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Monday, December 24, 2007

The Syndicate and Power Dynamics



The Syndicate, Vols. I and II, by Jules Jones and Alex Woolgrave is a very English product. All the slang is English and the humor is ultimately English. For one thing, it made me realize how much of an American I have become (although a twenty-year displaced South African hardly counts as English, anyway). For another, the tone of the novel(s) make for some fascinating erotica. Dry humor and hot sex are an interesting combination.

The story is told 100% from the third person point of view of Allard, a computer geek, who falls into a relationship and then (we assume, although it's never actually explicitly stated) into love with Vaughan, the engineer of a syndicate spaceship, on which all of the crew own a share of the ship and no one is in charge. Allard hires on as a tech consultant for a year and a day, the timespan of the two volumes, at the end of which he is still unsure about buying a share of the ship, but agrees to marry Vaughan. (I could do a fascinating analysis of the economic and political aspects of the romance in this particular setting, but I don't have time, skill, or specific knowledge to really do it justice.)

The main kink Vaughan and Allard share is a "deflowering the virgin" role-play, in which Allard usually acts the role of virgin. In the context of a gay relationship in which the partners literally take turns bottoming to each other, and in which both men despise and disavow political and economic authority over those around them, the role-play is played for laughs the first time they do it. In the second volume, however, Vaughan begins to play more serious dominance games and Allard is discomforted by his positive response to them and baffled by his own innocence in the face of Vaughan's obvious experience.

Jones and Woolgrave manage to get to the heart of a BDSM relationship in one scene in ways that are food for reflection not only in relation to the attraction of BDSM in a long-term relationship, but also in relation to a truly trusting romantic relationship between any two people, and to the generic romance narrative and the romance genre as a whole.1

In the scene under consideration, after Allard agrees to submit to Vaughan, Vaughan has Allard wear a collar, as well as wrist and leg cuffs. This alone is enough to freak Allard out, and he admits, "I'm scared, Vaughan" (253). However, the trust that Vaughan and Allard have built up between them after almost a year together is always in the forefront of Allard's mind as he submits to Vaughan's demands:
He nearly panicked at the idea that Vaughan had him helpless, was refusing to turn him loose. Then he remembered--safeword. Vaughan would ignore any pleas for mercy, unless he used the only one that counted in this context.

No, Vaughan wasn't abusing him. Knowing that helped.

He tried to get control of his breathing. His panic settled, a little. (254)
A little later, Allard tests the situation a little further, more comfortable with his role:
"Let me go!" said Allard. This time, he didn't really mean it. He was testing the parameters of this odd situation. Yes, he was free. Not free to move, not free to go, but free to say whatever he liked without it making any difference. In this room, he could say or do anything, and nothing would open the door to the outside world until he either used his safeword or they finished what he was doing. (256)
I loved this paragraph of contemplation, especially in relation to the romance narrative itself, in which the hero and heroine (or, obviously, hero and hero) are free to attack each other, verbally or emotionally, because fundamentally the narrative as a romance can be trusted not to abuse the love relationship or the characters and to provide a happy ending. Although never free from each other, the characters are free in their relationship to test the boundaries of what it means to love while the author and the reader are free to stretch the parameters of the definition of a romance, as long as the happy ending can be relied upon.

Later in the scene, Vaughan attaches Allard's leg cuffs to a spreader bar (very NSFW picture here, for those curious), and Allard thinks:
A picture of how he must look popped into Allard's mind. Spread open, exposed, completely unable to do anything about whatever Vaughan might take it into his head to do. Vaughan's property. (260-261)
The characters in a romance are exposed to each other, and more importantly, to the reader's gaze, their emotions dissected almost surgically by the author for the edification of the reader. And once again, it comes down to the trust in the relationship between the reader and the text, as long as the text provides the happy ending.

Additionally, while delving deeply into power dynamics that are stereotypical of a romance (shrinking virgin at the mercy of the more experienced dominant male), it's made obvious that Allard is enjoying himself, despite being pulled beyond his comfort zone:
"I told you I'd make you enjoy it," Vaughan said. "You don't get a choice in the matter."

