Dominate Your Desire

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romance novels, baudrillard

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Transcript

Dominating Our Desires

[00:00:00]

Andrea Martucci: Anyways, I am not bitter that nobody wants to hear about the beautiful process of creating a podcast. I've learned nobody gives a shit. It's okay.

Jodie Slaughter: It's like brutal, backbreaking work. In many ways podcasters are the coal miners of our time.

Andrea Martucci: I mean, no, I think coal miners are the coal miners of our time.

-

Andrea Martucci: Hello and welcome to Shelf Love, a podcast about romance novels and how they reflect, explore. That's so wrong, hold on. I'm, I'm starting over. Hello and welcome to Shelf Love, a podcast about romance novels and how they reflect, explore, challenge, and shape desire. I'm your host, Andrea Martucci, and on this episode, I'm joined by Dame Jodie Slaughter, domestic kink correspondent.

Jodie, how is the kink in the houses these days?

Jodie Slaughter: The kink in the house is [00:01:00] plentiful. It's robust. I think, probably much better than the kink and the fictional kink clubs. I'll say that much.

Andrea Martucci: Fair enough. Jodie, thank you so much for being here today, and thank you for taking this recording from within a sound booth with a great microphone, thus saving me hours trying to make your audio sound better.

Jodie Slaughter: I did it all for you. I am currently in a radio station. I've used my perks and my privilege as an author to weasel my way in, to be able to use really incredibly expensive recording equipment so that Andrea for once can get a 'cast with me on it where I don't sound like I'm in a tunnel, digging my way through to the other side.

Andrea Martucci: For those of you who don't know, Dame Jodie Slaughter is a long time correspondent of Shelf Love's. Might at this point be my most [00:02:00] storied guest. And I've had to have conversations where I'm like, Jodie, you need to wear headphones while we record so that there isn't an echo.

It's been an evolving story of your relationship with audio. And normally I just take the brunt on where I'm just like, look, I'm just gonna be playing around with Descript Studio Sound endlessly, trying to get that room tone out, just air blowing.

And I do that because I love you and because I want you here, but I will say you sound magnificent.

Jodie Slaughter: Yeah, I think this is probably gonna be the way now.

Andrea Martucci: Yeah. For those of you who are like, oh, well, I'm not going back and listening to all the Jodie episodes. I just wanna say I'm amazing at editing. So I did make it always sound fantastic.

Jodie Slaughter: She does a great job. It's always like, honestly, very listenable. There's an obvious disparity in the audios, but like, you can get through it. Do you know what I

Andrea Martucci: you can totally get through it

Jodie Slaughter: you have to go to the, like grocery store on a Saturday afternoon. You can get [00:03:00] through listening to this. It's like a much easier ride than doing most things that are mildly uncomfortable.

Andrea Martucci: Indeed. You know, I've been thinking about the nature of podcasts for a bit, and something I was thinking about is how the experience for the listener of a podcast is like you're in the room with the people who are speaking or you're like on a three-way call or something and you're just muted. You can't talk 'cause you're in the grocery store or whatever, but like, you're there, you're part of it.

And I think it's interesting from the perspective of somebody who produces and packages up the podcast where, I have noted over time that nobody gives a shit about the production of a podcast.

Like, which is, which is interesting to me in the romance space 'cause everybody cares about asking authors about their process. But nobody ever wants to ask a podcaster about their process. Why is that, Jodie?

Jodie Slaughter: Yeah.

I don't know. For a little context, I am using this radio room because my boyfriend works in the [00:04:00] audio sphere.

Andrea Martucci: audio sphere (Andrea makes an arena airhorn noise and laughs)

Jodie Slaughter: And he is obviously really into sound and that type of thing. But as a podcast listener, there are some podcasts I listen to where at least one or two people on the cast have pretty shit audio or even sometimes I can tell that they're recording on the road from their car or whatever. they're people that travel. And I don't care.

Andrea Martucci: Yeah

Jodie Slaughter: I think audio is a thing that you care about if you work in audio, which I would consider you working in, if you're like producing a podcast,

Andrea Martucci: whether I'm paid for it or not, I am definitely laboring.

Jodie Slaughter: Yes you are laboring.

Or if you're just one of those, audio philes. Otherwise, people don't care because as you said, it feels like sometimes you're on a call or you're on a FaceTime or something and when have you ever been on a call with your iPhone where the audio just sounds perfect and beautiful and crisp?

Andrea Martucci: This [00:05:00] is what I've come up with. The reason nobody wants to talk about audio production, but they do wanna talk about the production of other creative endeavors is because it literally ruins the mystique of the thing that people like about it to be like, oh, you edit this conversation and I didn't just get the completely uncut, this is exactly how it happened thing as opposed to like writers. I, I what -You're a writer.

Jodie Slaughter: Maybe. Now and again

Andrea Martucci: Why do you think people are so interested in knowing about writers' process?

Jodie Slaughter: That is actually something I ask myself often. I mean obviously there are like wide ranging processes, but I'm like, it's not that interesting in the end. At the end of the day, you're kind of hunched over a device tip tapping away. It's not that interesting an endeavor. I don't understand why people are so interested in the process because I largely never know what to say when they ask me about my own.

I do wonder why people seem really [00:06:00] concerned with the author process. I have multiple editors on every level who are really keeping me honest, keeping me in line, keeping me whatever. And people are kind of like, ah, well,

Andrea Martucci: Yeah. Well, I think that there's like the glamour and the mystique of particularly a romance author where I think there is this desire to distance it from, I don't wanna say work, but not think about the grind of sitting at your computer and tip tapping away.

It's like, do you like lay in the bubble bath with candles and think about ideas? And do you go to exotic locations and do you have incredibly romantic things happen in your life that then you're writing about? I think that it's that we want to have this fantasy of a romance author's life, that you're actually experiencing a different life than we are.

And that gives you access to the emotions and experiences that you write about. [00:07:00] Which is why people always get these questions where it's like, oh, did you know, whoever help you research this. Yeah. It's called imagination.

It's

Jodie Slaughter: called truly making shit up. That's a big part of it. Danielle Steele did not help us. Whenever you read about her process and she's like, wake up at 6:00 AM and then I'll have artisanal muffin top,

Andrea Martucci: in my Paris apartment.

Jodie Slaughter: exactly. In my Paris apartment, and then I put on my Sciaparelli ball gown. And then I make sure I always rouge my cheeks before I sit down to write.

And I'm like, grubby and you know,

Andrea Martucci: And I'm fascinated by whether she does that or not, indisputably, she has that desk, right? She has a fantastic office. That's indisputable, right? There's photographic evidence . Whether her writing routine is real, that is actually what she does every day and it's as glamorous as it sounds or not, she definitely knew that she was playing up the idea of what people want a romance author to be [00:08:00] and that's savvy public relations. We are now in the era of accessible public figures.

Jodie Slaughter: It used to be that your famous people, your celebrities, your whatever, they were meant to be deeply aspirational, and now everyone wants them to be relatable. Everyone wants them to pretend.

Andrea Martucci: What's interesting though is we also live in the era of day in the life videos, and those also are so produced, right? Oh, I'm just carrying my groceries from my car into the house. No, you had to go set up a camera

Jodie Slaughter: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Andrea Martucci: and then, walk back to your car and then pretend like you don't see the camera there and there's just this invisible third party who's always recording you and pretend like that is not highly produced.

And that that itself is not only a performance of hiding the performance, but do you always do your grocery shopping perfectly made up and in a really aesthetically pleasing outfit and

Jodie Slaughter: Yep. You go to the [00:09:00] nicest grocery store in your city.

Andrea Martucci: Yeah. And like they're not showing the bag with Cheetos and doritos in it that you brought in. Like, do you know what I mean? There's a lot of producing an idea of a lifestyle.

