Wednesday, April 04, 2007

Elizabeth Thornton - Fallen Angel

In my last post I mentioned the discussion going on at Dear Author about the difference between rape and forced seduction, and so I thought I'd turn to a novel which raises these issues. The hero of Elizabeth Thornton's Fallen Angel, Jason Verney, Viscount Deveryn sexually assaults the heroine, Maddie Sinclair.

The novel was first published in 1989, but was reissued by Zebra in 2004. There's a review by Marilyn at Regency Romance Writers, in which Marilyn tells us that
Oftentimes, it is hard to be objective, particularly when the hero in a novel is such a possessive, arrogant ‘brat’! [...] If it were not for the fact that Jason truly was in love with Maddy you would really despise his arrogant possessiveness that bordered on cruelty. Maddy on the other hand, waffled from sensual passion to guilt over the betrayal she thought she was doing to her father’s memory so that Jason never quite knew where he stood. Suffice it to say, the relationship was complex and the reader will be thoroughly immersed in this stormy battle of the sexes as love will overcome all obstacles [...] it is also quite a sensual read though not for the timid who may be shocked by scenes that could be construed as rape.
It's worth noting that the responses at Amazon were mixed. One reviewer felt that
The plot was good and technically it was well written, but I could not stand the characters. The book was first published in 1989 and I guess "acceptable behavior" for a romance novel character has changed greatly over the last 15+ years.

For example, the hero Deveryn practically rapes Maddie, the heroine, early in the book and then blames the poor girl for his loss of control. She made him "angry." Ha.

I found Deveryn's character to be cruel and gratingly chauvinistic.
However, another reviewer
found this book to be terribly sexy. It had a lot of the elements that erotic romance novel authors are using so well in their novels. Emma Holly's historicals are similar with more explicit sex scenes. This book was a total fantasy and the alpha male hero was a womanizing, unapologetic jerk, but I still found this to be exciting. The fantasy of having a man want you so powerfully that he can't help himself is very thrilling to some women. Winning a man over stiff competition like the heroine's stepmama is also an exciting fantasy to some women.
As Robin commented over at Dear Author,
the key to enjoying forced seduction and rape in Romance as a fantasy lies completely in the idea that either the heroine OR the reader consents to the act. There is a point beyond which only the reader meaningfully or consciously consents, which is what makes it a fantasy for the reader to enjoy, even as the heroine might not.
and she clarifies still further that romance novels that include forced seductions/rape of the heroine by the hero do not justify real-life rape, but rather are about
a *fantasy* pure and simple, and detached from anything we would call rape or sexual force or assault in real life. In Romance, either the heroine or the reader consents, and in that consent creates the fantasy construct as acceptable to that particular reader.
Here are some extracts from the passage in which Maddie has her first experience of sexual intercourse. Jason is jealous, thinking that Maddie has made an assignation with another man:
With a vicious jerk, he swung her round and pinned her against the door. Though she tried to shrink from the crush of his body as it pressed relentlessly against hers, her spine flattening against the hard, unyielding surface of the door, he would not permit it. His hand caught her hip, dragging her close to the lower half of his body, forcing her to accept the heat of his muscled thighs pressed intimately against hers.
There was never any doubt in her mind that his motive was punitive. There was nothing of the tender lover who had seduced her to willingness in the darkened nave of the church. His lips burned, his hands bruised, and he used his body like a weapon to subdue her. (2004: 124-125)
After a while he begins to seduce her instead of using so much force and 'Instinctively, she reached for Deveryn, seeking a more intimate joining' (2004: 127) but then
"Love," he said softly, "forgive me. This will hurt. But only the first time. I'll never hurt you again. I swear it."
The reassuring words were at first unintelligible to Maddie. A moment later, she grasped the full import of their significance. There had never been any doubt in his mind of her innocence. He had used her friendship with Malcolm as a convenient excuse to wreak his will on her. (2004: 128)
Furious, Maddie lies and tells him that
"You're not the first, I thought you knew."
He closed his eyes. Instinctively, she shrank from the violence she could sense as the hard muscles of his body tensed. The explosion was not long in coming. His mouth curled in a cruel line, and with a feral snarl, he ripped through the delicate membrane, sheathing himself fully.
Maddie screamed as that rending pain sliced through her. Though she had achieved her object, though she had punished her willful body and cured it of its sensual addiction, the price was more than she had counted on. [...] She was too spent from everything that had gone before to offer more than a passive resistance. But it was effective. She was deaf to his pleas, immune to the voluptuous caress of his hands, and finally unmoved by his bitter frustration. As he moved upon her, trying to draw a response from her unwilling body, her eyes closed. She concentrated on the pain of the violation she had been forced to endure. It was an effective antidote to passion.
When it was over, he left her abruptly and stalked to the fire. (2004: 128-129)
His first words to her, immediately after this, are ones in which he blames her for what has occurred:
"How could you do this to me?" [...] He repeated his question, but this time, there was no mistaking the hard anger in his voice.
He had frightened her half to death, forced her against her will, and now had the temerity to put her in the wrong. "I think" she retorted, "you have taken the words out of my mouth. I'm not the one who has anything to apologize for."
"You wanted me to hurt you!"
It was true, of course. She had known when she had uttered those taunting words that he would not be gentle. (2004: 129)
It is undeniable that Jason begins by sexually assaulting Maddie: the words 'he used his body like a weapon to subdue her' are a very clear indication of that. But when this almost-30-year-old, sexually experienced man then begins to seduce a 19-year-old virgin and she taunts him, frightened by her own sexual feelings and furious at what he's done to her so far, the blame for what happens next is somehow placed on Maddie, both by Jason and, implicitly, by Thornton.* Both seem to conclude that Maddie's pain is caused by her decision to reject Jason's seductions and tell him a lie. I, however, read this passage as being about Maddie being assaulted and raped. Maddie's realisation that she can feel pleasure, her horrified response to this, and the way he's treated her, make her tell a lie. It is known that during rape
Some women may experience lubrication, arousal, and/or orgasm. This may be confusing and disturbing for the survivor, but in no way means the survivor consented to or enjoyed the assault. (Syracuse R.A.P.E. Center)
Under no real-life circumstances could a lie such as Maddie's be construed as a 'provocation' and sufficient justification for rape. Furthermore, given that Maddie knows that Jason will not let her go without taking her virginity, the only way she can keep some control is by denying him the triumph of making her feel pleasure. Her lie does not change the outcome (Jason would not have stopped) but it makes it more painful for her, and, as a result, Jason cannot deny that he has hurt her. Thinking back on the incident, however, Jason resolutely rejects the term 'rape'. A few days later, after he's set in motion plans to marry Maddie (without her knowledge, since she, at this point, is refusing to do so), he feels 'the first genuine easing of the remorse that had laid him by the heels since the night he had taken Maddie's innocence. The word rape flashed into his mind. He vigorously suppressed it, substituting the far more tolerable seduction' (2004: 165, emphasis in the original text).

Some time later, after they've been separated for a month, he enters her room and begins to remove his clothes but Maddie
wasn't about to forget all the man's iniquities in spite of the messages her traitorous body was trying to feed her.
"You've got the wrong room [...]."
Her angry tirade broke off abruptly as he reached her in one lithe stride. Strong fingers encircled her throat, squeezing gently.
"You're my wife."
His eyes held hers. She could hear the frightened rush of air from her lungs as her breathing became more difficult. His eyes dropped to her parted lips. She tried to close them, but breathing became intolerable. [...] A cry tore from her lips the second before his mouth covered hers.
His kiss was smothering, cutting off air till she thought her lungs would burst. (2004:250)
I find it difficult to read this as anything other than an example of domestic violence, though I suppose that readers who treat this as fantasy may reach a different conclusion.

Jason is convinced that Maddie should be grateful for his attentions, and he never wavers from this opinion: 'There were dozens of women he could name who would give their eye teeth to be in her position. [...] The word "love" he discarded as far too common-place to describe their condition. This was Fate [...] Maddie was too ignorant to recognize it for what it was' (2004: 241). Somehow, being assaulted, choked and sexually aroused will ensure that Maddie recognises her Fate. Even moments after his rather limited apology for his behaviour: 'I know I've been an abominable husband!' ( 2004: 377) he is still acting violently: 'He had taken her by the shoulders and administered a rough shake as if to bring her to her senses. Maddie was too happy to make the least objection to this lover-like sign of his devotion' (2004: 377-78). If male love is expressed through bullying and the use of physical force, it's not surprising that Maddie should muse, 'I don't think, deep down, I like men very much. But then, as I've said before, liking and love are two different entities' (2004: 362).

It is, however, a positive conclusion if compared to the infanticide and murder which marked the married life of Medea, whose 'famous speech from Euripides's Medea' (2004: 8), which 'begins "Of all things that live and have intelligence, we women are the most wretched species"' (2004: 8), Maddie has been translating on the morning of the day on which the novel opens. [The quotation begins at the bracketed line 230 in this version of the text, and analysis of the speech may be found here.] The foreshadowing is rather clear, as Maddie (whose name recalls that of Medea) will become the ill-treated wife of another Jason.**
Euripides was revolutionary in his retelling of Medea's myth because he was the first one to show that she hadn't killed her children because she was crazy or a barbarian, but because she was extremely distressed and furious at Jason for leaving her to marry a princess. Fueled by a need for revenge, she sends Glauce a poisoned dress and crown that burn her to death. Creon tries to save her by tearing the dress away, but fails, burning alongside his daughter in the process. Medea then kills her two sons, Mermeros and Pheres, knowing it is the best way to hurt Jason. (Wikipedia)
Maddie thinks that Medea's 'revenge on the man who wronged her, you must admit, was a trifle excessive' (2004: 8), and although at one point she accuses Jason of being a 'Liar! Adulterer! Cheat! Murderer!' (2004: 338) and her resistance to Jason's treatment of her is expressed through her analysis of the play, it is Jason who is given the last word. When he comes upon Maddie directing the staging of the play, he addresses the girl playing Jason:
Don't ever think to cower before the spleen of any woman, no matter how formidable her cleverness, her courage, or her audacity. For you have that one quality above all others which the impassioned Medea lacks. You personify cool logic, an attribute which, in my experience, is rarely to be found in the female of the species, present company, one hopes, excepted. (2004: 366)
As an endorsement of women's mental capacities, it's lacking, and in the context of Jason's behaviour it doesn't seem to describe men very well either.

