff.
0:28
Speaker 2: Tyler, I have to talk to you about a pet
0:29
Speaker 2: peve of mine.
0:30
Speaker 3: My favorite words strung together an English language go.
0:33
Speaker 2: One of my biggest pet peeves is someone who writes
0:35
Speaker 2: a lot about romance and thinks about it. Is when
0:38
Speaker 2: people are reviewing romance novels and say this didn't feel
0:41
Speaker 2: realistic to me. Bough, not because I think that what
0:46
Speaker 2: they're saying is completely out of line or not relevant,
0:52
Speaker 2: but because I don't think that it's saying what they
0:54
Speaker 2: think it's saying. Basically, the point I'm trying to make
0:57
Speaker 2: is that a lot of times romance gets levy this
1:00
Speaker 2: particular critique about not being realistic. Men don't act like that,
1:03
Speaker 2: people don't talk like that, sex doesn't work like that,
1:07
Speaker 2: And I find that to be such a disingenuous, strange
1:12
Speaker 2: criticism that doesn't really seem to understand how genre fiction works.
1:16
Speaker 2: Are you familiar with the kind of critique that I'm
1:18
Speaker 2: talking about? Regrettably and unfortunately, it's also strangely an allegation
1:22
Speaker 2: that I feel like a lot of romance writers are
1:23
Speaker 2: often having to defend themselves against the idea that their
1:26
Speaker 2: protagonists aren't real in the way that a specific person
1:31
Speaker 2: thinks of them as real. But the argument that I
1:33
Speaker 2: would make is that romance makes use of absurdity and
1:38
Speaker 2: caricature and big, big, big exaggeration in order to speak
1:43
Speaker 2: to emotional truth over factual truth of some kind. Like,
1:48
Speaker 2: there are many ways for a story to be honest
1:51
Speaker 2: in what it's attempting to tell, and not all of
1:54
Speaker 2: those ways involve a photorealistic depiction of a sex scene.
2:00
Speaker 2: Not all of those reflect the exact observed reality that
2:03
Speaker 2: we see in our environment. And I've talked about this
2:05
Speaker 2: before where I was like, I want romance to bring
2:08
Speaker 2: back some of the absurdity, playfulness, and ridiculousness of the
2:11
Speaker 2: stories that came out in the nineties and two thousands.
2:14
Speaker 2: But I really stand by that this feeling that exaggeration
2:18
Speaker 2: is one of the most powerful tools that romance has
2:20
Speaker 2: to access and characterize people's emotional lives, which are vast
2:25
Speaker 2: and often defy traditional description. And I find that often
2:29
Speaker 2: when sex scenes are and this comes up a lot
2:32
Speaker 2: in the conversation about size, where it's like, why is
2:34
Speaker 2: everyone's dick huge? In romance novels, it's like, well, I mean, sure,
2:39
Speaker 2: maybe someone is a size queen whatever, But like, the
2:43
Speaker 2: reality is probably that you're trying to communicate a specific
2:46
Speaker 2: kind of fitness between these people, that this is something
2:49
Speaker 2: that is overwhelming for someone to experience for the first time,
2:53
Speaker 2: that this is something that is strange, different, unusual compared
2:58
Speaker 2: to the rest of their romantic lives. It's not strictly speaking,
3:01
Speaker 2: just about penisis you know what I mean?
3:03
Speaker 1: I do, Yeah, I feel like this is an especially
3:06
Speaker 1: damned if you do, damned if you don't critique that
3:08
Speaker 1: gets wielded against anything that's not like heterosis romance heterosis,
3:14
Speaker 1: let's call it mainstreams like, let's call it like it's
3:18
Speaker 1: not a divergent lifestyle of like a BDSM relationship, heated
3:22
Speaker 1: rivalry alarm where it's like, well, you didn't show them
3:26
Speaker 1: prepping for anal appropriately, like look, we're all grown adults,
3:31
Speaker 1: and I hope that we all know that spit is
3:33
Speaker 1: not good loop like we should all know that, right, correct.
3:36
Speaker 1: But on the flip side, I have seen critiques about
3:39
Speaker 1: I'm thinking about queer romances specifically, where people get mad
3:42
Speaker 1: that they get too much data, they get too much
3:45
Speaker 1: of the like well, this is how this dynamic needs
3:48
Speaker 1: to be negotiated, or this is how this relationship would work,
3:52
Speaker 1: or this is how this type of sex would work.
3:55
Speaker 1: And it's like, well, how I didn't need to know
3:56
Speaker 1: all of that, And so I feel like it's like
3:59
Speaker 1: anything that diverges from this phrase is not useful, I
4:03
Speaker 1: think particularly, but like quote unquote, vanilla heterosexual sex is
4:09
Speaker 1: especially targeted by these kinds of critiques.
