Betz, Phyllis M.
Lesbian Romance Novels: A History and Critical Analysis. Jefferson, NC:
McFarland, 2009.
Uszkurat, Carol Ann. "Mid Twentieth Century Lesbian Romance: Reception and Redress."
Outwrite: Lesbianism and Popular Culture." Ed. Gabriele Griffin. London: Pluto Press, 1993: 26-47.
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In her preface Betz acknowledges that she is "not the first to examine specifically lesbian works" (2). This is true, since lesbian romances have been discussed in earlier articles by Ehnenn (1998), Esquibel (1992), Hermes (1992), Juhasz (1998), Palmer (1998), Uszkurat (1993) and Weir and Wilson (1992) and in a PhD thesis by Pearce (2004).
1 I can't guarantee that this is a comprehensive list of work on lesbian romances, but it does rather suggest that serious analysis of these texts really only got under way in the 1990s. The reasons for this are explored by Carol Ann Uszkurat.
Uszkurat has stated that "during the rise of the second women's liberation movement, which took an increasing interest in lesbianism throughout the 1970s, lesbian romance was ignored" and she asked "What was it that prevented lesbians from looking at a crucial part of their own cultural history?" (30). She suggests "that the answer to this question is, at least in part, associated with the rise of lesbian feminism from the late 1960s onwards and the attitudes towards pre-liberation movements' lesbianism promoted by some lesbian feminists" (30). Firstly, "Feminism in general provided a critique of the heterosexual demarcation of gender-assigned roles. This had a direct bearing on the way in which lesbian butch/fem role play was consigned to the dustbin of unsound practices" (31). I wonder if echoes of this critique of "butch/fem role play" can be found in Betz's book, and perhaps explain why she is apparently so keen to accept descriptions of heterosexual romances as texts which promote rigid gender binaries. They can therefore be contrasted with lesbian romances, in which "the main characters do not always embody a rigid set of contrasting qualities" (Betz 177).
Secondly, "the texts under consideration, lesbian romances of the 1950s, were produced at a time that was seen as deserving little or no respect" (Uszkurat 31), "There was, I would suggest, a definite link between the politics of lesbian feminism of the 1970s and the lack of critical regard dished out to pre-Stonewall popular paperbacks" (31). Uszkurat suggests that in the 1970s "the interest was in literally canonising those women whose writing could be re-categorised as some kind of feminist 'classic' belonging to a tradition of great women's writing" (32).
Thirdly, Uszkurat observes that
Both the initial and prevailing radical feminist readings of popular culture during the 1970s were infused with deep suspicion. In a feminist reification of the kind of orthodox Marxist/Frankfurt School that proliferated in the 1960s and popularised concepts such as 'mass/false consciousness', radical feminists rewrote 'dominant order' to mean 'oppressive patriarchy'. (35)
Uszkurat then turns to the psychoanalytic theories used by critics of heterosexual romances:
Time and time again, critics define desire by picking up on the kind of feminist psychoanalysis which mushroomed in the mid 1970s. Theorists like Dorothy Dinnerstein and Nancy Chodorow are used as the analytical hook on which to hang readings of popular romance. Not surprisingly, analysis that sought to dissect woman/man relations is both limited and highly problematic when looked at for transferable models that might offer some means of reading lesbian romance. (37)
Uszkurat demonstrates how Janice Radway's conclusions about romance readers, which are based on Chodorow, become problematic when applied to lesbians (and, as Uszkurat notes, Chodorow was also "Seemingly ignorant of the materialist dynamics that take the working-class mother out to work" (38)). Uszkurat also briefly mentions problems with the psychoanalytic underpinnings of Snitow, Modleski and Coward's work on heterosexual romances.
So, "If lesbian feminism is antagonistic towards psychoanalysis, it is hardly likely to take anything from readings of popular heterosexual romance which rely heavily on such perspectives" (42). Nonetheless, "This radical feminist mistrust [...] has been increasingly challenged in the 1990s" (43) and Betz, while noting differences between heterosexual and lesbian women in the context of Chodorow's theories as they appear in Radway, does not utterly reject those theories.