Jodie Slaughter: No one is ever buying stool softener

Andrea Martucci: never unless it's an ad for stool softener, in case they're like, "popped into the store and got my favorite stool softener like I do every week."

Jodie Slaughter: Stool softener spon con

Andrea Martucci: "And, guys, I just love Stool Soft. Oh, by the way, this is promotional, but I would be talking about this even if I was not getting paid a buttload of money." I can't help it.

Jodie Slaughter: a butt load of money, that has to stay in or I'll fight Hell

Andrea Martucci: Oh boy. Hell yeah. Okay. Yeah. Anyways, I am not bitter that nobody wants to hear about the beautiful process of creating a podcast. I've learned nobody gives a shit. It's okay.

Jodie Slaughter: It's like brutal, [00:10:00] backbreaking work. In many ways podcasters are the coal miners of our time.

Andrea Martucci: I mean, no, I think coal miners are the coal miners of our time.

Jodie Slaughter: Well,

Andrea Martucci: just to be class conscious and whatnot. We're here to talk about a book called-

(elevator music playing)

Andrea from the future: ha ha. So funny story, Jodie and I did talk for like an hour about a book, and I'm not gonna mention the name of the book that we talked about. We make a few references to it in the conversation you are going to hear today, but I was in a very weird mood when we recorded, and I considered not even releasing this episode.

The conversation that we had towards the end of the episode is much more interesting .

For the sake of simplicity, I did take out the book conversation and we talk about some other romance adjacent things, somewhat inspired by the book but I don't think that you will suffer for not knowing what book that we are talking about.

So enjoy?

Jodie Slaughter: [00:11:00] And that's also I think, an issue with a lot of kink and BDSM, I'm gonna say romances, right? is that I think a lot of them aren't like that interesting. Because they're not willing to do anything

Andrea Martucci: They're just playing out the same dynamic of standard cis het dominant male, submissive female, but instead of the standard quote unquote sexual script, now there's some light spanking and handcuffs. And a blindfold,

Jodie Slaughter: Yes. Yes. We get very little exploration into like, the interiority of someone who is interested or exploring kink. I don't think stories of a character finding themselves in this are bad at all, but so much of the time you've got that script and then the submissive woman is being brought into this by [00:12:00] this man and it's very rarely this woman has explored her own desires and even if she's engaging with them in person for the first time, she has had these existing thoughts and desires and fantasies and she knows what she wants to feel.

Andrea Martucci: Well, it's just the next step of the virgin who has to be, I was gonna say indoctrinated into, but has to be introduced to the pleasures of the flesh with the one guy who is capable of bringing her pleasure.

Or in some books, if you're not dealing with a virgin, it's like all those other guys , I'm being very cis het focused here. Right. But like, all those other dicks didn't bring you orgasms, but mine will and that is the script in romance writ large. I'm intentionally saying romance writ large because I think you could probably find a similar dynamic in queer romance. But also, these are the cultural scripts, that we're dealing with, I think in particular in a sexually conservative [00:13:00] or, a society that is very anti-sex, particularly anti women's pleasure. Anti pleasure anybody who is not a cis het white man, whose pleasure is the focus of most things in our society.

What's interesting about this, and actually I wanna put it in conversation with the Alicia Rai book that we read, A Gentleman in the Streets?

We're talking about two female characters who are very aware of their sexual proclivities that are kinky. They preexist the romantic focus of the book. And it's less like, this guy is the only one who can give me this. And more like, I like exploring this with you. She's like, I'm looking for someone who can do something that I already know that I want, as opposed to like, oh, I'm just a little baby

and

Jodie Slaughter: just Peter Peter's the only one who's ever even, I didn't even know I had the ability to have an orgasm until I met [00:14:00] Peter. Like that type of thing. Romance hates to see a sexually realized woman.

Andrea Martucci: Right. Because again, it only can be in the context of her fated mate, the one she already is in love with.

Tell me how many romance novels have you read where a woman is allowed to feel the pinnacle of sexual pleasure before she is in love with her partner?

Jodie Slaughter: Yeah

Andrea Martucci: I'll wait. I'll be waiting a long time . ' 'Cause 'cause the thing is, even if you start the book with an amazing one night stand

Jodie Slaughter: gets better.

Andrea Martucci: I didn't even know it could get this good. Right? There was a book like 2005 ish called Hooking Up.

When I was in college, there was very much this culture that was written about and studied of, hey gals, girl power, just like guys can be sexually promiscuous, you too can be sexually promiscuous and enjoy a one night stand.

And then basically all the studies were like, yeah, this actually just benefits guys [00:15:00] because one night stands are very rarely pleasurable for women.

Jodie Slaughter: Yeah. 'cause of the orgasm gap.

Andrea Martucci: Yes. I mean, Particularly when you're dealing with somebody who doesn't give a shit about you and isn't a longer term partner, who, either because they're a longer term partner, learns what you like or is just more invested in caring about what you like.

Anyways, we have this myth that these sexually promiscuous heroes in these books have become masters of sex due to these very shallow sexual relationships. And the older I get the more I'm like, um

Jodie Slaughter: if you've ever slept with a straight cis guy who has had just a lifetime of one night stands, which I have, he doesn't know anything. He doesn't learn. You know what I mean? He's not good at sex

Andrea Martucci: Yeah. It's not like, well I've been with hundreds of women

Jodie Slaughter: Truly

Andrea Martucci: and what I've learned is - I'm just kinda like,

Jodie Slaughter: nothing. You've learned probably nothing. Yeah. Instead of the idea of like, Hey, women, you wanna have [00:16:00] casual sex or one night take,

Hey women. you Women, hey.

Andrea Martucci: Hey Fellow women.

Jodie Slaughter: Hey dolls. You might have casual sex, one night stands, Here's how you might feel confident in exploring your own sexual desires. And then here's how you attempt to like vet men based on who might actually be able to bring you, not just like, this guy wants to fuck me and I guess I wanna

Andrea Martucci: Well, but Right.

Jodie Slaughter: I'll fuck him. It's like, no.

Andrea Martucci: no, but that was the entire thing. That it was the myth of being sexually liberated, like a Sex and the City gal. You can take pleasure just like a man. But what it ultimately was doing was just continuing to reinforce that a woman's desire is being desired.

Jodie Slaughter: Mm-hmm.

Andrea Martucci: Like, oh, somebody wants to fuck me. I can fuck them. Like, ah, yay.

Okay, well if somebody wants me, then that should be pleasurable for me. And also, essentially letting men off the hook and, honestly guys, I'm not a prude. Like I've had one night stands, you know what I mean?

I'm [00:17:00] speaking from experience here, right. All it does is reward the shitty things that men are already rewarded with in our culture of just not giving a shit about you as a person

Jodie Slaughter: Mm-hmm.

Andrea Martucci: seeing you do a sexual object.

Jodie Slaughter: Having no expectations of them at all

Andrea Martucci: And we live in a society that places the onus on women to gate keep sex as a way of holding men accountable for treating us marginally like human beings. That is the problem. The problem is not that in a one night stand culture, women are being prudes if they don't wanna do it because, oh no, they're waiting for a ring.

No, they're not waiting for a ring. They're literally just like, will you still love me tomorrow? Or you're just trying to get my pants. It's not that we need to get married and have babies together, but do you even respect me?

Jodie Slaughter: Yeah. Are you coming at me with base level human decency and respect? Do you care about me enough even if the time period at which [00:18:00] you're gonna care about me is gonna be one night? Do you care about me enough to care whether or not I'm having a good time and whether or not I'm being pleasured?

Actually, are you a man who finds pleasure only in humping a body. or Are you someone who finds pleasure in giving someone else pleasure?

Andrea Martucci: Yes. because as women we are socialized to find pleasure in giving other people pleasure.

Jodie Slaughter: Yes. You're supposed to accept that as the base of sex, oftentimes as a woman.

