"Misogynistic Hate Speech": Feminism, Rape and the Harlequin Mills & Boon Romance

Laura Vivanco

Under the title "Here we go again ...." Natasha Oakley offers a warning to Mills & Boon readers. We're going to have to be prepared for extreme irritation next year:

As I've said here before, with Mills & Boon's centenary year just around the corner I'm braced for criticism as the media spotlight shines on us. What's so particularly annoying is that the negative swipes usually comes from people who haven't read a M&B for years, if ever.

Yesterday's criticism came from Julie Bindel, writing in the Guardian:

Fifteen years ago, I read 20 Mills & Boon novels as research for a dissertation on "romantic fiction and the rape myth". It was the easiest piece of research I have ever done. In every book, there was a scene where the heroine is "broken in", both emotionally and physically, by the hero. [...] My loathing of M&B novels has nothing to do with snobbery. I could not care less if the books are trashy, formulaic or pulp fiction [...]. But I do care about the type of propaganda perpetuated by M&B. I would go so far as to say it is misogynistic hate speech. [...] My horror at the genre is not directed towards either the women who write or, indeed, read them. I do not believe in blaming women for our own oppression. Women are the only oppressed group required not only to submit to our oppressors, but to love and sexually desire them at the same time. This is what heterosexual romantic fiction promotes - the sexual submission of women to men. M&B novels are full of patriarchal propaganda.

I can say it no better than the late, great Andrea Dworkin. This classic depiction of romance is simply "rape embellished with meaningful looks".

As might be expected, I have a few objections to make to this.

Bindel's sample is now out of date and was always rather small. Mills & Boon romances are varied, and nowadays there are a large number of different lines (Historical, Medical, Modern, Romance, etc), each with its own guidelines. Within each line there is also variation. It is certainly true that, as Bindel says, there have been some M&B romances which contained at least one "scene where the heroine is 'broken in', both emotionally and physically, by the hero." I'm planning on posting about a novel written by Rosalind Brett in 1951 in which, although the hero is very restrained physically (he barely kisses the heroine till the final pages), he "breaks" her emotionally. I've also come across some older M&B romances which include scenes of date rape. Sandra Field's Love in a Mist is from 1988 and in it, although the hero has promised the heroine that he "won't as much as lay a finger on you" (74), when she believes him and shares a bed with him, he makes a move on her. At first she doesn't object to his caresses but then

She felt helpless and horribly vulnerable, and the delicious haze of sensuality had retreated.
She had spent a lot of time with Luke the last few days and would have said she was beginning to know him. But she had not learned enough, she thought with a sickening lurch of fear as his thighs forced hers apart. She should have heeded the bitterness and cynicism she had seen him display, for they had not been fleeting emotions [...] Luke was making love without tenderness or patience. She shoved at his chest with the palms of her hands, trying to wriggle from under him, and gasped furiously, 'Luke, don't -' [...]
When he entered her, Sally felt again that lick of fire. But the fire was vanquished by a flood of other emotions: resistance and fear and guilt, so that while her body was instinctively in rhythm with his, her spirit was drowning in a vast and terrible loneliness. (91-92)

Luke apologises and reveals that his cynicism is due to having been married and found that his wife had been unfaithful: "For the first time in my life I really understood how murders get committed ... there'd have been a certain irony in that, wouldn't there? Parole Officer Receives Life Sentence. Anyway I didn't commit murder" (104) but the horrible irony is still there, because the parole officer has now committed a rape and the reason for it is that "in the darkness it was as though you were Althea [...] I'd been so angry with her, Sally. Angry and hurt and frustrated. And I took it out on you. [...] I had no idea that I was going to. I lost control - and you're the one who suffered for it" (102). Nonetheless, despite his remorse,

Last night was a catharsis [...] I took out on you all my anger against the woman who had made a mockery of my marriage bed. When I first woke up this morning I felt cleansed. Lighter. Free. As though a burden I'd been carrying for a year had been lifted from me. And then, of course, I remembered you. For me it might have been catharsis. But for you - I'd used you. I'd been rough and insensitive, totally selfish. (104)

Neither Luke nor Sally call what happened "rape" even though it was non-consensual. Yet

Date rape is when someone you know socially (but not family) makes you have sex when you don’t want to. It could be someone you meet at a party, or someone you love and trust, like your boyfriend. They might use physical and verbal threats, emotional blackmail, or alcohol and drugs to force or trick you into having sex. And it’s not just sexual intercourse − it can be oral sex or some other kind of sex. You may even agree to have sex with someone and then decide that you want to stop, but they force you to keep going. (Government of New South Wales)

And, to compound an already repellent situation, this is Luke's way of making amends:

'There is one way I can apologise,' he said in his deep voice. 'I know you're afraid of making love even though I don't know why. But we could go back to the hotel and make love again - and this time I swear would be different. For both of us.' (105)

Yes, he really does admit that he acted as he did despite the fact that he knew she was "afraid of" sex. Yes, he really does refer to what happens as "making love" not rape. And yes, he really does think he's doing her a favour by offering to have sex with her again. Sally accepts and discovers that, contrary to what she learned from her ex-husband, she's not "no good in bed" (106). There are no further consequences of the rape.

