Let's do this again. My unsolicited 2 cents: there are a lot of people who are looking for books that do not have sexual content or filthy language in them. As a deeply filthy person myself, it's not for me to tell them how to describe the books they are looking for.

In general, it's always nice for us to be considerate about the various implications of how the words we use affect those around us, but language has limitations.

A lot of people who are looking for these reads are shamed because *other* people have shamed me for liking filth.

As long as we're just talking about what we like in a positive sense, I generally fall into the category of don't yuck someone's yum.

For example, I like the word filth. I have a filthy mind, I write filthy books. YMMV.

So I don't mind the word clean, because to me, it's the opposite of filthy. Very clear. :D

I also know that others encounter that as a pejorative descriptor, and it hurts. There's no easy answer here.

However, I think ace readers are a marginalized group in romance, and I really wince when we talk about the primary language available to them for book categorization. Clean, sweet, chaste, closed-door ... however a READER describes a book is probably left best to that reader.

(Not all readers who prefer books without sex or graphic language are ace, and lots of ace readers read a variety of heat levels; but there will be some readers for whom this is a deeply personal reading experience, and that drives my choices around language and thoughtfulness)

And there are a couple of people talking about this today; it's not a direct reply to anyone, just putting another perspective out there into the ether. I'm mostly talking to myself, because it's a conscious thing for me to not react to the word clean, when it's all some have.