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Monday, November 24, 2008

Not Another Ripped Bodice!


Mark Athitakis gives a concise description of the term "bodice-ripper" which explains why it's so hated by so many romance authors and readers:
Bodice-ripper -- Derogatory term for the historical single-title romance, referring literally to the habit of '70s historical novels of including sex scenes in which the heroine's clothes are torn off, or something similarly abusive. A dead subgenre; when uttered to a romance aficionado, the inspiration for a lengthy, irate lecture.
Poison Ivy offers us a description of just how irate that response can be:
The other evening I was dining with a batch of old friends from the comic book business. As conversations do, the talk turned to what each of us was working on, and thus to my long stint in romances. An otherwise nice fellow made the mistake of asking me about “bodice rippers.” I almost leapt across the table to throttle him. He was taken aback by my impassioned annoyance.

It’s a sore spot with most romance readers (and writers and editors) that most non-romance readers pick up an ignorant, pejorative term for our genre—a pejorative term foisted on us by the hostile and patronizing mass media—and continue to use it decades after that particular appellation could possibly apply.
However, as I was reading Emma Holly's Courting Midnight, I got the distinct impression that this particular romance author was deliberately and playfully transforming the bodice-ripping motif. She includes this scene between two secondary characters:
"You are mine," he said, squeezing it [her breast] possessively. "No other man shall have you."
Caroline had been dreaming of hearing those words all her life. She wanted to match them with an equal claim of her own, some gesture for the bold step she was taking. One glance at his heaving chest told her what it should be. She took hold of his shirt's open neck and tore the sweaty linen straight down the front. [...]
"No other woman," she declared on a gasp of sweet sensation, "shall ever have you."
Aidan had been goggling over her behavior, but at this he broke into a laugh. "I am sure I dare not disagree[."] (286)
It made me "goggle" and "break into a laugh" too, because the reversal in the gender of the person ripping the bodice transforms the motif, rendering it slightly ridiculous by unsettling gender stereotypes. Here we have the virgin ripping the clothing off her hunky lover, taking control of her own sexuality, claiming her man and making it more than clear that she doesn't need to be forced or seduced in order to feel able to express her desires. In the process, the motif loses its undertones of danger and rape, leaving space for laughter.

Pam Rosenthal's also played with the motif:
For me, genre form is like the melody of an old standard; I like to riff on it, work against it, improvise. So I wrote a ripped bodice into my first romance novel. It's a tiny little rip, to fool someone. I thought it was funny. I enjoyed having my hero apologize to my heroine that he'd wanted evidence of carnality that was "absolutely convincing." As though everybody, even in pre-Revolutionary France, would know what a ripped bodice signified.
Bodice-ripping has also evoked some rather more prosaic responses. Over at the eHarlequin forums Shewolf0316 once commented that
As is often found in romance and erotica alike, there is the one scene where the characters are so incensed with lust that they can't wait and they guy rips the woman's blouse right down the middle.

If it were me in the middle of a sexy encounter like that and a guy tore my clothing from my body, destroying it, I'd be ticked off! I can actually visualize it in my mind, the guy tears my shirt apart, I stop smack in the middle of his seduction and rant "what the h*ll are you doing? I paid $50 bucks for that shirt and you just ruined it!"
It's a very valid point and in another scene in Holly's novel, the hero takes such financial considerations into account
A flurry of motion brushed her skin, like giant wings beating up and down. She gasped into his mouth when she realized what he had done. He was indeed in a rush. She was naked, and in no more time than it took to blink half a dozen times. Her clothes lay in a shredded heap around her ankles.
Still fastened to her at the mouth, he chuckled at her surprise. "I promise to replace them," he said. (263)
Not only does the hero promise to replace the damaged clothing, but the context in which the actions take place pre-empts a second prosaic concern about bodice-ripping. As noted by another commenter on the eHarlequin thread, Lady Amalthea,
I feel like fabric is tougher than the authors realize...wouldn't it be somewhat uncomfortable having someone pull on your clothes hard enough that they rip? I'm thinking particularly about elastic-waist panties...that elastic snapping back on you...ouch!
This isn't a problem for Lucius because he's a super-powerful upyr and as the novel's a historical as well as a paranormal romance, the heroine's not wearing any elastic.