Yet one cannot assume that Field's Love in a Mist is representative of all other M&B romances published in the same period:

Susan Napier is one of the mid-1980s group of authors who never used violent sex in her novels, building on the earlier non-violent, though sexual, romances that were being published at the same time that sexually violent Mills & Boon romances were being issued. These non-violent Mills & Boon novels were written by such popular authors as Charlotte Lamb, Jane Donnelly, Carole Mortimer, Essie Summers, Betty Neels, Daphne Clair, Anne Weale and Anne Mather whose An All-consuming Passion (1986), has a hero who does not satisfy the heroine in their first sexual encounter because he ejaculates prematurely. (Dixon 148)

In addition

As Daphne Clair said [...], pointing out the historical specificity of this type of Mills & Boon [i.e. ones where the heroes are sexually violent towards the heroines]: "Since abusive men in real life have become exposed, writers have been more careful - what we and most readers thought of as fantasy in a more innocent era we now know is all too common in real life and we don't wish to encourage any notion that it is normal". (Dixon 193)

Awareness of the prevalence of date rape is now far greater than it was in the past, and while feminist academics and others working in the area were aware of it as a phenomenon earlier, knowledge about these issues took longer to filter through to the general public:

Acquaintance rape, which is also referred to as "date rape" and "hidden rape," has been increasingly recognized as a real and relatively common problem within society. Much of the attention that has been focused on this issue has emerged as part of the growing willingness to acknowledge and address issues associated with domestic violence and the rights of women in general in the past three decades. Although the early and mid 1970's saw the emergence of education and mobilization to combat rape, it was not until the early 1980's that acquaintance rape began to assume a more distinct form in the public consciousness. The scholarly research done by psychologist Mary Koss and her colleagues is widely recognized as the primary impetus for raising awareness to a new level.

The publication of Koss' findings in the popular Ms. magazine in 1985 informed millions of the scope and severity of the problem. By debunking the belief that unwanted sexual advances and intercourse were not rape if they occurred with an acquaintance or while on a date, Koss compelled women to reexamine their own experiences. Many women were thus able to reframe what had happened to them as acquaintance rape and became better able to legitimize their perceptions that they were indeed victims of a crime. (Curtis)

As Clair's comments reveal, the romance genre did gradually change in response to this increased knowledge about rape, and, as mentioned previously, the romances which included scenes of date rape and/or sexual aggression were not the only ones being published.

The texts Bindel read were, I think one can assume, from roughly 1992 since she says that she read them fifteen years ago, though perhaps she also read some from the 1980s, since she may have read some older romances as well as ones published at the time she did her research. I'd like to give a short list of romances published around 1992 which most certainly do not match the description given by Bindel. I've taken two from the historical line and included a Silhouette romance (published by Harlequin Mills & Boon) because this further illustrates the variety within M&B's output.

• In Jo Ann Algermissen's Would You Marry Me Anyway? (1991) the hero is a carpenter and the construction supervisor who oversees his work is the heroine. That alone gives an indication that the power dynamics in this book do not involve a weak, powerless heroine and although "He'd said sex stood in the way of their being friends. By sunrise, she'd have that problem solved" (117). There's no domineering hero here:

  [Hank] "I've tried to be your friend."
  [Cat] "I know."
  "But I've wanted you. [...] I wanted you this morning when I kissed you. It took every ounce of my self-control not to kiss you the way I wanted."
  "The way I wanted," she repeated. In high heels, she hardly had to tilt her head back to invite his kiss. "Kiss me the way we both want."
  "Cat, sweetheart, I won't stop with kisses."
  She smiled. "I hope not." (123)

• In Sheila Bishop's Fair Game (1992), a historical romance, one of the secondary characters is the victim of what we'd now term a "date rape." The man asked to "enjoy his rights" and Madeleine, the young woman, refused. However later, having drunk

  a good deal of champagne, [...] her apprehension melted. She was carried away on a tide of romantic fervour and promised to let him do what he asked.
  They climbed the spiral stairs to the room above and here everything went wrong. From the way she spoke it was clear to Olivia that Madeleine had not been nearly as drunk as she supposed. She had simply taken enough to unbalance her judgement and dull her fears. The unheated room and Lion's rough approach to lovemaking served to clear her brain. She said she did not want to go any further. He became extremely angry and said that if she changed her mind now she would be breaking her promise. She knew this was true and let herself be bullied into submission. He hurt her a good deal and it was hardly surprising that this first experience of love was a humiliating failure. (214)