"Please, Vaughan, give me some more." He didn't want to beg, but he couldn't touch his cock, and he needed something. (261)
Later:
Allard felt uneasy. Half an hour ago, he'd definitely have said that the only reason he'd beg to put the chains on would be role-play to please Vaughan. At the moment, he wouldn't beg and mean it, but now he could see that there might come a time when he would.

"Vaughan..."

"Yes?"

"I don't think I like that idea."

Vaughan sat down where Allard could see him easily.

"That's all right, Allard. Changing your mind is my job." His expression softened slightly. "You didn't really expect to feel like this, did you?" he asked, more seriously.

"Isn't that what you liked about the idea?"

"Yes," Vaughan said, utterly sincere and utterly honest. "You don't like the idea that you like this, but you'll let me do it anyway." (262)
While this last sentence is the heart of a loving BDSM relationship, it's also part of the appeal of the romance narrative. One or both of the characters don't want to fall in love, but they do, despite themselves, and watching that process is what is attractive to the reader.

At one point, Vaughan tells Allard, still chained, to stand up. He realizes he can't do it without Vaughan's help:
Then he realized what was expected of him. "Help me, please."

Vaughan took hold of him by his upper arms and pulled gently. He made another attempt to stand up. Yes, this time he could make it, with Vaughan steadying him. If he could trust Vaughan enough, trust him not to let go.

He took a deep breath and stood up.

"Well done," Vaughan said, and kissed him lightly.

He was on his feet, but he still felt unsteady, so he asked, "Hold me, please."

Vaughan put his arms around him and held him close. He leaned into the reassuringly solid bulk of Vaughan's chest. (266)
This seems to me to be the perfect microcosmic representation of the best romantic relationships: mutual trust, mutual respect, mutual help, mutual understanding, and mutual comfort. For me, BDSM represents the distillation of a relationship. If it's bad, it can be monumentally, dangerously bad, but if it's good, it's the essence of romance, of trust, of mutual caring and responsibility, all wrapped in a stunningly politically incorrect package that can look like abuse to an outsider. The same can (and has) been said about romance fiction.

Finally, the most profound paragraph for me:
After a while, he pulled himself together a bit and moved back enough to see Vaughan. Vaughan's expression was a mixture of lust and tenderness. It's not just that he likes me being afraid, and it's not the BDSM stuff. More than anything, he wants to be the cause and solution to my fear. Allard had known that for a while, but this was the clearest he'd ever seen it. It wasn't Vaughan fantasising about rape, but about seduction, and about a person who was afraid but willing to be led through the fear and out through the other side. For the first time, he had a tiny glimmer of perception that there was another side, something through the fear.

"Whatever you want to do," he said to Vaughan. "I know you'll take me further than I want to go, but not further than I can go."

"You do understand, don't you?" (267)
I pretty much think this quote speaks for itself, but just to clarify: In the recent discussion in Romancelandia about rape, or seduction, or force--that's not what romance is about, for me at least. Instead, it's about the characters finding someone, and the reader finding an author, who is afraid, but willing nonetheless to lead them through the fear of death and unhappiness and strangely compelling gender dynamics to the happiness on the other side. "The cause and solution to our fear": romance narratives certainly occupy this role, as do our own lovers, and the lovers in our favorite romances. "Further than I want to go, but not further than I can go": romance narratives sometimes threaten our understanding of ourselves, our likes and dislikes, what turns us on, what pushes our buttons, but one way or another, for romance readers the best romances help us understand ourselves better.

1. For those who might not know: BDSM as an acronym stands for a combination of things: Bondage/Discipline, both common practices in the BDSM repertoire; Domination/submission, the poles of behavior that might have nothing to do with pain or sensation play but speak more to how the partners relate to each other, whether in sexual play or all the time; and Sadism/Masochism, which speak specifically to the use of pain in the sexual relationship. These three aspects of BDSM might be used separately, but are more commonly used in conjunction with each other, although one's place on the three axes may differ. For example, one may not enjoy bondage or discipline, but may be a strong sexual sadist with an interest in domination. If I were to place Allard and Vaughan on the various axes, I'd say they have strong interest in Bondage, with only a slight tick onto the discipline scale; they share the D/s axis, but more from a top/bottom perspective than from a service or humiliation D/s aspect, and the S/M axis is not explored at all, at least in these two volumes.