I haven't read Erica Jong's Fear of Flying, but in it "Jong coined the term 'zipless fuck,' which soon entered the popular lexicon" (Wikipedia). The phrase came to mind when I read the scene in which Lucius shreds clothing in seconds. Here's how it's described in Jong's novel: "The zipless fuck was more than a fuck. It was a platonic ideal. Zipless because when you came together zippers fell away like rose petals, underwear blew off in one breath like dandelion fluff" (qtd. in Berger 140). Shana Abé's drákon protagonists manage this kind of thing with even greater ease than Lucius does. All they need to do is change into smoke and then back into human form: "She [...] Turned to smoke and back, so she could lay atop her gown and the blankets and feel his hands upon her bare skin" (332). It's probably worth noting that Jong also wrote that "For the true, ultimate zipless A-1 fuck, it was necessary that you never get to know the man very well" (qtd. in Berger 140). Romance authors would not seem to believe that's a necessary or desirable pre-condition to enjoyment of a "zipless fuck", but in general they do tend to end their novels before some of the more mundane details of life can intrude on their characters' passion.

Finally, since I'm discussing the topic of romance and bodices and have mentioned ways that it's been humorously transformed, I feel I must report RfP's latest theory:
Romance novels have a long tradition of lurid covers; the older novels in the genre often featured a bare-chested man ripping open the bodice of a stunned-looking woman. Or should I say, apparently ripping open. If the bodice ripper is really a bodice lacer, that puts a new complexion on the matter.
------

The painting is "The Rape of Proserpine (about 1650), by Simone Pignoni" (Wikimedia Commons).

27 comments:

  1. When I expressed my displeasure to my father over the use of bodice ripper, he came up with a new phrase - pink pulp. I wasn't too happy with that one either, but he won't give it up.

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  2. Hmm. I'm trying to put a good spin on "pink pulp." I Googled to find some pictures of pulp and came up with this photo of strawberry pulp and this one of guavas. I suppose if you think of the "pink pulp" as fruit pulp then it would have connotations of fresh, tasty goodness. I'm not at all sure that's what he meant, though!

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  3. Dredging this up from my college days in printing classes, but wasn't the origin of "pulp fiction" from the early days of publishing when the printers actually used recycled pulp to print those dime novels and comics on? True throw-away "trash" fiction because readers simply could just toss them after readign them with no guilt, although oddly enough they didn't always?

    What I'm getting at is that it wasn't so much a reference to the content as to the medium, although the content was reflected in what was allowed to be printed on that medium, if that makes sense. Books of percieved better quality would've of course been printed on better quality stock. The important point though is that that still didn't necessarily mean they'd be more popular or make more money for the publishers. Cheaper many times does mean more profit in the long run.

    It's always what stuck in my head anyway that the "trash" label didn't always mean what people seem to think it means and it applied to all genres which started that way, probably even some "literary" fiction stories if we searched around long enough.

    As to the bodice ripper label, I'm conflicted. It doesn't bother me unless the individual using it actually means as derogatory against the genre and then we're perfectly capable of speaking up for ourselves. I say that primarily because there's still quite a bit of ripping going on and not only on female bodices and always has been. I don't think it ever stopped. I don't think it ever will. I'm also not sure I want it to, either.

    Not unless we want to the books to go back to being completely sweet and devoid of all sex again. And frankly one popped button is all the amunition those people need for the "bodice ripper" label so what the heck are we worried about? Personally, before "no sex" happens again just shoot me now. ;p

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  4. That's a nice roundup of sly takes on the stereotype. What an excellent phrase: "zipless fuck".

    "that elastic snapping back on you...ouch!"

    Excellent point. Why aren't there more failed ripping scenes? Yank, grunt, yank, ouch, yank, rip, SNAP!

    "pink pulp"

    Laura, the Nova Scotia pomegranate ad seems to fit your motif. I'm afraid it's a long wind-up for a short punchline: you have to watch the intro, then click Explore, then Release Date. But there's a satisfying *splat!* of pink pulp at the end.

    "unless we want to the books to go back to being completely sweet and devoid of all sex again."

    Bev(BB), I wouldn't want that either! But didn't the two tracks run in parallel? While the bodice-rippers ripped, across the aisle the Harlequins exculpated their sins and the inspirationals grew in faith. I think since the '90s the sex has become more woman-centric and participatory, but the genre still has separate, well-defined tracks for yes-sex, no-then-yes-sex, and no-sex-at-all romances. So I'm not really concerned about sex vanishing from romance (that is, the genre as a whole). Though of course we'll continue to see factions within organizations like RWA trying to exclude sexy (or even un-PC) books from *their* definition of romance; I don't know what effect that has on the industry.

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  5. I like the discussion of Erica Jong, especially since she was really snotty about chick lit not that long ago.