Uszkurat concludes her essay by turning to Diana Hamer and her work on "the lesbian paperbacks produced during the 1950s and 1960s" (43), in particular those of Ann Bannon, which are also discussed in some detail by Betz in her book, in her chapter on "pulps." Uszkurat notes that
'romance' as it is conceptualised in these openly lesbian texts is discounted by Hamer, because she rightly notes the lack of formula which, according to heterosexual feminists, is evident in heterosexual romance. This leads to a dismissal of any comparison with Mills and Boon because 'such a parallel is questionable in terms of generic conventions' (Hamer, p 50). But is there not room to consider how exactly 'romance' was part of the lesbian culture of the 1950s and why? I leave this question open. (44)
Betz does not really explore the issue of genre classification either, but the historical contexts she mentions should, I think, be borne in mind when attempting to classify lesbian romantic fiction. In earlier decades the less-than-optimistic outcomes for lesbian relationships which are portrayed in lesbian texts may well have been shaped not by the authors' preference for this kind of ending, but by the fact that even when, rather daringly, the characters' love dared to speak its name, it was not acceptable for that speech to be rewarded in print. Furthermore, lesbian readers may still have found the endings "Emotionally-Satisfying and Optimistic" (
RWA) because, as Betz suggests, "they allowed the reader to imagine more positive outcomes" (46).
Betz notes that, in general, analysis of lesbian romantic fiction has tended to "concentrate on the pulp novels of the 1950s and early 1960s or is limited to discussions of Jane Rule's
Desert of the Heart, Isabelle Miller's
Patience and Sarah, Radclyffe Hall's
The Well of Loneliness, and a small handful of other texts" (2). There are, however, some gaps in Betz's bibliography: I noticed that she does not include all the previous works on lesbian romance which I listed above.
To my knowledge Betz's study is the first book-length study of lesbian romances to be published by an academic press. She offers the reader "my analysis of one of the most prominent of the popular genres - the romance novel" and discusses "how lesbian authors utilize and adapt the form for their particular audience" (1). Given the diversity and size of the genre, this would seem a daunting undertaking, and Betz's book is only 219 pages long. Perhaps because of this, in her analysis of heterosexual romances she depends rather heavily on conclusions derived from secondary sources, particularly Janice Radway's
Reading the Romance, Carol Thurston's
The Romance Revolution, the
Dangerous Men and Adventurous Women volume edited by Jayne Ann Krentz and Pamela Regis's
A Natural History of the Romance Novel. Unfortunately, many of her statements about heterosexual romances suggested to me that she lacked first-hand knowledge of the primary sources:
The heterosexual hero and heroine usually enter their story as diametric opposites, in class, mobility, and power. Typically, the hero enjoys not only the privileges of his gender, but the constant expression of them; he is, to use Jayne Ann Krentz's term, the "alpha male" who dominates all of the other characters in the book, but most importantly the heroine ("Trying to Tame the Romance" 107). [...] Blond hair, lighter skin tones, and smaller builds are not attributes given to the hero; such figures become false heroes, temporarily misdirecting the heroine's desires in malicious or accidental ways, or they are subordinates to [sic] the hero. (92)
What, then, of "beta" heroes? What of the heroes who are blond, or shorter than the heroine, poorer, or younger? What of inter-racial romances featuring Black women and White men? All of these do exist, but Betz would appear to be entirely unaware of them. As the following quotation demonstrates, Betz's incomplete knowledge of heterosexual romances affects her assessment of lesbian romances:
the configuration of the lesbian couple does not fully replicate the model found in mainstream romance. This is, perhaps, the essential difference between the two genres: without a definite hero and heroine, the traditional romance cannot work: "In a romance novel, the relationship between the hero and the heroine is the plot. It is the primary focus of the story ..." (Krentz "Trying to Tame the Romance," 108, emphasis in text). He must be aloof; she must be able to connect. He must acknowledge his emotional need; she must accept the responsibility of nurturing those feelings. He must take and retain control; she must be willing to cede power. Even if the ending presents some awareness by the couple that both are responsible for maintaining the relationship, the conservative framework within which the romance works requires the recognition that male desire still directs it. This dynamic will be found in the pages of lesbian romance, but with important differences. (93-94)
Betz also makes generalisations about the structure of heterosexual romances. For example, despite frequently quoting from Pamela Regis, who was careful to note that the various elements she had identified "can appear in any order" (