  While Lion's behaviour is condemned, the novel takes a complex approach to sexual politics. The heroine, Olivia, realises that "In a literal sense she had come off lighly, but the anguish of other women acted as a commentary on her own unhappiness" (219). As a result of Lion's actions, Olivia judges the hero, Tom, much more harshly than he merits and:

  It was the old battle of the sexes, she supposed. The difficulty of men and women understanding each other's values. Men believed that when a pretty woman did not discourage them she was fair game, available for flirtation or dalliance. In revenge, women believed that when a man set out to charm them without serious intentions he was by definition a monster, capable of every other sort of villainy. (240)

  No excuses are made for Lion's behaviour, but without being anachronistic (this is, after all, a historical romance) the novel seeks to explore the effects on both men and women of a sexual market place (as described in my previous post) in which virginity is highly prized, there is a sexual double standard in place, and women must always be wary of rakes.

• In Polly Forrester's Winter of the Wolf (1991), a romance set in the Middle Ages, the heroine is the victim of both physical aggression and marital rape by her husband (who is not the hero). The abuser's excuses may temporarily convince the heroine, but both she and the reader are soon shown how hollow such justifications truly are:

  'I would have been good to you ... It wasn't my fault, Rosalind ... I was always so busy, trying to make a living to support us - it's no wonder I got cross at times, but that's going to change - Rosalind, if only you could get me out of here I'd show you how much I really love you...'
  He might have changed. The shock might have made him realise the wickedness of his old ways ... (170)

  Not a page later, he's holding her hostage, with a knife to her back. After his death the heroine agrees to enter into a new marriage with the hero, who always treats her with great respect, even when he fears she may no longer love him. Hardly a novel which condones or romanticises the abuse of women.

So much for the mixed history of Mills & Boon romances in the past. Bindel illustrates her opinion of current romances, namely that "rather than becoming a "new man", it seems [the hero] has become even more masculine and domineering in order to keep the heroine in line. This is how the rape fantasies so integral to the plot have been able to persist," by reference to the back-cover copy of three romances published in 2007/2008. Yet if Bindel had read the back-cover copy of Love in a Mist, she'd certainly not have realised that it contained a rape scene:

A disastrous early marriage had brought Sally a small daughter she adored, but had left her wary about the whole idea of love and commitment. Luke Sheridan knew exactly how she felt: after all he'd been through the same minefield and the experience had taught him to steer clear of involvement with women who took everything and gave nothing. Could they forget the past and find happiness together?

The language of the back-cover copy, then, is not a particularly reliable source of information about the presence or absence of patriarchal values within the texts themselves.

I haven't yet read any of the romances mentioned by Bindel, so I admit that I too have less knowledge of them than is required to give a considered opinion of their contents, but Louise Allen's Virgin Slave, Barbarian King, which Bindel gives as an example, has been reviewed as follows:

Wulfric, a Visigoth, who takes her from the men who assaulted her in the streets of Rome. Saving her honor and virginity. As Wulfric's woman, or slave at fist, she's ordered to keep house er tent, for the marauders. Yet she quickly learns that as a slave in Wulfric's household she is far more free than she ever was as the protected, sheltered, obedient Roman virgin destined to be married off to further her families position in the great city.

Wulfric is a powerful, beautiful man who prizes honor above the ability to throw a woman to the floor and take her simply because she is his slave. He won't touch her against her wishes [...] Ms. Allen goes out of her way to be aware of the history of the time period, the way young women were used, and the way the lives of Roman children were planned out by their parents in many respects. (Pray)

In other words, far from raping or coercing the heroine, this is a hero who saves the heroine from rape and, rather than being "full of patriarchal propaganda" the plot of the novel gives the heroine the opportunity to understand, and reject, the patriarchal values of ancient Rome, a fact which is apparent even if one only reads the excerpt, in which Julia begins to question her former life: "Two hours ago she had obeyed without question—the men would know best what to do. Her father, Julius Livius Rufus, a man in his Emperor's confidence for many years; her betrothed, Antonius Justus Celsus."