    And no, fabric isn't generally that easy to rip until you get it started with something sharp. And if even the hottest hunk pulled a knife on me, well, I don't think I'd enjoy it much.

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  6. Maybe it is because I was born in 1979 and so missed 2nd wave feminism all together, but I've never really had a problem with the term "bodice ripper" in and of itself. It does not represent to me what romance shouldn't be or the pejorative views that the general public has towards romance.
    When I do encounter those with pejorative views of romance the word "trashy" is used far more.

    I also do not really feel the need to distance myself from either the term itself nor the type of book, defunct or not, that it represents. I realize that the content of the bodice ripper is not a particularly easy one for many readers but I do think that while romance is a genre that is more than a bodice ripper it is an important aspect of the literature that needs to be reclaimed.

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  7. But didn't the two tracks run in parallel? While the bodice-rippers ripped, across the aisle the Harlequins exculpated their sins and the inspirationals grew in faith.

    Yes and no. Inspirationals have also aways been there. In fact they were probably some of the first romances published, just not necessarily by the recognized mainstream publishers. By that I mean they were published by religious houses and sold at specialty stores so they slipped under the radar to some extent.

    Personally, I'm not so much concerned about sex vanishing from romance as I am the issue of honesty about what's actually there. Sweet, hot, and in-between. Why not admit it up front when "bodices" do get ripped, so to speak, such as what Laura's done here? What's the harm in that? At least then, we know which books it happens in and which it doesn't and are armed with the information against those that use the label about all romances.

    Wouldn't acknowledging that some books actually have ripped bodices be a much more effective tool than going for people's throats because we can shows them their ignorance of the ones that don't?

    Knowledge really is power, you know.

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  8. As one who sews and has done some theatrical costuming, I feel the necessity to add that clothing is not easily ripped at all. To make "ripping" scenes work in plays and movies, the item has to be very lightly basted.

    Even buttons do not rip off easily, unless they have been worn to the very end of their threads.

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  9. Bev, I didn't know that about the origin of the term "pulp." Wikipedia agrees with you, by the way:

    The name "pulp" comes from the cheap wood pulp paper on which such magazines were printed. Magazines printed on better paper and usually offering family-oriented content were often called "glossies" or "slicks". Pulps were the successor to the "penny dreadfuls", "dime novels", and short fiction magazines of the nineteenth century. Although many respected writers wrote for pulps, the magazines are perhaps best remembered for their lurid and exploitative stories, and for their similarly sensational cover art.

    What I did know what that Mills & Boon romances have ended up being pulped and used during road-building:

    Old copies of Mills & Boon romantic novels are being used to help prolong the life of the UK's newest road.

    In what is an unexpected twist, it has emerged that about 2,500,000 of the books were acquired during the construction of the M6 Toll.

    The novels were pulped at a recycling firm in south Wales and used in the preparation of the top layer of the West Midlands motorway, according to building materials suppliers Tarmac.
    (BBC)

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  10. "We can shows them"

    Oye.

    Head desk.

    Well, at least the thought was there. I think. :D

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  11. Getting away from pulp and back to bodice ripping, re

    I realize that the content of the bodice ripper is not a particularly easy one for many readers but I do think that while romance is a genre that is more than a bodice ripper it is an important aspect of the literature that needs to be reclaimed.

    I think I agree with Bev's conclusion that "Sweet, hot, and in-between. Why not admit it up front when "bodices" do get ripped." The genre's huge, it's got a lot of variety, and I think that should be acknowledged. I'm not sure about the idea of "reclaiming," though it does depend what you mean by that word. I'd like there to be fewer of the knee-jerk, contemptuous dismissals of both the genre and its readers but as Jessica said elsewhere, if we don't want anyone to "make easy and fast assumptions about negative impacts of romance on women, then we can’t make easy and fast positive ones either." So I wouldn't want to rush in and "reclaim" anything without scrutinising it carefully and being open to the idea that perhaps only some aspects of it should be reclaimed, or that it perhaps works for some readers in positive ways but can be less positive for other readers.

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  12. "We can shows them"

    Oye.

    Head desk.


    Just pretend you were imitating a LOLcat. And on double-checking with Wikipedia again, I discover that the way they speak has been given special names: "a dialect which is known as “lolspeak,” ”kitteh,” or “kitty pidgin” and which parodies the poor grammar typically attributed to Internet slang." Information? I can haz it via Wikipedia! And typos? I makez them 2!

    there's a satisfying *splat!* of pink pulp at the end.

