The “Yellow Terror” of Banning Romance Novels

By Ka Wei-po (卡維波) Center for the Study of Sexualities National Central University

Legislators and government officials have recommended that highly popular romance novels found to contain erotic elements be punished and banned according to the criminal law. This is just like a new kind of “Yellow Terror.” (The color yellow stands as a metaphor for pornographic materials.) And I would like to poin tout the many problems associated with this mode of complete ban.

First, legislators and government officials may feel that the contents of these romance novels are too sexually explicit, or even perverse, but it is still a fact that these romances are different from purely pornographic novels. For one thing, romance novels usually do not give very detailed descriptions of the genitalia or the act of sexual intercourse as real porn novels do. One might say that they are like the mosaic of an R-rated movie, but they are definitely no “X-rated” movie. After all, romances must employ a certain implicit aesthetic in order to be accepted by their readers who may find the sexually explicit passages quite repulsive.

If such erotic content is to be banned, then many other publications will fall too. For it is not only romance novels that contain such a degree of erotic content. Descriptions of sexual acts (including those so-called perversities) can be found in all kinds of fiction. Even Nobel laureate Gao Xingjian’s works contain many such examples. Why therefore should a ban be imposed only on romance novels? How can people accept such double standards? Furthermore, the degree of sexual explicitness in Taiwanese romance novels is quite different from imported romance novels. If a ban is to be imposed, there will inevitably be a problem of where to draw the line. The problems of implementing such a ban would then lead to arbitrary judgements and perhaps abuses of power, which in turn threatens our freedoms of publication and expression.

In addition to sexually explicit content, romance novels also face other criticism. Most people in Taiwan consider Chiung Yao to be a representative author of the genre, who was once criticized by Lee Ao and other male writers for writing only on the romantic theme. They said her works were worthless. Parents in those days, fearing that their children may come into contact with things like love and passion too early, would forbid their children to read those novels. Some feminists also criticized romance novels for instilling ideas of traditional gender roles. In recent years, however, voices calling for an exoneration of romance novels are getting louder, and many people believe that romance novels are cultural scripts that women have deliberately written to imagine the interaction between men and women. In that sense, romance novels have a positive value.

If traditionally there had been no sexual content in romance novels, then how come we are flooded with them now? This is evidently because the kind of platonic love that does not involve things sexual is no longer able to attract readers. Or to put it another way, sex is, for the new generation of readers, one of the necessary elements of a romantic relationship. Those who grew up reading romance novels are now mothers (or even grandmothers), middle-aged and older women. They certainly cannot continue to imagine that their children will construct their romantic relationships in the traditional non-sexual way. Society has changed and the mothers and grandmothers should not force their own views of sexual propriety onto the next generation.

In fact, most romance novels with sexual contents have virgins as their protagonists. Clearly the character arrangements are works of the imagination written by pure-minded authors for pure-minded readers. Such novels are simply tools to aid young men and women as they learn to manage their own emotions and bodies; they are not sex manuals. Blocking off this path will only cause more problems later. Education authorities should face reality and use these novels for analyses of gender issues and culture or sex education, so that young students will learn how to be critical readers from early on. We need to resist the containment policy that is creating a “Yellow Terror.”