It seems to me that even within the Mills & Boon Modern (Harlequin Presents) line, where the sort of language used to describe the novels does tend to emphasise the hero's power (common words in the titles and back-cover copy are "mistress," "virgin," "bought," "revenge"), it is extremely important to look at the outcomes of the novels, as well as the initial premises described in the back-cover copy. As I found in my analysis of this line, it is not unusual for the heroine to critique a dominant hero's behaviour in feminist terms (and even, occasionally, to be explicitly identified as a feminist herself). In addition, not all of the heroes are particularly dominant/aggressive and, as has been noted elsewhere, particularly in this line "authors are increasingly devoting swaths of their books to upfront discussions of such serious sexual issues. Last month, Annie West's For the Sheikh's Pleasure focused on a woman struggling to be physically and emotionally intimate after being drugged and raped during a night out."

Bindel's arguments should not be completely dismissed: there have certainly been some Mills & Boon novels which normalised unacceptable acts of male verbal and sexual aggression, but ignoring the huge variety in Mills & Boon's output throughout the years, judging all their novels on the basis of a tiny sample, assuming that novels written 15 or more years ago are still representative of those being written and published in the 21st century, and judging books on the basis of their titles and back-cover copy, is not an academically rigorous way to go about the analysis of such a large number of novels.

• Algermissen, Jo Ann. Would You Marry Me Anyway? Richmond, Surrey: Silhouette, 1991.
• Bishop, Sheila. Fair Game. Richmond, Surrey: Mills & Boon, 1992.
• Dixon, jay. The Romance Fiction of Mills & Boon, 1909-1990s. London: UCL P, 1999.
• Field, Sandra. Love in a Mist. Richmond, Surrey: Mills & Boon, 1988.
• Forrester, Polly. Winter of the Wolf. Richmond, Surrey: Mills & Boon, 1991.

There has been quite a large response to the Guardian article, so I thought I'd pick out a few of the posts that have been written so far:

• In the comments section at Meriam's blog Daisy Cummins (who offered a counterpoint to Bindel's part of the piece) clarifies her position.
• Scribbles explains the difference between sexual fantasies and reality.
• Michelle Styles references Teach Me Tonight and points out that Bindel "did not bother to properly research her piece."
• Kate Walker provides some more comment on the age of Bindel's sources.
• Secret Rebel, like Bindel, read some Mills & Boon a few years ago, so she feels qualified to state that "All M&B sex is euphemised rape, using the language of "possession", "ownership" and "dominance". There's no deviance or variation from this classic pattern. It's not that some M&B books are like this - they *all* are."
• The Smart Bitches post and spark off a lively and varied debate.
• A thread at All About Romance.
• More commentary, this time from Jane at Dear Author, who asks "whether we are what we read. Do the books reflect our social values (i.e., a romanticization of rape) or do books set our social values."
• In the light of the debate which is still continuing almost two weeks after Bindel's comments were first published, Robin takes another look at what it is that Bindel "identified in Romance, and the fact that it is a paradigm I think all Romance readers can recognize in the genre" and suggests that "we are trying to tell ourselves something in these novels. What that is, and why we feel so compelled to rehearse these scenarios over and over is not answerable from a single perspective, of course. But perhaps Bindel is reminding us that if we didn’t think this genre was important to begin with, we wouldn’t feel so passionate about defending it."

Not-so-secret Children and Babies

Today I want to go, if not from the sublime to the ridiculous, at least from the Platonic ideal to the more prosaic reasons why children might be included in romances.

First of all, children may, as suggested in the Symposium, be the embodiment of a couple's love. However, although children can be read as proof of a couple's continuing love and affection (or at least, of an active sex-life), they may be indicative of little more than considerable fecundity and a lack of contraceptives. In Georgette Heyer's The Grand Sophy, for example, Lady Ombersley, a minor character, is described in the following terms: Twenty-seven years of wedlock had left their mark upon her; and the dutiful presentation to her erratic and far from grateful spouse of eight pledges of her affection had long since destroyed any pretensions to beauty in her' (1951: 2). Despite being referred to as 'pledges of her affection', it's clear that the children are not the result of the sort of romantic love one would expect the hero and heroine of a romance to feel for each other.

New babies, as well as being 'pledges of affection' may also serve to reinforce the depiction of a society undergoing change. According to Pamela Regis one of the essential elements of the romance genre is 'Society Defined' and 'Near the beginning of the novel the society that the heroine and hero will confront in their courtship is defined for the reader. This society is in some way flawed' (2003: 31). Regis also describes some additional 'accidental elements characteristic of the romance novel' (2003: 38) which occur towards the end of the novels and these include the wedding/dance/fete which demonstrates that 'Society has reconstituted itself around the new couple(s) and the society comes together to celebrate this' (2003: 38). If the hero and heroine have children together these can be interpreted as being among the first new members of this new, 'reconstituted' society, and a hope for the future.