4:12
Speaker 2: From both sides. I understand what people are saying when
4:15
Speaker 2: they say, this doesn't feel realistic. And the keyword isn't realistic,
4:19
Speaker 2: it's feel. It's the subjective experience of reading a given work,
4:25
Speaker 2: not everything in it, even within the fictional parameters of
4:28
Speaker 2: that universe, feel earned. And so the affective experience of
4:33
Speaker 2: reading that novel is disrupted by a lack of attention
4:37
Speaker 2: to that. Those are things where I'm like, yeah, I
4:40
Speaker 2: can see why this would be disruptive to you, and
4:43
Speaker 2: of course that depends on whatever context you come to
4:44
Speaker 2: the story with. But realism is not the same thing
4:48
Speaker 2: as truth. Is the core point that I'm trying to make.
4:51
Speaker 2: Within genre fiction in particular, I think it's a useful
4:54
Speaker 2: thing to remind ourselves of because again, it helps us
4:57
Speaker 2: engage with romance and other genre fiction on its own terms,
5:02
Speaker 2: and then we can get to an even more robust
5:04
Speaker 2: portion of critique and a more robust reading experience where
5:07
Speaker 2: we're able to move into this realm of Okay, this
5:10
Speaker 2: isn't supposed to be realistic by the conventional sense, but
5:14
Speaker 2: within the world of the story. Here's what does and
5:17
Speaker 2: doesn't work that I think is when you get into
5:19
Speaker 2: really interesting and robust critique where you're not seeing all
5:23
Speaker 2: deviation from realism as artifice and are instead able to
5:27
Speaker 2: see it as an unsuccessful performance.
5:29
Speaker 1: So it feels like that can be for an author
5:32
Speaker 1: a very fine line to walk. From a reader perspective,
5:35
Speaker 1: It's like uncoupling or unhitching whatever wagon of expectations you're
5:43
Speaker 1: bringing in from the real world from the reading experience,
5:47
Speaker 1: and sometimes just allowing yourself to have an experience with
5:52
Speaker 1: fiction and let it be fiction.
5:54
Speaker 2: This is also such an interesting conversation to me in
5:56
Speaker 2: the context of the guests that we have coming on,
5:58
Speaker 2: because we have on Adri Rose today to talk to
6:03
Speaker 2: us about sex work in romance, and a lot of
6:05
Speaker 2: our conversation is actually going to be about realism and
6:09
Speaker 2: what is true or not true in the way that
6:12
Speaker 2: sex workers are written into romance. And it's one of
6:15
Speaker 2: those places where I have this question a lot of
6:19
Speaker 2: how can romance writers write emotional truth even when many
6:23
Speaker 2: of the times they are really not writing realistic portrayals
6:28
Speaker 2: of sex workers? And is that even possible? And is
6:31
Speaker 2: this one of those places where people should be more
6:34
Speaker 2: careful about realism than in other parts of romance. I
6:39
Speaker 2: do think that Adri is a fabulous person to be
6:41
Speaker 2: discussing this with because she is a writer, a former
6:46
Speaker 2: sex worker. She recently edited and contributed to a volume
6:51
Speaker 2: of essays by sex workers called I Hate My Job,
6:54
Speaker 2: which came out this year and is really, really, really good.
6:58
Speaker 2: And she's also a co host for the Page in
7:00
Speaker 2: Prejudice pod, which Tyler and I had the pleasure of
7:03
Speaker 2: going on. But Adri is also a sociologist and someone
7:08
Speaker 2: who is so knowledgeable about this and romance from so
7:13
Speaker 2: many different angles. I think she'll be a really good
7:15
Speaker 2: person to talk to you about all of these things. Adrie,
7:27
Speaker 2: Welcome to the show. Thank you. I am so delighted
7:31
Speaker 2: to have you. For many reasons. I've been working through
7:34
Speaker 2: your essay collection. I hate my job. I'm not totally
7:36
Speaker 2: done yet, but I'm loving it so much. It's one
7:41
Speaker 2: of those books where I'm like, Wow, no one is
7:43
Speaker 2: like writing about sex work in this nuanced, complicated, but
7:47
Speaker 2: like deeply, like loving way. And it's why we wanted
7:51
Speaker 2: to have you on today to talk about sex work
7:53
Speaker 2: in romance because romance writers are obsessed with sex workers.
7:58
Speaker 2: Like since I start reading Romance, have been reading about
8:02
Speaker 2: main characters who are sex workers or who come from
8:04
Speaker 2: sex work backgrounds, in both historicals, in contemporaries, in paranorial
8:09
Speaker 2: Like across subgenre, romance writers are obsessed with sex workers,
8:14
Speaker 2: and you are a devoted romance reader as well. Is
8:18
Speaker 2: there a place for good, thoughtful, nuanced representation of sex
8:23
Speaker 2: workers in romance? And have you seen it or read it?