    It was a good splat, though to start with some of the pomegranates were so airbrushed they looked like Christmas baubles.

    Why aren't there more failed ripping scenes? Yank, grunt, yank, ouch, yank, rip, SNAP!

    Jenny Crusie's got something a bit like that in Sizzle, though there's no cloth involved:

    He brought his hand up to the back of her head, lacing his fingers into her long dark hair to hold her close.
    When he moved his hand down again, her hair became tangled in his sleeve buttons.
    She felt it first as a tug and broke the kiss.
    "Richard," Emily said, and he said huskily, "I know," and found her mouth again. He moved his hand down her body and she felt the hard pull against her hair. [...]
    "Ouch! Richard, stop it!"
    "What?" he asked huskily, his hand moving across her rear. Her head swayed with his hand. It really hurt.
    (39)

    It's a very funny scene, because Richard is behaving a bit like a stereotypical romance hero, speaking "huskily" and assuming he knows what the heroine wants sexually. And in fact she's in pain and wants him to stop tugging at her hair. Eventually she sends him home so that she can have an aspirin and some peace and quiet. So much for seduction!

    Phyllis and Virginia, thanks for confirming that about how difficult it would actually be to rip a bodice (or other item of clothing). I may once have tried ripping some old sheets up to make rags but it was such a long time ago I can't remember whether it was easy to do or not.

    I like the discussion of Erica Jong, especially since she was really snotty about chick lit not that long ago.

    I'm glad you liked it. It just struck me that perhaps that was another angle from which one could approach the bodice-ripping concept. I suppose that would fit with what Angela's saying about "reclaiming" things.

    I didn't know Erica Jong had been snotty about chick lit. Were you thinking of this article? I got the impression from reading it that she wasn't so much being anti the books, as anti the way they fail to get the recognition they deserve because they're labelled, marketed and stuck in what Jong calls a "ghetto." Maybe I'm misinterpreting her, or maybe it was another article that you're thinking of.

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  13. By reclaimation I didn't necessarily mean a positive rather than negative view of the bodice ripper. Rather I was thinking more that reclaiming has to do with the idea that both the negative and the positive has to be embraced as a part of the whole and that often both of those aspects are caught up in the very same thing. I guess it comes down to one of my personal pet peeves as far as "women's literture" or "women readers" are concerned: namely that I feel there is a marked tendency on both sides of the spectrum to only discuss female oriented literature and female authored literature in terms of whether or not it is good for women as a whole. Even as we try to move away from the "is it good for" question, it constantly rears its head again whenever we come across less than pristine examples of female literature. I entirely take Oscar Wilde's point of view that "There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written. That is all."

    Part of the reason I feel so strongly about this question of "good for" that's implied in the offense or defense of romance is because I find it demeaning that women are still found to be incapable of choosing their own reading materials. The whole idea that woman is any more or less susceptible to the suggestions in literature is absurd. The fact that female literature is still discussed in the black and white terms that people use to discuss children's educational curriculae really frosts my cookies.

    So by reclaimation I mean taking the discussion from the black and white and sticking it solidly in the amorphous gray areas of criticism where it belongs.

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  14. So I wouldn't want to rush in and "reclaim" anything without scrutinizing it carefully and being open to the idea that perhaps only some aspects of it should be reclaimed, or that it perhaps works for some readers in positive ways but can be less positive for other readers.

    The problem is that it's all there, though, whether we like it or not. Closing our eyes and pretending it didn't/doesn't exist doesn't make it go away. If we're not willing to be open, honest and truthful about what is there, how can we ever expect those who don't take the time to read the books to be so?

    Especially with regards to the sexual content in them?

    And, when you get right down to it, isn't "bodice ripper" for all it's blatant imagery simply shorthand by some for the sexual content in the books? What I mean is that we can try to turn it into the actual ripping of the garments but that's not what they're talking about all the time. Sometimes they're talking about the fact that the books do have sex in them. So, we also have to be honest about the physical side of things, too. Romances aren't simply about emotions. Nowadays, they're also about sex, too, and if we can't acknowledge that part of the books we have a problem.

    I was going to stop here but then saw what Angela said here:

    Part of the reason I feel so strongly about this question of "good for" that's implied in the offense or defense of romance is because I find it demeaning that women are still found to be incapable of choosing their own reading materials. The whole idea that woman is any more or less susceptible to the suggestions in literature is absurd. The fact that female literature is still discussed in the black and white terms that people use to discuss children's educational curriculae really frosts my cookies.

