To Spice or Not to Spice?

There’s been a lot of discussion lately about authors deciding to remove the spice from their already published books.

Now just to be clear, I don’t have a problem with authors deciding that writing spice is not for them. Whilst I do unashamedly enjoy books that are bordering on filth, I‘ll also happily read books without so much as a suggestion of a tingle in the lady parts. And although my current series is on the steamy side (you can blame my characters for that, it wasn’t a conscious choice), my next story might not be – mainly because I’d love to have at least one book I can give to younger family members and say, “Hey, look, I wrote this”. So I totally get an author previously known for writing spicy books deciding to write non-spicy ones as well going forward. It’s the going back part that confuses the hell out of me.

Why are authors suddenly deciding to do this? What would make them decide to go back and rewrite books they already published in order to remove the spice? Because those books are already out there, we’ve seen them, we know they wrote them. And I’ve got to be honest here, if I was midway through collecting a series and they suddenly got pulled and re-written without the steamy bits, I would not be a happy camper. Write an alternative ‘clean’ version if you want to, sure, but for the love of cheese toasties, please leave the original up for those of us who want it.

The way I see it, there are a few possible reasons why this is happening:

1. The author was never really comfortable with writing spicy scenes in the first place, but they felt they had to do it to meet reader expectations. And now they have enough confidence in their writing to make that change. That one doesn’t feel all that likely to me, because there’s definitely always been a sizeable market for no-to-low spice books too. And if that is the case, then it makes me sad for them, because feeling that you have to write in a way that goes against the grain for you must be awful.

2. Something major in their life has changed. A new belief system, a growing family, I guess there are a few things that could initiate a change of direction going forward. And that’s fair. But going back and changing what they’ve already created? That kind of feels like they’re suddenly ashamed of what they’ve previously written. Maybe they are, I’m not in their heads to know, but it also feels, to me anyway, like a judgement cast upon the readers who have previously enjoyed those books.

3. They’ve bowed to pressure from the growing ‘purity culture’ and are worried about being ‘cancelled’ if they don’t ditch the spice.

That third possibility is where it starts to get really quite scary, because it begs the question, "where is this going to end?" How long will it be before book selling platforms bow to the same pressure and start refusing to accept books that contain even a hint of spice? How long will it be before authors are not just ‘cancelled’ but possibly even criminalised for including spice in their books if they try and sell them from their own websites? Yes, I know that sounds extreme, but so are a lot of the things happening in the world right now.

We live in a society where women’s rights, along with the rights of many others, are being increasingly eroded. And now they’re coming for our escape from (an often shitty) reality in the form of a little romance. So I think the deeper question we should all be asking ourselves here is, “Is this really just about spice in books, or is it about control? Are we are heading towards a time when any book that has the power to promote free thinking about anything, not just sex, will be banned?" Because there is already an established history of attempts to stop us from reading certain books.

So, is the whole re-writing without spice thing a legitimate choice by some authors who genuinely no longer feel comfortable having their name associated with spicy books, rather than because of a fear of being demonized? Or are we all being herded towards the edge of a very, very slippery slope?

I’d love to hear your thoughts on this.