As mentioned above, Maddie distinguishes between love and liking, and it seems that Thornton considers Maddie and Jason be soul-mates. Such a construct does much to justify the ending, since their relationship is then to be considered one that's right, regardless of the violence, jealousy and emotional turmoil involved. Before Jason meets Maddie he 'disclaim[s] any experience of the phenomenon' of love and therefore 'I declare myself a skeptic and leave it to those who know better to convert me to their dogma' (2004: 34). His mother hands him a copy of Plato's Symposium, directing him in particular to 'what Aristophanes has to say' (2004: 35).*** Having met Maddie, Jason is a sudden convert to this theory:
"He believes that lovers are born joined but that the gods separate them at birth and they wander the earth, lost and lonely, till they find each other again. Only a few fortunate ones ever do. The unlucky ones learn to make do with second best - again and again and again."
"That's sheer myth," she retorted.
"So I believed. Until tonight. Now I'm not so sure." (2004: 53)
Maddie too feels something, though she's not precisely sure what:
Was she half in love with this Deveryn? She thought it very possible and she smiled to herself. He was like no other man she had ever known, but then, for a girl of nineteen years, she was singularly lacking in male acquaintances. Not that it mattered. If she had been acquainted with a thousand eligible young gentlemen, she would have instantly recognized that Deveryn was special to her. (2004: 61)
By the end of the novel she too accepts that her feelings are the love described by Aristophanes: ' "Aristophanes had the right of it," she said. "We are two halves of an entity. Apart, we're simply not whole. There's no other explanation" (2004: 381).

An important aspect of Jason's love is the possessive urge it brings with it: 'He wondered at the primitive drive throbbing at every pulse in his body, urging him relentlessly to make this woman his. His need to convince her that he was fated to be her mate surprised him as much as it delighted him. He had never thought to commit himself so totally to any woman' (2004: 55). Rape/sexual 'possession' is therefore portrayed as the result of the 'possessive urge' created by 'love'. Rape, then, rather than a violent act of aggression, is set in a context where it can be read as evidence that the hero and heroine are soul mates.

Another aspect of the novel which serves to justify Jason's behaviour is the way it is normalised. The rape is prefigured by a scene in which Jason feels jealous and
He had found her in the arms of another male, and the spectacle had unleashed some dark and sinister emotion, some primeval drive that was not to be denied. With lips, tongue, hands, and body easily breaching her defences, he ground himself into her, branding her as his woman, claiming her as his mate. More than anything, he wanted to tumble her there, in the orchard, and enter her body, possessing her fully, irrevocably binding her to him. That the instinct was purely primitive in nature, he did not doubt. (2004: 105)
These 'primitive', 'primeval' instincts, which can lead to 'dark and sinister' emotions, are portrayed as an intrinsic part of masculinity. In this novel, despite the fact that Jason's mother rejects the way in which 'Men [...] throughout history have divided the members of my sex into two distinct classes - good women and the other sort' (2004: 34), Thornton herself seems to agree that there are two sorts of women. She rejects the idea that 'good women' do not enjoy sex, but the dichotomy persists. Fallen Angel contrasts bad women (prostitutes or temptresses such as Maddie's adulterous step-mother, who had an affair with Jason), and 'good women'. The 'good women' may also be sexually active, but their role seems to be to help men, to tame them. Jason's mother describes the men of his family as 'Congenital savages' (2004: 368) and Maddie learns that when her own mother and father had a quarrel early in their marriage
" [...] It was no polite party yer faither put on that night but a drunken orgy. And thae were no ladies o' quality yer mother took her whip tae, but, if ye'll excuse my French, barques o' frailty. [...] Doxies, trollops, Cyprians, every last one o' them," said Janet [...].
Maddie's face was a picture of incredulity. "You're pulling my leg! Papa wasn't that sort of man. I don't believe he would have served Mama such a turn."
Janet answered at her bluntest. "Every man is o' that ilk, given the opportunity. Yer mither was wiser than ye are. She made damn sure that Donald Sinclair was never again presented wi' temptation. [...] She kent that it's the woman who maun make sure that her man keeps tae the straight and narrow" (2004: 359-360)
Thornton does not seem to blame men for this supposedly inherent part of their nature, but rather she gives a man's female soul mate the role of being sufficiently sexually alluring to tame a man and tie him into a sexually committed, monogamous relationship. Unfortunately this seems to support one of the many myths used to justify or explain rapes which occur in non-fictional settings. As noted on the website of Rape Crisis (England and Wales):
The myth is that men rape women because they do not have ‘legitimate’ access to women for sex. The idea is grounded on the belief that men have uncontrollable urges that must be satisfied. In fact, men’s sex drives are no more strong than women’s. If it was purely a biological urge, then masturbation would satisfy it. Men rape women to secure power and control.

* The age difference is one of which Jason is very aware at other times, but as he says: 'I don't always treat you as a child. There are some areas where you have a natural competence. With a little tutoring you should do very well' (2004: 158). The sexual innuendo is unmistakable and makes Maddie blush.
** Maddie herself makes the connection: 'Jason and his quest for the golden fleece. Medea's Jason ... Maddie's Jason' (2004: 132).
*** I've discussed the Symposium in some earlier posts, here and here. Jason's explanation differs in many particulars from the original, which can be read in translation here.

  • Thornton, Elizabeth, 2004. Fallen Angel (New York: Zebra). Picture of front cover from Amazon.

40 comments:

  1. Yes. I've come across similar content in Romances I've read -- everything, including the way that violence against women is normalized and even justified as the "natural" nature of a man, the denial of the rape as a rape, etc. But the thing I've always found most disturbing is the female author's seeming complicity with the hero--no, not hero-- rapist. The rape of the heroine is but one part of the violation committed against her -- the author, the God of her world, gives all the power to her rapist, organizes every event against her. Creates her only to put a noose around her slender neck and tighten it chapter by chapter.

    People say that this is a pleasurable "fantasy," but if it is, why not read a fantasy about a woman who, within a Safe Sane Consensual relationship, enjoys roleplaying abusive treatment with her partner, rather than setting up some poor girl and then destroying her inch by inch?

    I don't get it. And it stirs up such a lot of emotions in me that it's hard to be reasonable about it. Makes a hot, sick knot in my chest.

    It's strange. Romance stories can make me so happy, entertained, moved, but more often then not they're a horrible, painful disappointment.

    The presence of oppression and violence against women is so common that I've come across these books after reading glowing reviews that never mentioned the abusive, degrading content.

    There are so many different categories of Romance -- Paranormal, Suspense, Historical -- I just wish there was a category for stories that were kind to women, with male characters who are human beings, not caricatures of masculinity. I wish there was one goddamn safe space. Or that the reviewers weren't so inured to cruelty to women in their fiction that they might include a little warning or something.

    ((sigh))

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  2. ...also, thanks for the link to Medea and the Sparknote's page. I'm not very familiar with classic Greek drama, but it was fascinating to read the speech and the commentary on it's representation of gender. I was, honestly, surprised at the sympathy Euripides shows in giving Medea the opportunity and words with which to voice so eloquently the injustice of her situation and that of all Greek women -- he does hold fast to some stupid culturally accepted ideas, but overall it's amazingly humane. I'm glad I read it. :)

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  3. The rape of the heroine is but one part of the violation committed against her -- the author, the God of her world, gives all the power to her rapist, organizes every event against her. Creates her only to put a noose around her slender neck and tighten it chapter by chapter.

    Yes, I felt that was going on in this book too. When the heroine finds out who the hero is (she holds him responsible for her father's misery - and he did commit adultery with her father's wife, and win his house at cards), she runs away. But he turns up again. Just before he rapes her she hits him and tries to run away, but he brings her back. He forces her to marry her and she runs to her grandfather. And so it goes on. Every time she runs away, he finds her and gets her back.

    Obviously there are times when someone might run away but still want to be followed, but as a pattern in the book it disturbed me. It seemed too much of a parallel to her attempts to avoid sex, only to have her objections forcibly overruled. It seemed to be saying that she was trapped, and that Fate/the Author was going to pull her back at each turn and make sure she stayed with the 'hero'.

    it stirs up such a lot of emotions in me that it's hard to be reasonable about it. Makes a hot, sick knot in my chest.

    I've tried as hard as I can to be 'reasonable' but I too have that 'hot sick knot in my chest' and it made this a very difficult post for me to write.

    I'm glad you enjoyed reading Medea's speech. Of course, Maddie ends up completely rejecting Medea and she even denies her own right to feel angry:

    "I...I wanted...revenge." It sounded so petty when baldly stated, and she could not prevent the blush that stole over her cheeks. (2004: 367)

    she has nightmares in which

    she was plagued [...] with the spectacle of Bedlam. She seemed to move at will in and out of its awful chambers. But she was ever drawn back by Caro Lamb who, for a lark, had decided to take up residence. There were horrible sights of inmates chained to the walls and ferociously devouring, quite literally, the pages of Lady Caro's novel. [...] Nor was she served any better during the daylight hours for to wrestle with Euripides's Medea had suddenly become a terrible trial to her. Truth to tell, she longed to march into the drama as if it were reality and take Medea by the shoulders and shake some sense into her. (2004: 372)

    Maddie's conviction that she had conducted herself with all the aplomb of a featherbrained nodcock became firmly fixed in her mind. [...] She discovered that she pitied that lady [Lady Caroline Lamb] who, like Medea, was wonderfully revenged upon her enemies, but at an astronomical cost to herself and those she loved. The pity of it was that she had not seen it sooner.
    Deveryn was right, she decided. Where there was love, there could be no question of revenge. And that she loved him went without saying.
    (2004: 373)

    Maddie isn't just dominated physically, she's also dominated intellectually and forced to accept that 'Deveryn was right'. The message seems to be that women should love men, men can treat them badly and women should still love men, and that women shouldn't try to escape, live independently or seek revenge, because that will just backfire on them. As you say, it 'Makes a hot, sick knot in my chest' because there aren't any palatable alternatives offered, and the heroine's choices are presented as being between madness and revenge on the one hand, or acceptance of, and submission to, her husband on the other.