8:27
Speaker 2: I'm not exactly unbiased. I struggle I think reading representation
8:32
Speaker 2: of sex workers in romance because I've lived it, because
8:36
Speaker 2: I have friends that are living it, and so it's
8:39
Speaker 2: very difficult for me to turn that part of my
8:41
Speaker 2: brain off. It's very difficult for me to see or
8:44
Speaker 2: read sex workers in fiction in an objective way because
8:47
Speaker 2: I'm constantly judging it against my own experiences, and I
8:50
Speaker 2: try really hard not to. But that's not to say
8:53
Speaker 2: it can't be done. One of my favorite television shows
8:56
Speaker 2: is Harlot's I think it's one of the best representations
8:59
Speaker 2: of sex worker. Even though it is a historical period piece.
9:04
Speaker 2: I just think it does a really good job of
9:06
Speaker 2: capturing everything from the mundanity of sex work up to
9:11
Speaker 2: some of the more horrific parts of being in the industry.
9:16
Speaker 2: I think it can be done really well in fiction.
9:18
Speaker 2: Catherine Moon writes sex workers very well. Whether part of
9:22
Speaker 2: that is because she's also writing monster romance and so
9:25
Speaker 2: she gets to play with reality in a very different
9:28
Speaker 2: way than contemporary authors are doing. But for all that
9:32
Speaker 2: romance authors are trying to be maybe more compassionate in
9:37
Speaker 2: their telling of these stories, I think they just get
9:40
Speaker 2: so much wrong because they don't talk to sex workers,
9:44
Speaker 2: they don't have sex workers in their circles. They're not
9:46
Speaker 2: in community with them, and so all they really have
9:49
Speaker 2: to go on is already sensationalized narratives about the lives
9:53
Speaker 2: of real people.
9:54
Speaker 1: It's interesting that note about handling it in sort of
9:57
Speaker 1: a fantasy or a paranormal aspect, and you think of
10:00
Speaker 1: Kashiale's dart and the handling of sex work and that,
10:05
Speaker 1: and I'm wondering if there is something about that fantasy
10:09
Speaker 1: setting that allows people to be more realistic about sex work.
10:15
Speaker 3: Does that make sense?
10:16
Speaker 4: I think fantasy gives people a little more freedom. I
10:21
Speaker 4: think when it comes to portrayals of sex work, people
10:24
Speaker 4: feel they have to occupy one of two camps where
10:27
Speaker 4: a sex worker is either incredibly traumatized and is suffering
10:30
Speaker 4: and then is only interested in getting out, or it's
10:35
Speaker 4: a person who has to be super empowered. And this
10:38
Speaker 4: is the best thing ever and I can't imagine myself
10:41
Speaker 4: doing anything else, And thank you so much for reading.
10:43
Speaker 4: I hate my job. But one of the things that
10:46
Speaker 4: we really wanted to do with that book was established
10:49
Speaker 4: there is a middle ground, right for all that sex
10:51
Speaker 4: work is work. Sometimes work just sucks. It's really terrible.
10:55
Speaker 4: And I think that if authors gave themselves more free
11:00
Speaker 4: them to play with that. In a contemporary sense, we
11:03
Speaker 4: might get better representations of sex workers. I think when
11:06
Speaker 4: it comes to fantasy and sort of monster romance and
11:09
Speaker 4: even historical period pieces, authors give themselves freedom to step
11:16
Speaker 4: out of that binary in a way that contemporary storytellers
11:19
Speaker 4: are not doing.