Andrea Martucci: Right. Well, 'cause sex is over when a man comes, he's done. Yeah, When he is done. Because it turns out that women's pleasure is optional and maybe even not desirable.

Jodie Slaughter: Not important at all. Not wanted.

Andrea Martucci: Not

Jodie Slaughter: You're not supposed to want to like come.

Andrea Martucci: And if there is any sort of readying of the female body in this situation, it's purely to make it receptive for penetration.

Jodie Slaughter: It's [00:19:00] like incidental.

Andrea Martucci: yeah. Well, I guess uh, I guess do the bare minimum here. yeah.

Jodie Slaughter: A little slap and tickle to just make sure it's awake and then like

Andrea Martucci: and right And so I, don't even know how do we, how do we start talking about this?

Jodie Slaughter: That's dark.

Andrea Martucci: well I guess if I think back to romance novels, like there was this era of truly echoing the cultural zeitgeist of like we can do one night stands too. That's how the book can start off. but then it develops into an emotional relationship. But even in those conceits, it gets better.

Jodie Slaughter: It gets better.

Andrea Martucci: The best it could ever be. It was very good. And that is a sign of like, oh my God, I could have a man like that.

It could only get better from there. It's the fantasy of somebody giving a shit about a woman's pleasure, a fantasy of some other person having the skill...

Jodie Slaughter: Well, the more he gives a shit, the better it is. That's what it is. It's not just [00:20:00] her falling in love that makes it better. It's him falling in love that makes it better. Cause now he's like oh I really care.

Andrea Martucci: Now I'm gonna bring emotions to the table. And again, we are socialized as women to believe that sex and emotions do have to be paired.

Jodie Slaughter: Yes. Every time. Yeah.

Andrea Martucci: for the ultimate ecstasy and rapture of relationships. Every time I say something like that, I'm like, well, when you do care about a person that does imbue everything else you do with more...

Jodie Slaughter: a glossy sheen of depth and niceness. That's what I was thinking too, is that I've been experiencing this recently and I'm like, a lot of times it, it does get, it can get better, but that's not a universal, do you know what I mean?

I think a lot of times it comes down to the fact that a lot of us are really lying. There are so many people out there who are like, the best sex of their life they very much had with some person that [00:21:00] they had sex with for six weeks.

Andrea Martucci: Oh, well, right. I mean because like, the infatuation the excitement,

Jodie Slaughter: Yes. Right. And, they're married and they are like very deeply in love and they hopefully they do really enjoy their sex life. But you do also kind of have to be like, no, this is the best sex of my life because you're my husband. I don't know that any of us emotionally are able to reconcile with all the things that actually make for

Andrea Martucci: Well, it's about a fulfilling life in general, right? Like a fulfilling life in general, you're not gonna spend your entire life in bed.

It has to be the bigger picture about living your life. In talking about this kind of stuff, I feel like part of the problem is the myth that men enjoy as the pinnacle of sexual experience. one night stands Because obviously if they end up with an orgasm, it is, it's probably at least okay for them.

Jodie Slaughter: Right. Like, it's like that thing about pizza where it's like, even if it's kind of bad shitty pizza, you're still like, well,

Andrea Martucci: Right, [00:22:00] right. But I think I think the myth is that men are not interested in emotional relationships and they do not also crave, like women are socialized to crave, that emotional depth and whatever. And I think that that is what a lot of romance is doing right. When you have this rake character or sexually promiscuous playboy is that he too has been missing out on something. It's very much this, women have emotions, men have bodies.

And then you put them together and you get this exchange where the woman teaches the man how to have feelings and the man teaches the woman how to have a body.

Jodie Slaughter: yeah, yeah.

Andrea Martucci: You know what I mean? I don't think we can get away from the fact that that is what a lot of romance novels are doing.

Jodie Slaughter: That's the script. Even ones that, people tout as oh, this is so progressive. This is, so hashtag feminist, very often still follow that script. It's like if you're it's exploring you know, woman who has like [00:23:00] anorgasmia or something, and we're actively trying to figure out like, oh, how would two people have sex if one or both of them have not historically experienced pleasure, because of this reason or whatever, but that's not, that's not what any of those are doing.

Andrea Martucci: I mean, like that's what Strange Love is doing, right.

Jodie Slaughter: Yes. I, I was just talking to someone about Strange Love the other day. This is a gorgeous, perfectly executed window into how two beings have a really gorgeous fulfilling sexual life and erotic experience that does not look like I put a penis into a vagina and thrust thrust thrust And then we're both happy at the end

Andrea Martucci: Well, and then we're told, we are told that that feels good. That's my big issue with a lot of the sexual scripts in romance is it's just that we are being told this is so good.

Yes, as much as romance novels purport to writ [00:24:00] large, be exploring female pleasure, or pleasure in general, that so much of it is half hearted in that exploration and sometimes just devoid of an exploration. To come back to this novella, I enjoyed it but this is a critical podcast. That is actually the rub for me with this is that she knows what she wants. She explains very succinctly to him what she wants. He knows exactly how to fulfill it.

Jodie Slaughter: Hmm.

Andrea Martucci: It's not an exploration really.

Jodie Slaughter: No, I don't think it's an exploration at all

Andrea Martucci: He just happens to know how to do the thing that she likes, but they're not exploring it together.

Jodie Slaughter: They don't explore it together. They just fit together, like puzzle pieces kind of automatically. They come to each other pre-designed to fit together. That's the imagination of it. Right? More interesting if we got some type of really interesting background of either both of them being able to talk about and explore their own [00:25:00] histories, especially if those histories were filled with exploration and pleasure and whatever.

I do have some experience with kink and

Andrea Martucci: I mean, you are the domestic kink correspondent for Shelf Love

Jodie Slaughter: That is so true. I am, I am the domestic kink correspondent. I would say that the exploratory nature of it is deeply important and kind of built into it. It isn't just like, oh, i'm a dom and you're a sub. Here's how we fit together. Do you know what I mean?

Everybody has different, there's so many different little, tentacles. And we don't get any of that.

Andrea Martucci: Because they have nothing to do with each other emotionally, really outside of the bedroom, you don't even get they learn something about each other and then it kind of comes into that exploration of each other and what makes each other tick.

I think that's the part that's disappointing for me and that is the part that makes me feel like this is not a romance.

I, mean this purely in the sense of what is the intention of this book? I don't think the intention is to [00:26:00] explore how them knowing each other better helps them have a more fulfilling sexual relationship because their sexual relationship is an exploration of themselves and their relationship and whatever.

It purely is yay, found a guy who fits very nicely with her in the bedroom. And that is satisfying to her

Jodie Slaughter: I don't think the book is about them in many ways. I don't even think it's about, her.

Andrea Martucci: it's about culture.

Jodie Slaughter: It's about culture, right?

Andrea Martucci: And I think it's about, feeling the pressure of culture to fit in and be accepted.

Jodie Slaughter: Those were always the most interesting parts of the book.

Andrea Martucci: and the craving for acceptance, the craving to not be burdened by a community, but to be set free.

So all of this is of course said with complete respect. Like Jodie and I have talked about many times, our respect for these works is why we are interested in breaking them apart and honoring [00:27:00] them by being willing to talk about them as full texts and not just being like, oh, whatever, it's just a kinky romance. Like, what do you expect?

Jodie Slaughter: Yeah, yeah, yeah, Yeah, yeah, yeah, No heroes, no veneration. You know what I mean?

Andrea Martucci: It's just a smutty romance, Jodie. It's a smutty romance

Jodie Slaughter: No, no. We have great respect for smutty romance and because of that we wanna pick it apart. Also this one's not smutty.

Andrea Martucci: We peeled back the layers of this book, and I think we respected all over it, in the confines of our relationship

Jodie Slaughter: I think many would say we cracked the nut on this book, and then the innards sort of went all over our faces.

Andrea Martucci: Oh my God, Jodie, as I was reading about Baudrillard yesterday, I hit a point where I was like, oh, shit. My entire, "I think we cracked this nut wide open" is the fantasy of the terminus.

