Between the Madonna and the Whore Lives the Ordinary Woman: The woman missing from the bookshelf.

“I like your writing and your message. I think it’s very ‘pull-up-a-chair’ accessible, but what sells are the extremes. Think Mormon housewife turned sex worker. That’s what the market will publish.”

I received this rejection from a literary agent earlier this year. The email went on to compliment my writing and perspective on sex and desire in long-term love, but like many agents before her, she said she just couldn’t place it in the market. She couldn’t sell it.

I don’t disagree; extremes do sell. They’re salacious and titillating. An evangelical turned tantric sex coach; I’d read that hero’s journey. I have zero ill will towards this agent. She was lovely, and deep down, I fear she will be proven correct as my book sits in what feels like the interminable abyss of “being on submission.”

But I can’t stop thinking about what this rejection reveals, not about publishing, but about systems that shape what we read, believe, and value.

I was educated in the tenets of social work and it taught me to think in systems. The concept of person-in-environment reminds us that we don’t exist in isolation. We shape our culture, and our culture shapes us. Families influence individuals, and individuals influence institutions. Markets influence readers, and readers influence markets.

Which meant I couldn’t read this rejection as only about me.

Two Alternative Possibilities

Is it possible that a book centred on the desire and sexual agency of the "ordinary" woman isn't considered sellable not because society wants the extremes, but because of two alternative explanations? One economic. The other cultural.

First, the extremes are what’s available.

If the shelves are filled with nonfiction about the Mormon housewife turned sex worker or romantasy featuring goblins, centaurs, and fairies, then that’s what gets bought. There’s no book on the shelf about the mom who’s been married for fifteen years, loves to bake, and also gives great head. (Media about sex geared towards the typical woman in her thirties, forties, and fifties is, well... not very sexy.)

Second, maybe what sells isn’t about what society will buy. Maybe it’s about what society will allow; what it will tolerate.

What happens if the ordinary woman becomes sexually empowered and an active agent in her own erotic life? What happens to all the messages that have been passed down for generations about who she is supposed to be and how she’s supposed to behave?

Lack of Visibility

My hunch is that books about the ordinary woman (and couples) aren’t being rejected because only the extremes sell. The extremes sell because they’re what’s available.

Imagine buying ice cream. If all you can find is chocolate and slight variations of chocolate, you conclude that people only love and consume chocolate, so that’s the only flavour worth stocking.

But the choice set is constrained. There’s no option for strawberry, pistachio (I know... gross), neapolitan, cookies & cream, rocky road (my favourite), chocolate chip cookie dough, mint chocolate chip, and so on.

If chocolate is all that’s available, people buy chocolate because they like ice cream, not necessarily because it’s their favourite.

Publishing may work in much the same way.

What if books about ordinary women navigating ordinary relationships were sitting on the shelves too? Would readers buy them? Would they see themselves in them?

How can we know if we’re never given the choice?

Ben & Jerry’s didn’t create Cherry Garcia, Half Baked, and Phish Food because everyone only wanted chocolate.

Representation Matters

The ordinary woman is barely represented on our physical or digital bookshelves.

The woman living in the grey between, “I have a headache, sorry, honey,” and, “I need to get dicked down by five men tonight.” Where is she?

Despite what the shelves tell us, she’s everywhere.

Yes, it’s true, some women fit one of the archetypes described above, but most live somewhere in the middle. Women who like sex, want it sometimes, but might also be perfectly happy trading it for Love Is Blind and some fro-yo. She has a vibrator she uses from time to time, but it’s hidden deep in the drawer. She loves her partner, but she’s also tired and stressed. She’s a mom trying to feel cute, but she’s also responsible, a “woman of a certain age,” so she doesn’t talk about such things.

Is the Market A Passive Actor Or Does It Shape What We Want?

Sales data doesn’t actually tell us what people want. It tells us what people buy. Those aren’t the same thing.

Readers choose from what’s available. Publishers interpret those purchases as proof that those are the stories readers want. The result is a self-reinforcing feedback loop.

The market isn’t only responding to culture, it’s actively shaping it.

We shouldn’t assume that because people are buying the extremes, they won’t also buy stories about people in between. We’ve seen this dynamic play out over and over in other media.

“Audiences won’t buy tickets to a female-led action film.”

“People won’t watch a television series centred on a gay couple.”

Until they did.

Assumptions weren’t disproven because audiences suddenly changed their minds. They were disproven because someone decided to make the thing in the first place. (à la Phish Food and Cherry Garcia.)

Representation doesn’t always follow demand. In many cases, demand follows representation.

Is the Market a Reflection of Society’s Values?

Sales data may tell us what sells, but it also reflects what we choose to produce, promote, and make visible. It reflects what we accept. Implicit in that is what we do not accept, cannot tolerate, and choose not to amplify.

What purpose is served by keeping the ordinary woman off the page?

Perhaps it keeps women pinned to one of two familiar tropes: the frigid, nagging wife or the cock-hungry whore. (The choice set continues to include only heteronormative archetypes).

Pick your poison.

Either way, we turn our noses up at her, for different reasons, but the outcome is the same: diminished status. Existing for the male gaze, whether as the butt of a joke or the ejaculate-stiffened magazine cover, but never as a real woman living a full life.

So the ordinary woman quietly disappears, nowhere to be seen. Before long, the archetypes lining our bookshelves begin to feel like the norm rather than the exception. Women begin performing one of the two available roles, and the ordinary woman starts to feel anything but.

Making the Ordinary Woman Visible

Society reflects back to us what it values and what it will tolerate. Peering at that reflection today, we can conclude we’re far more comfortable making a spectacle of women at the extremes than allowing the ordinary woman to exist in all her complexity.

If she gains representation, she gains status. And just think what might happen…

Kids across the globe will be left behind at soccer practice. Laundry will pile up. Martini glasses will remain dry. Blue balls will become a global health crisis. The world, as we know it, will stop spinning. (Blue balls…not an actual thing, btw.)

None of that will happen.

Women will still love and desire men. Women will still yearn to have babies and feel their biological clocks ticking. Women will still bake, sew, plant, and caretake.

However, a small, nearly imperceptible shift might occur. Perceptible only to the women themselves.

Women will take their seats in the boardroom and use their handcuffs in the bedroom. They’ll dote on their husbands and children, join the PTA, and drive the minivan with the “Proud Mom of an Honour Roll Student” sticker affixed to the bumper. They’ll communicate their fantasies, dust off the vibrator (washing it properly), and pursue their full existence.

Society has always had a place for women at the extremes: neatly boxed to be mocked and jeered at.

It’s the empowered, ordinary woman who confuses us. A woman who refuses to be either Madonna or whore. The woman who is both, in harmony. Never in conflict with herself, only in conflict with society’s declaration of who she is allowed to be.

So let’s claim our place between the extremes. Ordinary women living ordinary lives. I can’t wait to see us lining the shelves.