The foundation of BDSM lies in the phrase "Safe, Sane, and Consensual." As much as possible, when participating in BDSM, one should be sure that what you're doing is as safe as you can make it, is followed in a sane manner and performed by sane people, and that all who participated have consented to everything being done. Some in the community say that BDSM is, by its very nature, unsafe and relatively crazy, and advocate instead the phrase "RACK": Risk-Aware Consensual Kink. Because practices like needle play, knife play, or breath play are never safe, and (most vanilla people would argue) not sane, those participating should be aware of the risks and have consented to the play.

14 comments:

  1. the hero and heroine (or, obviously, hero and hero) are free to attack each other, verbally or emotionally, because fundamentally the narrative as a romance can be trusted not to abuse the love relationship or the characters and to provide a happy ending.

    It seems to me as though you're saying that for you, each romance is in a sense a consensual role-play for the characters, in which they have a pre-agreed safe word and rules (or in which the reader has agreed with the author on the rules (i.e. the expectation of a happy ending)).

    I don't see my relationship with the author like that. I see it as the author's job to (a) stick to the genre rules and (b) convince me of the love and long-term viability in the relationship. For me, it's more as though I'm watching a performance, in which the author writes the text and the characters act it out while I watch, but I haven't entered into a direct relationship with the author. I'm certainly not entering into/exploring a sexual fantasy with them.

    I suppose if someone is reading romances as sexual fantasies, then they could imagine that there's a pre-agreed safe word/context, but for me that would (usually) be an extra-textual assumption, rather than something that's revealed within the text.

    From my perspective, if the hero and heroine, or hero and hero "attack each other, verbally or emotionally," (outwith situations where this is explicitly consensual) I'd take that as a sign of a problem in their relationship, and the existence of the happy ending, far from convincing me, would seem to me to fail in cases in which I'm not convinced of the viability of the relationship prior to the ending.

    part of the appeal of the romance narrative. One or both of the characters don't want to fall in love, but they do, despite themselves, and watching that process is what is attractive to the reader.

    No, not for me. I don't have much interest in depictions of people falling in love against their will. I'm firmly on the side of sense and reason rather than sensibility and passion, so what interests me is watching characters explore, though conversation and interaction with each other, whether the other character will meet their requirements/if they're deserving of the other person. In other words, the courtship is about discovering whether the pair are compatible and acceptable to each other (intellectually, emotionally as well as physically), not about one or both of the lovers being overwhelmed by an irresistible external force. I know there are romances which are the way you describe, but they're not the ones I look for.

    it's about the characters finding someone, and the reader finding an author, who is afraid, but willing nonetheless to lead them through the fear of death and unhappiness and strangely compelling gender dynamics to the happiness on the other side

    I'm sure this works for some people and is the case for some romances, but I'm not willing to be led through these things in a romance. I've never been convinced by phrases like "no pain, no gain" either.

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  2. A fascinating post, Sarah--one that will take more thought than I can give it on this snowy afternoon with the kids popping in for company!

    One 'graph that jumped out at me was this:

    "This seems to me to be the perfect microcosmic representation of the best romantic relationships: mutual trust, mutual respect, mutual help, mutual understanding, and mutual comfort. For me, BDSM represents the distillation of a relationship. If it's bad, it can be monumentally, dangerously bad, but if it's good, it's the essence of romance, of trust, of mutual caring and responsibility, all wrapped in a stunningly politically incorrect package that can look like abuse to an outsider."

    Argh! Must run! Comments on that paradox (the "wrapped up" part) as soon as I can--

    E

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  3. Eric: Read Dylan Thomas's A Child's Christmas in Wales to the kids--or, better yet, play the recording of Thomas himself reading it. It's my favorite Christmas story after Dickens.

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  4. Part of the reason it's difficult for me to comment on this post is that the subject has a very strong "Ick!" factor for me. But I really admire the provocative stance of treating this book as an exemplar of the romance novel; it would never have occurred to me.

