On June 30, the Cut joined forces with Brooklyn’s premier bookstore dedicated to the romance genre, the Ripped Bodice, to celebrate our “Summer of Smut” theme week and end Pride Month with a bang. When I arrived in Park Slope just after the event’s 5 p.m. start time, the space was already buzzing and bustling, full of romance fans browsing the books and lining up for a special meet and greet with author Tessa Bailey. I was handed several gifts: a Cut tote (horizontal, the superior tote-bag shape) containing a pink Cut baseball cap and a few fun temporary tattoos along with the latest print issue of New York Magazine.
Weaving through the crowd, ice-cold grape-flavored Olipop in hand, I made my way around a bookshelf packed with titles like Bolu Babalola’s Honey & Spice and Jasmine Guillory’s The Proposal before landing on a display of Sarah J. Maas novels. Next to me, a woman with colorful braids was evangelizing to a group of five or six about why they should be reading Maas. Clerbie, 38, is a reporter and retail worker who came with her book-club friend Rebecca. She asked me if I’ve read ACOTAR. It took me a second to realize that this is an acronym for A Court of Thorns and Roses, Maas’s most popular series. “I pushed ACOTAR on Rebecca and then she became obsessed,” she said. “We send each other podcast-level voice notes about the books and our lives and everything. We decided to hang out today and then she told me about this event, and here we are. Everybody jokes that SJM needs to give me a cut.”
Sufficiently convinced, I made my way back around the bookshelves to the collage station, where partygoers were making bookmarks with materials supplied by Happy Medium. There was a feeling of ease there, an oasis of quiet focus in the cotton-candy-fueled hubbub (cotton candy with the word SMUT spray-painted into it, to be exact) of about 150 attendees. As Sabrina Carpenter’s “Espresso” played over the speakers, I chatted with Jasmine, 29, a private-equity seller who had just officially subscribed to the Cut. “I’m an adult; I should pay for the stuff I like,” she told me. She has been reading romance novels since she graduated from college and could finally read things that weren’t assigned to her, and she loves authors like Guillory and Kennedy Ryan. “There are not a ton of Black women published in literary fiction, but there are a lot of Black women published in romantic fiction, so it’s also a way to support Black women who write books,” she said. “I always read smut every summer, so I figured I would come. And I love the Ripped Bodice.”
I walked back toward the front of the bookstore, where a Glace stand offered frozen hot chocolate topped with torched marshmallow fluff. I downed several dairy-digestion pills before joyfully slurping one up, then turned back to the books, where Mariah, 30, enthusiastically pulled out books to show her friend Hannah, 34. They work together at Hinge and decided to come to the Ripped Bodice together after Mariah found the event. “It feels like such a thoughtful way to converge the Cut and the editorial side of things with a space and an experience,” said Hannah. “It’s been lovely. We’ve had a wonderful conversation, meandering through and experiencing all the sections.” Mariah, who first got into romance a few years ago and is another Guillory devotee, agreed. “I feel like the Cut has such a strong digital community,” she said. “It just makes sense that you are bringing that community to life in this IRL way, specifically in a way that really clearly resonates with your readers.”
When a horny publication and a horny bookstore unite, it’s incredible what we can achieve together. But we all know that romance novels are about much more than being horny (as is the Cut). As the night wrapped up, I chatted with sisters Sruthi, 33, a psychology professor visiting from California, and Ramya, 28, an attorney and state policy worker based in the city. “Writing about romance, and reading romance, and being able to talk about it, and having bookstores around it is a really useful tool,” said Ramya, explaining that for her and her sister, the genre served as a way to prepare themselves for the dilemmas and tensions of romance and adulthood. “So many of these books are much more than just intense smut,” added Sruthi. “There are some really, really good authors out there. Romance gets a bad rap, but what really differentiates literary fiction from a lot of these authors out here?”
All evening, I watched women — whether co-workers, sisters, or new friends who met tonight — gush together over their favorite authors, getting and giving recommendations. These books have paved a way for them to connect. One woman, who commuted in from New Jersey to attend the event, was helping her co-worker make selections out of a ten-book-high stack. A pair of students, both interning in the city for the summer, told me their friendship blossomed over their shared love of romance novels during their first summer as interns last year. Another attendee mentioned that her boyfriend suggested the event because he knew she’d love it. As I biked home later that night, I found myself reminiscing dreamily about the evening, the way I might look back on a great first date. I was reminded of what Bailey had said to me back inside at the event: “To be somebody’s entry point into something can be intimidating, but I let them know it’s going to be a soft landing. Romance is fun and hopeful and empathetic. They can only expect the best from it.”
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Photography by
The Cut, Editor-in-Chief
The Cut, Photo Director
The Cut, Photo Editor
The Cut, Deputy Culture Editor
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