    Oh, yeah, the differences between choosing for adults and children -- and to continue on with what I was saying before . . .

    This is something that's been on my mind a lot lately, particularly the more erotically-flavored, shall we say, books I read. Do you know how frustrating, annoying and downright eye-popping it is to select a book basically because of the romance plot and then find out it has unexpectedly explicit sexual content that was never mentioned anywhere by anyone, whether publisher, bookseller or reviewer?

    I'm not saying I always mind the explicitness or the content, just that a little heads-up beforehand is preferable to none at all. The thing that's truly bothering me lately, though, is that some of this more explicit content is moving into mainstream romances and quite a few sites I've checked still aren't making any greater distinctions between things. We're still stuck in a sweet to sizzling mentality. So doesn't do it for me.

    I want details. No, I need details.

    See where I'm going with this? I'm supposed to be concerned with whether or not people are calling romances bodice rippers when in reality I'm more concerned with knowing what's going to be in the next book I read?

    Seriously.

    'Cause ya never know, it very well could be several ripped bodices. Maybe, though, what it amounts to is that as far as we've come, we're still to repressed to actually talk about the details. Now there's a question for you.

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  15. Bev(BB): "isn't "bodice ripper" for all it's blatant imagery simply shorthand by some for the sexual content in the books?"

    Of course sex is a large part of it. My tongue-in-cheek theory of the bodice lacer certainly wasn't meant to deny that reality. However, there's a not-funny and not-about-sex aspect too: I think "bodice ripper" also can imply a knotty set of attitudes toward women, rape, and violence, and we shouldn't deny that either.

    Perhaps this is where our perspectives collide: If part of that attitude is about rough sex, rape fantasies, being politically incorrect, or what have you... fine, I have no problem saying that all that is part of the genre, it's up for discussion, and there's no reason to hide its presence in the books we read. However, along with talking frankly and acceptingly about sex and fantasy, shouldn't we also discuss whether romance unreflectedly parrots negative views of women, justifies rape, idealizes the role of victim, etc? I'm sure the bodice ripper novel reflects a number of feelings women still have today; odds are that some of those feelings are healthful, and some are not.

    Reading farther... I'm not sure I understand your last argument. Here, I get that you'd find more description of sexual content useful: "I'm not saying I always mind the explicitness or the content, just that a little heads-up beforehand is preferable to none at all."

    But I'm not sure I'm with you here: "quite a few sites I've checked still aren't making any greater distinctions between things. We're still stuck in a sweet to sizzling mentality." The thing is, I might not make a big issue of whether a romance is sweet and sizzling because I don't think sex in a novel is a big deal. That doesn't mean I'm afraid to talk about it.

    "as far as we've come, we're still to repressed to actually talk about the details."

    Or perhaps we've come far enough that "the [sex] details" aren't the most salient part of the book. I wouldn't want to write a review that comes across as a warning that "Here there be s-e-x". If the sex is really a significant part of the book--either positively or negatively--I'd probably mention it, but I wouldn't necessarily if it didn't strike me as somehow noteworthy. (Though it might strike someone else as noteworthy.) Did I make a leap in reading you above?

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  16. Or perhaps we've come far enough that "the [sex] details" aren't the most salient part of the book. I wouldn't want to write a review that comes across as a warning that "Here there be s-e-x". If the sex is really a significant part of the book--either positively or negatively--I'd probably mention it, but I wouldn't necessarily if it didn't strike me as somehow noteworthy. (Though it might strike someone else as noteworthy.) Did I make a leap in reading you above?

    Ah, but there's noteworthy and then there's noteworthy, however. ;)

    So for what it's worth, try this as an explanation, if this was a simple matter of "here there be s-e-x" do you honestly think it would be an issue with me at this point in my extremely long reading career? No, this is about things like whether readers should be expecting stuff like m-m, f-f, m-m-f, m-f-m, multiple partners beyond even that, voyeurism, sex in shifted form . . . shall I go on?

    Some of which, trust me, not even all publishers give heads-ups about what's in their own books, although thankfully some do.

    And it bothers me that anyone automatically equate what I'm talking about with asking for warnings because that's not it at all. I'm asking for information. That's a big difference. To me it's no different than asking for plot information to find things I would like and things I wouldn't.

    Are we sure we've come far enough that we can talk about it openly?

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  17. I would point out that some of the things I used in my example would definitely take stories out of the "romance" realm technically before someone else does. However, they were also the best (most common?) examples I had to show you what I'm talking about. I fully realize they might not show up in mainstream romances. Then again . . . there are a lot of romances being published now that no one expected to be published ten years ago.