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  4. I haven't read Thornton, so I can't comment on the novel you refer to here, Laura. One of the things that makes me most crazy is when readers pass judgment on books they haven't read or haven't read carefully or fully. However, one of the things that really stuck out to me in the passages you used was this:

    Though she had achieved her object, though she had punished her willful body and cured it of its sensual addiction, the price was more than she had counted on. [...] She was too spent from everything that had gone before to offer more than a passive resistance. But it was effective. She was deaf to his pleas, immune to the voluptuous caress of his hands, and finally unmoved by his bitter frustration. As he moved upon her, trying to draw a response from her unwilling body, her eyes closed. She concentrated on the pain of the violation she had been forced to endure. It was an effective antidote to passion.

    Why does this young woman feel that passion is so horrible that she needs to be raped to be "cured" of it? Not having read the book I cannot understand exactly what's going on here, but that text has me wondering about what it is that Thornton is trying to accomplish with this motif.

    IMO, there are several uses of rape/forced seduction in Romance, one of which is the rape fantasy, about which you used some of my comments. Another use, though, is the redemption fantasy, wherein the hero is redeemed through the love of the heroine, and wherein he is transformed into a loving doting husband. There's also the use of rape/FS where the hero remains an a-hole (hello Brenda Joyce's The Conqueror or Catherine Coulter's Rosehaven), or where the heroine is threatened by another, or where secondary characters are forced for various reasons. AND, I've seen the device used to create an environment in which the heroine must confront her own sexuality in a different way (this use is often connected to either/and the rape fantasy or the redeemer fantasy).

    I agree that there are books in which I feel the author is complicit with the hero's victimization of the heroine. But at the same time, I think there are subversive elements to the use of rape in Romance that may or may not be employed, may or may not work for each reader. In any case, what I tend to focus on in the use of rape/FS in Romance -- on a general level -- is that the incredibly popular presence of the motif seems to suggest that women are still struggling with issues of powerlessness, both in life and in the genre. For me, though, I guess the important question is whether the overt presence of the struggle itself is or isn't a good thing.

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  5. I haven't read Thornton, so I can't comment on the novel you refer to here, Laura. One of the things that makes me most crazy is when readers pass judgment on books they haven't read or haven't read carefully or fully.

    I very much respect you not wanting to comment on a book you haven't read. I felt the same way during the discussion of Campbell's Claiming the Courtesan, which I haven't read. I could only respond in general terms to the issue of rape in romance and give my opinion of how I would feel about reading the scenes you described. I know, for example, that I do not enjoy reading any scenes of rape, because personally I can't enter into either the rape fantasy or the redemption-of-the-rapist fantasy.

    But I do acknowledge that there are different contexts in different romance novels. As you say,

    there are several uses of rape/forced seduction in Romance, one of which is the rape fantasy [...]. Another [...] is the redemption fantasy, wherein the hero is redeemed through the love of the heroine, and wherein he is transformed into a loving doting husband. There's also the use of rape/FS where the hero remains an a-hole [...] or where the heroine is threatened by another, or where secondary characters are forced for various reasons. AND, I've seen the device used to create an environment in which the heroine must confront her own sexuality in a different way (this use is often connected to either/and the rape fantasy or the redeemer fantasy).

    To get back to the specifics of this particular novel

    Why does this young woman feel that passion is so horrible that she needs to be raped to be "cured" of it? Not having read the book I cannot understand exactly what's going on here, but that text has me wondering about what it is that Thornton is trying to accomplish with this motif.

    I'm not exactly sure either, but I do think that at least in part 'the device [is being] used to create an environment in which the heroine must confront her own sexuality'. Jason tells her

    Maddie, I know how your mind works. I won't have you flay yourself for the natural expression of the affections we share as husband and wife. You're going to enter that chapel with a clear conscience, at least with respect to what we do in the privacy of our bedchamber. (2004: 269)

    Nonetheless, Maddie still feels shame about her sexual enjoyment:

    A thousand damning thoughts seemed to circle in her head. She had given Deveryn the possession of her body, and he had used her with more intimacy than she'd ever thought possible. If he were not her husband, then she was no better than a Magdalena. [...] She became conscious that worshippers were going forward to the altar rail to receive the elements of the Eucharist. [...] Maddie hung back. She felt herself to be in a state of sin and unworthy to take the sacrament. (2004: 270)

    This is partly because their wedding was a civil one, and Maddie isn't sure how binding/real it is, but it does seem as though even without that she might have problems accepting sexual enjoyment, as the quotation in which she feels she must cure herself of her 'sensual addiction' suggests.

    I guess the important question is whether the overt presence of the struggle itself is or isn't a good thing.

    It's tricky, isn't it, because women's sexuality, and discussion of female sexuality, has often been suppressed, and that in itself has been damaging to women. But in the cases where 'the hero remains an a-hole' (which in itself is somewhat subjective) it could seem as though the novels are rather accepting of rape, either on the grounds that it's understandable/acceptable where there is 'true love' and/or where the 'hero' is intensely virile, and I find that extremely problematic.

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  6. It's tricky, isn't it, because women's sexuality, and discussion of female sexuality, has often been suppressed, and that in itself has been damaging to women. But in the cases where 'the hero remains an a-hole' (which in itself is somewhat subjective) it could seem as though the novels are rather accepting of rape, either on the grounds that it's understandable/acceptable where there is 'true love' and/or where the 'hero' is intensely virile, and I find that extremely problematic.

    There are many books in the Romance genre I find problematic, Laura. But that's my take on them. I know I'm preaching to the choir here about having respect for individual interpretive paradigms, so I won't say anything more about that.

    What I tend to look at in these situations is 1) where the heroine ends up at the end of the novel, 2) how thoughtfully I think an author handles a certain dynamic, and 3) whether there are dissenting voices in the book itself as to the behavior of the hero. And to be honest, I rarely find a consistent message within a single book which complicates things further, IMO.

    I don't know if you've seen Eileen Dreyer's latest blog rant; I've been thinking about it for quite a few days now, and it makes me really uncomfortable. One of the reasons I've been so vocal about CtC and this issue is that I fear the point where we say that any Romance novel that contains and violence is automatically advocating that in real life. Or that the genre has some moral obligation to a particular vision of/for women. Because what one person reads as subjugating for the heroine, another reader might find subversive.

    Having spent the past few months in a Domestic Violence Law course with a professor who is both an attorney and an expert advocate in the field, I can tell you she'd be taken aback by the suggestion that victims of abuse are being influenced by genre Romance. In a strange way, that connection is one more way -- IMO -- that agency is being taken away from the victim.

    I adore talking about the way Romance creates and mirrors certain cultural attitudes, messages, and myths, but in many ways, I prefer to see Romance as a place we're trying to work some big stuff out, and that inevitably involves a fair amount of ambivalence, IMO.

    I will probably have to read the Thorton novel, just to understand that move with the heroine as someone who feels sex is sinful. If she ends up in a mutually respectful relationship with the hero -- that is, if the relationship can be healed of the effects of the rape -- and she is accepting of her own sexuality, then I think that's a different book than one in which neither of those things happen. Maybe it's all still problematic, but in a different way, perhaps? Let's face it: we have made women's sexuality an enormous issue in our human world, and we're nowhere close to being at peace with it, IMO.

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  7. I hadn't seen Eileen Dreyer's blog post about rape in romance, but I have now. What she's saying is pretty much the same as what has been said in some studies of romance. I mentioned them here (you might need to scroll down a bit to get to the part specifically about domestic violence and the work done by Wood and Larcombe).

    Having spent the past few months in a Domestic Violence Law course with a professor who is both an attorney and an expert advocate in the field, I can tell you she'd be taken aback by the suggestion that victims of abuse are being influenced by genre Romance

    But people are influenced by what they read as well as what they see on TV, what's said by those around them etc. I know that as a teenager my feelings about rape and virginity were heavily influenced by my reading of Tess of the d'Urbervilles. I don't think that gave me particularly healthy messages, but even though I was aware of that at the time, I couldn't shake them off, because of the power of the fictional world that Hardy had created.

    Romance authors frequently argue that romance novels are a power for good, which empower women and cheer them up. If romance does have that sort of power, and I think it can have, then I think it can also have the power to reinforce some beliefs which are not empowering. Obviously the effects will vary hugely from one reader to another, and from one book to another. Some readers are more emotionally affected by their reading and, as you say, some books give mixed messages etc, but I wouldn't dismiss out of hand the idea that romance novels can, if not create, at least reinforce, certain disempowering ideas about love, masculinity, violence, femininity, etc.

    I adore talking about the way Romance creates and mirrors certain cultural attitudes, messages, and myths, but in many ways, I prefer to see Romance as a place we're trying to work some big stuff out, and that inevitably involves a fair amount of ambivalence, IMO.

    I think you've said elsewhere that you have a fairly detached way of reading, and I wonder if that makes a difference to how you respond to the texts. Intellectually, I can agree that as a whole the genre deals with issues such as female sexuality and there are changes over time and one can see the books as being in dialogue with each other. But emotionally, as I read them, they have an immediate impact and the upsetting, negative messages inevitably have more power. I'm not sure why that is, but perhaps it's in line with the general fact that it's easier to destroy than to create. I'm not talking specifically about rape in romance now, but in general, emotionally speaking, the empowering messages in a string of romance novels can be undermined, for me, by the effects of just one which has the opposite effect.

    That makes it difficult for me to discuss this in a wholly intellectual manner. I try very hard to respect the views of other readers, and to keep my mind open to the possibility that there are possibly alternative textual interpretations and emotional responses. Ultimately, though, I tend to come down on the side of caution, and my response is invariably coloured by my own emotional response to the texts.

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  8. Romance authors frequently argue that romance novels are a power for good, which empower women and cheer them up. If romance does have that sort of power, and I think it can have, then I think it can also have the power to reinforce some beliefs which are not empowering. Obviously the effects will vary hugely from one reader to another, and from one book to another. Some readers are more emotionally affected by their reading and, as you say, some books give mixed messages etc, but I wouldn't dismiss out of hand the idea that romance novels can, if not create, at least reinforce, certain disempowering ideas about love, masculinity, violence, femininity, etc.

    Oh, I agree with you, Laura, that we have to take the good with the bad. Absolutely. I just question whether we can universally arrive at a definition of the "good" and the "bad" in Romance, let alone life. Sure we know it's bad to have women in abusive relationships, but has anyone done any long-term, comprehensive research about the connection that single genre has to a woman's chances of being in an abusive relationship (I couldn't find that in your citations, but perhaps I missed it)?