11:21
Speaker 2: Right, Like you can unhook yourself from our cultural logics
11:24
Speaker 2: around purity to just pay attention to how does sex
11:28
Speaker 2: work as a form of labor operate in this new
11:30
Speaker 2: system or a new world. Like detaching yourself from our
11:35
Speaker 2: cultural scripts gives people like a little bit extra leeway
11:38
Speaker 2: to be like, well, this is a job. How do
11:39
Speaker 2: people experience a job? And I think that's what I
11:42
Speaker 2: loved so much about I hate my job, was this
11:45
Speaker 2: like refusal to sort of settle on, like sex workers
11:48
Speaker 2: are an empowered class of like people who like are
11:52
Speaker 2: liberated sexually, and a refusal also to do the inverse
11:57
Speaker 2: of like these are deeply victimized people who are in
12:01
Speaker 2: need of saving. I think that's something that I have
12:03
Speaker 2: been keeping an eye out for as I encounter portrayals
12:07
Speaker 2: of sex work in romance, Like there's a part I
12:09
Speaker 2: don't think obviously. The wedding date is like a perfect
12:11
Speaker 2: example of this by any means. But there is a
12:13
Speaker 2: conversation that Dermott Mulroney's character has where she asks him, like,
12:18
Speaker 2: she's hired him to be a sex worker to escort
12:20
Speaker 2: her to a wedding with her ex fiance, and she's like, so,
12:23
Speaker 2: how did you get into this? And he's like, well,
12:26
Speaker 2: my mother was involved in sex work and I lashed
12:29
Speaker 2: out against this and that and this and that, and
12:30
Speaker 2: she's like, WHOA really, like you have this deep traumatized
12:33
Speaker 2: backstory and he's like, no, I don't. And then later
12:38
Speaker 2: he's like, I got a degree in comparative literature from Brown,
12:41
Speaker 2: Like there are so many things that I think he
12:44
Speaker 2: is working to dismantle, successful or unsuccessfully, about who does
12:48
Speaker 2: sex work and why. In some way, it's like, I
12:52
Speaker 2: don't know many other genres of fiction that are well
12:56
Speaker 2: equipped to talk about sex workers in interesting, thoughtful ways,
12:59
Speaker 2: more so than romance. And then romance is also trying
13:03
Speaker 2: but often not succeeding, So there's like a strange tension
13:08
Speaker 2: there of like romance is the genre that is most
13:11
Speaker 2: interested in people's intimate and sexual lives in this way,
13:15
Speaker 2: and it still falls short.
13:17
Speaker 4: I think a huge part of it is that as
13:20
Speaker 4: a culture, we have a very narrow idea of what
13:22
Speaker 4: a sex worker looks like. Very early on when I
13:25
Speaker 4: started freelance writing, I got a lot of pushback from
13:30
Speaker 4: second and third wave feminists who couldn't really wrap their
13:34
Speaker 4: brain around the idea of a woman or someone who
13:37
Speaker 4: presents as a woman being so ambivalent about the idea
13:42
Speaker 4: of selling sex, and a lot of questions I got
13:44
Speaker 4: sort of revolved around how could you spend so much
13:47
Speaker 4: time normalizing, you know, male violence against women. And my
13:53
Speaker 4: first question is always do you think all sex workers
13:56
Speaker 4: are women? Because if so, I have some news for you.
14:00
Speaker 4: At least half of the industry is men. A not
14:04
Speaker 4: insignificant part of that industry is also trans people. And
14:10
Speaker 4: so this idea that the only people occupying space in
14:14
Speaker 4: sex work are white, thin, cysh gender, well educated white
14:21
Speaker 4: women is so far from what it actually looks like
14:26
Speaker 4: once we get outside of that. It's this idea that, again,
14:30
Speaker 4: you either occupy one half of this dichotomy where you're
14:35
Speaker 4: either a victim or you're on top of the world,
14:37
Speaker 4: and there is no in between. Either you have a
14:40
Speaker 4: pimp who's taking everything from you, or you're totally in
14:44
Speaker 4: control of all of your circumstances. There's really no room
14:47
Speaker 4: for nuance and how we envision sex workers, and so
14:51
Speaker 4: that doesn't leave a lot of room for how we
14:52
Speaker 4: talk about them, including in fiction. When it comes to
14:58
Speaker 4: the wedding date, that is a film that comes up
15:03
Speaker 4: a lot. It's not one of my favorites, to be fair,
15:07
Speaker 4: I also don't like pretty women, so yeah.
15:10
Speaker 5: Yeah, I understandablytandably, I really struggle with the idea that
15:18
Speaker 5: you know, in order for a person to have their
15:20
Speaker 5: happy ending, they have to leave sex work altogether.
15:23
Speaker 4: I think it says a lot about how we imagine
15:26
Speaker 4: relationships and how we imagine the concept of sharing our
15:30
Speaker 4: partner with other people.
15:32
Speaker 1: It's interesting as you're speaking and thinking about this dichotomy
15:35
Speaker 1: that they either need to be very victimized or they
15:37
Speaker 1: need to be very empowered. And I think it speaks
15:39
Speaker 1: to kind of a larger problem that we've discussed on
15:42
Speaker 1: this podcast before, which is the moralization of romance in general,
15:48
Speaker 1: like these people all need to behave in extremely moral
15:51
Speaker 1: ways or they're not deserving of love. And also this
15:53
Speaker 1: fear of writing somebody who is complicated in a way
15:58
Speaker 1: that makes them unlikable if the character's decision to be
16:02
Speaker 1: a sex worker is motivated by like, I just love
16:05
Speaker 1: this work so much and I feel so empowered by it.
