“Spice Level?”: The Recent Rise in Romance, Romantasy, and Smut

Cover Photo Credit: Mason Tozer

Before I get into things, I must confess that a TikTok comment section inspired the title of this piece. It was a TikTok about Tolstoy’s War and Peace, and the top-liked comment inquired, “Spice level?” I am almost completely certain that this comment was ironic; no matter how far the romance and smut trend has reached, no one can be this tone deaf… right?

Romance, as a genre, has always been misunderstood. Tracing back to the 1800s, the romance genre has faced widespread appreciation, popularization, and dismissal. Popular romance authors of the time felt compelled to introduce complex fictional women in their stories due to the underrepresentation of realistic and nuanced female main characters (FMCs). In turn, this created a space where the genre constantly aims to represent all genders, sexualities, traditions, and cultures, allowing more readers to see themselves in fiction. 

Yet where Austen and Brontë wrote women with complex personalities and desires, authors often design today’s romantasy heroines to be hollow enough for reader projection, and of course, disposable enough for the churning of the algorithm.

However—from what I recall—during the pandemic, an online community of avid readers and influencers coalesced to form Book-Tok. Young readers found a way to make reading and literature trendy and mainstream once again. Romance novels specifically became more and more in-demand, as well as fantasy novels with romance sub plots. This created a new genre: romantasy. Fantasy fiction, at its best, is a powerful and expansive genre that can enlighten readers by building alternate worlds within which one can introspect and reflect about our current reality. As young adult readers began to appreciate the inclusion and exploration of sex as a plot device which helped create multidimensional characters, the boom quickly incited a depreciation in the quality of said literature, and the reputation surrounding it. 

More specifically, the demands and rapidly shifting trends of social media have led to a denigrated quality of literature of the 2020s. As a reader, I do not think smut (sexual content) denotes a poorly written story; however, the capitalisation of tropes and buzzwords for fanservice and higher sales has diluted the appeal and originality of the romance genre. 

All romance is not smut, and all smut is definitely not romance. You cannot categorize books that feature smut as the main plot into romance or romantasy; this is not a moral judgement, but a semantic one. Smut novels are not a recent development, but the publicity and popularity of it is. 

Self-published authors such as Lydia Foxglove have admitted that the indie market model incentivizes them to focus on the trope-ification of stories (only one bed, forced proximity, grumpy x sunshine, sexy vampires, werewolves/bears???, faeries, etc.) to sell copies and make a living. This is not the fault of the authors, but of the current market. 

In my opinion, authors originally included smut as a plot device to promote sex positivity, encourage the exploration of one’s sexuality, and generally destigmatise sex—positive and productive societal goals. However, conflating romance with smut, or labelling a smut novel as a romance, has inversely made romance readers look shallow. 

Be proud of reading smut if that’s what you enjoy! But we should distinguish between enjoying romance novels that feature smut, and enjoying novels where smut is the plot. What we have now is authors and publishers pumping out books that are primarily smut, and marketing them as ground-breaking romances to younger and younger audiences, thus preying on their youth and naivete. This marketization of smut as romance generally harms the effort to have productive conversations around dating, romance, and sex. 

The rise of self-insert characters or FMCs that are basically props to further the MMC’s development is extremely counterproductive. Unfortunately, I do have to call out A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Mass, who wrote a FMC so generalisable that I don’t think a single person found her relatable.

The audience of the romance genre has always been predominantly women. Some of my speculations are perhaps the representation of complex female characters, or the endorsement of male main characters being particularly emotionally available/communicative/thoughtful/ open-minded/accountable, or simply because it’s a fun and entertaining genre that women largely create for other women. So, why are we promoting writers and stories with poorly written (pick-me, self-absorbed, unopinionated, etc.) FMCs?

Hence, asking “Spice level?” is not inherently the issue. But when it becomes the primary and even sole metric of judging a piece of literature—sidelining world-building, character depth, and the moral/intent of the story—that is subversive. Romance deserves better. It has always been a genre of complexity, intimacy—not necessarily romantic—and emotional payoff, and readers deserve stories that deliver these instead of recycled tropes to keep up with the algorithm. Perhaps readers evaluating a story by more diverse metrics might finally give romance and romantasy a shot to grow beyond what readers currently expect it to be.