This has been talked about on the podcast before, but it's the [00:28:00] fantasy that we can explain, control, and therefore dominate.

All of this time. Every single time I try to crack this nut wide open or proclaim that we have, I'm just trying to dominate the world. Um, I am, I am seeking dominance over the chaos and meaninglessness of the world. I'm like, if I can contain this, if I can crack this nut wide open,

Jodie Slaughter: Mm-hmm.

Andrea Martucci: then I understand and therefore I can control it

Jodie Slaughter: Which is funny because every conversation with us on the pod ends with us being like, yeah. Uh, and we could always go in infinite circles around something and it ultimately comes to like, yeah, sure, we, understand, in a way.

Andrea Martucci: I feel like I understand it more, but I also understand less.

Jodie Slaughter: Yes, the more you understand, the less you understand.

Andrea Martucci: And that's the Dunning Kruger effect is that the more you know about something, the less [00:29:00] likely you are to consider yourself an expert in anything or everything.

You're just kind of like, ugh. You know? I know so much now that I know how much there is left to know and I don't know it, and I never will.

Jodie Slaughter: How it's impossible to know.

Andrea Martucci: I know, and I seek to know, but I don't know

I dunno. I don't know, man.

And you know what, like, just to come back to the nature of podcasting, I think that's the thing, is a podcast, a blog post, a book, it's this fantasy that you can contain something and then you're gonna package it up and you're gonna do as good of a job as you possibly can to create a narrative structure around...

Jodie Slaughter: the Baudrillard is hitting you hard

Andrea Martucci: to put a narrative structure around the world, around a conversation, the story of somebody's life. To come back to my other theory that romance novels and the whole fantasy of the happily ever after, it's a fantasy of escaping death

Jodie Slaughter: Oh, completely. [00:30:00] I mean, we've talked about this completely. We've talked about how people get furious when an epilogue in a romance novel implies that somebody has died or is about to die. Romance is nothing more than a desire, to

Andrea Martucci: dominate death?

Jodie Slaughter: Have a thing live. Yes, live forever. Live forever in bliss and harmony. To never escape that bubble, to never have to confront mortality.

Even if you have a romance novel with someone who is fighting cancer in the middle of the book, you end the book with the idea of like, it'll never come back. Do you know what I mean? They're done with that forever. They're done with that.

Andrea Martucci: I respect when people play with those ideas and the conventions,

Jodie Slaughter: I still don't want it to come back.

Andrea Martucci: I respect the reader desire that it's like you are literally at odds with the reason I am here. You are spitting in my face [00:31:00] about this thing and I'm not saying these books shouldn't exist. Go explore whatever, but I completely understand when audiences are upset

Jodie Slaughter: Yep.

Andrea Martucci: and I think that they don't often articulate well why they're upset. And I think they often articulate in ways that you can rebut very easily, and be like, this is offensive.

You can turn their upset into taking the moral high ground with it.

At the end of the day though, I think it's because you have literally just broken the contract the expectation of a particular fantasy. And, even though we're both like, yeah, this is obviously it. I don't think most people are like, let me sit down with my romance novel so I can pretend that I won't die one day.

Jodie Slaughter: Yeah. No, no, no, no. It obviously it isn't that, it's the fantasy of getting lost in the thing for a hot minute. I think there's pushback of the idea that to enjoy romance novels is to [00:32:00] fantasize

Andrea Martucci: Right.

Jodie Slaughter: I wish we could all just be like, no, it is my fantasy. 'Cause it's okay. Well, rather it doesn't have to be okay. Like It just is

Andrea Martucci: It just is. And I think, again, it's a desire to dominate our desires.

Yeah I'm turned on by

Michael: Redacted!

Andrea Martucci: Being big and hairy and bigger than her.

Yeah. Because it's a social script that has imprinted upon me and I find that desirable. The author doesn't even have to do any work around that. I find it desirable. Okay. And, a hundred percent when we're being critical, we can look at that and we can break down why, oh, it's harmful and blah, blah.

Jodie Slaughter: Your id doesn't give a shit about that.

That's not what it's for. it doesn't give a shit. It's not there for like moral conversations of moral reasoning. That's your action. Right? You put that into play when you're actually approaching the world. You put that into play when you're actually choosing your actual partners, right?

Where you're like, okay, I can't actually [00:33:00] be distracted by giant hairy forearms and a guy who's a foot taller than me. We have to bring it down

Andrea Martucci: Well, right. And I think that our desire to dominate what we find pleasurable and what we want in our fantasy worlds, that's actually starting to trouble me and not justifying it. Not saying, oh, well it actually is feminist because I am seeking my pleasure. No, just it is what it is. It's your desire. Enjoy it. Get off on it, emotionally, physically, whatever you want. Enjoy it. Buy it. Scoff in people's faces

Jodie Slaughter: Reconcile with it.

Andrea Martucci: Just because it's your fantasy doesn't mean that it has to be your reality or that you are so brainwashed. This is the part that I find complicated, right? Well, but if we are constantly reinforcing that larger men, for example, are sexier than smaller men, then do we take this into our real life where, as a woman, do you find it difficult to find a man your own height sexy? And I'm like. [00:34:00] Yeah. But that's not necessarily because of the book I read,

Jodie Slaughter: Yes.

Andrea Martucci: That's all of society reinforcing that.

Jodie Slaughter: Yeah, because the book you read is just a symptom of the society, right?

Like the book didn't create the conditions that made that happen. The book is just a representation of the fact that that exists. And if that is the case for you, the first step is recognizing it. And then the second step is realizing that you can to a large extent change and control your attraction

Andrea Martucci: But what I want romance novels to do more is explore that exploration beyond - I mean the hero can be big and hairy, right? Like I, I'm not arguing but it's what they do with that that I think romance doesn't push far enough.

Okay, now that you have a situation that is already desirable, what are you gonna do with that to really explore desire and explore pleasure. We're not exploring pleasure, a lot of times we're just reinforcing the [00:35:00] script.

Jodie Slaughter: How many of these big hair men are we gonna see on their knees begging? You know? And I mean, sexually.

Andrea Martucci: Mm-hmm.

Jodie Slaughter: mean, uh uh. Whatchamacallit.

Andrea Martucci: Or the grovel. Right. Like

Jodie Slaughter: Fuck that. That's not what I mean. I mean, like, straight up,

Andrea Martucci: well, if you read Heather Guerre

Jodie Slaughter: I I, literally was thinking like a hot minute ago. I was like, I can't wait till we get to the end of this and Andrea recommends the, uh, Heather Guerre Femdom book.

Andrea Martucci: Right. Well, friends,

Jodie Slaughter: Romans

Andrea Martucci: Friends, romance. Romans... is, I just, I beg right? Actually just think for a second about pleasure. And look, I'm gonna keep reading the books that do this shallowly, like whatever.

This is not me saying I'm not buying a book again. I'm not voting with my dollars here.

Jodie Slaughter: I literally bought a Lisa Kleypas yesterday, like, I

Andrea Martucci: yikes. yeah, i'm just kidding. I told her which to [00:36:00] buy. I'm acting like I was surprised by that.

I'm just saying if that is a project that we are invested in.

Jodie Slaughter: Yeah.

yeah

Andrea Martucci: and you know what? Even if you explore pleasure, it still doesn't make it inherently feminist or like, whatever

Jodie Slaughter: No. It doesn't have to be. That's what I want everyone to like, I, I don't know, are we just doing philosophy here? Maybe you should call this romance philosophy because the idea that you can't explore a thing without having to immediately assign a moral value or judgment to it.

Let's approach what we're saying here with good faith and the benefit of the doubt.

Like I, obviously we're not talking about books about fucking Nazis. That's not what we're doing here.

That's baseline, not it.