16:07
Speaker 1: I think that's easier for people to digest than the
16:10
Speaker 1: idea of like, this was a job that was available
16:13
Speaker 1: to me, and like it's fine, and sometimes I hate
16:15
Speaker 1: it like. I think that that's a more complicated issue
16:18
Speaker 1: for some readers to understand, And I think I wonder
16:20
Speaker 1: how much of it is related to like authors kind
16:23
Speaker 1: of shying away from that, and how much of it
16:26
Speaker 1: is a lack of research. I imagine it's all of the above.
16:29
Speaker 4: I will say I have noticed that a lot of
16:32
Speaker 4: times authors will promote their books as having sex worker
16:36
Speaker 4: representation when they are in fact trafficking victims.
16:41
Speaker 1: I'm curious what you've noticed the differences between how these
16:45
Speaker 1: books talk about or approach women who are in sex
16:49
Speaker 1: work versus either male or maybe non binary or queer
16:54
Speaker 1: people who are in sex work.
16:56
Speaker 4: I won't say it's not possible to do it. While
16:58
Speaker 4: Charlie and Men has a novella called Hawk and March
17:01
Speaker 4: that is set in a brothel between two fay, one
17:05
Speaker 4: of whom isn't even sure that he wants to be here,
17:07
Speaker 4: but he's just gotten divorced and needs to figure out
17:10
Speaker 4: what he's doing with his life, so he goes to
17:12
Speaker 4: a brothel. He's like, maybe I could do this for
17:14
Speaker 4: a living. It's very well written, it's adorable, and actually
17:18
Speaker 4: they both end up leaving the brothel in the end.
17:20
Speaker 4: But I didn't hate it because it was a much
17:22
Speaker 4: more honest representation, despite being a novella, of how those
17:25
Speaker 4: sorts of relationships do come into being. I find that
17:31
Speaker 4: when it comes to men being sex workers in fiction again,
17:36
Speaker 4: because it seems so fantastical, I think to so many people,
17:40
Speaker 4: authors give themselves a lot more freedom to play around
17:43
Speaker 4: with a characterization than they would if it was a woman.
17:46
Speaker 4: I wrote down the name of it and now I
17:48
Speaker 4: can't remember it. But there is a novel where she's
17:51
Speaker 4: a former porn star and she goes on to form
17:53
Speaker 4: a sex education company and she ends up partner.
17:56
Speaker 3: See Intimacy Experiment.
17:57
Speaker 4: Yeah, thank you, and that one. In order for her
18:01
Speaker 4: to be a proper female lead, you know, she has
18:04
Speaker 4: to be a former sex worker. And for all that
18:07
Speaker 4: she speaks very highly of her time in the industry,
18:10
Speaker 4: she's no longer an active participant in the industry. It's
18:14
Speaker 4: the same with Rebecca weatherspoons sugar Baby Trilogy, which is
18:19
Speaker 4: a series of short stories. I believe there's three of them.
18:22
Speaker 4: And she starts out in the book not being able
18:24
Speaker 4: to make rent, and so her roommate convinces her to
18:28
Speaker 4: go on a couple of dates or go to parties
18:31
Speaker 4: as a potential sugar baby. She goes to one party,
18:35
Speaker 4: decides that she hates it, can't do it, sits down
18:38
Speaker 4: in a dark booth, and meets a billionaire who immediately
18:42
Speaker 4: begins starring money at her, at no point that she
18:44
Speaker 4: actually engage in sex work. They end up in a
18:47
Speaker 4: relationship within a matter of months, but her roommate, who
18:51
Speaker 4: is in fact still engaged in sex work, becomes very violent,
18:55
Speaker 4: very envious, very aggressive person who she almost immediately cuts
18:58
Speaker 4: out of her life because she threw herself at this
19:02
Speaker 4: man that she met at this party she didn't even
19:05
Speaker 4: want to go to. I think it's great that authors
19:11
Speaker 4: want to be more authentic in terms of who gets
19:14
Speaker 4: to be a sex worker, but I also I just
19:16
Speaker 4: don't know that it's maybe up to this standard that
19:21
Speaker 4: I would like to see.
19:23
Speaker 2: Yeah, one last question for you, what do you wish
19:27
Speaker 2: that romance community at large knew about sex workers that
19:32
Speaker 2: they don't seem to have internalized that we have not
19:34
Speaker 2: as a community inspected.
19:36
Speaker 4: For all that sex work has sort of become an
19:39
Speaker 4: inattricable part of my identity, and for sex workers broadly,
19:45
Speaker 4: I would love it if people could sort of hold
19:48
Speaker 4: fast to the idea that we're just people. So many
19:51
Speaker 4: sex workers that I know, they're not interested in being martyrs,
19:54
Speaker 4: they're not interested in being advocates. There's really not anything
19:58
Speaker 4: that exciting about sex worker or sensational about it. It is,
20:02
Speaker 4: in fact, just a job at.