30), Betz seems to believe that "the typical romance [...] ends with the declaration of mutual love" (109) and she therefore states that lesbian romances are significantly different inasmuch as they continue
to explore the implications of that assertion beyond this ecstatic moment. Once the couple has accepted their attraction and expressed this acceptance by making love, their story is not complete. Particularly in more recent novels, the women must confront a variety of challenges that must be faced together. (109)
It may well be the case that the case that more lesbian romances than heterosexual ones end in this way, but Betz does not provide much evidence that this is the case. One scene she describes does indeed show the ongoing happiness of the lesbian couple many years after the conclusion of the events in the main body of the romance, but to me it did not seem radically different from many of the epilogues to be found in heterosexual romances.
Sweeping, and therefore somewhat inaccurate, generalisations about heterosexual romances could be of relatively little importance in a book about lesbian romance novels. Indeed, I wish I could focus solely on what Betz has to say about lesbian romances, because they have received far less scholarly attention than heterosexual romances. Unfortunately, I have felt obliged to write at some length about her opinions of heterosexual romances because Betz attempts to describe the defining features of lesbian romances by contrasting them with heterosexual romances. Given the apparently rather incomplete nature of her reading of heterosexual romances, I was less able to feel confident about her conclusions regarding the unique features of lesbian romances.
It is perhaps worth noting that Betz 's
reading of genre romances is a late development, partially coming from my teaching courses in popular/genre literature. My reading of lesbian romances has to be linked to my coming out, when I was looking for images of lesbians and lesbian life as well as models of behavior. (200)
Betz therefore praises the lesbian romance genre because it "positions the lesbian at its center and reframes her marginal status; this allows her to escape the stereotypic and homophobic depictions of the lesbian as deviant, disordered, and demonic" (196-97) and allows her to "momentarily experience the fantasy of complete acceptance" (197). That it is a "fantasy," however, is something on which Betz insists, because she believes that "The pursuit and maintenance of love is more complex than is described in the romance, and social expectations impinge on the couple's attempts to establish a private life more strongly than they do inside these narratives" (196). Indeed, Betz writes that
Perhaps no other genre is said to call for such a complete suspension of disbelief as the romance. Once a reader accepts the premise that life exists on other planets or that time travel is possible, science fiction novels make sense. While coincidence often plays a role in the solution to a crime, as long as the investigation adheres to the particular rubric of its type of mystery, a reader will accept the investigation's outcome.2 Romances, however, are seen as asking their readers to willingly overlook the reliance on extreme yet limited stereotypes, highly stereotyped characters, highly contrived plots, over-wrought themes, and unrealistic outcomes. (169-70)
Since Betz qualifies her initial sentence with "Perhaps," and ascribes the views she describes to some unidentified people ("is said to call," "are seen as asking") it does not seem entirely safe to assume that she shares these views, but her repeated use of the word "fantasy" to describe the genre does tend to make me think that this paragraph reflects her own opinions, as does her description of the characters in lesbian romances:
both main characters are stunningly attractive, although there tends to be a reliance on some variation of the butch/femme dyad common in lesbian literature [...] Like heterosexual romances lesbian romance narratives are situated within an exaggerated environment, where the focus and direction of the plot center on the progress of the romance. (15)
Betz's history of lesbian romance novels begins in Chapter One with a brief mention of "authors and texts that form, what can be called, the 'official canon' of lesbian writing:
Virginia Woolf,
Willa Cather,
Djuna Barnes, and
Gertrude Stein, among others" (27). As she notes, "Many of the lesbian authors of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, in fact, did not even treat overt romantic relationships between women" (27) and "When two female characters express strong feelings and attachments for each other, they are generally framed within the context of the romantic friendship [...]. Elizabeth Stuart Phelps'
The Silent Partner and Mary Wilkins Freeman's
The Country of the Pointed Firs [Betz seems to have made a mistake here because
Sarah Orne Jewett was the author of
The Country of the Pointed Firs] typifies this situation" (27).