    After 25 years of research, they've finally arrived at the conclusion that there is no profile of an average victim of DV. And isn't it interesting that we spent 25 years focusing on women, the vast majority who constitute the victims in DV, rather than on men, on the vast majority of batterers. Now, as we change our focus to the batterer, certain characteristics seem to emerge: batterers are generally jealous, manipulative, controlling, paranoid, and secretive. How many Romance heroes do you think one or all of these characteristics could apply to, especially if you start yanking things out of context?

    There is tremendous shame in being a DV victim for most women, especially when we were in that research mode of determining that something about the woman "drew" her into that relationship. No kidding that some of those women might have identified Romance as either a coping mechanism or an interpretive license to stay. Does that mean Romance advocated that decision? I find it so dangerous to go down that one-to-one, individual book-to- individual psyche path, not only from a logical perspective, but from a feminist one, as well. It's not that Romance fiction is the *only* influence in their lives, right? What are we saying about women -- about their personal agency, about their judgments, about their ability to discern fact from fiction -- when we suggest that they're being victimized by Romance novels?

    It's like those "no drop" policies in a number of jurisdictions that prosecute batterers with or without the permission of the victim. In other words, the State adopts the voice of the woman and speaks on her behalf. We say, YES, when it's something that seems healthy, and NO when it's something that seems repressive, but how easy is it, really, to tell the difference? What do we deprive women of when the State intervenes and takes over in that way?

    One thing I didn't know before I took this class was that most victims, statistically speaking, ultimately leave their batterer. Does anyone look at Romance as a factor there?

    I can totally respect your own emotional reaction to these texts, Laura, which is why I think it's so valuable to have these kinds of discussions. Were I a survivor of DV, I doubt I'd be able to read a lot of what I do now (same if I were a rape victim or an assault or stalker victim, etc.). But there's a reason we don't let crime victims and their families make the laws, by and large, and why some of those laws passed at the height of an emotional pique come back to haunt us later (the three strikes law in CA, passed in the wake of a child kidnapping/murder, has done basically the opposite of what it intended and is now the object of a revocation campaign by the guy who campaigned for it originally -- the victim's grandfather). None of us is fully objective, which is why our various views are necessary as a collective to balance each other out.

    And I guess I feel the same way about Romance -- that we need to let these different images and scenarios out into the open in diversity, not only for the sake of artistic freedom and free speech, but because as women we struggle with so many limitations on our selves, our lives, our emotional freedom, our work, etc. How can Romance not reflect those struggles in ways that are not always pretty and fluffy and happy?

    That the genre contains and even sends societal messages I have no doubt. But so does every other form of art and media out there. I just can't bring myself to embrace the idea that women who are reading certain types of Romance (and could we even agree on the type??) are being influenced *so much* that they drift into an abusive relationship and then stay because on page 300, the abusive hero tells the heroine he loves her. That victims might use anything at their disposal to justify their choices for whatever reason I believe. That someone in an abusive relationship is suffering under tremendous shame and guilt, and who copes in ways we would see as extreme I believe. But is it a) the books themselves, b) the way the reader is interpreting them, and c) an expression of an already compromised emotional state.

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  9. One more thing, before I forget. It really, really, really bothered me that Dreyer -- whose original article on this issue a number of years ago I actually really appreciated -- didn't seem to read past the first 50 pages of the book before consulting Sandy Coleman's review on AAR and using that review (with which I personally disagree), to bolster the rest of her argument. It may be that Dreyer did indeed read the rest of the book before posting about it, but if she did, it wasn't apparent in her column.

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  10. has anyone done any long-term, comprehensive research about the connection that single genre has to a woman's chances of being in an abusive relationship

    No, not as far as I know. Wood's work involved talking to women who had been in abusive relationships about how they 'use stories to make sense of their lives, placing themselves within those stories'. It wasn't just romances, though: 'To a woman, each participant said she initially perceived her partner as "Prince Charming" and the relationship as "a fairy tale romance." "He made me the center of his universe," they said, and "I was swept off my feet." Wood said "every single one of them used those phrases." That's what led her to connect tolerating abuse with paperback books, TV and the silver screen -- and not just the oldies'.

    Now, as we change our focus to the batterer, certain characteristics seem to emerge: batterers are generally jealous, manipulative, controlling, paranoid, and secretive. How many Romance heroes do you think one or all of these characteristics could apply to, especially if you start yanking things out of context?

    Probably quite a lot of them. But I try to avoid them in my romance reading as much as I can. I find heroes with those characteristics upsetting. Not that I completely avoid them, because I'm trying to do research as well as have fun with my reading, so I try to read at least a few novels in sub-genres which aren't my favourites, or which have characters/storylines I don't personally like. That said, there are so many romance novels out there that I could never read them all, so although I hope I've got a vague overview of the genre as a whole, I'm not too upset that there are areas where my knowledge is very sketchy. One can't specialise in everything, and I'm very willing to acknowledge my own ignorance ;-)

    It's not that Romance fiction is the *only* influence in their lives, right? What are we saying about women -- about their personal agency, about their judgments, about their ability to discern fact from fiction -- when we suggest that they're being victimized by Romance novels?

    Like I said, Wood doesn't just discuss the romance genre, but it's one of the sources which shapes some women's ideas about relationships.

    It may be that Dreyer did indeed read the rest of the book before posting about it, but if she did, it wasn't apparent in her column.

    Obviously I don't know how much of the book Dreyer read, but I focused my comments on one novel which I had read all the way through precisely because if one hasn't read the whole book, one isn't going to know exactly how the scenario plays out (for example, whether the hero shows contrition, what he apologises for, how much he changes, etc). That said, someone may take a few pages as a spring-board for expressing opinions about broader issues. I got the impression that Dreyer's comments were not so much about Campbells' book in particular, though that was the starting point for her post, but more about rape by romance heroes in general.

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  11. I will probably have to read the Thorton novel, just to understand that move with the heroine as someone who feels sex is sinful. If she ends up in a mutually respectful relationship with the hero -- that is, if the relationship can be healed of the effects of the rape -- and she is accepting of her own sexuality, then I think that's a different book than one in which neither of those things happen. Maybe it's all still problematic, but in a different way, perhaps?

    That would definitely still be problematic, imo.

    I don't see forcing someone to "accept her sexuality" is any more positive than simply forcing her. I see sexual freedom as being primarily about choice. If a heroine chooses to view sex as sinful and abstain, that's how she relates to her sexuality. That's how she "accepts" her sexuality. And her right to make that choice should be as protected as another woman's right to view sex as a positive thing and go after it with gusto.

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  12. I don't see forcing someone to "accept her sexuality" is any more positive than simply forcing her. I see sexual freedom as being primarily about choice. If a heroine chooses to view sex as sinful and abstain, that's how she relates to her sexuality. That's how she "accepts" her sexuality. And her right to make that choice should be as protected as another woman's right to view sex as a positive thing and go after it with gusto.

    Just to be clear, I'm not suggesting that force is positive in any way, shape, or form. But out of deep betrayals can come healing that one generates from within oneself, which is what I'm talking about here. Can the couple survive the violation, can the heroine become whole and complete and make an informed decision about whether the relationship is or isn't healthy, can the couple have a mutually respectful and loving relationship after a period of enlightenment and healing on both their parts? Those are the things I tend to look for in making my own decision as a reader as to whether or not a *book* can be saved.

    It wasn't just romances, though: 'To a woman, each participant said she initially perceived her partner as "Prince Charming" and the relationship as "a fairy tale romance." "He made me the center of his universe," they said, and "I was swept off my feet." Wood said "every single one of them used those phrases." That's what led her to connect tolerating abuse with paperback books, TV and the silver screen -- and not just the oldies'.

    After I posted my last response, Laura, I was actually thinking about the idealized HEA we have in fairy tales and Romance. I think it's interesting that it's the HEA that the women studied focus on, and not the particularities of the relationship in the book or in their life. Because even the most empowering Romance (assuming we can agree on what that is) has the HEA. So is that unrealistic and should we not have it? How many women stay in unhappy relationships hoping for the HEA? How many young women expect to live happily ever after? On the other hand, do we want people to marry expecting to divorce, to have little or no faith in the possibility that they can have a successful marriage?

    When we start drawing straight causal inferences, it gets really problematic for me, because I'm not sure they hold up logically, and we tend to apply them over selectively and over generally at the same time -- and not just good v. bad. but good v. good and bad v. bad.

    Personally, it bothers me that we tend to elevate romantic love above other kinds of love in romantic fiction. And I think that elevation both reflects and influences society's views of love and romance. But IMO there's a world of difference between showing influence and causation. Although influence is much more fickle analytically because it doesn't always abide by the rules we might expect it to. For example, sometimes it actually generates backlash or opposite behavior and belief. Then there's the unpredictable element of subversion and the individual dynamics a reader has with any given set of cultural myths.

    While I think it's really important to understand why women end up in abusive relationships, at some point, all the focus we place on women in that dynamic suggests, IMO, that we're the problem somehow. And so often it's women, not men, who are doing this research. And yet, it's become clear from some of the newer research that spotting an abuser is much more difficult than we might think in many cases, and women you'd never expect to end up in abusive relationships. Maybe all women believe in the HEA to some degree, but is that what triggers tolerance of an abusive relationship for women? That's kind of a scary inference for me.

    cused my comments on one novel which I had read all the way through precisely because if one hasn't read the whole book, one isn't going to know exactly how the scenario plays out (for example, whether the hero shows contrition, what he apologises for, how much he changes, etc). That said, someone may take a few pages as a spring-board for expressing opinions about broader issues.

    I so appreciate the way you laid out your column, Laura, and I wish I had read the Thornton so we could actually talk about the book in detail. I felt Dreyer was pretty focused on condemning CtC as part of her post, and since I disagree strongly with Sandy Coleman's take on the book, it's difficult for me to sort out what Dreyer is and isn't responding to and what she's read and hasn't read of the book on which she's relying pretty heavily (a full half of the paragraphs relate directly to the book) as an example of the kind of Romance that, in Dreyer's opinion, it seems just shouldn't exist. I mean, that's a pretty strong sentiment.

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  13. I hope it's all right if I noodle around working out my thoughts a bit? I've been thinking about it and I've realized that rape in romance is not itself my problem. It's a particular form of power imbalance.

    Where the heroine's right to say "I want this, and not that," and have her decision be respected by the author and the hero, is disallowed, to varying degrees of violence.

    For instance, I have found "nice" romances where the hero would never dream of sexually assaulting the heroine that nonetheless take a similar shape as other, more violent stories; the hero is still set up by the author as the rightful arbiter of the heroine's life and only by submitting to his will can she achieve peace and love.