20:03
Speaker 2: The end of the day.
20:04
Speaker 4: I mean, I always say I'm not the target audience
20:07
Speaker 4: for fiction about sex workers because it's not fiction to me. Yeah,
20:11
Speaker 4: it's just not something that I'm able to be objective about. So,
20:14
Speaker 4: you know, keep watching Pea Valley. Please petition your congressman
20:18
Speaker 4: to bring back Harlots. For me personally, it's such a
20:22
Speaker 4: good show. I want that, such a good show after Moon.
20:25
Speaker 4: If you hear this, please keep writing the Monster Smash
20:28
Speaker 4: Agency books. Those are very important to me personally. But
20:32
Speaker 4: if it brings people a little bit closer to acknowledging
20:37
Speaker 4: sort of the shared humanity of sex workers. I'm not
20:40
Speaker 4: going to tell anyone to stop writing it. I don't
20:42
Speaker 4: have to like it.
20:44
Speaker 2: This was so interesting and so lovely. I truly cannot recommend.
20:49
Speaker 2: I hate my job enough, like I just I think
20:51
Speaker 2: it's such an interesting collection, and I'm so glad that
20:55
Speaker 2: you had the chance to put it together.
20:57
Speaker 3: And thank you for having the time to chat with us.
21:00
Speaker 3: Thank you so much, Sancha.
21:10
Speaker 1: I feel like I learned so much from that conversation
21:12
Speaker 1: with Adrian, didn't you. Absolutely every time Adri speaks, I
21:15
Speaker 1: learned something new. And speaking of learning it homework assignment time.
21:19
Speaker 2: Yay.
21:20
Speaker 3: I'm so excited for this one. Oh my god, you
21:22
Speaker 3: did the reading.
21:23
Speaker 1: I'm so excited to talk about it because I assigned
21:26
Speaker 1: you The Pairing by Casey mcquisten. So the pairing is
21:31
Speaker 1: about two bisexual axes, Kit and THEO. They broke up
21:36
Speaker 1: four years before the book started, and they broke up
21:38
Speaker 1: in rather spectacular flame out fashion right before they were
21:42
Speaker 1: meant to go on this culinary tour of Europe.
21:46
Speaker 3: So neither of them goes on the trip.
21:48
Speaker 1: They have these vouchers that expire, and both of them decide,
21:52
Speaker 1: would you believe it, to use those vouchers the exact
21:55
Speaker 1: same time. So they are reunited on this culinary tour
22:00
Speaker 1: of Europe that they were meant to take as a couple.
22:02
Speaker 1: They have not seen each other since they broke up.
22:04
Speaker 1: I've not spoken to each other since they broke up,
22:07
Speaker 1: and they spend the next few weeks traveling across Europe
22:11
Speaker 1: kind of rediscovering each other in a way. Like Kin
22:16
Speaker 1: and Theo had been best friends growing up, they fell
22:18
Speaker 1: in love with each other, they started dating, they broke up.
22:21
Speaker 1: Now they're kind of discovering these new versions of each
22:23
Speaker 1: other that they've spent the last.
22:25
Speaker 3: Four years apart.
22:26
Speaker 1: They decide, in a stroke of brilliance, really that one
22:31
Speaker 1: of the best things that they can do to make
22:33
Speaker 1: this trip interesting is to.
22:34
Speaker 3: Sort of compete against each other.
22:36
Speaker 1: To see who can get laid the most on this
22:39
Speaker 1: European trip. And so they started tallying in every city
22:43
Speaker 1: that they're in, a hot baker or all culinary fish.
22:47
Speaker 1: Culinary yeah fish, yes, the fruit wife. The sexual tension
22:55
Speaker 1: between them is still really high, So then they decided
22:57
Speaker 1: to start sleeping with each other.
22:58
Speaker 3: Only they established two rules, which is.
23:01
Speaker 1: No kissing pretty woman rules and no fitting for today,
23:05
Speaker 1: for fitting for today, I really and no penetration. But
23:09
Speaker 1: it is really interesting because, as might guess, the breakup
23:13
Speaker 1: was a really big misunderstanding.
23:16
Speaker 3: They are both clearly still in love with each.
23:18
Speaker 1: Other, but they also both believe that they needed to
23:20
Speaker 1: break up, that the changes that they have undergone these
23:23
Speaker 1: last four years were kind of necessary to become the
23:26
Speaker 1: people that they are today, and that maybe they can't
23:29
Speaker 1: see a way towards having a healthy relationship with each other,
23:31
Speaker 1: but they can just have this trip.
