The Most Influential Genre In America Is Rewriting How Women Think About Love, And Conservatives Aren't Even In The Room

As a conservative romance author myself, I’ve experienced how difficult it is not only to publish a romance novel but also to market it. Ultra-progressives flood my DMs with the usual labels and death threats because they see my conservative values as "a danger to society." But conservatives aren't much better. They've long dismissed romantic literature as frivolous fluff not worth their time or attention.

If the average romance reader consumes 36 romance novels a year—36 books telling them what to think about love, relationships, sex, femininity, and family—then why aren’t conservatives entering the narrative to influence the hearts and minds of women?

Literature is the lens through which we discover the moral pulse of a nation.

Literature is the lens through which we discover the moral pulse of a nation. Whoever writes the stories society consumes also shapes the worldview for decades to come. Romantic literature during the 1970s and 80s paved the way for mass acceptance of sex in novels because it was “liberating” for women to “have sex and not die at the end,” as author Loretta Chase said in a 2023 round-up interview with The Washington Post.

Throughout the past 40 years, the presence of smut in romantic literature has drastically increased, so much so that the "Big Five" publishers (Penguin Random House, HarperCollins, Simon & Schuster, Hachette Book Group, and Macmillan Publishers) trend toward publishing romance novels with steamy, open-door scenes. Sex sells, and literature is no exception.

Furthermore, the mid-2010s brought about a strong push for diversity and queer representation. Not only do publishers demand open-door sex scenes in romance novels today, but they also desire non-white and non-straight characters, feminist messaging, and any religion except for Christianity (unless the writer is mocking it like Alisa Dean’s forthcoming novel, The Jezebel List).

The Wish List

Literary agents actively seek out stories saturated with DEI. One glance at an agent’s Manuscript Wish List reveals desires for “extra-spicy dark romance,” “ace-spec stories,” and “fat main characters.” Furthermore, many agents state that they don’t want to represent “straight romances” and “stories featuring Zionists/Zionism, ICE, republicans.” Several agents even mention how they’ll only accept queries from marginalized authors, though they fail to define what it means to be marginalized. Essentially, anything goes in the modern publishing industry… except for traditional, conservative values.

Culture influencer Liza Libes highlights the double standards in the publishing industry in her reel on Penguin’s new unagented submission guidelines, which essentially make it easier for “LGBTQIA2S+ and BIPOC writers” to score a book deal. 

The agenda is clear: conservative authors and stories are not wanted in the traditional market. 

The Issue

The modern romance novel celebrates hook-ups over commitments, career over family, LGBTQ+ relationships over straight relationships, and effeminate boys over masculine men. One look through the best-selling romance novels list tells us everything we need to know: women are consuming progressive-minded literature that teaches them that having sex with anyone they want is liberation and choosing to pursue a career over getting married is empowerment. Romance readers who are married take to BookTok to talk about their dissatisfaction with their husbands, who find themselves competing with imaginary men. And let’s not forget that reading and writing queer stories are actually increasingly leading people to identify as queer, as author Cindy Pham speaks about with People Magazine regarding her experience writing her upcoming novel, The Secret World of Briar Rose. 

If books feed the soul, then why are we digesting poison instead of medicine?

This issue doesn’t stop between the pages, though. It trickles into every sphere of society: our schools, our workspaces, our media, and our homes. For the past four years, I’ve taught high school English in the public school system. I’ve watched 14- to 16-year-olds read erotic romance novels such as Sarah J. Maas’s A Court of Thrones and Roses series and Hannah Grace’s Ice Breaker in the middle of class because the school library didn’t want to “ban books.” The result? A bunch of young adults who are hyper-focused on self, sex, queerness, and toxic relationships.

Change starts with what women—who are raising and leading the next generation—are turning toward to shape their worldviews.

Women are pillars of society, and if they’re consuming poisonous smut disguised as romance wrapped in a pretty pink cartoon cover, then their families and communities will be impacted. Imagine if, instead of cultural toxins such as hook-up culture, queer idolatry, and feminism, we provided alternative romantic literature laced with remedies, such as showing the goodness of marriage, motherhood, and healthy masculinity.

For far too long, conservatives have allowed progressives to dominate the literary world, specifically romance. We’ve dismissed the impact of the genre at worst, or at best, we’ve decided to ignore the blatant progressive agenda. There’s certainly a lack of conservative authors writing romance because the stigma surrounding the genre has turned many away, fearing no one would want to read the stories in their hearts.

But what if we pushed back?

What if conservative authors wrote wholesome, sizzling, impactful romance that celebrates traditional values, highlights the importance of romance, and paints family in a positive light, like author Molly Barlowe (formerly bestselling author Molly McAdams) decided to do? When asked what made her switch from writing explicit, open-door novels to closed-door romance, she said, “I got to a point where God just really convicted and broke me. I wrestled with what I’d been comfortable with for so long, and what I knew I could no longer continue doing, for a solid year before making the decision to step away from Molly McAdams. Once I stopped fighting and trying to cling to that life, it ended up being the easiest decision I’ve ever made.”

What if when I searched “conservative romance novels” on TikTok or Instagram, I was met with tons of options instead of, well, my own books and a handful of others?

What if the romance reader with conservative values recognized the stakes of her book choices, stopped settling for smut, and took a stand that literary agents and publishing houses would notice?

The Remedy

Romantic literature is not going away, and if we want to heal our dying culture, conservatives must be welcomed into the space. The rise of independent publishing has paved the way for many conservative romance authors to build a social platform, find readers who desperately want romance stories without the progressive propaganda, and deliver high-quality novels that celebrate healthy relationships, high standards, the beauty of womanhood, traditional families, and conservative-leaning politics. 

Book influencers such as Tawni with @tawnisbookshelf and Rosie with @reading.rosy are leading the fight against degeneracy in romantic literature, serving as bridges that connect conservative authors and readers. Tawni started Tawni’s Bookshelf because she “believes Christian women should have access to fiction that they don’t feel convicted reading.” Rosie strongly believes “that what we read shapes our hearts and minds,” so she started an Instagram account (which now has over 130k followers) to “share stories that honor faith and create a space where like-minded readers and authors can connect over books that reflect what we truly believe.” Every day, readers reach out to them, requesting wholesome and clean romance reads to enjoy and share with their friends.

Romantic literature is here to stay, and conservatives can no longer afford to dismiss the genre as unserious.

Conservative authors not only need to elevate their voices in the romance publishing space, but they also need to change the narrative around romance in literature completely. The social movement #ProtectCleanFiction is hard at work doing just that. They aim to fight against degeneracy and make smut unthinkable by redirecting stories to glorify traditional standards and halting the rise of erotica and the queer agenda polluting the minds of modern women.

Romantic literature is here to stay, and conservatives can no longer afford to dismiss the genre as unserious. We are well into 40 years of intentional graphic sex and 10 years into intentional DEI initiatives within romantic fiction. Imagine where we will be in another thirty years if conservative voices aren’t intentionally present and supported in the number one selling genre worldwide: romance.