    I recall reading a Joan Wolf Regency romance where the non-violent hero is juxtaposed with the violence of another male who wants the heroine, too. It was interesting to me because, though the hero seemed kind, the story gave me the same unsettled and angry feelings as the worst rapist-hero Romances. I realized then that the role of violating and psychologically "softening up" the heroine to the hero's control, which the hero takes in rapist-hero romances, had simply been split off.

    When the heroine tried to control her own life and make her own decisions, the hero didn't punish her; the author did by sending the "nasty" man along to rape her and abuse her daughter, so that she would feel broken down enough to submit to the "nice" hero when he recues her from the suffering she apparently brought upon herself by not agreeing to accept his authority.

    I don't think I would mind rape as a theme where it's presented without the attendant "lessons" about submission. And if I could wish one type of Romance into nonexistance, I think it would be the ones that teach that lesson.

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  14. Okay. It would be wrong to wish any sort of book into nonexistence.

    But, erm, maybe I could wish for some kind of mental alert that would tell me before I get into a book what sort of subtext it has. That would be nice.

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  15. Where the heroine's right to say "I want this, and not that," and have her decision be respected by the author and the hero, is disallowed, to varying degrees of violence.

    It's funny you should mention this, angel, because I wrote something related to this elsewhere. I was just thinking this week about how many Romance heroines are denied the full exercise of their will -- and that goes for trad Regencies, Romantica, and Romantic suspense (all the subgenres, really). Absolutely I agree with you that power issues are central to so many of these issues.

    The difficulty, IMO, is in generalizing about what is an empowering situation for the heroine and what isn't. For example, I don't read Inspirationals, and I think a hero who judges a heroine based on certain religious values would feel uncomfortable to me. I also notice that no one ever talks about the violence in Romance that isn't directed at the heroine -- like it's perfectly okay that the hero is a spy or a military officer, as long as anyone he's killed is "bad" (however we might define that). And what about the heroine who chooses to leave her job as corporate CEO to move to the country and be a full-time mom? Feminist choice or patriarchal submission?

    Ultimately, I don't even know if there's an objective test to determine how someone will interpret a book. I think the best we can do is continue to hash out the issues on a case by case basis as a way to reach our own balance. My own call for Romance, if I could have one, would be for *thoughtful* books -- stories and characters that demonstrate that the author has really been mindful about their placement and their movement in the text. It's the mimetic mindlessness of certain tropes that disturbs me even more than the tropes themselves.

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  16. It's funny you should mention this, angel, because I wrote something related to this elsewhere.

    Cool! I'd love a link to that, if you don't mind.

    For example, I don't read Inspirationals, and I think a hero who judges a heroine based on certain religious values would feel uncomfortable to me.

    Well, as a feminist Christian chick, there are several things I'd require from any Christian man or Romance hero in order for me to consider him a good person and a good Christian.

    He'd have to (a) acknowledge that not everyone is a Christian and not all Christians agree on what sin is, (b) realize that holding someone to a moral code they don't believe in is stupid and cruel, and (c) be Christ-like enough to understand that even people who hold the same moral code are liable to "fall" and make mistakes and that they shouldn't be judged for that but forgiven and loved and given whatever support they're willing to accept.

    For instance, if a guy from my church knew I was sleeping around, he could come up to me and talk to me about something that our shared philosophy determins to be sin and tell me that he's concerned, offer to pray. That would be right behavior. But if he tried to deny my right to commit sin if I want to, or condemn me, I'd be within my rights to give him Ye Olde Christian Smackdown, a little "judge not, lest ye be judged," with a side of "let him who is without sin cast the first stone," and so on.

    There have been lots of bastards who've used Christianity to justify oppressing women but, as far as the teachings of Jesus are concerned, being a ravening a-hole is a big sin itself and so totally *not* okay.

    I also notice that no one ever talks about the violence in Romance that isn't directed at the heroine -- like it's perfectly okay that the hero is a spy or a military officer, as long as anyone he's killed is "bad" (however we might define that).

    Point. I'd like to see that explored, actually.

    And what about the heroine who chooses to leave her job as corporate CEO to move to the country and be a full-time mom? Feminist choice or patriarchal submission?

    If she does it because that's the genuine desire of her heart, then it's a feminist choice, imo. My idea of feminism is about allowing and encouraging women (and men!) to lead fulfilled lives in whatever sphere they chose, intead of being bound into gender roles.

    My own call for Romance, if I could have one, would be for *thoughtful* books -- stories and characters that demonstrate that the author has really been mindful about their placement and their movement in the text. It's the mimetic mindlessness of certain tropes that disturbs me even more than the tropes themselves.

    That does sound pretty ideal.

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  17. Laura, I was actually thinking about the idealized HEA we have in fairy tales and Romance. I think it's interesting that it's the HEA that the women studied focus on, and not the particularities of the relationship in the book or in their life. Because even the most empowering Romance (assuming we can agree on what that is) has the HEA. So is that unrealistic and should we not have it? How many women stay in unhappy relationships hoping for the HEA?

    I think Relatively Happy Until Death Do Us Parts are realistic. Lots of people are happy with their partners and stay together. What I really don't like are sort of magic stick-on HEAs, based on the idea that the characters have found True Love, when that True Love is identified in the novel mainly by the fact that the couple have great orgasms together. And I don't like it at all when this sort of True Love is then used to partly justify/excuse abusive behaviour.

    In my opinion True Love is not something magic that happens and glues two people together forever, regardless of how horrible to each other they may be, and how incompatible they may be in every area other than the sexual.

    I much prefer HEAs which are convincing based on the characterisation, that let you see why these people would choose to be together (that's choose, not 'have their magic destiny thrust upon them'), what they have in common, how they help each other/give each other the space to grow as people. And people may truly love each other and not get the amazing multiple orgasms depicted in some romances. I wonder if romance has maybe gone a bit far in that direction because of trying to reclaim female sexuality and say that it's OK to enjoy sex. Hmm. I'm maybe going off-topic a bit there.

    it's become clear from some of the newer research that spotting an abuser is much more difficult than we might think in many cases, and women you'd never expect to end up in abusive relationships. Maybe all women believe in the HEA to some degree, but is that what triggers tolerance of an abusive relationship for women? That's kind of a scary inference for me.

    Scary in that you think the research is wrong, or scary because you worry it might be right?

    I hope it's all right if I noodle around working out my thoughts a bit?

    Angel, please noodle all you like. I've been finding your noodles very interesting and thought-provoking.

    I've realized that rape in romance is not itself my problem. It's a particular form of power imbalance.

    In many ways rape is just the most obvious manifestation of abuse of power, isn't it? Obvious physically and within romance novels, so perhaps that's one reason why people have focused on it. But if we unlink rape from sexuality (which maybe isn't so possible in romance, where rape by the hero is often (not always) presented as being a demonstration of how irresisible he finds the heroine) and see it as just one way to assert power, then it becomes just one among many other forms of abuse. Verbal abuse/control are much more insidious, because it's harder to spot, it's more nebulous. So I do agree with you that these attitudes/behaviours in romance novels can be as worrying as the rapes.

    And, of course, some rapes are ones that the hero apologies for etc. but I'm not sure how often heroes who are deeply controlling apologise for that and really change.

    I also notice that no one ever talks about the violence in Romance that isn't directed at the heroine -- like it's perfectly okay that the hero is a spy or a military officer, as long as anyone he's killed is "bad"

    I have touched on these issues very, very briefly in my discussions of the differences between British and American heroes and contemporary politics. It would be another big hot potato subject, I suspect, because different people have such different (and strong) opinions about pacifism, gun control, the death penalty etc.

    And what about the heroine who chooses to leave her job as corporate CEO to move to the country and be a full-time mom? Feminist choice or patriarchal submission?

    I agree with Angel. It really depends on whether it is a choice and how far it's influenced by societal expectations, pressure from the hero etc.

    Welcome Orangehands! I sometimes wish there could be stickers/warnings too. But perhaps it wouldn't be fair for the people who don't like spoilers. And stickers would never be subtle enough to convey all the nuances or you'd have to have huge stickers with things like 'rape by the villain who is severely punished, and only moderately controlling hero'. Not very practical. We do have reviews, but as Angel said, there can be 'glowing reviews that never mentioned the abusive, degrading content'.

    and thanks for letting me ramble on (i realize this is extremely long and getting longer as i type this):)

    No need to apologise for rambling! I really enjoy it when we have discussions on here. And if anyone's making huge, long, rambling posts, it's me ;-)

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  18. Robin wrote "I wrote something related to this elsewhere."

    Is this post, Is There a Victim in This Book?, the one you were meaning, Robin?

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  19. You touched a little* on a thought I had while reading this interesting discussion. That is, I haven't seen the why discussed too often about how certain women find the rape fantasy attractive and/or don't mind it when they come across rape/forced sex scenes in romances. (Or indeed don't even think of such scenes as rape or forced sex when they read them.)

    I believe there's an element in there where women feel good about the idea that they have the power to get a man to throw off societal strictures and learned behavior and act in such dark and unacceptable (not to mention atavistic) ways. Even if the results are less-than-desirable, the fact is the woman is able to stir strong emotions in the man so that while the male certainly has control physically over the female, the female has some control emotionally over the male. I saw that even in the Maddie/Jason example where she removes herself from positive emotions during the sex act and was "deaf to his pleas" -- an emotional punishment for Jason, not on par with what he does to her, but it seems the only kind of punishment she has the power to make.

    Is this an unconscious kind of recognition that men are generally physically stronger so women have to compensate for this however they can? Is it a kind of primitive/animalistic behavior on the female's part, a distorted mirror image of the male's atavistic behavior? Rape/forced sex aren't in my personal repertoire of fantasy desires, so while I can accept that some women have then, I don't necessarily understand why they are particularly attractive to some people**.

    Finally, despite progress in several areas when it comes to knowledge about rape, abuse and the complicated reasons people become enmeshed in the cycle of abuse/forgiveness/repeat ad nauseum, sadly there's a lot more work to be done.

    *I'm referring to the comments from female abuse victims where they state at first they were made the center of the man's world, he was Prince Charming, etc. This seems to me to speak to the idea that these women, at least in part, had some desire to be wooed, to have the men provide focused attention, to demonstrate that they were under the women's (emotional) power in some way.

