Central Authority for Romance Compliance

what genre discourse really needs is more dicks

I've written about trigger warnings as thought control, genre gatekeeping, and the morality police in romance discourse. This piece imagines that authoritarian impulse taken to its literal extreme: a Central Authority for Romance Compliance that 'rehabilitates' readers with unapproved tastes. It's satire, allegory, and also a disciplinary kink scene, because resistance to control is both political and erotic. It came out of a stream-of-consciousness thought experiment; I started writing to see where the argument would take me, and so far it's over the desk of any corporate office in Romancelandia.

            I’ve been watching the criticism dujour about popular romance over the decades, and while the standard menu of complaints fluctuates in prominence with the political moment, the through line is eternal: someone always wants to tell Romancelandia what to do, and it’s never in the fun way. These days, town and gown and ghetto sit in unprecedented proximity on the bullet train of social media, rubbing shoulders with interlopers from Capitalist Greedshire, Virtue Signal Burgh, and Political Agenda Heights. The crusades have been going on since Alexander Pope figuratively pissed on Eliza Haywood while appropriating her successful methods. We had a brief reprieve in the 70s and 80s when journalists were too busy mocking romance to look under the glorious clinch covers, but our happy solitude was shattered once word got out there was gold in them there hills. It’s cool to read romance now! (Try explaining that to the poor journalists who are still shell-shocked from discovering that hordes of horny young mothers and hornier middle-aged women read Fifty Shades of Gray.)

It wasn’t until the explosion of creative and inclusive sub-genres (plastic surgeons take note: there’s some promising ideas here if you want to pioneer a niche in phallic enhancements) that Romancelandia branched out from being mere anthropological curiosities to stormtroopers of morality; mobilized and deputized to patrol the cultural zeitgeist for dissenters. That was how I got flagged for enjoying unapproved romance novels from the Index Librorum Romantica and sentenced to a training course before I could reapply for my license to fantasize. (Oh, the anthem the Beastie Boys could have written for us.) But in my defense, who can keep up with that thing? It seems like every time a woman has an unsafe thought, it gets added to the Index, it would be a full-time job to stay compliant. And it’s confusing; I feel like a good person, but all my favorite tropes have been prohibited. I hope the council will believe me when I say that I don’t want to be on the wrong side of regressive history. I keep trying to be a good girl, but it’s just so very hard.

As it happened, the stormtroopers proved not to be bellwethers of ethical leadership, and infighting got so bad that people were casting vicious accusations against their enemies just to get a leg up on promotion to the head office for The Central Authority for Romance Compliance. (CARC) Chaos reigned, and no one could tell who was thinking correctly anymore. So CARC took over governorship of Romancelandia out of concern for women and girls, and to prevent societal collapse. The one bright spot was getting assigned to Nathaniel Thorn’s office. (I’m sure he regrets doing this favor for his cousin now.) He had agreed to take over the interim job of chief officer of literary and grammatical rehabilitation now that the council has film criticism pretty well locked down. It’s all proscribed, character-building violence over there and they’ve snuffed out any hint of eroticism or humor. I had hoped it was a good sign—he didn’t seem like a CARC man, more like a sexy disciplinarian. He’s such an icon, they gave him his own tag line: Nathaniel Thorne: all your clauses are his now.

It was a Friday in December and this year’s all-male decorating committee had lined the ceiling molding of the lobby with garlands of modern-art Christmas trees: each one shaped in a single, rounded abstract curve. One of the trees that molded around the door frame had come loose and swung flaccidly in the face of people passing through. Ever the contrarian, I was oddly thrilled for today’s appointment—it was the end of the second week, and he had promised to have me reeducated by now. But I hadn’t broken.

He appeared in the doorway, looking irritable and rigid with tension—but not the kind I wanted to provoke. Well, who was I kidding? Still, the rhythm was off, not a good sign.

“Come in and close the door.” he said that just to annoy me.

“But now you can’t see the Christmas butt plugs.”

He directed a sharp glare my way in response. I had time to get comfortable while he took his seat behind the desk. He liked to let the silence do the heavy lifting in those first few minutes, as if he thought he could wear me down without saying a word. But he should know by now: if anything was going to break me, it wouldn’t be his eyes. I was staging a one-woman insurrection against the thought police.

