Why The Clean Fiction Movement Is Ruining Great Fiction

Buckle up, Buttercup.

*Disclaimer: The following article is a matter of opinion. We are all entitled to our own opinions and this one is mine. If you don’t like it, you’re welcome to scroll on by. But I feel like this is something that needs to be said in the current culture of the book community. No hate will be tolerated in the comments.

It’s finally here! This long awaited post that I’ve been talking about writing for months now! I know quite a few of my readers were very excited to hear my thoughts on this topic. I quite literally took a long time to write this post because I wanted to be thorough. I want to make sure I say everything I need to say about this topic. Because I have had a lot to say in my private circles about this topic, but putting this opinion out there in the world is scary. I wanted to make sure I did it the right way.

All that being said, I think we should just jump into it.

The Clean Fiction Movement is ruining modern literary works.

But what is clean fiction, you ask?

According to Google:

Clean fiction" generally refers to stories that are suitable for a wide audience, including young adults and those with conservative values, by avoiding explicit content like graphic violence, strong language, and explicit sexuality. They are often characterized by PG or PG-13 ratings if adapted for film.

• Focus on Story and Characters:

  Clean fiction often prioritizes character development, plot, and engaging narratives over sensational content.

This doesn’t sound like a bad thing. Not entirely, when put that way. But it’s not really clean fiction itself that is the problem. It’s the Clean Fiction Movement.

Before I left my Authorgram account (for reasons you can read here!) I was aware of a popular content creator within the book community who was pushing for clean fiction, specifically in YA books. And while I can agree that YA does need to be kept tame for the audience it is intended for, I take issue with a lot of opinions this person has put forth.

But let’s take a step back for a moment and really dig into the “Clean Fiction Movement.”

Generally, this movement is led by Christian authors and readers. While there is nothing wrong with being a fan of Christian fiction, as a Christian myself, I understand that there is no clear reason to start holding secular works to a Christian standard.

(We are to hold ourselves and our fellow Christians, and works within the Christian media base to the standard. But secular media is not being advertised as Christian, therefore to hold it to the same standard is unfair and unnecessary.)

My issue comes down to the toxic values that are being pushed, the ones involving purity culture. Purity culture is a very toxic mentality to have. (This is NOT me saying saving yourself for marriage is toxic. It is totally okay if it’s what you choose to do. Everyone should be able to make that decision without ridicule or backlash.)

Purity culture pushes the narrative that anything related to sexual content is wrong and dirty and sinful. And then it expects you to suddenly flip your mindset once you are on the other side of a marriage vow.

With that mindset, the people pushing clean fiction are spreading this toxicity that anything above a chaste kiss in fiction is pornographic.

I don’t believe extremely graphic sexual encounters belong in YA fiction. I also don’t believe extreme violence belongs in YA fiction. But the truth is, GOOD fiction is going to be bold. Sometimes, it’s going to showcase how dark the world can get. (The Hunger Games and Divergent anyone?)

And there is a stark difference between lower YA and upper YA. 16-20 year old’s (and older because, c’mon I’m still reading YA too!) can handle a bit more in fiction than 12-15 year old’s can. But everyone has different sensitives. I, personally, have an aversion to gory violence in books. I have a hard time reading it. There is nothing wrong with personal preference. But we have to remember that personal preference belongs to ourselves and does not need to be forced upon other readers.

Now, let’s journey back to what I was saying about the toxic ideology being pushed by the Clean Fiction Movement.

One thing I have noticed is the constant shaming of spicy romance readers. I’m not a spicy book fan. But you won’t catch me telling other people what they should and should not read. Everyone has the right to read what they want to read. (The crazy thing is, I NEVER see the spicy romance readers saying anything rude to the clean fiction readers. It’s almost as if the clean fiction movement has a holier than thou attitude and wants to control what people do. Crazy, right?)

More than that, we must take a second to address the elephant in the room.

Purity Culture.

I grew up a Christian. I still consider myself a Christian. (Probably not a good one.) I did not grow up in the church. I grew up believing in God and learning how to pray to Him. We didn’t go to church. We didn’t buy into a lot of the church mindset. (Granted, we are surrounded by some very harsh churches that honestly are not what God would have intended church to be, either.)

I was exposed to purity culture back when I started following some Christian blogs and Christian Youtubers. I was also exposed to extreme modesty, so much so that I began to feel as though no matter what I wore, I was sinning.

There is a huge problem with purity culture. There is NOTHING wrong with wanting to save yourself for however long you want. Be it until marriage or until you find someone who truly loves you. But purity culture is toxic. It makes you feel dirty and worthless if you fumble.