Andrea Martucci: I think then you have to question at that point, why is that your fantasy? Right?

Jodie Slaughter: We absolutely have to have a conversation about that.

If I'm reading like kink, I am mostly reading male dom fem sub stuff, right? And so I'm thinking very often [00:37:00] about what that means for me about why I am not reading as many, 'cause I'm reading a lot of queer les fic, that type of thing.

I'm not reading very much like kinky les fic, right? So I'm like, why am I so drawn to this particular dynamic? And it would be easy for me to say that it's just the one I've experienced most in my personal life. And obviously there's a part of that that's true, but there's obviously part of me and part of my desire that,

views kink in my own fantasy as like a, I don't know, a gender dynamic in many ways. And so that's a thing that I'm exploring and that's me being vulnerable with you guys.

Andrea Martucci: all y'all,

Jodie Slaughter: I mean, not just me, every, and whether not those are gonna change. Yeah, exactly. All y'all whether or not it's not like me necessarily exploring this to change. I think I exist in the hope that through my exploration of my [00:38:00] own self, I will be better. I will be a better person and I won't just understand myself better. I will have a more holistic experience in in my fantasies, right?

Like I want them to grow and stretch,

Andrea Martucci: the means are not just to achieve the end of knowing: it is to put it into practice, like to evolve so that you experience of the world is improved.

Jodie Slaughter: Yes. Because it's one thing to just be on the internet and I could very easily pretend like I was reading all of this kinky les fic and not really explore it, but present myself as doing it. But I would like for it to be real. I would like for it to be true.

And in order to do that I have to know myself and I have to understand it's one thing to be like, yeah, I know the social scripts. Like I understand, gender dynamics and why we are drawn to them, but I'm interested in the me, [00:39:00] and then I'm also interested in rewiring my brain

Andrea Martucci: Well,

Jodie Slaughter: and my fantasies. It's just an experiment, right? Like, and I'm not saying that should be the end goal for anyone. Like, I think honestly to know is sometimes more than enough.

Andrea Martucci: I guess I'm just incredibly cynical now. I mean, the farther I get into this project, and the more I know that it's just an exercise in domination and control. It is,

Jodie Slaughter: I love domination

Andrea Martucci: it's like also you're just building a panopticon in your mind where your ego is at the center, and

Jodie Slaughter: Mm-hmm.

Andrea Martucci: then observing the prisoners of your desire and you're like, I can control you. I can dominate you. I can change you. And, the more you realize that it's all society.

I'm not giving up. I mean, actually Baudrillard towards the end did give up and basically was just like, uh, well, I mean, we passed the point where we can ever actually work towards liberation.

Jodie Slaughter: Yeah.

We just

Andrea Martucci: have to accept that there is no, Let me find the, [00:40:00] hold on. He thought it better than I, he basically reached a point where he was just like, uh, we live in a world without meaning. And actually affirming the meaninglessness is affirming and freeing in a way. Where it's just like, it's meaningless. Nothing matters

Jodie Slaughter: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Andrea Martucci: we're all gonna die.

Jodie Slaughter: The French are, um, you know, are you rereading Simulacra and Simulation? What Baudrillard are you reading?

Andrea Martucci: No, no. I was actually doing like a review of his entire body of work through a third party. I wasn't reading his entire body of work. But like Baudrillard said, it's like we are so dominated by things, by objects, we are barely subjects anymore.

" Sovereignty passed from subject to object, revolution and emancipation has turned into their opposites, trapping individuals in an order of simulation and virtuality."

Like we have this belief that if we read the right romance novels, if we consume the right object, [00:41:00] that that is going to liberate us.

Jodie Slaughter: Yes.

Andrea Martucci: free us it is going to make us better subjects.

Jodie Slaughter: So when I'm thinking about doing this, I'm not thinking it's going to liberate me in the political idea of liberation. I am thinking about like a liberation of just one's own, of myself, like of my own mind. There's no world in which liberation for us is going to be done in any way through anything that we consume.

Andrea Martucci: Right, like we were talking about at the beginning here, you're an author, you have an imagination.

Do you need to go read another book to help you imagine and like, look, I, we've had this conversation, right? Like, yes. Sometimes a book can help you imagine something where you're like, oh, wow. I've never thought about that before. But what if you also just imagined? What if you also just explored and not towards the end that you're gonna become the perfect subject. But just the process, right? Or what if you just enjoyed, I don't have the answers [00:42:00] here either, but like, what if you just enjoyed the shit you enjoyed then were critical about it, right? Hmm. Yeah. Oh, look at what it's doing. Interesting.

Jodie Slaughter: I feel pretty confident about that. I guess maybe in the end, I do ascribe some type of moral judgment, even if only on myself when it comes to the incongruous nature of having personal politics and not always fitting in line with them in my actions.

Andrea Martucci: that's just

Jodie Slaughter: that is just being a human person,

Andrea Martucci: right. We're incongruous, we are contradictions. We don't want to acknowledge that we're animals and we don't wanna acknowledge how much we are impacted by just the air that we are breathing every day in complete postmodernist, hyper reality.

I mean, I'm thinking about this idea, in the broader world, but also in romance that consuming people's work when they have different [00:43:00] experiences basically becomes a virtuous act.

This is, this is gonna sound so fucked up. Because it once again just becomes a narrative of being a conscious consumer. It's all about consumption. And it's like, I'm gonna eat the body and blood of Jodie Slaughter if I consume her book. And I get to consume a piece of her and therefore she becomes a part of me.

Jodie Slaughter: We just want to cannibalize each other in the end, right?

Andrea Martucci: Well consume and consume and consume. And when you consume something, it does become a part of you. Right. But I feel like we're consuming it like oxygen. We're not consuming it like nutrients and a meal. It's like we feel like we have to just consume to survive.

We breathe in, we breathe out. And

Jodie Slaughter: do you think that's because there's too much to consume? Do you think that's an issue of like, it's impossible to exist in the world today and not be consuming,

Andrea Martucci: Oh, right, right, right. This isn't like a go live in the woods, I mean, and [00:44:00] forage, so, right. Right. But even that, even the idea that if we consume the right things, we are moving towards a virtuous end. There's a goal there. It's going to change us. It's once again looking to an object to improve the subject. But who are we?

Jodie Slaughter: To what end? Yeah. It

Andrea Martucci: like, why?

Jodie Slaughter: It doesn't actually say anything about me if I read kinky les fic. Right.

Andrea Martucci: No,

Jodie Slaughter: not actually. It could convey a certain set of values to a certain type of person if I express it to them.

Andrea Martucci: When you conspicuously consume it.

Jodie Slaughter: Yes.

Andrea Martucci: Yes. Right.

Jodie Slaughter: But that also is nothing.

Andrea Martucci: Right.

Jodie Slaughter: Fuck.

Andrea Martucci: and, and I'm sorry that I sound like I'm just going into nihilism here, but it's, it's consumption. It's just all consumption. You're not gonna overthrow the master with the master's tools?

I feel like we're being [00:45:00] told continuously that if we just consume the right things and that if we corral our desires in the right way, that we're gonna fix everything. But what are we trying to fix? If part of the thing that we're trying to fix is that we're mindlessly consuming things all day to the point where we can't even like, sit in our own thoughts without feeling anxious.

Jodie Slaughter: Mm-hmm.

Andrea from the future: Just in case you're wondering, this is going to get increasingly meta. This is Future Andrea who's editing this for like the 12th hour. Uh, is it ironic that podcasts are one type of media that we use to not have to sit with our own thoughts? I mean, I won't even do dishes without listening to a podcast.

I refuse to sit in my own thoughts. I'm just saying as a podcaster.

Jodie Slaughter: Mm-hmm.