“I’m afraid I must escalate your case,” he said, finally. “My current strategy clearly isn’t working, and I don’t want to waste your time or mine.” The ensuing silence swelled and stretched with British expectation. He tapped his fingers on my folder, a metronome of disapproval. You’d think they’d figure out that didn’t work as an intimidation tactic without the dommy subtext.

It was impossible to imagine him in anything but that habitual suit. At least once before this ended, I needed to provoke a bonafide facial expression because for all I knew, I might not get out alive. I was a poor candidate for rehabilitation—constitutionally incapable of cooking and cleaning, chemically dependent on pleasure, pathologically prone to rebellion. He said in the beginning they wouldn’t tolerate rule-breakers forever and the rehab program was more of a courtesy. While I didn’t think Thorn wanted me in his office until the end of time, I wasn’t convinced he wouldn’t pull the trigger. The silence was starting to crawl up my spine, random thoughts started tumbling out:

“Do you roll out of bed already in your suit? Is that why you’re always so…starched? I didn’t expect an answer, so I wasn’t disappointed when he simply opened my case file and started thumbing through it, as if it wasn’t already burned onto his brain.

Without looking up, he murmured, “I’m not going to be here forever, and it’s evident in your case this will take at least that long, so I’ll offer you a concession. Admit you were wrong about the English Patient, watch it again, and turn in a grammatically pristine report. Then I’ll sign off on your file.”

I gasped. He must really be at the end of his rope to bring up that unfortunate lapse in his taste. But wait a minute…

“What? You mean this was an option all along? I didn’t know you had that kind of authority around here. We’ll get back to that in a minute – but unfortunately, I’m going to have to decline because The English Patient is a shitty movie. He’s a traitor!” The film is so insufferable, there was still an open Reddit grievance thread about it. “Also, stupid – any cartographer worth his salt should know leaving her in a cave wouldn’t end well. Everyone in that movie is an asshole, except the poor bomb diffuser guy. I’m with Elaine on this. Maybe if he had stayed to die with her, I’d reconsider, but he didn’t. Pick something else – that’s a deal breaker.” 

 “I’m sure it’s a hard film to appreciate when your literacy level is polyamorous dragon men and bodice ripping buccaneers, but the effort will be good for you.”

“Watching paint dry is hard to appreciate. That movie is actual torture.” I leaned forward to gaze up at him, my mouth twisted into a pouty moue and voice dripping with sugar. “Pretty please, offer something else?”

            He sobered, his eyes flicking over me for a brief second before returning to my face. “This isn’t really a laughing matter, you know, there’s only so much I can do. The council –”

“Did I ever tell you about how psycho my father was about his car? He was such a pacifist, except if he got in his car and the seat wasn’t in the right place. Then he turned into, like, Raging Bull. I had to sit through a whole ceremony about the proper procedure for returning it before he gave me the keys the first time. Once, I didn’t do it. He didn’t realize it until he sat down and put the key in the ignition. Then he froze and snapped, “Jesus Christ, Pammy, you drive with your snatch.”

Thorn’s lips twitched, resisting a full-blown smile before settling into a hard line. “That explains a lot. Then it looks like you’re in a pickle, Pammy. That’s the offer.” He shoved his hands into his pockets, looking down at the floor. “You’ll take it,” he said, finally meeting my eyes. “Or I can’t help you.”

The smugness. It sent shivers of contradiction down my spine: anticipation, excitement, resentment. It was the latter that gave me the courage. He thinks he’s in charge. CARC thinks they’re in charge. We’ll see about that.

“Can’t? Or won’t?” I pushed up from the chair, sidling closer. “Counteroffer,” I purred, trailing a finger down his lapel. “You could bend me over your desk and ‘escalate’ the old-fashioned way.”

He stared over my shoulder, deceptively calm as he ignored my body draped around his like a persistent toddler. On the other side of the thin drywall, there were unknown potential witnesses: administrative minions, managerial enforcers. If he did this he couldn’t let it look like my victory. He could very well make me walk out of here sobbing like a new girl. After a few more beats with his hands still in his pockets, I started to doubt myself. It was the middle of the afternoon, sunlight poured through the windows. I could smell body wash on his skin. Apparently, he did take the suit off to shower. “Afraid to be dragged to Krantzland, Thorn?” I sneered, peeling myself off him. If my case was getting escalated regardless, then I was leaving to nurse my humiliation in private. He could fuck off. At least he had the kind of door that would slam properly, there was no point clinging to dignity now.