From the point of view of the plot, children and babies can often provide a reason for a hero and heroine to meet or work closely together for the first time, or, in the case of many of the secret-baby books, to come back into contact with each other. Babies and children may be a source of conflict between the hero and heroine but they cannot simply walk away because the children have needs (for care, a home etc) which force the hero and heroine into close proximity and oblige them to work with each other.

Whether or not babies are intrinsically romantic, however, is another matter. For Kimber, children are on her list of things in the romance genre which are 'Not Romantic':

what could be less romantic than having to keep the sex quiet in case Junior wakes up in the night and comes down looking for a drink of water? Or when Little Susie gets a life-threatening fever or is kidnapped by the villain? Although better a son, since then your hero can effortlessly become the male role model/father figure that Young Master desperately needs.

The combined effects of dirty nappies, sleep deprivation, the baby's crying and the physical and emotional consequences of childbirth do not create the ideal circumstances for romantic interludes. Even if the baby is not the heroine's, she and the hero would still have to deal with the sleep deprivation, the nappies, crying, feeding etc. Babies in romance novels do tend to be remarkably easy to care for, but this is not necessarily unrealistic given that:

• (a) some people have more help than others (for example, in historicals set among the aristocracy one might expect the heroine to have the help of a nursemaid or two)
• (b) some people's experiences of this stage in a baby's life are better than others (some babies quickly sleep through the night and fall into a routine easily, for example)
• (c) not all mothers experience negative physical or emotional consequences of childbirth.

Personally, however, I find the easy-care babies so often found in romances intensely irritating, but that's probably due to extreme jealousy on my part, because my baby was very far from the ideal in this respect.

Nicola Marsh is an author who used to think that children were 'contraception on legs', but after writing some romances featuring children, she changed her mind. In the comments on that blog post Fiona Lowe added that 'I reckon children are a GREAT way to showcase the softer side of our hero'. They certainly are seen to have that effect on the perception of Sophy, the heroine of Heyer's The Grand Sophy. Following Sophy's devoted nursing of her sick young cousin, Sophy's very conventional suitor, Lord Bromford, says that:

"[...] even Mama owns herself to have been moved by the devotion of Miss Stanton-Lacy to her little cousin!" [...] Lord Bromford, who had started to repeat O woman, in our hours of ease! [...] pronounced: "Any doubts that might have been nourished of the true womanliness of Miss Stanton-Lacy's character, must, I venture to say, have been lulled to rest." (1951: 224-225)

It's not simply that the ability to interact with children shows a 'softer' side, it's also that children, particularly young children and babies, are often considered innocent.

Around the enlightenment period of the eighteenth century, popular conceptions of childhood changed. Society adopted the idea of the "blank slate" and beginning life in a state of unconsciousness. Art reflected the transition: no longer vessels of psychological and sexual awareness, children became asexual, physically neutral, and psychologically unaware. The "Romantic child" was born. [...] No longer considered little adults in need of moral reform, children became icons of innocence and naivete onto which adults could project their own hopes, dreams, and ideals.

As a result of this belief in their innocence, the approval of children, like that of dogs and other animals, is often an indication that a character who may appear wicked, depraved, or merely lacking in conscience, in fact has redeeming features. For example, here's a short conversation from Heyer's Frederica, between Felix, the heroine's young brother, and the self-centered Lord Alverstoke, the hero, who has already met, and successfully dealt with Lufra, Frederica's very large and unruly dog:

before suffering himself to be led away by Charis, [Felix] took his leave of the Marquis, and said eagerly: "And you will take me to Soho, won't you, sir?"

"If I don't, my secretary shall," replied Alverstoke.

"Oh! Well - Well, thank you, sir! Only it would be better if you came with me yourself!" urged Felix.

"Better for whom?" demanded his lordship involuntarily.

"Me," replied Felix, with the utmost candour. "I daresay they would show you anything you wanted to see, on account of your being a - a second-best nobleman, which I know you are, because it says, in a book I found, that Marquises come directly after Dukes, so--"

In addition to this ability to bring out the best in adults, 'out of the mouth of babes and sucklings' can come forth truths that adults would either leave unspoken, or of which adults might otherwise remain in ignorance.

It has to be admitted that, on occasion, the children in romance can bear an unfortunate resemblance to those George Eliot mentions in her description of 'Silly Novels by Lady Novelists' (1856):

There are few women, we suppose, who have not seen something of children under five years of age, yet in "Compensation," a recent novel of the mind-and-millinery species, which calls itself a "story of real life," we have a child of four and a half years old talking in this Ossianic fashion -
"Oh, I am so happy, dear gran'mamma; -- I have seen, -- I have seen such a delightful person: he is like everything beautiful, -- like the smell of sweet flowers and the view from Ben Lomond; - or no, better than that -- he is like what I think of and see when I am very very happy; and he is really like mamma, too when she sings; and his forehead is like that distant sea," she continued, pointing to the blue Mediterranean; "there seems no end -- no end; or like the clusters of stars I like best to look at on a warm fine night [...]"