Andrea Martucci: Actually we have just been completely brainwashed into living in this hyper reality that feels more real than reality. You can live in the hyper reality [00:46:00] where your Goodreads "read" pile is you, the avatar on your social media profile is you, and actually that's more people's experience of you than you yourself. I've met you in real life, but I'm looking at you through a video thing right now and it's like, I feel like I'm with you, but this is also a hyper reality. And

Jodie Slaughter: We can't smell each other. We can't touch each other.

Andrea Martucci: Yeah. And you listening to this, whoever's listening to this right now, you're not in the room with us. This, you're consuming this, days, weeks, months, years after this conversation happened.

We could be dead by the time you're listening to this,

Jodie Slaughter: That's so real.

Andrea Martucci: But your experience of this conversation is as if we're alive and with you, in your ears.

Jodie Slaughter: Your experience of this conversation is largely even different than how the conversation actually went because

it's gonna be edited.

Andrea Martucci: And then I'm gonna like go re-listen to it when I edit it

Jodie Slaughter: Yes. Then our experience of a conversation is going to be the edited version and not necessarily what

Andrea Martucci: [00:47:00] Mm-hmm.

Jodie Slaughter: were actually saying here.

Andrea Martucci: Uhhuh. Yeah. Yeah. So I think we cracked that nut wide open

haha

Andrea from the future: I feel like you can hear me in my head being like, I should really wrap this up because we've been talking for like two hours now and this is gonna be really difficult to edit. And in fact, this episode was really difficult to edit because not only was it two and a half hours long. And then I cut a whole book conversation and I had untold audio issues and technology issues.

I've literally been editing this for like 14 hours, and I think I'm listening to this part of the episode for like the seventh time at this point, and I hear myself being like, Andrea, reel it in. That's why I say, I think I cracked this nut wide open. It's literally just a way for me to be like, okay, we gotta wrap this up because I guess I'm not gonna solve everything here today, so maybe I'll pretend I solved [00:48:00] everything here today.

Jodie Slaughter: So the Rapper Future once said, "ha ha ha it's a evil world we're living in."

Andrea Martucci: Well, but you know what, Jodie, is it an evil world or is it just the world?

Andrea from the future: Ah, fuck. Here I go again.

Andrea Martucci: Calling it an evil world is putting a narrative wrapper around it. It's putting intention and malice. It's trying to seek dominance over the randomness and lack of meaning.

Jodie Slaughter: Now. Okay. I don't think there's meaning, right.

Andrea Martucci: (whispering) Religion is also a way to create

Jodie Slaughter: Oh, well, yes Completely

Right. What I do believe, though, is that what I do believe though is that, uh,

Andrea Martucci: (whispering) Take comfort in whatever comforts you. It's okay.

Jodie Slaughter: (whispering) fuck, I'm, I'm running into the mic now.

Okay. So, random is also [00:49:00] true, but also I do think that it's undeniable that we are existing in a creation that is the amalgamation of a bunch of things, right? That's why deconstructing feels so impossible because it isn't like one through line to like, if we get rid of this, we're liberated. It's easy to believe that we are existing in a world that evil because it is like brick upon brick, upon brick, upon brick, laid down over countless years of bullshit and garbage and hurt and pain, but also I don't know. ' cause I don't wanna be black pilled either.

Right. I'm not a nihilist and I don't wanna be black pilled. 'Cause I do think it's all beautiful. Well, - the experience of being able to exist as a human being is beautiful.

But, I can see in your face that you don't agree.

Andrea Martucci: No, well, no, no, no. I think I'm thinking -this is my thinking face. I was introduced to a new word, which was alleatory, which is essentially the random nature of [00:50:00] something

Like "the world is alleatory." Is how you could use it in this context. I think it's more like, I can believe that everything is random and nothing matters, and that doesn't mean that I'm going to do violence unto others or to myself. Or like, to me, like Baudrillard, I feel that it grounds me in being like, okay, well if I just accept this instead of trying to seek dominance over it, I can actually make better choices or just exist in a way that is less fraught with the need to control something and meet expectations.

Jodie Slaughter: Sure.

Andrea Martucci: just spread my wings and fly.

Jodie Slaughter: I think, the issue with that for me is that that is deeply individual and I think that works for your own life. And I also think that if people are interested at all in the collective.

Andrea Martucci: Right, right, right, right, right.

Jodie Slaughter: That cannot be the the,

Andrea Martucci: but what if I make the choice to benefit the [00:51:00] collective or be part of the collective, purely because the world is random and I know that I have my experience of the world and actually, I understand that my experience of being part of community is actually really beneficial and positive for me.

But then also, I believe that being part of community also makes the experience of the world better for other people. You can still choose to do those things, but it's like, why are you doing it?

This is my issue with any sort of dogma, right? Is if the only reason you're doing something is because somebody told you to do it and not because you have the ability to choose for yourself that you're doing it, then A, your commitment to doing it is super shallow and B, that leads to situations where people on one side of their mouth say that they're doing something like honoring life while at the same time creating laws that kill women, kill people, right? That's the fucking [00:52:00] hypocrisy of it that is insane to me. And like not all religion, right?

Jodie Slaughter: caveat, caveat, caveat, like, fine,

Andrea Martucci: Yeah, exactly. Not all religion, but anytime that you seek to create rules around something that are like, this is the right way, this is the wrong way. And even if you have good reasons behind it, the reason we do this is because. Be kind to your neighbor because blah, blah, blah. Does telling somebody that without them ever actually experiencing it and feeling it and understanding it, is that valuable and helpful to the world?

I think history has shown that, no.

Jodie Slaughter: No.

Andrea Martucci: Sorry, I got like real heated there, but I think that that's where reading a book isn't gonna help you find that. Even reading about Baudrillard isn't gonna help me find that. That's where I feel like it's like our individual journey. That doesn't mean that we have to be isolated and alone and not go on that journey with other people. Or talk about it like, we're talking about this now. I don't think it's a reason to go [00:53:00] isolate. It's a reason to actually put down the objects and be a subject existing with other subjects.

Jodie Slaughter: Okay. I think that is better than your small little black pilled bit there.

Andrea Martucci: Which is what, that everything is random and nothing matters? And we're all gonna die?

Jodie Slaughter: Yeah. Well,

Andrea Martucci: this is a romance novel podcast

Jodie Slaughter: Sometimes. This is still romance novels. Like fuck, like in the end it's all romance novels.

Andrea Martucci: Romance novels are just another way for us to explore ourselves and think about ourselves. And obviously I find the praxis of exploring this through romance novels to be interesting and fascinating, but I too need to remind myself to touch grass and like, I mean, look guys, there were some dark years where the Twitter romance discourse was ruining my mental health,

Jodie Slaughter: The simulation was glitching [00:54:00] hard on Twitter, constantly.

Andrea Martucci: Particularly I think in the wake of the beginning of the pandemic, right? Where we're all just desperately trying

Jodie Slaughter: Yeah,

Andrea Martucci: I think also just like desperately trying to dominate the randomness

Jodie Slaughter: Sure. sure. The fear And the chaos. Yeah.

And then also like desperately attempting to connect, but unable to. As I've always said, a quick aside. I think a lot of that makes sense if you view romance as a fandom, which I have always said, and people don't wanna do that, but I'm like, it becomes so obvious that these are the issues that happen when you pretend that community is made by being interested in the same thing. And it is not.

Andrea Martucci: Mm,

Jodie Slaughter: it is not. It is not

Andrea Martucci: yep. Uhhuh.

Jodie Slaughter: us being interested in the same thing is not the make of this friendship, because we are very often not interested in the [00:55:00] same thing.

Andrea Martucci: Do you know what we are?

Jodie Slaughter: What?

Andrea Martucci: we're just an audience that can be marketed too.

Jodie Slaughter: Correct and that's not a community. They'll tell you that's a community, but it isn't.