    **I've heard the "it's all about trust" arguments when it comes to the rape-as-fantasy, but this still seems at heart an issue of control even in the fantasy realm. That is, either the control is taken with rape or given with fantasy-rape, but control is the main ingredient either way.

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  20. You could well be right that it's about control/power. I don't really even understand why readers like the idea of 'taming' a man, and this sort of dynamic about control/power seems similar, and I also don't understand it.

    I did a bit of Googling around attitudes to domestic violence and came up with a 2003 survey carried out by the BBC.

    Responses to violence
    What would be your attitude to the following incidents if they happened in your relationship?

    FORCED SEX........ALL....MEN......WOMEN
    ACCEPT IT.........10%....11%.......10%
    END RELATIONSHIP..77%....76%.......79%
    DON'T KNOW........12%.....13%......11%


    "Domestic violence is not acceptable except if one partner has been unfaithful"
    RESPONSES:.....ALL......MEN.....WOMEN
    AGREE..........30%......30%.....31%


    "Domestic violence is not acceptable under any circumstances"
    RESPONSES:.....ALL......MEN......WOMEN
    AGREE..........60%......57%......63%

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  21. There's so much in here to comment on!!!

    First, thanks, Laura, for the BBC survey. I was discussing this whole issue with my wife, who is the actual romance reader (I just play one on TV), and I was baselessly asserting that men sometimes seem less forgiving on these issues than women. The only parallel I have is how often when students are on disciplinary committees, their punishments of fellow students are less merciful than the ones from teachers/profs. In a similar manner, I have virtually no ability to forgive the type of hero who would rape his supposed love. However, your posted survey indicates that men and women seem to think identically on these issue.

    Even if my baseless assertion were correct, the reason for it could not be the ones I as a man would like to think. Perhaps men are not forgiving of sexual abuse because we embrace that all people should be free to make their own choices, etc. Perhaps non-violent men understand that being violent is indeed something they can control to a very large degree and therefore someone who can't or doesn't control it is to be condemned, i.e., non-violent men just don't buy the fantasy that the victim / love interest is so attractive that men cannot help but lose control. Or perhaps men are less forgiving exactly because of paternalism in which they have adopted the attitude that men must protect the weaker sex. Does anyone know about real life "forgiveness" differences between the victim and the victim's relatives? I mean, does a woman's brother, father, friend, or mother often remain even more hateful of the perpetrator than the victim herself over time?

    Actually one recurring thought I had while reading this was the connection to a discussion of colonialism I've been reading recently on a political blog. The post author was, bizarrely I think, trying to assert that because the British did not immediately act with military force due to the capture of the 15 British sailors by Iran, that Britain had "lost its soul" and this loss was due to multiculturalism and that Brits don't see the glory in their imperial history anymore. (I'm just paraphrasing this "odd" argument - from a Dutch guy.) This then became a discussion of British colonialism and how it should be viewed. Is colonialism justified if we can somehow know that the conquered people ended up better off because of being occupied by a colonial force? For many, the answer was yes. I was somewhat shocked that the blog's Indian contributor seemed to agree, though he wasn't clear. However, I simply cannot agree. It's a regular old "end justifies the means" question. If you do something wrong and then somehow miraculously manage to repair the damage you did, it doesn't make the initial act less wrong.

    I had the same thoughts when reading the comments here about whether or not some sort of healthy relationship was the final result of the forced seduction / rape. If the two people are able to repair the damage, that's wonderful, I suppose, but it doesn't make the initial rape correct. In some ways it seems a classic false dichotomy. The heroine either submits to the man to find happiness or she lives her life lonely, cold, and depressed. But of course it's almost always a false choice.

    I had more but this is long enough, I think.

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  22. The post author was, bizarrely I think, trying to assert that because the British did not immediately act with military force due to the capture of the 15 British sailors by Iran, that Britain had "lost its soul" and this loss was due to multiculturalism and that Brits don't see the glory in their imperial history anymore

    I'd call that being pragmatic. Starting yet another war at the moment would seriously over-stretch the armed forces, and it almost certainly wouldn't have led to the release of the captured sailors. I don't see that there's much glory in pyrrhic victories.

    Anyway, back to romance,

    If the two people are able to repair the damage, that's wonderful, I suppose, but it doesn't make the initial rape correct.

    No, it doesn't. But it seems to me that in romance there are (very broadly speaking) two different scenarios involving rape of the heroine by the hero

    (1) where the hero gets away with it and only apologises in passing or even not at all (that's the case in Fallen Angel, where the hero tells the heroine that his mother told him off, he admits that he behaved badly but he never really grovels to the heroine or admits that what he did was rape). I have a feeling that this scenario is perhaps more about rape fantasies, the irresistibility of the heroine and acceptance/eroticisation of power imbalance within a relationship.

    (2) the hero comes to recognise that what he did was wrong and bitterly regrets it. I think this scenario ties in with the sin and redemption theme that exists in many romance novels, in which the heroine's suffering leads the hero to recognise his sin, seek forgiveness from her and live happily with her thereafter. In real life the heroine might be deemed to have a saviour complex, which is listed here as one of the reasons why women may stay in abusive relationships. But in romance readers like to see the characters overcome issues and become better people: there's the whole 'emotional justice' thing whereby 'the lovers who risk and struggle for each other and their relationship are rewarded with emotional justice and unconditional love' (RWA). So in romance, if a heroine is 'struggling' with the hero and saving him, and the hero is 'struggling' with his violence/distrust of women and overcomes it, then that's part of the story arc which readers expect.

    In some ways it seems a classic false dichotomy. The heroine either submits to the man to find happiness or she lives her life lonely, cold, and depressed. But of course it's almost always a false choice.

    In real life that's true, of course, but the way a romance novel is set up, the heroine doesn't have a choice. She has to end up with the hero. There aren't many romances around with a love triangle in which the reader isn't sure who the heroine's going to choose. In fact, just having that plot would mean that there might not be the sort of central relationship that's essential to romance according to the RWA definition.

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  23. I'm rushing, as usual these day, so this will have to be awfully brief.

    I think we need some new voices in this discussion: specifically, the voices of readers (or critics) who quite like forced seduction novels. I know they're out there; on Michelle Buonfiglio's blog, for example, a number of readers have noted that they loves them some forced seductions. (That seems to be the way they always say it: "I loves me some forced seduction, yet I feel the FS/Rape debate is fascinating and important," saith La Bella a few posts ago, for example.)

    Before I start musing about why such scenes and scenarios might appeal to readers--and I've got a theory, just like everyone else--I'd like to hear what those readers say in their own right.

    Consider this a sending up of the Bat (or Bella) Signal! Are you out there, Michelle? Can you pass this one along to your posse? Inquiring minds, academic ones, want to know.

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  24. It struck me that fan fiction covers a broad array of topics I find distressing but I've not had half the same unpleasant experiences with it as I've had with Romance.

    Why?

    Because it's required that works of fan fiction have content ratings and thematic categorization as well as genre categorization. The fannish world long ago accepted two basic principles. One, that everyone has the right to read and write their kinks and two, that people should be able to find their favorite kinks easily and those who don't share that kink should be able to avoid it.

    In the post "Is There A Victim In This Book?" the novel Untie My Heart by Judith Ivory is mentioned. Since that's a book I'm familiar with, let me use it for an example.

    If Untie My Heart were a work of fan fiction it would have, in addition to a summary blurb and the author's name, a content rating , and a thematic warning. It would look something like this...


    Author: Judith Ivory
    Title: Untie My Heart
    Genre: Het*
    Rating: Mature
    Warning: Scenes of dub-con** and bondage.

    *heterosexual romance
    **dubious consent


    Now, if dub-con and/or bondage is offensive to me (one of my "squicks"), I can scroll past that particular story. On the other hand, if themes of dub-con are one of my kinks, I can click and enjoy.

    If I see a fic with a warning of bondage, but no dub-con or non-con (no consent; rape), I know that bondage is used but that all parties involved have actively consented to it. Emotionally, that content would have a very different effect, so it's invaluable to know.

    Why couldn't a sexy Paranormal Romance let me in on this info as well? Put it right there on the packaging; tell me whether the mature content is within a BDSM scene (i.e. everyone has given consent and there are safe words) or whether it's non-con.

    And be honest enough to label the stories were the lesson is that a heroine can only achieve happiness through submission as "submissive heroine" or "actual D/s" where people follow the rules of D/s culture and write up a contract, or whatever.

    It seems sometimes like the groups that are pro and con certain storylines (forced seduction, for instance) want all Romances to be the kind of romances they want to read. But it isn't a zero sum game. We can both (all) play in the same sandbox and enjoy our own types of Romance as long as we make really clear delinations of appropriate play in appropriate areas.

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  25. We can both (all) play in the same sandbox and enjoy our own types of Romance as long as we make really clear delinations of appropriate play in appropriate areas.

    I agree, Angel. I'd appreciate a labelling system like that. In fact, it's rather similar to what Orangehands was saying about a sticker, except your idea is more detailed.

    I remember there was a debate about labelling violence as well as sexual content a while ago, at All About Romance, and some people didn't want books labelled. I think they thought it might be too complicated. But if it works in fan-fic, I don't see why it wouldn't work for other texts.

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  26. I remember there was a debate about labelling violence as well as sexual content a while ago, at All About Romance, and some people didn't want books labelled.

    Hmm. Maybe the publishers could put the content warnings just inside the back cover? Or on one of the final pages that comes after the story's ended. That way people who don't want content spoilers could just not flip to that page?

    I think they thought it might be too complicated. But if it works in fan-fic, I don't see why it wouldn't work for other texts.

    Well... in general, it works. But there are semi-annual debates within the communities about where content warnings end and story spoilers begin (some writers feel that they're being asked to "give away" the events of the story, but I think that it's possible to be vague enough) and even warnings haven't prevented some really heated arguments over the existence of certain sexual behaviors in fan stories. Apparently, just knowing that a certain type of story exists is enough to make some people want it to be expunged.

    So, it's not a perfect system, but I've found that, more often than not, it really helps me filter my reading experience for optimum enjoyment.

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  27. One more thing -- all in all, do you think it would probably be a lot easier to convince reviewers (blog reviers or big review sites like TheRomanceReader.com or LikesBooks.com) to use a content warning system rather than publishers?

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  28. I didn't get a chance to read all the comments until now, and have been fascinated by the discussion, which was one thing I was hoping for when I...yes, I admit it, ranted. There has been some very thought-provoking dialogue.