Before I could take 2 steps, is arms shot out to catch me by the shoulders, spinning me around and bending me over the desk. I hear a deep sigh as he turns my head to face the wall.

 “Have it your way, Pammy.” He growled.

“Stop calling me that.”

“Pick a safeword.”

 “Moist.”

            He tisked as his hands left my hips where they had been holding me down. “Now we have to start over.”

When he took off his suit jacket, I knew I was in trouble. Finally.

“Oh. You’re serious.” I said, feigning breezy indifference. “Then I don’t need a safe word, I trust you.”

“Well, nobody’s perfect.”  

His hands worked efficiently to push my skirt up out of the way and yank my underwear down. Impossible as it may seem, given the reason why we were here, I completely forgot about the bare bottom part of this scenario. In a moment of cowardice, I tried to get up but Nathaniel’s hand on the back of my neck quickly pushed me back down.

“Oh, no you don’t, little instigator. You were so brave to suggest this, let us see it through.”

This was not fair. He had to be making a facial expression now, and I couldn’t even see it while bent over his desk. Meanwhile, my voice was getting breathy, and I couldn’t make my legs stop shaking. He was right, I am not a coward.

“Anyhow, you must know that ‘romance rehab’ means something different outside of the panopticon…Don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone you’re giving me the unauthorized version.”

“You have a perverse idea of self-preservation,” he hissed. “And you shouldn’t trust me.”

We really weren’t that well acquainted, but what I could trust was my erratic heartbeat from the unmistakable sound of his belt sliding out of the loops and a loud snap shocking the air. And the fact that if I got up now, someone would win but it wouldn’t be me.

His first strike was more of a surprise than it should have been, given that. My body rocked forward involuntarily but I kept silent. Nathaniel, meanwhile, seemed to be emboldened by having done it once. He delivered three more in quick succession. By the third, I was biting my lip hard, damp palms pressing into the desk.

“I’ve been waiting for this since the first day you walked into my office,” he said, his voice steady but with the slightest edge of breathlessness.

“Just like a man –  to —-rip off—-my idea.”  

He tisked and continued with two more strokes of the belt. Swift ones, the hardest ones yet. It really hurt. I was beginning to doubt if I could see this through without begging him to stop but I stubbornly couldn’t let go of the small but slowly blooming need that had started at the end of each strike. Like a perverse tease.

“You’re so fucking irrational,” he reprimanded. “Stop talking.”

“That was me trying to stay awake, Thorne. Maybe you’re the one who needs a manual? Try harder.”

But of course, Nathaniel was getting his way again. My body was not my own anymore. He didn’t say anything else, like he would have if he were holding court behind the desk. He simply answered with more lashes of the belt. He didn’t tell me to count or reprimand me in snobby British, he just continued raising his arm and spanking me with that strip of leather for I didn’t know how long. A hazy, languid, pain – punctuated loop played in my head: Nathaniel said a bad word…need to come. I had never been punished before but now I knew that if  the pain came with this maddening teasing of pleasure behind it, then I would take whatever he dished out.

CARC could dissemble that this was discipline, some kind of correction for my problematic tastes and perverse deviations, but the hypocrisy was undeniable. Therefore, the scene fades to black, so the opponents can pull back and revise strategy. Too soon. Thorn paused, his breath ragged, the belt now resting slack in his hand with a swoosh of air over my skin. I felt the weight of his gaze like a hand on the back of my neck.

“Return next week, same time. It seems I can help you after all.”

Par for the course for this place. The slight tremble detected under his commanding tone was at least moderate compensation for having to straighten up and coolly walk out as if my nerves weren’t vibrating like live wire and I wasn’t very disappointed. It seemed like the only dignified thing in that case was a silent nod and quick exit. He thought he was going to mold me into something unnatural, like CARC was doing to the whole genre. My eyes glanced on the hanging but plugs on the way out.

We’ll see about that.