Luckily child prodigies are not the only, or even the most frequent, sort of child depicted in romance. There are plenty who are interesting characters in their own right, with their own particular flaws and quirks. For example Lou, the heroine of Jessica Hart's Contracted, Corporate Wife, says of her teenaged children:

'I’d like to be able to say that I had raised a couple of thoughtful, unmaterialistic, community-minded children who understood that the love and security you strive to give them mattered more than the latest brand of trainers or the newest computer game, but sadly they’re not like that at all!’
‘Oh?’ said Patrick, rather taken with the idea that Lou’s children weren’t the paragons he would have expected them to be. He found her attitude refreshing. He’d had to listen to too many mothers telling him how clever and talented and generally marvellous their children were.
‘They’re not bad kids,’ said Lou, ‘but they’re like all their friends. They want to be in with the in-crowd, to be like everyone else and to have what everyone else has. [...].’ (2005: 41)

In romances with more realistic portrayals of children, the hero and heroine's difficulties in caring for children and babies may provide an interesting source of discussion for the adults, revealing their own experiences of childhood. In Polly Forrester's Jewel Under Siege, for example, the hero is a Frank, on crusade, while Elena Rethel is a Byzantine merchant. Their ideas about child-rearing reveal much about the adults' different cultures:

'You'll spoil that child, if you haven't already.'
'Oh, but he's only a baby, my lord. Not even three years old, yet.'
'Time enough to be spoiled by rich food and an indulgent mother. Well-born Franks are sent from home at four to become pages. By then they're hardened enough to wait at tables and live with the hounds. That soon puts some character into them. Sink or swim.'
"I don't doubt it, my lord. Yet what sort of people raise their children among animals? [...]'
'People whose men are more than milk and water. Men who will fight for what they know is right, and will not dress in effeminate fashions [..]' (1990: 89-90)

The hero and heroine's attitudes towards children can be instructive in contemporary settings too, often giving clues about their own very different childhood experiences. In historical romances (of the non-wallpaper variety) attitudes towards childcare form part of the historical setting, reminding us that, in many respects, 'the past is a foreign country; they do things differently there'. As Jo Beverley observes

The way we portray children and parenting in books can be interesting. I don't think we can help bringing some modern sensitivities to it, but I like to try to get within the thinking of the day. For example in one of my books, CHRISTMAS ANGEL, Judith and Leander fall into fights about the raising of her children. She wants to protect them from hurt while he believes boys sometimes need the cane. Speaking from his own experience, he claims to have preferred it to endless lectures and tiresome punishments such as writing out pages of the Bible. And he adds that as Bastian won't escape being beaten at school, he might as well learn to accept it with dignity. That, to me, is true to the times, but it bothered some readers.

There's a lot of variation in the way children and babies are portrayed, depending on factors such as the level of realism with which they are described, the historical setting and the ages of the children. Sometimes children seem to be included mainly for their cuteness factor, and because they provide a source of conflict or otherwise propel the plot forwards. At others, the children are well-developed characters in their own right.

• Forrester, Polly, 1990. Jewel Under Siege (Richmond, Surrey: Harlequin Mills & Boon).
• Hart, Jessica, 2005. Contracted, Corporate Wife (Richmond, Surrey: Harlequin Mills & Boon).
• Heyer, Georgette, 1951. The Grand Sophy (London: The Book Club).
• Regis, Pamela, 2003. A Natural History of the Romance Novel (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press).

Romance and Sex Education

Having brought up the topic of sex in romances, and because the recent discussions of the controversy that homosexual romances have caused within the RWA reminded me of last year’s controversy surrounding graphical standards and the continuing sense that many writers of erotic romance have that they’re not entirely accepted within the RWA I thought I’d take quick look at some of the ways in which sex in romance can be educational. In the interests of full disclosure, I should make it clear that I’ve not read any inspirationals or any erotic romances, though I have read some romances with strong Christian elements, such as Cheryl St. John’s Saint or Sinner (Mills & Boon Historical Romance 2004) and I’ve read plenty of romances with fairly explicit sex scenes. I should also add that I don’t think sex scenes are essential in a romance: Austen and Heyer, to name just two authors, managed very successfully without them, and in fact, I have a feeling that sex scenes in Austen would be incongruous given the formality that her heroes and heroines maintain (though we know they take place ‘offstage’ between unruly characters, such as Lydia and Wickham, and Maria Rushworth and Henry Crawford).

