‘Fairy porn’: is this booming erotica genre an insult to Wales? | Fantasy books

Name: Fairy porn novels.

Age: Centuries old, but recently having a moment.

Appearance: A woeful misrepresentation.

A misrepresentation of fairies, or a misrepresentation of porn? A misrepresentation of Wales.

I’m already confused. OK, let’s walk this back a little. Are you aware of the fairy porn genre?

No, and don’t let my Google history tell you otherwise. Right, well it’s books that deal in high fantasy erotica. Think Fifty Shades of Grey but with pointy ears. It’s huge; TikTok loves it, inevitably.

Give me some key fairy porn titles. There’s Sarah J Maas’s A Court of Thorns and Roses series, in which a girl kills a wolf and then a fairy demands a sexy punishment. Or there’s Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros, in which a girl wants to become a dragon rider but ends up having it off with a guy named Xaden.

Hey, we’ve all had a Xaden phase. To put it simply, these books are what Lord of the Rings would be like if it was written for teenage girls instead of 50-year-old dullards.

Gotcha. Now what’s all this Wales stuff? A lot of these books borrow heavily from Welsh mythology, what with all the dragons and people called Gwyneth and Rhysand and stuff.

And are they written by Welsh people? Not really, no. By and large they seem to be written by American women. And this has led to accusations of, you guessed it, cultural appropriation.

Oh really? Yes. Professor Dimitra Fimi, who lectures in fantasy literature at the University of Glasgow, recently told the BBC that “fairy porn books” cherry-pick from Welsh mythology so extensively that they misrepresent it. “What worries me is a particular perception of Wales developing within fantasy, which is that it’s this magical, rural, romantic place,” she said. “It can be pretty patronising. It creates an image of the country which isn’t realistic. That’s not all that Wales is.”

I get it. They’re too one-dimensional. That’s right. Wales is a proud and vibrant country, and it’s disappointing to see it reduced like this.

So maybe it would be better if Maas could write a sex scene where two horny characters are interrupted by an exhausted coalminer. No, that really isn’t what I …

He could bellow “Gerroff ’im, you bloody slapper”! Again, this also seems quite one-dimensional.

And then he could complain at length about the nationally imposed default 20mph speed limit. OK, you’re just making it worse. Let’s leave things the way they were.

Do say: “Anwen’s wings shuddered gently as her loins flooded with desire …”

Don’t say: “… during an educational discussion about Cardiff’s potential as a tourist destination.”