Turning to "Recognizable popular lesbian romance" (28), Betz begins with
early novels in which In each case, with the exception of Rule's Desert of the Heart and Miller's Patience and Sarah, the demands that the lovers adhere to society's conceptions of proper female looks and behavior destroys or limits not only their relationships but their very lives. [...] Throughout the pulps the recognition that a woman's desires for another woman are called deviant challenges her very sense of self, and the institutionalization, the deaths, and the emotional and social isolation that are offered as the only possible outcome for expressing such desire indicates the terrible price for transgressing social norms. (Betz 105)
The first novel to be described at any length by Betz is
Radclyffe Hall's
The Well of Loneliness and "Sally Cline states the [sic] Hall recognized the limitations within which she positioned her narrative and gave them [her characters] the ending that society would accept" (35).
In
The Well of Loneliness the main character, Stephen Gordon (who despite her name is female), ends by relinquishing her lover to a man. A similar ending to a lesbian relationship can be found in
Mary Renault's
The Friendly Young Ladies. Betz then turns to lesbian "
pulps", which "Between 1950 and the mid-1960s" were "the dominant format for descriptions of lesbian relationships" (40). This is followed by brief descriptions and analyses of
Isabel Miller's
Patience and Sarah,
Jane Rule's
Desert of the Heart and
Rita Mae Brown's
Rubyfruit Jungle.
In Chapter Two Betz moves on to
Katherine Forrest's
Curious Wine (1983), "considered a classic of modern lesbian romance" (63). Betz writes that,
Unlike Hall, Renault, and others, Forrest's lovers are presented not only as self-identified lesbians, but fully satisfied and confident with that identity. The ambiguity of the texts discussed in Chapter One disappears [...]. Ultimately, in the earlier romantic texts, the weight of the larger society diminished or destroyed any chance of lesbian love succeeding. Stephen Gordon surrenders Mary to a conventional heterosexual marriage; Leo willingly leaves Helen for Joe. The pulps portray lesbian desire and fulfillment as something either to be prevented, through death or institutionalization, or lesbian relationships as being incapable of providing any sense of stability or permanence. To be lesbian is to be tortured with self-doubt and self-loathing. (70-71)
This chapter also looks at the relationships depicted in other recent lesbian romances, including "Janet McClellan's
Winter Garden, Claire McNab's
Under the Southern Cross, and Shelley Smith's
Horizon of the Heart" (73).
