Bindel, Piece by Piece

There has been so much discussion of this piece lately that I almost hesitate to do this, but since several of us seem to disagree on the "meat" of Julie Bindel's argument--the substantive points she's making, or trying to make, rather than the dashes of rhetorical chipotle that spice things up or make us sputter and cough--it seems the way to proceed is simply to look over the article, piece by piece, and see if we can agree on what it says.

Here it is, then, paragraph by paragraph (numbers added for easy reference). Laura, Sarah, and the rest of us contributors can weigh in by editing this post and adding commentary after each paragraph, as well as in the comments boxes.

Let the games...begin!

1. Fifteen years ago, I read 20 Mills & Boon novels as research for a dissertation on "romantic fiction and the rape myth". It was the easiest piece of research I have ever done. In every book, there was a scene where the heroine is "broken in", both emotionally and physically, by the hero. Having fallen for this tall, brooding figure of masculinity, the heroine becomes consumed with capturing him. The hero is behaving in a way that, in real life, causes many women to develop low self-esteem, depression and self-harming behaviour - blowing hot and cold, and treating her like dirt. But all comes right in the end. After the heroine displays extraordinary vulnerability during a crisis, Mr Macho saves the day and shows her he cares.

EMS: Laura has already written about Bindel's research methods here, so I won't cover that. Instead, let me just observe that I don't know what "rape myth" she means, and it matters. Imagine this same paragraph--this one and the next one--as having grown out of a different dissertation, one on "romantic fiction and dominant / submissive sexual fantasy" and see how differently it reads. (One can also imagine it as deriving from research into "romantic fiction and the power of random reinforcement.")

SSGF: Doesn't exploring a "myth" or a narrative give us power over it in real life? Don't various narratives exist precisely so that people can explore the extremes (as Lazaraspaste says in the comments) in order to give us psychic control over the situations if/when they happen to us?

EMS: I agree, Sarah, and I’d like to link this idea to your discussion, below, of the ending of the romance novel. Bindel snidely dismisses the victory of the heroine: “But all comes right in the end.” Why is the ending to be mocked? Because it doesn’t happen that way often enough in “real life”? On those grounds, couldn’t we just as easily dismiss the genres of mystery and detective fiction? Bindel seems never to consider any function of literature other than to inculcate values / ideology or to reflect reality. The notion of literature as dream-work, a way to work through and triumph over threats, does not enter in to her discussion.

2. By this time (you know how uppity women can be), our heroine is so fed up that she does not comply when he grabs her inevitably small frame in his huge arms, and attempts to take her to bed. And so begins the "gender dance" - man chases woman, woman resists, and, finally, woman submits in a blaze of passion.

EMS: I'm puzzled by the euphemism here: "gender dance." Clearly Bindel wants us to see the scenario she describes as a rape, with the final clause an unthinkable, ridiculous finale. On the other hand, again, if this were in a piece about power disparity and sexual fantasy or consensual sex-play, there's nothing particularly unthinkable about the scene she describes; anyone who follows Dan Savage or other sex-advice columns, or reads the LustBites erotic authors blog knows how common such scenes and fantasies are.

EMS: It’s clear from what Laura has posted below that Bindel dislikes this particular “dance,” whether as sexual fantasy or as consensual play. She speaks, for example, of “pornography and sadomasochistic sexual practices” as having “invade[d] the lesbian community.” Her assumption would seem to be that women as such, were they not “invaded” by patriarchal ideology, would not find power differentials erotically exciting. I don’t know what evidence she has for this; certainly as far back as Sappho’s “Hymn to Aphrodite” (Frag. 1) we find differences in power between women being eroticized:

[Anne Carson’s translation]

Deathless Aphrodite of the spangled mind,
child of Zeus,who twist lures, I beg you
do not break with hard pains,
O lady, my heart

but come here if ever before
you caught my voice far off
and listening left your father's
golden house and came,

yoking your car. And fine birds brought you,
quick sparrows over the black earth
whipping their wings down the sky
through midair---

they arrived. But you, O blessed one,
smiled in your deathless face
and asked what (now again) I have suffered and why
(now again) I am calling out

and what I want to happen most of all
in my crazy heart. Whom should I persuade (now again)
to lead you back into her love? Who, O
Sappho, is wronging you?

For if she flees, soon she will pursue.
If she refuses gifts, rather will she give them.
If she does not love, soon she will love
even unwilling.

Come to me now: loose me from hard
care and all my heart longs
to accomplish, accomplish. You
be my ally.

That penultimate stanza makes it pretty clear that Sappho doesn’t fantasize about equal, reciprocal affection, even between two women. Rather, what she wants the Goddess of Love to promise is a reversal of the existing power dynamic: the chased one will be the pursuer, the beloved the lover, “even unwilling.”

A lot of work was done on this issue in Emily Dickinson's love poetry back in the 1990s. There were two distinct waves of criticism: the first tried to argue that when ED wrote about love between women, it was egalitarian and reciprocal and kind, but when she wrote about heterosexual love, the poems were about hierarchy and domination / submission and so on. A few years later, the problems with this grew unmistakable: the theory simply didn't fit the facts, the actual poems. Bindel strikes me as very much a "first wave" critic in this scheme: on whatever grounds (taste or ideology) she wants to assert that love should be a certain way and that certain behaviors and dynamics should not be attractive. If they are, there's something wrong with you: you've been infected, invaded, etc., by the patriarchy.

EMS: It's also worth pointing out how false to many romance novels this description of the "dance" turns out to be. In novels from The Sheik to The Flame and the Flower the rape scenes are not played out this way: they're scenes of violation with no "blaze of passion" or pleasure on the woman's part. The shocking thing about these novels is the fact that the rapist turns out to be the romantic hero, that the novel forgives or redeems him, which is a different issue, although one that Bindel might well address.