    But, now that it has, I have to say that I agree with Laura that it really doesn't work that way. For one thing, I find the infliction of pain and (and especially) humiliation totally incompatible with any concept of love. I grew up with hypercritical parents, and was constantly bullied at school--mostly verbally, but sometimes physically--so I spent most of my first two decades in a state of dread of what was coming at me next. I know that Sarah is talking about a consensual relationship; but it's really difficult for me to imagine how that differs from bullying, though I can accept that others can understand and accept this. For me, it's a visceral truth that someone who loves you doesn't deliberately hurt you, and someone who does hurt you doesn't love you. (Of course there are exceptions, like telling someone a painful truth that she needs to know; but you know what I mean.)

    I think I differ with Laura on the subject of falling in love against one's will, but I suspect it's more a matter of terminology. I agree with the notion of being swept away by passion for a total stranger or someone that one has no reason to trust is idiotic; but what if the will not to fall in love is itself in error, because the unwilling person either has a false idea of the character of his beloved, or objects to falling in love, period, because of some psychological quirk or important personal reason? Laura, don't you enjoy the moment in Pride and Prejudice when Darcy, as someone once remarked, hurls his proposal at Elizabeth's head and is taken aback by her refusal? "I might as well enquire,'' replied she, "why, with so evident a design of offending and insulting me, you chose to tell me that you liked me against your will, against your reason, and even against your character? Was not this some excuse for incivility, if I was uncivil?" Surely this book is a prime example of people falling in love with each other against their will--and it works superbly.

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  5. it's a visceral truth that someone who loves you doesn't deliberately hurt you, and someone who does hurt you doesn't love you.

    For me that also rings true emotionally. And it may be that my political/religious views also affect my attitude to my personal life since my husband's a Quaker and we both believe in the testimony to peace (another point on which my views diverge rather radically from Sarah's).

    Re Mr Darcy, (1) Pride and Prejudice isn't my favourite Austen, because I don't like the level of conflict and distrust between the characters and (2) I'm not absolutely that Darcy will remain as humbled as he is at the end of the book (3) I don't actually think Elizabeth is in love with him the same way she is with him.

    Darcy, it seems to me, is attracted to Elizabeth very intensely. But had she been less intelligent and virtuous, he would have suppressed those feelings (i.e. if he'd felt a physical attraction to someone like Lydia, he wouldn't have ended up making a proposal to her). As it is, Darcy is letting his attraction override his snobbery.

    With Elizabeth, by the end of the novel I'm still needing to be convinced, as Mr Bennet and Jane do, and unfortunately although Jane gets some "solemn assurances of attachment" the reader is left with this:

    Will you tell me how long you have loved him?"

    "It has been coming on so gradually, that I hardly know when it began. But I believe I must date it from my first seeing his beautiful grounds at Pemberley."

    Another intreaty that she would be serious, however, produced the desired effect, and she soon satisfied Jane by her solemn assurances of attachment.
    (Chapter 59)

    So I'm not sure really sure how much instant attraction Elizabeth felt, and I'm not sure how much passion she feels versus recognition of his moral worth.

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  6. I remember a magazine article I read back when I was a freshman in college (around the time of the Johnstown Flood) listing a number of men (20+ if I recall correctly) that every woman should know: essentially, a list of the most romantic heroes in fiction. Number One was Rhett Butler, which is where I got the idea that GWTW is a romance novel. In discussing Darcy, the author mentioned that, sure, he had a lot of flaws; but "just feast your eyes on that noble brow, and that noble bank account."

    As for Elizabeth's feelings, I think she is like me in that we both tend to be somewhat flippant about serious things as a kind of defense mechanism for our most private emotions. I don't think she feels the same sort of passion for him that he feels for her--after all, back then, nice girls didn't--but he's the first man she's come across whom she feels she can trust and rely on. All the others she meets are either too villainous, stupid, or lightweight for her, or else unavailable (her father and her uncle). I think her love for him is founded on that trust and reliance, and there are worse things to base a permanent relationship on. It's not just an objective appreciation of his moral worth--it's a recognition of strength that she needs.

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  7. I need to expand on my comments above a bit, as I didn't express myself as well as I'd have liked.

    First of all, I don't think that Elizabeth begins by feeling passion for Darcy at all; if anything, she may think he's hot, but dislike him for his rude remarks about her at the ball. I think what draws her to him, even before she's seen him at his best after Lydia's elopement, is their verbal fencing. Whom has she met, other than her father, who can appreciate her barbed wit, and return her shots? And I didn't mean to suggest that she will remain cool. I think that the two of them are alike in that they are still waters who run deep; and their feelings for each other will grow stronger over time.