23:33
Speaker 3: And I should also say the.
23:34
Speaker 1: Book literally halfway through switches from theo's perspective. It's been
23:38
Speaker 1: Theo's perspective the whole first half into Kit's perspective, which
23:41
Speaker 1: I quite liked. I reread it for this and it
23:44
Speaker 1: reminded me why it is one of my favorite sever reads,
23:47
Speaker 1: because it's so so lush and like, we'll get into it,
23:50
Speaker 1: I'm what I want to know first is did.
23:53
Speaker 2: You like it? Okay, So here's the thing with Casey
23:55
Speaker 2: with Quistin. Yeah, Casey is really good at what they do,
23:59
Speaker 2: like really really really good and the pairing is really
24:03
Speaker 2: really really good. Yeah, so I loved it. Obviously, one
24:08
Speaker 2: I love the structure. I love that the first half
24:10
Speaker 2: is the the second half is Kit. Lots of times
24:13
Speaker 2: dual POV is not in that structure, it's alternating chapters usually,
24:17
Speaker 2: or it'll be mostly one POV with like sporadic moments
24:21
Speaker 2: of another chapter. I love the even split between the
24:24
Speaker 2: two because I think it captures the degree to which
24:26
Speaker 2: Casey sees distinct voices in these characters. Sometimes people are
24:31
Speaker 2: messing with POV, but they don't alter point of view enough.
24:35
Speaker 2: And point of view is more about the texture of writing,
24:37
Speaker 2: I think, than the content of it, where people will
24:40
Speaker 2: be like, these two characters are doing different things. They
24:43
Speaker 2: have different jobs, they have different lives, they have different friends.
24:47
Speaker 2: Really skillful POV manipulation is not about that. It's about
24:51
Speaker 2: being able to feel the texture of that point of
24:53
Speaker 2: view is different regardless of what's happening in a given scene,
24:56
Speaker 2: and I think that's very clear in THEO and Kit's
24:59
Speaker 2: point of views. I also find that this is something
25:01
Speaker 2: that I see is a characteristic of all of Casey's writing,
25:04
Speaker 2: but I think I really noticed it in the pairing.
25:07
Speaker 2: They have a way of writing a very noisy book,
25:10
Speaker 2: and I say that in a really complimentary way. Every
25:13
Speaker 2: page is stacked like these descriptions are rich. The sensory
25:16
Speaker 2: experience is full. The use of humor, the use of
25:20
Speaker 2: dialogue is like NonStop, beat after beat after beat after beat.
25:24
Speaker 2: It's sort of relentless in a way that I find
25:27
Speaker 2: to be really interesting, and I think in particular it
25:29
Speaker 2: comes from Casey's willingness to use like very contemporary language.
25:35
Speaker 2: There's sometimes a pressure in contemporary romance to write something
25:38
Speaker 2: that is functionally timeless, but there is no such thing.
25:41
Speaker 2: There is no such thing as a timeless story. Really,
25:44
Speaker 2: Casey writes such specific references, such specific ways of speaking,
25:49
Speaker 2: and it makes their books funnier and more clever and
25:54
Speaker 2: interesting to me. Like, I'm thinking about the line where
25:57
Speaker 2: THEO offhandedly refers to to Kit as the curek of
26:00
Speaker 2: guard of Cock, and it's the funny. It's so funny,
26:04
Speaker 2: it's so funny, but it's also like, yeah, of course
26:07
Speaker 2: THEO said that, Like, of course, that's how you would
26:09
Speaker 2: describe Kit, this person who. It flips to Kit's POV
26:13
Speaker 2: and all of a sudden we start seeing Rilka poetry
26:15
Speaker 2: between lines, which was gorgeous. It's such a joyful way
26:19
Speaker 2: to write contemporary romance.
26:21
Speaker 1: Yeah, completely, Yeah, to your point, Like, the thing that
26:24
Speaker 1: I wanted to call out to about the dual POV
26:26
Speaker 1: and the sense to experience of it is that THEO
26:30
Speaker 1: experiences the world through like taste and flavor and smell,
26:34
Speaker 1: and Kit experiences the world through like music and sound
26:39
Speaker 1: and art and color, and like, it's those two they're
26:42
Speaker 1: both really rich. But it was I picked it up
26:44
Speaker 1: more on the second read that switch of like that's
26:48
Speaker 1: the language they use to make sense of the world.
26:51
Speaker 3: Around them and the experiences that they're having.
26:53
Speaker 2: We've talked a lot about how we are sort of
26:56
Speaker 2: frustrated with this crop of romance that is without stakes.