Shame is not from God. That is one thing my best friend has told me time and time again as I stumble and fall along the way. Shame. Is. Not. From. God.

I am not good at this religious stuff.

But I do know that forcing purity culture is only creating this fear within women and men that traumatizes them and messes them up when they do get married.

We have to be more open and honest about this kind of stuff. And maybe there’s someone out there who doesn’t know how to be open and honest and ask the questions they want answers to. Maybe they find the answers in fiction.

I’m not encouraging anyone to read erotica. But I am saying a couple of scenes in a New Adult or Adult book are not killing anyone.

That being said, if you feel convicted not to read those scenes, don’t! Follow what you feel comfortable doing.

But the Book Influencers who are pushing clean fiction need to stop shaming those of us who just want GOOD fiction. They are promoting an equally dangerous mentality that is only going to cause more harm than good. There is nothing wrong with reading what you are comfortable reading.

But there is something wrong with forcing your reading preferences on others and building up your chosen reading preferences by shunning others who choose different than you.

We need to stop promoting creators like this. Every time I see this kind of content, I want to block it from my feed. Shame should not be part of our FYPs and Explore pages.

Reading is supposed to be fun. We are supposed to escape this world, learn things, grow as humans. The era of booktok has been both beneficial and harmful.

It has created wonderful fandoms and it has been a place for people to come together to appreciate the books they love. It’s helped readers find new books. But it’s also been a place of toxicity and too many readers and writers alike create a space that is unsafe for many.

And one thing I have seen across the entirety of all social media that I am a part of is clean fiction vs. spice. The only people perpetuating a true rivalry are the clean fiction warriors. (I call them clean fiction warriors because they choose to create a fight. Not every clean reads social media influencer or Bookstagrammer/Tiktoker are out here fighting battles. They’re merely sharing what books they like and why. The issue is with those creating conflict where none is needed.)

This isn’t to say all clean fiction is bad, either. But what our society of Young Adult and Adult readers needs is realistic fiction. We need to be honest in our storytelling. While every story will have a message, a theme, a reason why it is being written, we cannot be pushing an agenda in our fiction books. Readers pick up on agendas quickly.

A GOOD story tells you about life in a new, and perhaps invigorating way. The problem with the Clean Fiction Movement is the desire to make everything happy sunshine and rainbows.

Life is not happy sunshine and rainbows. Life is tragic and broken, beautiful and intoxicating, and so much more complex than the extremist movement will make it out to be.

A lot of arguments could be made about extreme content in books being detrimental, but let me hold your hand when I say this; Not every book on the market is meant for you.

A recent book release and the backlash that ensued had me thinking. While the content may be too much, the author poured her own life experiences into the book, allowing it to be her therapy for trauma she endured.

And that means maybe that book will find readers who experienced similar things. If we haven’t experienced those things and we find books like that too graphic, they aren’t for us. But that doesn’t mean we get to dictate to everyone.

It’s the same issue with book banning, but I will write a separate post on that at some point.

The Clean Fiction Movement is ruining good literary works because it tries to control the readers who subscribe to the ideology. It’s very cult-like and doesn’t belong in our modern fiction world.

That doesn’t mean books that lack graphic content are bad.

That doesn’t mean books labeled as clean are bad.

It means the keyboard warriors, the social media personalities, the people out here pushing a dangerous narrative are the ones we should be concerned about.

Finally, to the clean fiction Instagram account I was talking about, who I hope sees this when it needs to reach them, please stop pushing a dangerous narrative to promote your own fictional works. Tearing others down just to build yourself up is a shaky foundation at best. Refusing to read real, raw, honest books does not make you special. Sharing bad reviews of books just because they had some form of content you didn’t like is not good business. I hope you see this post someday and realize this isn’t how you should promote your books or your ideology.

That’s all I have to say on the topic, for now. Of course, I could have more to say in the future. But I think this post is long enough to satisfy everyone who was waiting for me to publish this post.

Also, it needs to be said if you prefer clean fiction, if you feel convicted to only read or write clean fiction, that’s totally fine! The problem isn’t the fiction itself, but the writers behind it. The ones pushing a dangerous narrative. Clean fiction isn’t the enemy. The Clean Fiction Movement and its warriors aren’t even the enemy. They’re misguided and want to push their personal preferences on everyone else. And that is when it becomes a problem. But to those who like clean fiction, keep reading it! There isn’t anything wrong with that!

Thank you to everyone who was patient for this post. Thank you to my best friend, Faith, for reading this post in it’s barest form and helping remind me of points I wanted to talk about. Go read her Substack, it’s linked in her name!

Farewell for now.