    I did happen to read the Elizabeth Thornton all the way through, and remembered it the minute you began quoting it. Like Laura, the books that incite negative emotions leave a greater impact with me. Revisiting it through your excellent critique made me uncomfortable all over again. I couldn't get past the sense of the heroine's powerlessness. It was one of those books where, when she said how she loved him, I sure couldn't figure out why. I did read it through, hoping, I guess, for real redemption. I don't remember being satisfied.

    As for CTC, I promise, Robin, I didn't make my judgment solely based on the review. I went back and tried to get through it. I made it to the first rape scene and couldn't move past. It was simply too distressing for me. And I have never been a victim of abuse or assault. I made my judgment on the language of the book and what I'd read.

    I did want to clarify something I said. I do not believe romances ever drive a woman into an abusive relationship. I do believe that all genre readers return again and again to their given genre to reinforce their basic belief systems in something. In mystery, it's justice. In romance, it's hope and the woman's rights and place in relationships. We read general fiction to be surprised. We read our genres to be comforted by the familiar. And part of that is how we see our world. And, as I said,I have seen women in destructive relationships returntime and again to books with abusive heroes.

    I only said that I think CTC does not belong in the limited world of genre romance. Not that it doesn't deserve to be published. Genre fiction, by definition, has boundaries(just try killing off a baby on a romance audience and see how far you get). There are other places(a very good example is fan fic) which has none, or different ones. I write in more than one sphere for this very reason. The books I write in romance I do deliberately. I also write mainstream to write about what doesn't fit.

    As I said on RRA, I've read books that took thoughtful looks at sin and redemption or the struggle for power in the form of early rape or abuse, and I didn't have such a visceral reaction as I did to CTC. I think it was the focus and the language in the book that made the difference. In the other books the focus was on the work for redemption and the attempts to forge a relationship from a very bad beginning. I could even intellectually understand the "taming the beast" theme, in which the stronger man, in the end, succumbs to the gentling influence of a woman. But in those books, emotion and the understanding of true affection was never a question. And most of the book was spent on the redemption and building process rather than the injury to the heroine.

    Nowhere in CTD did I see in the hero's language, either external or internal, anything but a sense of entitlement and anger over loss of control of her. I didn't get any emotional content that might have mitigated what I saw as abuse. The language, if you are familiar with it, is classic abuse language of power and control. I didn't even see any intimation that it might have been that old, "he was so passionate about her he was driven to the darkness in him." He was just furious, because he claimed ownership and she walked, even though she had ever right to leave when she did. I saw nothing that would lay the groundwork for sincere love and redemption afterwards, as I might have in the other books.

    After reading some of the posts, I realized I had another theory to pose as to why the rape/abuse scenario does show up. Romance is a genre that is directed straight at emotion. When I speak of mystery, I talk of maintaining the polite distance. You read a book as if watching the action from across a room. In a romance, however, you climb right inside the character and wade around in every emotion she experiences. A romance author who can incite great emotion succeeds with her audience, good or bad. There are few things that inspire a more visceral reacion than a vulnerable, sympathetic heroine at that kind of risk from the one person she should trust.
    If, after that, she triumphs, it would be incite just as strong a reaction.


    And I say all this as a reader. And believe me, I read a lot. (sorry about the picture. I can't figure out how to get rid of it)

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  29. do you think it would probably be a lot easier to convince reviewers (blog reviers or big review sites like TheRomanceReader.com or LikesBooks.com) to use a content warning system rather than publishers?

    The impression I got from the discussion at AAR was that they weren't keen to add any more content indicators. Obviously you can sometimes work things out from reading the whole review, but at the moment the short content indicators are only about the 'heat' of the sexual content. I don't understand why they seem to think readers need more information about sex than than they do about violence.

    Eileen, don't worry about the picture. Lots of other people have them, including Sarah. Eric's only recently metamorphosed from a human being into a musical instrument ;-)

    I think you're right that romance is a genre which 'is directed straight at emotion', and, speaking as a reader, that affects my response to it.

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  30. As for CTC, I promise, Robin, I didn't make my judgment solely based on the review. I went back and tried to get through it. I made it to the first rape scene and couldn't move past. It was simply too distressing for me. And I have never been a victim of abuse or assault. I made my judgment on the language of the book and what I'd read.

    I did read the whole book, and I thought Sandy Coleman's review was so far off I could barely reconcile my view with hers. I completely understand a reader who says, "geez, this is just too much for me" -- I feel that way about torture and any sort of violence to animals. I just simply cannot read it and will happily skip sections in a book. I also respect the position of "no Romance character who rapes can be redeemed," because I have read a number of Romances where the hero DOESN'T TOUCH the heroine physically where I think he's a jerk extraordinaire and a bully in a big way. But I still think it's vastly unfair to condemn a book based on less than the first half, to suggest it advocates abuse, and to say it doesn't belong in genre Romance. Especially since, in the case of CtC, I think those last two things are objectively wrong. To me, it's even beyond a difference of opinion. And I'd be happy to go through a line by line analysis of the book somewhere with anyone interested in actually debating the language of the book -- all the way through, of course. Because for every example of "abuser" language, I think I can find something that counters it. Which, IMO, is one of the reasons I think CtC is actually a meditation on those old bodice rippers, not a throwback to them.

    I've already blogged about this elsewhere (and yes, Laura, that's obviously the link, since we're discussing stuff over there, too), so I won't belabor it here, but there is one thing I am wondering, after reading Anne Stuart's Ice Blue, in which Taka comes a hairsbreadth away from killing Summer on multiple occasions, at one point knocking her out and pressing her unconscious body under water. Does Anne Stuart belong in genre Romance? I could hardly make it through Into The Fire, although I adored Black Ice. A-hole heroes all, though, IMO.

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  31. The impression I got from the discussion at AAR was that they weren't keen to add any more content indicators. Obviously you can sometimes work things out from reading the whole review, but at the moment the short content indicators are only about the 'heat' of the sexual content. I don't understand why they seem to think readers need more information about sex than than they do about violence.

    I don't get that, either. And the heat ratings have never been particularly helpful to me; the thing I want to know most about the sex is whether it's going to be an emotional trigger for me, not how much it turned the reviewer on.

    How hard would it be to include a little sentence at the end of a review of, for instance, Don't Look Down, that says "Contains life threatening situations, extended scenes of gun violence, and consensual light bondage"?

    Most people would overlook it, but for the people to whom gun violence (or light bondage! though I can't see how...) is an emotional landmine, it would allow them to decide whether to avoid the risk, or read cautiously.

    Hmm. Maybe I should just make up a site listing warnings for the books I've read.

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  32. You know, I'm against warnings. They reduce a book to a laundry list of topics. I wouldn't read any book marked with a rape tag, and then I'd miss To Have And To Hold. And who gets to determine the level of violence? It's so subjective that it's worthless.

    But I'm also looking at things a lot differently after Glen Thomas's paper at Pop Culture because as he pointed out, it's not so much that romance writers influence readers as it is that readers influence romance fiction. That idea that our readers are going to accept something they weren't already predisposed to accept and that therefore we have to be their caretakers strikes me as really paternalistic. They're readers, for heaven's sake, they're used to taking in ideas from a lot of books and keeping or discarding them according to their own instincts. And as Glen pointed out, if they don't like it, they don't buy it, and that author, type of book, and sometimes editor evaporate out of publishing. I'm not a fan of rape or violence against women in any book--I'm still enraged about American Psycho--but that doesn't mean I think those readers who get satisfaction from that story should be prevented from reading it because it might harm them.

    Glen's paper really made me see what I knew from years of publishing: readers get what they want, they're the ones in control of the industry. If they don't want the book in question, Avon is going to hear about it in spades. And if sufficient readers do respond to it, then there's a need for it and there'll be more of them. We as romance writers and critics are not responsible for shaping the tastes of readers. And I say that as somebody whose professors used to pressure her to write literary fiction because romance was trash. They were wrong, and I think dismissing any novel on the basis of content we disapprove of is a bad, bad idea.

    Although I will defend to the death Eileen's right to rant.

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  33. Robin, I'm sincerely interested. What statement did you think CTC made about the old bodice rippers? If you want to discuss it off-blog, I'd be happy to. Just email to my website.

    As for language, I actually do feel comfortable commenting on it without reading more than half the book, for this reason. I believe if there is a redeemable factor for a troubled relationship, it has to at least be alluded to in the first third, much less the first half. It's a variation on the old Chekov quote: If you have a gun on the wall in the first act, you must use it by the third. Conversely, I believe if you create a solution for a problem in the third act, I must at least see that it's possible in the first, especially in relationships. I have to believe that the seeds for the solution are in the character to make that change, by his(in this case) behavior and\or his language. And I sincerely didn't see that. And to me, if the solution is not set up in the first act, then it doesn't have validity. Which is a completely new discussion, and also, I think, interesting.

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  34. Robin, I'm sincerely interested. What statement did you think CTC made about the old bodice rippers?

    That it's impossible to force seduction on anyone. And I think that's new, because IMO a lot of the standard "bodice rippers" actually seemed to imply the opposite. I'd be happy to go into deeper analysis of why I read CtC this way, although it's going to be damn long.

    As for language, I actually do feel comfortable commenting on it without reading more than half the book, for this reason. I believe if there is a redeemable factor for a troubled relationship, it has to at least be alluded to in the first third, much less the first half.

    But I think this is a very different proposition than what you lay out in your blog rant -- one I still vehemently disagree with -- but one that is at least grounded in some kind of textual analysis. Even arguing that CtC shouldn't be designated as genre Romance -- which I also vehemently disagree with -- is different, IMO, than what you wrote in your blog post.

    I remember reading your 1999(?) piece for the RWR and being intrigued and persuaded by some of the points you made there, even if I worried at some of the comments that seemed slightly paternalistic to me. I absolutely think the presence and role of violence in Romance is a worthy discussion. But to ground it exclusively in the rhetoric of real life abuse and rape law seems really problematic (and I think it will also get you nowhere in terms of really objectively looking at the motifs in the genre). Of course you are free to rant on anything you want, but if you feel the genre has a certain responsibility to women to be respectful of our freedom and our intelligence and our strength and integrity, I think that includes women who read Romance and who don't find a book like CtC as advocating rape. As a reader who generally dislikes forced seduction scenarios, it amuses me that I've come out as such an advocate for Campbell's book, but I hate that we lose all the nuances of textual interpretation and open-minded debate when the subject of rape/forced seduction comes up.

    it's not so much that romance writers influence readers as it is that readers influence romance fiction.