Betz's focus is on examining how "social codes are woven into the narrative" (85) and showing that "a lesbian-authored text not only gives the lesbian reader permission to look, but to look as a lesbian looks" (84). This means that she is not analysing the literary aspects of the novels, though she does mention that in Rule's
Desert of the Heart the use of "Images of heat, blinding light, dust, all suggest the impossibility of relationships being able to survive" (50) and the way in which "Emily Dickinson's poetry [...] becomes a communicative bridge" (70) for the protagonists in Forrest's
Curious Wine. In Chapter 3 she describes the settings to be found in lesbian romances:
Like their mainstream counterparts, lesbian romances set their narratives within conventional settings. Perhaps the most common backdrop for the love story, especially in novels set in the present, is the city. The prominence of this environment reflects its importance in the history of gays and lesbians: the city has always been seen as providing the gay man or lesbian a surrounding in which the individual is able to express non-traditional sexual desire more openly. The city offers anonymity at the same time it facilitates the creation of a shared community. (86)
The social statuses of the characters is also examined:
the lifestyles enjoyed by the characters in lesbian romances tend to reflect a middle to upper-middle class status. [...] The portrayal of lesbians as economically successful is constantly reinforced in these books and may be seen as contributing to one aspect of the romance novel's creation of fantasy, not of romantic passion but of material comfort. (87)
and, as in many romances featuring heterosexual protagonists,
Many lesbian romances [...] utilize the contrast in the class status of the couple as either a complication that must be resolved if the happy ending is to be achieved or as a marker of suitability. B. L. Miller's Accidental Love constructs the romance around the first plot situation. (88) [Miller has made this novel available on her website, where it can be read for free]
In this, they resemble a great many romances with heterosexual protagonists: the "Cinderella" type romance story, between a poor(er) woman and a rich man is a common one. However, Betz suggests that in lesbian romances wealth can play an additional role: "The association of financial security with a lesbian identity attempts to bridge the gap between perceived deviance (lesbian) and socially approved status (wealth); the one condition assumes acceptance of the other" (87).
Betz also describes how
A particular sub-set of lesbian romance novels began to appear in the mid-1990s that brought together a group of women who work together [...], live in the same neighborhood [...], or enjoy and rely on long-standing friendships [...]. One of the prominent features of these group romances - because while they could be classified as comedies of manners like their mainstream counterparts, finding suitable, long-term partners is the narratives' starting point - is the shared environment in which the characters reside. Not surprisingly, these novels do not replicate the traditional romantic plot; the narrative tends to center on one of the group, tracing the ups and downs of her searches for romantic relationships. The circle of friends provides a full range of support, criticism, and blind dates. [...] The comic tone of these novels represents another distinguishing factor for [sic] more traditional romances. (90-91)
Betz herself raises the question of how to classify these novels, and I wonder if she might have found rather more parallels between them and their "mainstream counterparts" if she had looked for those counterparts among chick lit novels rather than in the romance genre.
The chapter concludes with a brief discussion of the impact on lesbian romance of another product of popular culture:
From its first broadcast [in September 1995], Xena, Warrior Princess teased its audience with suggestions of more than just a friendship between its two main characters. [...] While Xena and Gabrielle could play at being more than just friends, the requirements for keeping a mainstream audience prevented the relationship from crossing the boundary from play to actual romantic connection. Yet, it is this consummation that recent lesbian romance novels play out again and again. [...] What is striking in the majority of recent lesbian romances [...] is the authors' insistence on incorporating what can now be seen as iconic images and characterizations, especially since the show went off the air in 2000. In fact, the frequency of Xena- and Gabrielle-based characters is so common that some texts have begun to acknowledge the references. (107)3
In Chapter 4 Betz's "critical analysis" turns to the relationship between sex and love in the romance genre: "To separate sex from romance, in the final analysis, is rather like trying to separate the oxygen and hydrogen while attempting to drink water" (111). She suggests that
In many ways the incorporation of sexual intimacy functions in the same manner within the pages of the lesbian romance as mainstream romance. The couple desires the intensity of physical connection, since it signifies the moment of recognition of a mutual attraction and commitment between the lovers. Sexual passion and expression parallels emotional desire and articulation. [...] Unlike its heterosexual counterpart, however, the lesbian romance must contend with a mainstream essentialist view of the lesbian: the equation of sexual identity with sexual practice. (117)
Again comparisons with heterosexual romances abound. For example: "lesbian texts differ noticeably from heterosexual ones. Although contemporary traditional romances will describe the sex between the hero and heroine in explicit language, these scenes tend to be brief and limited in frequency" (122) and
The type of heterosexual romantic text influences how much explicit sexual content is allowed, but generally the number of sex scenes in mainstream straight novels is limited. The exception would be those novels that advertise themselves as explicitly erotic. However sex appears in these works, a distinct pattern of engagement can be discerned. The heroine's sexual awakening, for example, must come from the hero. (131)
If such statements contain inaccuracies about heterosexual romances, then they will fail to convince the reader that "lesbian texts differ noticeably from heterosexual ones." The quotations from, and descriptions of, lesbian sex scenes did not strike me as particularly different from many of those I've read in heterosexual romances (although, obviously, they describe two women's bodies instead of the bodies of a man and a woman). In addition I could see parallels between some of the novels Betz describes, in which one of the protagonists comes out as a lesbian during the course of a romance and learns eagerly from her more experienced partner, and the rapid learning curve of many romance virgins in heterosexual romance novels. Betz, however, states that "Unlike the romantic hero, who, traditionally, uses his sexual power to overwhelm the heroine's resistance and dominate her will, the more experienced lesbian in her romance will behave more as the teacher" (122).