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  18. I was thinking more that reclaiming has to do with the idea that both the negative and the positive has to be embraced as a part of the whole and that often both of those aspects are caught up in the very same thing.

    I think I see what you mean, but although I'd like to be fair to and about the genre and acknowledge both the bits I like and the bits I find more problematic, there are some things I'd very much rather not "embrace." That seems a rather warm, enthusiastic word to me ;-) I suppose, ultimately, I tend to see the genre more in terms of individual books, so I don't feel I can embrace some romances without having to embrace all of them.

    I feel there is a marked tendency on both sides of the spectrum to only discuss female oriented literature and female authored literature in terms of whether or not it is good for women as a whole.

    Yes, that's very irritating, for many reasons. One of them is that there seems to be an assumption implicit in that that all women are the same. In fact, something that's good for one reader may be upsetting for another, because they have different experiences and personalities and different ways of reading and so respond differently to the same book. Hmm. I spot a trend here. I seem to find it much easier to think about things on an individual level, whether readers or books, than at the level of "women" or "the romance genre."

    I entirely take Oscar Wilde's point of view that "There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written. That is all."

    Wilde has a seductively witty way of phrasing things which encourages one to agree with him. But I'm not sure I do, in this case. If we can have didactic fiction and non-didactic fiction, why can't we have moral and immoral fictions? I have absolutely no desire to set myself up as the judge of which might be which, though.

    by reclaimation I mean taking the discussion from the black and white and sticking it solidly in the amorphous gray areas of criticism where it belongs.

    As my last comment, about the not wanting to be the person doing the judging indicates, I have no quarrel with the idea of leaving many things in a grey area.

    isn't "bodice ripper" for all it's blatant imagery simply shorthand by some for the sexual content in the books?

    I don't know, Bev. I thought it referred to people's perception that the books contained scenes of rape, but I've almost exclusively discussed romance online, with other romance readers, so I don't know much about how non-romance readers think about the genre or terms such as "bodice ripper."

    this is about things like whether readers should be expecting stuff like m-m, f-f, m-m-f, m-f-m, multiple partners beyond even that, voyeurism, sex in shifted form . . . shall I go on? [...] I would point out that some of the things I used in my example would definitely take stories out of the "romance" realm technically before someone else does.

    I'm trying to think how these take would take the novels out of the romance genre. Since you said you weren't expecting them, I'd have to assume that the characters involved in all this activity were not necessarily the ones who are the main protagonists who end up together at the end? So, let's say, there's a hero and heroine named on the back cover, you're expecting this to be a m/f romance, but then both of them go off, have sex with other individuals and then perhaps end the novel as a m/f couple. Is that the sort of unsignalled kind of sex you're meaning, and the reason these books might not really be in the romance genre any more?

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  19. I think the books described in Poison Ivy's piece sound more like some of the ones that were around before romance became a genre: FOREVER AMBER, the Angélique saga, and the novels of Frank Yerby.

    As for a term for the genre, I rather like Andy Rooney's verdict: "This isn't explicit sex, it's explicit mush."

    As for bodice-ripping, it depends on the fabric, doesn't it? It's easy enough if you're working on silk and lace, but what happens when you get down to the busk, which I think was made of canvas or something similar....

    Oh! So THAT'S what the dagger clenched in his teeth is for!

    The website for Elizabeth Peters's Amelia Peabody series used to be called "Another Shirt Ruined!--but that was Amelia's outcry when spouse Emerson tore another one of HIS shirts.

    There is a definitive LOLspeak Glossary: http://speaklolspeak.com/

    Some of my book clubs note whether the book contains explicit sex, violence, and/or language. I like this, though I'm most interested in avoiding explicit violence. I don't particularly enjoy reading explicit sex scenes or dialogue with a lot of profanity; but they aren't deal-breakers for me. Violence is, as it lingers in my mind.

    Laura wrote: I don't feel I can embrace some romances without having to embrace all of them.

    SLUT!!!

    Would the works of the Marquis de Sade and the Protocols of the Elders of Zion count as "immoral books?" Remember that one of the ways that Ian Brady seduced Myra Hindley into joining him in serial murder was by getting her to read de Sade.

    WV: umstoriz--Inuit word for "bodice-rippers"

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  20. I seem to find it much easier to think about things on an individual level, whether readers or books, than at the level of "women" or "the romance genre."