    And am I the only person who's noticed that Elizabeth has her share of snobbery? Remember, when she's touring Pemberley with the Gardiners and he appears unexpectedly, she thinks to herself that NOW he'll see that she has SOME presentable relations!

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  8. I see what you mean, Talpianna, and I broadly agree with your assessment of Elizabeth's feelings, it's just that because, as you say, they are "still waters who run deep", and Darcy's burst their banks but Elizabeth's never do, it leaves me with just a tiny niggle of doubt.


    It was consoling that he should know she had some relations for whom there was no need to blush. (Chapter 43)

    And when she points out that her father is a "gentleman" that's hardly an appeal to the brotherhood of man, but a claim to belong to roughly the same social class as Darcy.

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  9. As usual, so many issues have been raised here that I hesitate to address any, let alone all, of them. I am going to avoid the question of intrinsically and deliberately unequal sexual relationships, although, as a Classicist, I know a fair amount about them. On the related, but distinct, issue of the place of pain in erotic relationships, I hold strong views, and I support Tal's position. To me, inflicting pain (physical or mental), and deriving enjoyment either from causing it or experiencing it, is a central impulse of anger, hostility and hatred, and has no place in liking, let alone love. I shall say no more (indeed, Tal has advised me not to spell out my analysis of these matters here, as we have no wish to arouse any acrimony).

    On less contentious ground, I think the issue of 'falling in love against one's will' has to be seen against (1) the eternal and fundamental tensions between eros and agape and (2) the social and cultural norms of the society depicted. The first is so basic and obvious that I almost hesitate to mention it, but it is probably the main reason for internal conflict in the formation of intimate relationships. We are all capable of loving people without being sexually attracted to them, and nearly all of us, especially when young, are very well able to be sexually attracted to people whom we do not love: indeed, we can feel an intense mating urge towards a person whom we do not like much, or one whom we do not even know personally (the lustful fantasies focused on actors, musicians and others in the public eye need no emphasis). The whole 'in love' thing comes about when eros and agape, body and soul, combine in a special way: when the combination is right, it lasts forever, although it is dynamic, like any relationship. The imperatives of sex become fainter with the passing of the years, but the emotional connection will continue to deepen, and has a special quality because the love of the body, as well as the mind, is ever-present.

    Then there are the additional parameters of the practical, intellectual or cultural reasons for or against a particular relationship, and these are governed by societal norms, as are considerations like the acceptability or otherwise of sexual relationships outside socially approved arrangements, usually marriage. The rare, 'ideal', conflict-free situation is one in which two people get to know one another, are sexually attracted to one another, form a friendship, and find their relationship smiled upon by their relatives and friends because they happen to belong to compatible social groups. In such cases, the courtship can quickly proceed to the religious and/or legal rituals customary in their community for recognising a permanent pair-bond. Not much scope for an interesting novel, there. Past cultures in which most communities were small and static and the activities of adolescents and dependent young adults were closely supervised in most social classes often provided a background in which single people hardly ever met any other unmarried person who was not socially acceptable as a life-partner - but it is also likely that many of them never found anybody within that limited circle of permissible partners whom they actually liked much as a friend or lusted after as a mate. They would finish up with the person whom they found least unattractive, or even simply the one who was most suitable in social terms. This was the basic reality of marriage without any of the romantic trappings of emotional and physical pleasure. In modern urban environments, where people of pair-bonding age are living independently, far away from family, it can be quite easy to find compatible partners, likeable people with similar interests who are also sexually desirable, but they can all too easily be 'unsuitable' from the traditional, cultural points of view - 'wrong' in conventional terms of class, income, age, religion, colour, sex...

    I think it is very easy for people to 'fall in love' against their will and/or for the wrong reasons. A young woman who knows that her family will be up in arms if she marries a poor man, or a foreigner, or a Catholic /Protestant /Moslem /Jew /Gentile /atheist (insert any religion or sect according to taste), or a man old enough to be her grandfather, or another woman - may still be unable, and ultimately unwilling, to fight the combined powers of lust and of strong emotional and intellectual compatibility.