Chapter 5 focuses on "the work of three well-known lesbian romance writers -
Radclyffe,
Karin Kallmaker, and
Jennifer Fulton" (138). Betz apparently chose them because "While Radway's and Thurston's analyses are built on extensive surveys of romance readers" (3) Betz had no comparable source of information about lesbian romance readers and these three lesbian romance authors all have websites which "allow readers to contact the authors with their reactions, criticisms and questions. The answers open up the authors' writing processes, as well as their comments on issues such as the role of sex and the value of the work to its audience" (3). All three authors "express a strong sense of their awareness of writing for a specifically lesbian readership" (138), feel a "sense of responsibility for providing lesbian readers with recognizable and believable stories and characters" (139), "stress a commitment to representing as wide a range of lesbian experience as possible" (139) and "indicate an awareness that they are part of a particular lesbian literary tradition" (139). In addition to being authors, "Kallmaker is the editorial director for Bella Books; Fulton, the senior editor/acquiring editor for Bold Strokes Books; and Radclyffe [...] is the president and founder of Bold Strokes Books" (140).
In Fulton's
True Love "most of the women of the group [including "Rosie, whose quest for true love provides the central narrative focus"] end in the same situation - single - as they began the story" (144) but Betz argues that the novel "must still be read as a romance novel because, even if only temporarily, members of the group [...] do experience the thrill of finding a compatible lover" (144). Apparently "Fulton's later romances adhere more closely to the traditional romantic framework" (144).
Karin Kallmaker
has paid close attention to the importance of community within the pages of her novels. [...] Finding one's heart's desire, as required by the romantic narrative, takes precedence, but Kallmaker emphasizes that the couple belongs to a wider world and has a responsibility to acknowledge that relationship as well as the private. (151)
Betz also notes Kallmaker's "deliberate references to other literature" (158), particularly Jane Austen's
Pride and Prejudice.
Radclyffe specialises in romances in which
one or both of the main characters enters the story burdened by a past which impacts the present and which must be confronted and addressed if the character(s) will be able to pursue the relationship that has developed over the course of the narrative. (159)
Betz quotes a comment by Radclyffe:
"Some of the most powerful themes in my work, which I revisit frequently, are redemption, healing, and self-acceptance. These are classic themes in romance fiction and the sex of the character has nothing to do with the emotional landscape of the character or the challenges she faces in accepting and giving love." (160)
In
Tomorrow's Promise one of the protagonists, Tanner, has sex with Adrienne but "cannot yet separate the two drives [emotional and physical] and returns to her 'normal' sexual behavior, indulging in one-night stands" (165). I found this intriguing, because I think it would be unusual for either of the protagonists in a heterosexual romance novel to find new sexual partners after having had sex with their hero/heroine. Betz does not analyse this, so I have no idea whether this kind of scenario is more common in lesbian romances than in heterosexual ones. There is some description of the metafictional elements in
Love's Masquerade, in which Haydon Palmer, writing under the pseudonym of Rune Dyre, "is transcribing her relationship with Auden [who works for her publisher] in the fiction" (166) which Auden reads and "Their courtship for the first part of the novel is carried out through email and the submission Rune/Haydon sends to Auden" (166).