    Boy, am I with you there. I always seem to be a very atypical romance reader, happily skipping along, liking things that everyone tells me I shouldn't necessarily like. Although, come to think of it, I'm not entirely sure whether that makes me atypical or normal when it comes to popular fiction. Hmm. Anyway, what I was trying to get at with regards to the "women's" aspect of the romance genre is that it's never ever appealed to me. Take the sappy overly emotional stuff and give it to someone else. I want the action/adventure romances. The more pared down the better. Truly.

    And yet there are those individual books that slip past my guard every time. Unbelievable. One can just never predict.

    I don't know, Bev. I thought it referred to people's perception that the books contained scenes of rape, but I've almost exclusively discussed romance online, with other romance readers, so I don't know much about how non-romance readers think about the genre or terms such as "bodice ripper."

    I'll grant you that scenes of rape are usually what's being referred to within this community when the term is discussed online but what I mostly hear from "outsiders" I run across sounds more like "the books are all sex scenes". We are talking about a term that came into use thirty years ago and people are still tossing it around. Some of them might know exactly what it was connected to, i.e. rape fantasies, but every single one of them? Uh-huh, just like that reading "trash" we were talking about earlier, the words are the same but the meaning is different depending upon who's talking.

    I'm trying to think how these take would take the novels out of the romance genre.

    Well, ooo-kay, if you think any and all of that could be in the romance genre, that little disclaimer doesn't really matter at all so just forget it. The part about wanting a heads-up, though, regarding sexual content is pertinent for selecting stories for a lot of readers. Distinguishing one type of story from another always is. To me it's no different than choosing books by type of plot or setting. In the context of this discussion it would be like saying whether they did or did not want to read a bodice ripper. Does that make sense?

    Of course, we'd first have to define bodice ripper to everyone's satisfaction. Head desk. ;p

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  21. "if this was a simple matter of 'here there be s-e-x' do you honestly think it would be an issue with me at this point in my extremely long reading career?"

    Oh, I don't know--books, and my responses to them, still surprise me all the time :) Seriously, I know you're an adult and a thoughtful reader, but you never know what will strike people as "off".

    "No, this is about things like whether readers should be expecting stuff like m-m, f-f, m-m-f, m-f-m, multiple partners beyond even that, voyeurism, sex in shifted form . . . shall I go on?" and "some of the things I used in my example would definitely take stories out of the "romance" realm technically"

    Like Laura, I don't see those as necessarily incompatible with romance, unless they get in the way of the strong emotional connection that's central to romance. So my main quibble is that too many partners could leave little time for romance and make any emotional connection unconvincing; the serial-lovers escapades I've read have been more like erotica or Laurell K Hamilton than romance. (OTOH I've read a romance in which the couple experimented briefly with a threesome without, IMO, disrupting the romance.)

    "it bothers me that anyone automatically equate what I'm talking about with asking for warnings because that's not it at all. I'm asking for information."

    If you mean me, I said *I* don't want to write a review that *sounds* like that. That's not a reflection on what you the reader want to know; my concern is more about conveying it without it coming across as warning people off. E.g. reviewing a lesbian romance, I didn't want to treat it differently from a hetero romance, but the fact that it was two women was an important part of the story and an important thing to let the reader know--simply for my review to make sense, as well as to appropriately describe the book. I do agree that the f/f relationship is just another plot device in many ways; some readers would be intrigued and some put off, just as with an amnesia plot or a steampunk setting.

    "there are a lot of romances being published now that no one expected to be published ten years ago."

    Yes indeed.

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  22. so I don't feel I can embrace some romances without having to embrace all of them.

    Waah! I meant the opposite! What I was trying to say, before my brain and my fingers stopped working together to produce sentences on the screen that actually meant what I wanted them to mean (my excuse is that it was around very late in my time zone), was that because I tend to think of each book separately, I feel I can embrace the books on my keeper shelf without feeling obliged to embrace all the books I'm taking to the second-hand shop, or any of the books that I've metaphorically thrown against the wall.

    And Tal, in any case I was thinking about fraternal, comradely embraces!

    I'm most interested in avoiding explicit violence.

    Yes, same for me. Of course, sometimes the violence in romance expresses itself sexually, as in rape, but the reason I have a problem with it is because of the violence and power dynamics.

    There are some sexual practices I'd rather not read about, because I appear to have an inner Health and Safety Officer who already turns up to comment on the likelihood of rakes having sexually transmitted infections etc.