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  10. Still scrambling, so I'll just say (briefly) three things:

    1) Your discussion of the "falling in love against their will / reason" motif rings very true to me, Agtigress. As a Classicist, you'll know better than any of us how common that motif is in Greek and Roman literature; there, if memory serves, it's less a matter of eros vs. agape than of eros vs. reason or eros vs. self-possession, no? One gets possessed by the god, Eros, and dispossessed of oneself, & the result is often shameful, unmanly behavior, signs of weakness, especially.

    2) A second, related thought: since romance is in many ways a conservative, even neoclassical genre, older motifs like "falling in love against one's will" tend to be preserved, although they may change form or meaning as time goes by. It's a topos that signals Eros as such--desire for that which one does not have, desire across some barrier or boundary--and its flexibility can perhaps be seen in how it appears in this BDSM context, where the barrier is internal: I want what I do not want to want, or enjoy what I do not want to enjoy, do not want to think of myself as enjoying.

    3) I'd like to thank you both, Agi & Tal, for holding back on the critique of "inflicting pain." When you write that "To me, inflicting pain (physical or mental), and deriving enjoyment either from causing it or experiencing it, is a central impulse of anger, hostility and hatred, and has no place in liking, let alone love," the crucial phrase is probably "to me." I'm not involved in the BDSM world myself, but it seems a bit odd to extrapolate, in this case, from one's own experience or opinion in the face of the testimony of participants.

    Clearly there are many, many people who give and receive pain (and discipline, and humiliation, and many other experiences) out of love and desire and excitement rather than out of hatred or anger or hostility. I don't see how I can tell them they are wrong, that they're lying to themselves or to me. On what evidence? By what right?

    People have all sorts of preferences I don't share. Some of these--extreme sports, horror movies, religious self-flagellation--strike me as technologies of consciousness, ways of achieving particular states of mind, a particular "rush" that may have a deep emotional component as well. (Think of initiation rituals, tribal or otherwise.) I'd be more surprised NOT to find such moves in the world of sexuality than to find them there.

    But in any case, classically speaking, "Homo sum: humani nil a me alienum puto."

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  11. Yes, absolutely, as far as Eros in the full Classical sense, the influence of that god, is concerned. Irrationality, insanity, the wild, untramelled, uncontrolled animal side of nature, as opposed to the alleged human achievement of rational thought and conduct. But, as you realised, in this particular instance, I was using eros/agape to express two types of love, the physical and the spiritual or emotional, so the comparison is rather different.

    I do take your point about personal tastes, which is why I said little. We all have certain points beyond which we cannot go, and they all differ to some degree. We also all have different convictions about the positioning of sexual boundaries according to the nature/nurture, morality/law parameters: for example, the definitions of 'paedophilia' vary enormously according to culture. There are many people who draw no fundamental distinction between a young adult male who has consensual sex with a 13-year-old girl, and one who sexually abuses a helpless infant.

    But we all do have boundaries, and I believe that some of the things that go beyond most boundaries are actually more than just personal opinions.

    :-)

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  12. Tigress, aren't you confusing Eros a bit with Dionysus?

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  13. I see it as the author's job to... convince me of the love and long-term viability in the relationship. For me, it's more as though I'm watching a performance, in which the author writes the text and the characters act it out while I watch

    That sounds like my feelings on reading. However, that's not how I had read what Sarah wrote. You obviously know her better, so perhaps I completely missed the point!

    I read the paragraph below as describing the safety net provided by the reader's genre expectations. If the reader knows there will be a happy ending, perhaps that makes it easier to explore difficult territory along the way. This idea reminds me of the readers who peek at the ending before deciding whether to buy the book--with the outcome guaranteed, the reader is more willing to take a chance on the rest of the content.

    ... the romance narrative itself, in which the hero and heroine (or, obviously, hero and hero) are free to attack each other, verbally or emotionally, because fundamentally the narrative as a romance can be trusted not to abuse the love relationship or the characters and to provide a happy ending. Although never free from each other, the characters are free in their relationship to test the boundaries of what it means to love while the author and the reader are free to stretch the parameters of the definition of a romance, as long as the happy ending can be relied upon.

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