Andrea Martucci: That is exactly how the quote unquote community is leveraged by lots of people is as a way to commodify an audience and, okay. Oh, they're all in one place. They're all talking to each other about this. I mean, just to put it bluntly, now I can advertise my book. Now I can, advertise my point of view that ultimately benefits some commercial endeavor or whatever. And yeah, there's people who are there just to talk about books and have fun, but then it's like you get caught up in the zeitgeist of believing it's going to solve every

Jodie Slaughter: in this together and we can solve issues with the power of collectivity in our community. And

Andrea Martucci: and the power of a retweet.

Jodie Slaughter: yes and the power of a retweet. And I have seen the romance Twitter community come together to make sure that people who [00:56:00] are a part of that keep their housing do you know what I mean?

Are able to get money for cancer treatments. That is net fucking positive. I would say that all of that was worth it, even for those small moments of very genuinely helping somebody just live.

And I also think it, it's proven by the fact that that fucking doesn't exist anymore. if you go on Twitter right now, that does not exist anymore. Because we're all existing in the same space. We don't have shared values.

And I'm a fucking author, right? Having to find a way to exist in that space as somebody who did need to fucking sell books to half of you was difficult, but like, do you know what I mean? You exactly right.

Andrea Martucci: By the way, guys, buy Jodie's books

Jodie Slaughter: Straight up. I do you wanna have a conversation with me on Twitter? But like also Yeah, fucking buy my books. Like, but like I'm here have an interesting conversation with my friend and I'm here because I support her work. And I think it's really interesting and really incredible. But, at the end [00:57:00] of the day, like I'm not, here to sell my books to you. I'm not here for you at all. I love you and I hope you listen to

Andrea Martucci: Yeah.

Jodie Slaughter: Andrea's podcast, 'cause Shelf Love is fantastic

Andrea Martucci: also, I don't even know if we're changing anybody's minds. And I don't think it matters

Jodie Slaughter: yeah, I don't think that matters either. Yeah. Yeah. We got really far away from

Michael: Redacted!

Jodie Slaughter: But in many ways, did we,

Andrea Martucci: What

so I was thinking about this with the Romancelandia Holiday Fairies,

which is like a mutual aid effort that I've been doing for five years now or whatever, a while. And what's interesting is that over time, I'm not gonna stop doing it or anything, but I am kind of like, you know, when you don't have the quote unquote strong romance community, it is very hard to spread the word about this.

It's hard to get it to expand outside of people I already have access to, speaking to and I'm not saying, oh, we need to bring back romance Twitter. My point is, is I think that exposes the shallowness of the [00:58:00] community. We're not actually in community with each other. We're not actually seeing when fellow romance readers and lovers are struggling in their lives.

Jodie Slaughter: Yes.

Andrea Martucci: As soon as the tech platform on which we are doing these things changes the game, it's gone. It's gone. You cannot build a community upon sand.

-

Jodie Slaughter: There's conversation among the fashion community about style right now and how fashion exists as a way to extol your values and exist within a part of a community.

Right. And so I was at Ikea last week, and I saw a woman basically dressed like goth kind of-ish, right? And she had a skull and crossbones cross body, and she had on a pair of checkered Vans and she had like long purple hair and she had on a Don't tread on me hoodie.

And I was like, no. Do you know what I mean? You're taking the, if I can use the more [00:59:00] colloquial use of this term and not necessarily the real one, the aesthetics of a community and then like none of the values. And you're a,

Andrea Martucci: (whispering) It's called appropriation.

Jodie Slaughter: You're a fucking faker. You're a faker, right.

Andrea Martucci: yeah.

Jodie Slaughter: What she was giving with her style until she turned around gave a very particular set of values and identity and community and a culture.

And then I saw don't tread on me hoodie. And also like, Republican boyfriend clearly. And I was like, interesting. Things used to mean stuff.

Andrea Martucci: But that's called third order simulacrum or whatever. It's a copy of a copy of a copy with no original.

it doesn't mean anything anymore. It's just fashion. It just doesn't mean anything. Like for example you get a band t-shirt, right? And

Jodie Slaughter: Yeah.

Andrea Martucci: the band t-shirt used to mean you went to go see the band,

Jodie Slaughter: A fan of the band. Yeah. People would quiz you on it. Like if I wore a fucking ACDC, it would be like, oh, you didn't buy that at the [01:00:00] show. And even when I was a little older, you could buy it at Hot Topic.

Andrea Martucci: Mm-hmm.

Jodie Slaughter: first step in the separation is that you didn't have to go to the gig to get the shirt.

Andrea Martucci: Hot Topic was the first step towards pure simulacrum that we find ourselves. Right?

Right. It's the commodification and repackaging of something until it no longer

Jodie Slaughter: Means anything.

Andrea Martucci: Right. I mean, now I can go to Target and I can get a Rolling Stones t-shirt that looks vintage and worn and with Patina.

Jodie Slaughter: And you don't even know who the Rolling Stones are at all. You're oh, I just like how this looks.

Andrea Martucci: I just like how it looks. I didn't even wear this t-shirt to make it worn. It came pre

Jodie Slaughter: It came pre-worn

Andrea Martucci: There's no meaning, there's no sign, there's no signal. And that's, that's how I feel about romance is like, is it's the, it's the empty, I'm just gonna say something and if I say it enough.

You know what, I heard somebody say something the other day on a podcast, and this is a famous, uh, [01:01:00] romance podcaster who has said something so much that then I see other people repeat same thing.

And every single time I hear it, I roll my eyes because I'm like, that is literal bullshit. And if anybody thought about that statement for more than three fucking seconds, it's factually untrue. It doesn't mean anything. Why are we saying and repeating this? I don't wanna have a conversation about romance that is just repeating catchphrases to each other and pretending like we're having a conversation.

Jodie Slaughter: Yeah.

Andrea Martucci: or recommending the same books and pretending like we're influencers

Jodie Slaughter: You want to be talking about the world that romance exists in. The world that romance thinks it exists in and the world it actually

Andrea Martucci: mm-hmm.

Jodie Slaughter: exists in.

Andrea Martucci: Yeah. And also that romance novels are meaningless and they should not be the only thing in your life that creates meaning. They're not revolutionary. They're not in isolation.

Jodie Slaughter: Reading them is not doing feminist [01:02:00] praxis

Andrea Martucci: And like, I'm not going to stop romance novels

Jodie Slaughter: romance not revolutionary all.

No, never. I'm not gonna stop writing them

Andrea Martucci: Yeah.

And I'm not telling anybody to do that either. But I'm just saying like, just maybe let's stop trying to make them exist instead of ourselves.

Jodie Slaughter: yeah,

Andrea Martucci: What if I'm not a romance reader? What if I'm just whoever I am and I'm not even gonna say Andrea Martucci, right? Because I'm Andrea Martucci is my married name. It's the name my parents gave me. Like, I'm just me. I just exist. Okay.

Jodie Slaughter: the subject.

Andrea Martucci: I just exist. I am. My life has no meaning.

Jodie Slaughter: See, here she goes again

Andrea Martucci: And therefore I have complete freedom to do whatever the fuck I want.

Jodie Slaughter: Yeah.

Andrea Martucci: And that doesn't mean I don't think things have consequences. I guess when I say things have no meaning, I'll be real. It doesn't mean I'm gonna stop searching.

Jodie Slaughter: Yes.

Andrea Martucci: for meaning in things or stop trying to understand [01:03:00] things.

Jodie Slaughter: Maybe you aren't going to be shaken and like you aren't gonna have your entire worldview completely upended when you don't find meaning in something, or when you can't figure it out. When you can't control it.

Andrea Martucci: Let go of the anxiety, let go of the expectation that I can control it, that I'll find the answer. And also that I have to come to a particular conclusion otherwise I'm a bad person

Jodie Slaughter: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Andrea Martucci: that I have to accept anyone else's morality or stance other than the one that feels right to me. And maybe feels right is even loaded. Just like,

Jodie Slaughter: Is

Andrea Martucci: just is,

Jodie Slaughter: Just is. There is only is. And the id,

Andrea Martucci: Yeah. And there is only this moment,

Jodie Slaughter: there's only today.