    I know I'm dense, but I sincerely do not understand this assertion. If readers are driving the genre, then why are all of us who are saying we want more depth we want more diversity we want more risk-taking not getting more books to meet OUR expectations?

    Here's how it seems to me sitting here in the cheap seats. Publishers have some idea of what readers want based on sales numbers of previous books and whatever selection of letters they get from a vocal selection of the reading populace. So based on this incomplete and skewed data, they make decisions as to what they assume readers and do and don't want. AND those decisions tend to be based on superficial qualities, i.e. you have a wife who cheats, no readers won't read that, no matter how thoughtful it is and how it may actually please those more traditional readers in the end. So then, armed with those imperfectly determined assumptions, publishers and editors and agents go forth with an already limited selection of books, to which readers will or won't take. Books that take become mimetically reproduced ad nauseum and books that don't get thrown into the "this won't sell; don't buy another one like this" pile, further narrowing the field and impinging on diversity in the genre. So is it readers who drive the market or publisher/editor/agent perceptions of the reader that drive the market? In which case I'd argue that readers don't really drive the market.

    But then again, I wonder if we tend to collapse the idea of Romance as a genre with the idea of Romance as an industry, and maybe that's problematic?

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  35. Jenny, I find myself disagreeing with a goddess. How awkward. Nevertheless, I definitely think we're coming at this from two different philosophical perspectives.

    Romance warnings would reduce them to a laundry list? Hm, not so long as the shopper can also flip through the pages and read to see if the content is presented agreeably or not. The only thing a warning does is let the reader know that, if something is traumatic for her, she can (a) not pick the book up or (b) be prepared for the content when she peruses it.

    You could say that film ratings reduce a movie down to a few letters, but they're invaluable, imo. At this point, picking up a Romance for me is almost like walking into a film and not knowing whether I'm going to see a G rated Finding Nemo or an bloody, violent R rated horror film or Tarantino's Grindhouse. The experience is very, very different and film ratings help viewers enormously. True, not all R rated films are exactly the same, but having the rating there helps me get in the right frame of mind to take the plunge, if I chose.

    As it is, reading Romance means that, because of my emotional triggers, I have to be constantly be tightened up to face an emotional landmine when I open a book -- when I need something that doesn't contain certain painful issues, I can't find it, and when I'm willing to expend the energy to brace myself for a well written though perhaps distressing challenge, I can't find them reliably, either.

    You say that the market dictates but I think that is rather limiting of Romance and Romance readers because, pardon me, but won't the dictates of Romance readers lead to many different books, ranging in type from sweet handholding to rape-a-pa-loozas? Or should we take a poll and see whether the women who rightfully enjoy their forced seduction books out number those who find them upsetting, or visa versa, and then only publish one sort of Romance? The only way the market can make my situation right is if I happen to be in the majority and then I'd have to live with the knowledge of pushing someone else's stories out.

    I'd rather be able to find what I want, and know that others can as well.

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  36. I'm against warnings. They reduce a book to a laundry list of topics. [...] That idea that our readers are going to accept something they weren't already predisposed to accept and that therefore we have to be their caretakers strikes me as really paternalistic. [...] Glen's paper really made me see what I knew from years of publishing: readers get what they want, they're the ones in control of the industry.

    Can I be really pedantic and say that it would be 'maternalistic'? Sorry, couldn't resist. It's just that it's so often said that this is a genre for women, by women.

    Anyway, back on topic. What if we change the metaphor from 'laundry list' to 'shopping list'? If we accept that romance publishing is consumer-led (and Robin's got her doubts about that) then would labelling be OK if consumers asked for it? Many consumers are asking for more and more labelling on food. Sometimes it's so that they can avoid nuts or other ingredients they're allergic to, sometimes it's because they like particular ingredients. Even so, looking at the list of ingredients on the packaging round a cake doesn't really tell you what the cake will taste like. The proof of the pudding is in the eating. So while labels give some important information they don't have to spoil the reading experience. And, just as with lists of ingredients, people could choose not to read them.

    I do admit that labelling books by content is harder than labelling food, but I'm not sure it's harder than labelling films, which is the comparison Angel made.

    Labelling already happens in some parts of romance. Harlequin carefully sorts its stories out into different lines and colour-codes them. That makes it very easy for readers to find the types of story they're looking for (particularly in terms of sexual content and sub-genre, but also violence. I think you can pretty much guarantee you won't find a rapist hero in the 'Romance' line, for example). Some epublishers, such as Ellora's cave, put their books into categories according to various elements in the stories (e.g. gay, bondage etc) so that readers can find particular themes that appeal to them.

    I have to assume that these labels/categorisations are there because readers want them, because it helps them select the books they want to spend their money and time on. And Jenny, you said that a good romance cover 'must represent the story' because

    if marketing has suckered her [the reader] into buying a book she doesn’t like, I’m going to get bad buzz because she’s going to complain about that. So for an author, it really is important that the cover captures the story, sets the mood, fits the author’s voice, and hints at the story content.

    That's the sort of labelling I'm talking about. Something which 'hints at the story content' and means that the reader isn't 'suckered into buying a book she doesn't like'. I know that Eileen started off from a reader-protection angle, but a lot of readers want to be protected from books they don't like. For some of us that 'protection' is more literal, because we get emotionally distressed by certain parts of books, for others the 'protection' might be against irritation or disappointment if a book didn't match the reader's expectations.

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  37. Laura -- what do you think about the idea that Romance as a *genre* is something different from Romance as an *industry*? I realize that I really think of Romance as a genre (trained to be one of those evil academics as I am, LOL!), and as such it should be treated as an art form, as part of literature in the broadest sense (and therefore driven by authorial vision, broad interpretive license, and formula rather than prescription). But I sense that there's a more common perception of Romance as an industry, as a business, as reader-driven commercial product, and as such those readers who feel that way may feel the books should meet their expectations, etc., while authors who share that view might be looking primarily at their books as products and not as creative property. Obviously I think there's a balance in there, but I'm not sure we even see that there seem to be *sides*. Any thoughts?

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  38. Robin, I don't know about Laura, but I love the distinction. I saw it so vividly this weekend embodied in Mary Bly/Eloisa James who could talk about romance as a genre beautifully, but when you got right down to it, she talked sales numbers, Wal*Mart buyers, and wanted to know who published the authors I talked about. I'm obviously trained to see romance as a genre, and I loved Glen Thomas's paper, where he saw romance as an industry, but examined the industry from an academic perspective. Publishing is ALWAYS an industry, but that doesn't mean that's the only "correct" way to analyze it. This sort of answers my anonymous commenter on Part 4 of my PCA report, who seems to think us academics are overreaching in analyzing romances the way we do--it's just an industry. It's just about the money. Jenny herself commented at the beginning of her talk that she had more objectivity about romance as a genre before she knew it as an industry. So, yeah, I like it. They're inseparable, but have to be examined separately.

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  39. In the discussions I've read online about how authors feel about their own works, some authors have said that they do write to/for the market, so from that point of view maybe they see their works primarily as commodities. That's not necessarily a bad thing - some commodities are very well made and please the consumer.

    There are other authors who talk about writing the book of their heart, of responding to their muse etc. They seem to be thinking primarily about that when they write, but then they also have to accept that as soon as the book leaves their hands and reaches the publisher, the publisher will treat it as a commodity, and that's when the sales figures, covers, blurb etc become important for these authors.

    Mass-produced objects/objects produced for a market can be analysed and treated as art by academics. Medieval and later religious art, for example, was produced for the market (whether that's Michelangelo getting a commission to paint the Sistine Chapel or an artist producing a woodcut for inclusion in a printed book to be used for private devotions). The artists used traditional symbols, e.g. the use of creatures from the bestiary to identify particular traits, or the way that a particular saint is identifiable because she has a wheel near her. That said, this particular mass-produced image of her isn't as complex as this one, which uses the same iconography, and is also mass-produced. There's this one which was not mass-produced, but was created for Caravaggio's patron. And I just discovered that she's the patron saint of librarians, which seems rather appropriate ;-)

    As Eloisa/Mary said at the PCA conference, the reuse of something doesn't mean that it can't be done very well. So I'm not sure that it's an either/or situation. Academics interested in marketing might be more inclined to look at romance as an industry, whereas those more interested in textual analysis will pay more attention to the artistry involved in the creation of individual texts, but as Sarah says, both are valid approaches which are linked.

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  40. They're inseparable, but have to be examined separately.

    I think that's the perfect way to phrase it, Sarah.

    I started thinking about this when Smart Bitch Sarah posted her defense of the RWA as a writers organization, thinking, okay, if they're a writer's professional development organization, why are they publicly promoting the genre and tinkering with the definition?

    I realize that I cannot live effectively in a world where authors and publishers are as inspired by the genre as the industry, but more and more it seems to me that a factory farming model of Romance publishing is taking over, and to me, at least, as a reader who doesn't aspire to be a Romance author, that model is a result of a grave imbalance in the direction of the industry. And the more I think about it, the more I think this is one of the reasons the genre don't get no mainstream respect.

    In the discussions I've read online about how authors feel about their own works, some authors have said that they do write to/for the market, so from that point of view maybe they see their works primarily as commodities. That's not necessarily a bad thing - some commodities are very well made and please the consumer.

    Absolutely, Laura -- IMO it's a brilliant moment when a really well-crafted Romance is also positioned intelligently to sell widely. And clearly we have plenty of historical examples that demonstrate the fact that artistic merit doesn't have to suffer because of commercialization (or in the old days, patronage).

    But in terms of your desire for labeling, I think one of the reasons I resist it is because I tend to be on the genre side of the debate a little more (and as the industry thing becomes bigger, I can feel myself digging in on the genre side because I'm afraid it's being subsumed by the industry side). So within the industry of Romance publishing, where readers are customers and books products, the labeling seems to make more sense to me. But in a pure genre sense, where books are about creative expression and individual artistic vision, labeling feels more problematic to me.

    I know that labeling happens all the time in films, so my own view on this might overestimate the dangers of labeling, but I guess that part of the difference may be that I feel that there's some acknowledgment within the film industry that cinematic media includes art. Whereas in Romance, I worry that the industry mentality is SO STRONG that labeling at this point would represent a veritable death blow to the *Romance as art* defense.

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