The fact that sex can and does take place ‘offstage’ in romances leads Monica Jackson to argue that:

Romance has sex. The most staid inspirational romance is about establishing a relationship that is going to lead to luscious, hot monkey sex, even if the sex happens to take place outside the covers of the book. There’s sex in romance, whether it’s an implied promise or frequent and graphically described variations. That’s why the controversy over romance sex is sort of silly. It’s as if folks were arguing over sweetener in chocolate. You can eschew sugar in favor of artificial sweetener or honey or use less–but if you’re eating palatable chocolate, it’s going have some sweetness, even if only a hint. If you read romance, it’s going to be about sex. If your characters don’t care about establishing a relationship that will eventually lead to some sort of sex, then you don’t have romance.

Clearly she has a point, since marriage has traditionally been, at least according to the Book of Common Prayer, ‘ordained for the procreation of children’ and ‘to avoid fornication’. Quite whether the activities involved in this would always aptly be described as ‘hot monkey sex’, though, is another matter. Can you really imagine Fanny and Edmund Bertram engaging in ‘hot monkey sex’? I can’t (though it could be that this is because my imagination is lacking).

The crux of the matter is not whether or not people have sex, but whether sex should be depicted in romances, and whether, if implied/depicted, it should only take place between two married people. It’s clearly a highly controversial issue, and rather than get embroiled in an argument about the morality or otherwise of depictions of sexual activity (and the Bible itself can get pretty explicit, with lines such as ‘A bundle of myrrh is my wellbeloved unto me; he shall lie all night betwixt my breasts’ (Song of Solomon 1:13), I’d like to take a look at a few ways in which romance novels can play a role in educating people about their bodies and in shaping attitudes towards sexuality.

In Lucy Monroe’s Blackmailed into Marriage the heroine is the not uncommon widow-who-has-never-had-an-orgasm, and the hero, of course, manages to awaken the heroine’s sexuality, but the twist is that this heroine’s got vaginismus. The treatment for this condition is described in some detail, and forms an integral part of the love-scenes and the author added a note to readers:

I wrote this book for the tens of thousands of women who suffer in silence believing there is something wrong with them. Only one in ten will seek treatment and of those, less than thirty percent will be willing to undergo physiological treatment such as the dilation procedure for vaginismus. I hope that if you are one of the women suffering in silence, you will be silent no longer, but most of all that you will realize that it’s not your fault. (2005: 187)

This is perhaps an unusual example of very specific information on a gynaecological problem being presented in a romance, but it seems to me that it’s an indication of the possibilities offered by romance. In general, romances may give some basic information about the mechanics of reproduction, and though the incidence of contraceptive failure seems extremely high if one looks at romances as a group, as do the numbers of secret babies produced as a result, the depiction of the use of contraceptives during sex scenes, particularly of condoms, suggests to readers that condom-use is not incompatible with passion and enjoyment. Romances also challenge attitudes towards women’s sexuality. As Crusie says, according to ‘conventional wisdom’:

Women shouldn't experience a lot of sexual encounters [...] because that would soil them, and it's not in their nature anyway. Men who had a lot of sex and enjoyed it were studs; women who did the same were unnatural sluts. [...] God forbid a woman should know more about sex than a man. Romance fiction not only says women want that knowledge and have a right to it, it often gives it to them explicitly on the page, telling them it's not wrong to want a full sexual life and showing them how to get one.

Whereas novels such as Tess of the d’Urbervilles tell a woman that, if she’s raped, she’s degraded, the modern romance genre, even with its rather high number of virgin heroines, does, on the whole, assert that a woman who has been raped or otherwise had sex outside marriage is still attractive, is still valuable as a person. Rather than condemning her, it celebrates her as a person. Some romances feature heroines who are/have been prostitutes, such as Mary Balogh’s A Precious Jewel, and Diane Gaston’s The Mysterious Miss M. Balogh writes that:

Priscilla Wentworth in A Precious Jewel [...] is a working girl at a brothel and a regular of the hero's until he takes her away to be his mistress. [...] Why do this? Just to give myself an excuse to write more sex scenes? Purely for titillation purposes? Emphatically no! Sex is surely not very joyful--and probably not very skilled or erotic either - between prostitutes and their clients. I did it to show that strong women can prevail over even the most dire and degrading of circumstances. [...]
There are sex scenes, of course, involving these women and their clients, but generally speaking they are either ugly or bland and emotionless. Those scenes provided me with a marvelous opportunity to write the contrasting scenes of love and joyfully erotic sex later in each book. I am firmly of the belief that sex can only be truly beautiful when it is combined with love. And so my books are love stories, not just sex romps or even just romances.