Andrea Martucci: only today. Man. Yeah. Um, okay, So, anyways, Jodie, you're a romance author. Um, what book should people buy,

Jodie Slaughter: So,

Andrea Martucci: if you guys wanna be a good person today, what you should do,

Jodie Slaughter: that's so real. If you [01:04:00] wanna support a queer Black woman author, no. I have books

Andrea Martucci: and if (whispering) you wanna consume a little bit of Jodie, if you just put her inside of you and you just wanna eat her up

Jodie Slaughter: eat me up.

Andrea Martucci: and you just want her to become a little bit a part of your DNA

Jodie Slaughter: mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

Andrea Martucci: like CRISPR

Jodie Slaughter: If you just wanna chew and chew and then, you know, if you just wanna masticate and swallow me down and then I exist somewhere, not quite in your esophagus or your belly, but like, maybe even your heart, maybe that's where I live

I live in your brain,

Andrea Martucci: she's gonna change how you think

Jodie Slaughter: brainstem. I become like, sort of meningitis,

Andrea Martucci: like a parasite.

Jodie Slaughter: like a parasite, I think that's more accurate. Um, but yeah, I have books and I do feel like they're very good. You can find me on Instagram at Jodie_Slaughter, like house, Jodie Slaughter dot com.

You can find my books there and you can you know, find a bevy of ways to buy them. I always tell people to support their local indie [01:05:00] bookstores if you've got one.

Andrea Martucci: (whispering) you can consume your way out of oppression

Jodie Slaughter: If you, if you've got one. That's so true. It will. If you spend your money at a small bookstore, that's liberation.

Andrea Martucci: you'll feel a little bit better about yourself

Jodie Slaughter: Exactly. That's liberation.

I have a book coming out this year on June 3rd. It is called Ready to Score. It is my first ff romance. I'm proud of it. I'm happy about it. Go into it expecting, you know, thoughtfulness and an attempt at exploring a particular human experience.

I have never, and will never call my books liberatory or feminist or anything of the sort. Not because I don't believe in those things, but because I don't believe that you can achieve those things by anything that you buy from me that, you know, like that doesn't exist. Andrea's like laughing at me but anyway, buy the book like, or don't like, don't know,

Andrea Martucci: Buy the book or don't

Jodie Slaughter: buy the book or don't babe,

Andrea Martucci: It doesn't mean anything, [01:06:00]

Jodie Slaughter: my publisher would like me to say that.

Andrea Martucci: well, it doesn't mean anything for you, but if you buy it, it does actually mean a lot for Jodie because it allows her to survive.

Jodie Slaughter: It means a lot for me 'cause it does allow me to survive. And also it could mean something to you like on, you know just like an emotional level. It's not gonna mean anything for you, like it's not gonna change your life. That would be nuts, right?

Andrea Martucci: Yeah. And also you have all of your books, all of your backlist eBooks. We're going on like hour seven here.

Jodie Slaughter: Yes. I have all of my, my backlist eBooks. I have White Whiskey Bargain, um, To Be Alone With You, Just One More and All Things Burn. You can find those through my website via amazon.com. That's where they're available currently.

Andrea Martucci: Capitalist over Lord.

Jodie Slaughter: My capitalist overlord, Jeff Bezos, I rub his bald head for luck every day.

Andrea Martucci: But as they say, there's no ethical consumption under capitalism. [01:07:00]

Jodie Slaughter: No,

Andrea Martucci: but if you haven't checked out Jodie's backlist, you should a hundred percent go read all of those books today, if not also tomorrow. Read them, return them to Kindle Unlimited. Download them again, read them again. Return them to Kindle Unlimited again. Uh, you know, uh, it makes a difference.

Andrea from the future: Subsequently, I have discovered this isn't actually true.

Andrea Martucci: It does make a difference. I mean, um, even in this meaningless world that we live in. So Jodie, thanks once again for coming onto Shelf Love as today, our domestic kink correspondent, and in the past as our feather fetish under stander, our international kink correspondent, our sad media correspondent, our youth culture correspondent.

You've been so many things.

Jodie Slaughter: so many lives I've lived via Shelf Love.

Andrea Martucci: Indeed. I remember I made a social media graphic, it was like so sarcastic. It was like, Jodie Slaughter is joining Shelf Love as the like, blah [01:08:00] blah, blah media correspondent media correspondent,

And people were like

Jodie Slaughter: Yeah.

Andrea Martucci: congratulations. And I was like, I was like, oh my God, I'm a bad.

Jodie Slaughter: And then she fired me from the job immediately.

Andrea Martucci: And then I was like, I must regret to inform you that Jodie Slaughter will not be returning as our feather fetish understander, but she'll be back as something else. And you know what? That's really the nature of life, right?

Jodie Slaughter: It is, yeah.

Andrea Martucci: Just you is who you is, So,

Jodie Slaughter: As Kesha said, "we are who we are."

Andrea Martucci: Yep.

Jodie Slaughter: Yeah, she did say that.

Andrea Martucci: Yep. She sure did. Thanks for being here today. Go buy Jodie's books and go touch grass.

Jodie Slaughter: Put your bare feet in some grass.

Andrea Martucci: Go touch somebody consentingly in your community today.

Jodie Slaughter: Yeah. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Andrea Martucci: I feel like getting to the end of a podcast where we talked about what we talked about and then being like, all right, now go to Amazon and

Jodie Slaughter: Yeah. Fuck.

Andrea Martucci: da, and like, pay me for this [01:09:00] and da da. It's like, I mean, look, look, but that's the thing.

That's the thing. This is the this is the inherent contradiction where life is meaningless and yet we have to keep on living and, you know, capitalism, commodification, blah, blah, blah.

And yet, that is the system we live in and I'm sorry. Like we, we can't actually escape the tech platforms. I'm not gonna set up my own email server on what infrastructure.

I mean, look, that's the thing guys. This is the trap is we can't actually escape it. So anyways, before you come at anybody being like, oh, and yet I see that you have continued to have a day job, like guys.

Jodie Slaughter: There's no valor in toiling. I'm gonna fight for you know, universal housing and universal basic income and free education and healthcare.

We're gonna hold out hope that we will be liberated from the scourge of capitalism. But, until we aren't, we would like to eat. Andrea has a child that would like to [01:10:00] eat, I imagine, you know?

Andrea Martucci: I imagine. She knows no other life.

There's this cartoon that's about the Mr. Gotcha. And it's like a serf holding, a bundle sticks saying we should improve society somewhat. And then there's somebody jumping out saying, yet you participate in society. Curious. I am very intelligent.

Jodie Slaughter: I know exactly the one you're talking about.

Andrea Martucci: Yeah. And, okay. And y'all friends, countrymen

Jodie Slaughter: Hearing you say y'all is very funny. Hearing you say, y'all is always so cute.

Andrea Martucci: Y'all,

Jodie Slaughter: New Englanders are so funny. guys.

Andrea Martucci: so funny. Yeah. My point here is, is we're just in a, like, we should improve our lives somewhat. We live in a postmodern hellscape, so

Jodie Slaughter: We do

Andrea Martucci: let's just make each day better than last, um, until we die.

Jodie Slaughter: preach preacher.

Andrea Martucci: A bye.

Jodie Slaughter: Bye.

Love you.

Andrea Martucci: Love you.

Bye.

Hey, thanks for spending time with me today. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, rate [01:11:00] or review on your favorite podcast app or tell a friend. Check out Shelflovepodcast.com for transcripts and other resources. If you want regular written updates from Shelf Love, you can increasingly find me over at Substack.

Read occasional updates and short essays about romance at shelflovepodcast.Substack.com. Thank you to Shelf Love's $20 a month Patreon supporters: Gail, Copper Dog Books, and Frederick Smith. Have a great day.