27:00
Speaker 2: There's not a lot in terms of conflict going on,
27:04
Speaker 2: and I do think by and large that's still a
27:07
Speaker 2: critique that I maintain for a lot of romance. But
27:10
Speaker 2: I also wouldn't say that this is a book that
27:11
Speaker 2: has super high stakes. I wouldn't say this is super angsty,
27:15
Speaker 2: super high stakes, super tense in the world of romance.
27:19
Speaker 2: It's not. Oh, the secret is so explosive, the conflict
27:22
Speaker 2: between them is so explosive. There are two people who
27:26
Speaker 2: made a mistake and realized that they were better apart
27:29
Speaker 2: than together for a little while, and they figure it
27:32
Speaker 2: out in this very normal adult way. But I think
27:36
Speaker 2: part of the reason why that's totally okay for me
27:39
Speaker 2: is because I enjoy the journey of the story so
27:42
Speaker 2: much that like the absence of these huge high stakes
27:47
Speaker 2: is not so keenly felt, if that makes sense, where
27:50
Speaker 2: the description and the joy and pleasure of the story
27:55
Speaker 2: supersedes the need for these big stakes. And I'm even
27:58
Speaker 2: comparing it to Red White and Royal Blue, where the
28:00
Speaker 2: external steaks are are massive. And also, we didn't need it.
28:05
Speaker 2: We didn't need it because that's not the story that
28:07
Speaker 2: THEO and Kit are telling about this period of their lives,
28:11
Speaker 2: and so I think there was something very persuasive to
28:14
Speaker 2: me about that as well, where there is a there's
28:17
Speaker 2: room within romance for this kind of story, especially in
28:21
Speaker 2: the hands of someone who is so skilled. Also, Tyler,
28:25
Speaker 2: do you want to talk about infidelity here?
28:27
Speaker 3: Yeah?
28:28
Speaker 1: I enjoy that they were like in love with each
28:29
Speaker 1: other but sleeping with other people to like try and
28:31
Speaker 1: get over each other. There is a pretty pivotal scene
28:35
Speaker 1: in which they get involved with a third fancy ass.
28:39
Speaker 1: I guess I think he's French, A Frenchman on a
28:42
Speaker 1: yacht in Monaco.
28:43
Speaker 3: It's really hot.
28:45
Speaker 1: It's like a really hot scene, and it's implied it's
28:48
Speaker 1: you don't ever you don't ever see it on page,
28:50
Speaker 1: but they've talked about occasionally bringing thirds back into their bedroom.
28:54
Speaker 1: I really appreciate a romance novel where adults are acting
28:56
Speaker 1: like real adults that I've known in my life and
28:58
Speaker 1: not like one of ndred percent perfectly moral, sanitized people.
29:02
Speaker 2: To me, it rud is playful, but I can see
29:04
Speaker 2: why for other people it reads as betrayal.
29:07
Speaker 1: It reads playful, and I think it's also really really
29:09
Speaker 1: important to note that, like Katie makes a point of
29:12
Speaker 1: noting that every person that they have slept with on
29:17
Speaker 1: this trip knows that they're in love with each other,
29:19
Speaker 1: like right, there's always an aspect of the other person
29:22
Speaker 1: being having an awareness that like or not caring, either
29:26
Speaker 1: like having an awareness of like you are in love
29:29
Speaker 1: with this other person, or not caring what's going on
29:32
Speaker 1: and just being in it to have a good time.
29:34
Speaker 3: So my question then is would you recommend this book
29:37
Speaker 3: A thousand percent? A thousand percent?
29:40
Speaker 1: I would recommend it to anybody, and I would recommend
29:43
Speaker 1: it especially this time of year. I think it's like
29:45
Speaker 1: the dream Summer Raid. It's so like sticky and sweaty
29:48
Speaker 1: and lush and perfect end of summer. Suck the rest
29:52
Speaker 1: of summer out of August. I can't top that sentence.
29:56
Speaker 2: That's the show.
29:57
Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly, that's the show. What's the show?
30:05
Speaker 1: Call us and leave us a voicemail with your thoughts
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Speaker 1: The Radio eight three one podcast is a production of
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Speaker 1: iHeart Podcasts, hosted by Sondanabascar and Tyler McCall. The show
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Speaker 1: is produced by Liz Smith and for iHeart. Our supervising
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Speaker 1: producer is Emily Meronoff special thanks to the whole iHeart
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Speaker 1: team and especially Ali Perry and Alison Kanter Graper. Our
31:03
Speaker 1: executive producers are Claire Maser and Erica Cerulo. Our music
31:07
Speaker 1: is Domino by James Ryan Carr and Love Is What
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Speaker 1: You Do by Alibi. We'll be sharing love here again
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Speaker 1: next week