It’s also worth remembering that when it comes to sex, ignorance is not always bliss. In Polly Forrester’s Changing Fortunes, set not long after the end of the First World War, the widowed heroine, Flora, having been assaulted by her employer’s son, believes that she may be pregnant. William, the hero, asks her to marry him, because he himself is an illegitimate child, whose mother, ‘an ordinary country girl who made one mistake too many’ (1997: 166) was sent to a ‘home for fallen women’ (1997: 158). The stigma of such a status was immense, and William says that ‘I wouldn’t wish my fate on any child’ (1997: 166). Still unsure of their feelings for each other, having known each other for a short time, marriage seems like the only solution: ‘Marriage would be her only chance of escaping lifelong shame’ (1997: 166). On their wedding night, Flora experiences sexual pleasure for the first time, but this happiness soon turns to alarm when William spots some blood. He calls for the doctor:

‘Am I going to lose the baby?’
‘What baby?’ the doctor countered smartly. ‘There is no baby. As far as I can see, Mrs Pritchard, you are not now, nor have you ever been, pregnant. In fact, in my view you were still a virgin when your husband rather comprehensively made a wife of you just a short while ago.’
[...] Flora remembered [...] ‘My first husband-’
‘How long were you married the first time?’ [...]
‘Only two days – it was in the war. He was killed...’ (1997: 187)

Earlier in the novel, when William and Flora had visited a bookshop William had shown Flora his purchase: ‘Have a look. I shouldn’t like a respectable widowed lady to imagine I’d picked up the latest by Mrs Stopes.’ (102) Marie Stopes’ experience of her first marriage was not completely dissimilar to Flora’s:

Marie Stopes [...] had a disastrous marriage to fellow scientist Reginald Ruggles Gates. They had a whirlwind romance, but the relationship was close to breakdown within a year. Although she was highly intelligent, it only gradually became apparent to Marie that her sex life was not quite right.

After studying medical books in various languages in the British Library she realised her husband was impotent and that she was still a virgin. She did not believe in divorce, but took the extraordinary step of turning to the law and having her marriage annulled on the grounds of non-consummation.

The humiliating experience drove her to write her first book, Married Love. It was a sex manual - the first of its kind in the UK. It opened with these words: "In my first marriage I paid such a terrible price for sex-ignorance that I feel that knowledge gained at such a cost should be placed at the service of humanity… I hope (this book) will save some others years of heartache and blind questioning in the dark."

[...] The book was labelled immoral and obscene by the church, the medical establishment and the press, with its claims that women should enjoy sex as much as men. But it was an extraordinary hit with the general public. It sold 2000 copies within a fortnight, and Marie Stopes achieved fame and notoriety overnight.

A similar book in the US had falled foul of the Comstock Law which

forbade distribution of birth control information. In 1915, Margaret Sanger's husband was jailed for distributing her Family Limitation, which described and advocated various methods of contraception. Sanger herself had fled the country to avoid prosecution, but would return in 1916 to start the American Birth Control League, which eventually merged with other groups to form Planned Parenthood.

Anti-obscenity legislation has also led to the banning of extremely important works of literature:

In 1930, U.S. Customs seized Harvard-bound copies of Candide, Voltaire's critically hailed satire, claiming obscenity. Two Harvard professors defended the work, and it was later admitted in a different edition. In 1944, the US Post Office demanded the omission of Candide from a mailed Concord Books catalog. [...] Aristophanes' Lysistrata, Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, Boccaccio's Decameron, Defoe's Moll Flanders, and various editions of The Arabian Nights were all banned for decades from the U.S. mails under the Comstock Law of 1873. Officially known as the Federal Anti-Obscenity Act, this law banned the mailing of "lewd", "indecent", "filthy", or "obscene" materials. The Comstock laws, while now unenforced, remain for the most part on the books today; the Telecommunications Reform Bill of 1996 even specifically applied some of them to computer networks.

Censors often seem unable to distinguish between literature and pornography, and between educational material and what is ‘lewd’ and ‘obscene’. Of course, not everyone believes that romance is the correct genre for educating people about sexuality, but most would admit nonetheless, that, given the genre’s emphasis on sex taking place in the context of a loving relationship, even the more explicit romances do not, in general, encourage promiscuity and, as the heroine of Amanda Quick’s Wait Until Midnight says of her own novels: ‘although my themes and plots are often mature in nature, my characters are suitably rewarded or punished depending upon the morality of their actions’ (2004: 86).

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Forrester, Polly, 1997. Changing Fortunes (Richmond, Surrey: Mills & Boon).

Monroe, Lucy, 2005. Blackmailed into Marriage (Richmond, Surrey: Mills & Boon).

Quick, Amanda, 2004. Wait Until Midnight (London: Piatkus Books Ltd).