    In addition, I don't go out of my way to find romances with a high sexual content because (a) if the characterisation is bad, then the sex scenes will probably bore me. Even if the author inventively inserts Tab A into slots X, Y and Z, it's characterisation I'm interested in, not acrobatics but (b) if the characterisation is good, but the sex scenes are particularly detailed that can make me feel as if I'm intruding on the characters' privacy if I "watch" the sex scenes.

    I know that probably makes me an unusual reader. Obviously I do read lots of romances with sex scenes because lots of romances have sex scenes, but in general I don't tend to notice if a romance doesn't have sex scenes whereas I can be pulled out of the story if reading a sex scene begins to feel voyeuristic. It really is about the characterisation, though, and how real the characters feel, because I don't have any problems with "talk[ing] about it openly," as long as the discussion stays on the level of specific body parts and practices. What I don't want, however, is to feel as though I'm getting Too Much Information about people I've come to "know" (even if they are fictional).

    what I mostly hear from "outsiders" I run across sounds more like "the books are all sex scenes".

    I've met someone who thought Mills & Boons were suitable reading for pre-teens because she thought they didn't have sex in them. It had been a while since she'd last read one, obviously. I did explain that they'd changed, but even the ones that don't have sex probably aren't very suitable reading for young children because I don't think a child would really enjoy reading/fully understand some of the issues that are raised in these novels, such as achieving a good work/life balance etc. And then there are the books which touch on issues like bereavement, infertility etc which might be upsetting for a child because the topics might not be dealt with in a way that would make it easy for the child to understand and not get too worried about it. Depends on the child, of course.

    Well, ooo-kay, if you think any and all of that could be in the romance genre, that little disclaimer doesn't really matter at all so just forget it.

    As far as defining what is or isn't romance, if it has a "Central Love Story" and the individuals involved get their "Emotionally Satisfying and Optimistic Ending" which includes them being in love with each other and being together in some way, I'll classify it as a romance. I would add that the individuals involved need to be intelligent life-forms capable of falling in love as humans understand that emotion, even if they're not humans. I'd also concur with RfP on the issue of how many individuals can be involved in the central relationship: "my main quibble is that too many partners could leave little time for romance and make any emotional connection unconvincing."

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  23. Oh, I don't know--books, and my responses to them, still surprise me all the time :) Seriously, I know you're an adult and a thoughtful reader, but you never know what will strike people as "off".

    I'm going to try one more time here because I think it's important to the point I was originally attempting to make in my first post about this - in anything I've said, did I ever give any indication that any of those things struck me as "off"?

    Honestly. I'm not talking about avoiding them. I'm talking about identifying them. There is a huge difference between the two things. ;)

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  24. Laura, as I've mentioned before, the romances I read are mostly romantic suspense; and I prefer ones that have more mystery content. And I also read a lot of mysteries. So the presence of violence is always a possibility, except when I go back to Georgette Heyer. The books I read often have autopsies in them, and at least one had an extensive discussion of maggots, which I could have well done without. It's not just the violence that bothers me, it's also the detailed description of the bodies.

    As for language, I completely get it in the J.D. Robb books, where the protagonist is a cop used to the mean streets. It also fit those characters who used it in THE TAKING OF PELHAM ONE TWO THREE, which was an even better book than it was a movie--and it was a good movie. But I gave up on one book by a well-known horror author (it was supposedly "normal" fantasy) when I found the omniscient narrator using four-letter words.

    WV: Nithee--Alan Smithee's smarter half-brother

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  25. I'm not sure how we've ended up at cross purposes, Bev(BB). It sounds like what I said is coming across as judging in some way I didn't intend. Which is sort of related to my point: that a review site may not intend to either cover up a plot point or ghettoize it, but that can still be how it comes across.

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  26. I had to leave a comment after reading this one! A friend of mine directed me here. I am shewolf0316 who started the big discussion about at eHArlequin beginning of this year. So I ahd to come in here and read it after hearing I was quoted here. :-)

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  27. It's good to "see" you here, Kelley, and thank you for writing the original post at eHarlequin. I can be quite prosaic in my response to some things in romance too (e.g. He's a rake? In the regency period? How many sexually transmitted diseases has he got?). It's very easy to get used to some romance conventions and never think twice about them, so questioning them, as you did in your post, raises interesting questions.

    It's possible that thinking this way gets in the way of the "fantasy" but on the other hand it possibly also makes it easier to see which aspects of romance are more fantasy-based than others, which gives me lots of scope for trying to work out theories about why they might be appealing fantasies. Of course, my theories could be completely wrong, but at least I have fun thinking about the issues! ;-)

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