Chapter Six analyses the relationships between the novels and their readers:
The reader's importance to the success of the romance novel cannot be overlooked; every examination of the genre, whether critical or popular, emphasizes the impact readers' expectations of and responses to the texts not only has on their own preference, but on the writers of these works as well. (170)
Betz states that heterosexual romance novels show "the balance of opposites" and "this reconciliation of opposites is the reiteration and normalization of a conservative social construction of heterosexual relationships" (176). However
While lesbian romances retain the basic outlines of the heterosexual romantic plot and characters, they incorporate important variations that represent a specific lesbian sensibility, since these are written for a specifically lesbian audience. For example, the main characters do not always embody a rigid set of contrasting qualities. (177)
It would be surprising if lesbian romances did not "represent a specific lesbian sensibility" but if it is demonstrated by the presence of main characters who "do not [...] embody a rigid set of contrasting qualities" then many heterosexual romances, for example those with "beta" heroes, must also "represent a specific lesbian sensibility." As on earlier occasions, Betz's apparent lack of knowledge about heterosexual romances (or a reading of them which is based on the assumption that they must reproduce a "conservative social construction of heterosexual relationships") undercuts her insights into lesbian romance novels. Where Betz does see similarities with heterosexual romances, these do not seem to meet with great approval:
The impact of the heterosexual paradigm in the definition of a successful romantic outcome can be seen in the novels' maintaining of the notion that each woman has, and can find, her one true soul mate, thus encouraging the lesbian reader to imagine, at least during the reading of the novel, that such an achievement is possible. (179)
While I might not use the term "one true soul mate," the "notion" that women ( heterosexual, lesbian, bisexual etc) can find lifelong romantic partners does not seem to me to be an "achievement" which is only possible within the pages of a romance.
Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon, for example, were together for over fifty years, until the former's death. Betz concedes that "given that even the concept of a successful lesbian relationship is discredited by mainstream society, the serious treatment of the search of one woman for emotional and physical fulfillment with another woman becomes reasonable" (180).
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1 Complete details of these texts can be found in the
Romance Wiki bibliography. This list is not intended to be taken as a complete list of previous work on lesbian romance novels, but it does include some items not cited by Betz.
2 Elsewhere,
in an earlier book, Betz has analysed depictions of sex and love in lesbian detective fiction. On pages
42-44 of her book on lesbian detective fiction Betz actually gives a brief overview of the heterosexual romance genre which gives a taste of her approach to the genre in
Lesbian Romance Novels.
3 According to an
article by Malinda Lo,
female/female slash, or femslash, has historically been quite rare. It was not until Xena: Warrior Princess, with its often quite overt subtextual homosexual relationship between Xena and Gabrielle, that the amount of femslash approached male/male slash in volume. Since Xena, other femslash pairings have included Seven of Nine/Janeway on Star Trek: Voyager; Buffy/Faith, Willow/Tara, and numerous other female/female pairings on Buffy: The Vampire Slayer; CJ and a number of female partners on The West Wing, and Olivia Benson/Alex Cabot on Law and Order: SVU, among others. [...]
The mother of all femslash is, without a doubt, Xena: Warrior Princess, which premiered in September 1995. Xena was unique in that it was a television program in which the hero and the hero's sidekick were both women. That relationship, between former warlord-turned-heroine Xena and the initially innocent bard Gabrielle, was one of the most three-dimensional relationships between women seen on television. That relationship also involved them in a number of sexually suggestive situations, as the two famously bathed together, shared mystical kisses, and sang to each other in melodramatic musical episodes.