3. My loathing of M&B novels has nothing to do with snobbery. I could not care less if the books are trashy, formulaic or pulp fiction - Martina Cole novels, which I love, are also formulaic. But I do care about the type of propaganda perpetuated by M&B. I would go so far as to say it is misogynistic hate speech.

EMS: Has she shown, so far, that the novels perpetuate propaganda? Has she shown that they are misogynistic, evidence of what we might call "female self-hatred" (as one hears of "Jewish self-hatred," for example)? I don't think that she has.

EMS: Let me say that again, more loudly. I don’t think that Bindel has shown, so far, that these novels perpetuate propaganda. She has read selectively, distorted some facts, and implied that a common, even commonplace locus of sexual excitement (hierarchy, differences of power) is at best contemptible, and at worst (as in the later passage, quoted by LV below) radically foreign to women, so that if women like it, even between themselves, they merely testify to their own corruption. I am unconvinced.

EMS: So far, then, the core argument seems to be that these novels feature heroes who "behave in a way that, in real life, causes many women to develop low self-esteem, depression and self-harming behaviour." Am I wrong to see this as meaning, essentially, that Bindel objects to the fact that many women enjoy reading about men who behave in ways that they wouldn't put up with in real life, which is to say that she objects to women fantasizing about things that they wouldn't want to do (or suffer) in real life.

EMS: The logic would seem to be that by enjoying this fantasy, they give aid and comfort to men who act (in real life) like these heroes, and they undermine support for women who have been abused by such men. Let me offer a comparable case from another cultural realm: supposing there was a body of popular work (fiction, songs, movies) in which people have a wonderful time binge drinking, or drinking and driving. Someone who came from the world of public health might well look at all those films and stories and songs--ah! the songs: "One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer," "Hey, Bartender," "One for My Baby (and One for the Road)," "Seven Drunken Nights"--and write a similar case against them. Yes?

LV - One might also want to make a comparison with smoking in the movies. There's been quite a lot of research done on that. For example, Mekemson and Glantz found that "Both the entertainment and tobacco industries recognised the high value of promotion of tobacco through entertainment media. The 1980s saw undertakings by four tobacco companies, Philip Morris, RJ Reynolds (RJR), American Tobacco Company, and Brown and Williamson to place their products in movies." and, Dalton et al observed that "Exposure to smoking in movies has been linked with adolescent smoking initiation in cross-sectional studies. [...] Our results provide strong evidence that viewing smoking in movies promotes smoking initiation among adolescents."

EMS: I'd thought of that analogy also. But smoking is, in all circumstances, a threat to one's health. Drinking leads to alcoholism and alcohol abuse less pervasively or inevitably, except in perhaps in particularly at-risk populations. Are all women to be considered an "at-risk population" here? Heterosexual romance and marriage don't strike me as being quite as dangerous, case for case, as smoking, although I don't know the statistics. Perhaps if I did I'd feel differently?

SSGF: I think the analogy is much closer to the crime fiction Bindel likes so much. Nothing gets resolved in films with drinking and smoking. No one stops the vice, nothing gets fixed. But at the end of crime fiction, the world is a more just place. The killer is apprehended or dead, and the protagonists have saved the day. And it's the END that is valorized in considerations of the genre. The end isn't denigrated as they are in romance fiction, because of course the criminal has to be punished, the crime solved, and order restored. No one questions that ending, and because of the ending, crime fiction has slightly more respectability that romance fiction. And yet, as romance defenders say again and again, no one expects crime fiction readers to go out and commit the crimes they read about. Ah, but you're not identifying with the criminal, right? You're identifying with the solver of the crimes. Then again, what about Dexter, which I've heard is a fabulous show in which one does identify with the serial killer, because he is the protagonist. Still, readers/viewers don't go out and commit their own crimes. It comes down, again, to which part of the story has the most "influence"? The beginning/middle where the hero might be acting like a jerk, or the end where he has reformed, changed his ways, and treats the heroine as she deserves, admitting her power over him. If that's the influential part of the story, then again, as I said in my post, romances are "good for you" rather than "misogynistic hate speech" (I really can't believe she said that).

LV: Sarah commented that "Nothing gets resolved in films with drinking and smoking" which is sort of true, in one way, but in another, if characters drink and smoke and this makes them appear glamorous and more successful sexually, then it's suggesting that drinking and smoking have positive effects, and so that perhaps makes their portrayal in film closer to the ways that some heroes behave. In real life these behaviours might be indicative of an abusive relationship, but in the romances kidnapping a heroine or blackmailing her, or deciding to take her virginity as revenge for something her father did to your father, is part and parcel of the hero's glamorous, sexy alpha-ness. And it could be argued that even the way he changes could be read as encouraging the idea that an abuser could also change, whereas in fact abuse tends to escalate.

LV - and why am I ending up playing the role of Devil's Advocate here?

EMS: Because you're a fair-minded, reasonable person, doing what an academic is supposed to do: take ideas seriously, test them, and see what you think!

LV - anyway, to get back to smoking and alcohol, here's some of the research: “one in every five deaths in the United States is smoking related” and smoking is, as we have seen, encouraged by certain representations of smoking in films.

LV - Re alcohol, "Estimates for 2002 show that at least 2.3 million people died worldwide of alcohol-related causes accounting for 3.7% of global mortality. Alcohol consumption was responsible for 4.4% of the global burden of disease" (Global Alcohol Policy Alliance). Alcohol consumption is affected by portrayals in film and the media:

The central conclusion reached by Hanewinkel et al. is that exposure to incidental portrayals of alcohol use in US movies has contributed to the early onset of alcohol use by a group of German adolescents.

and a

study, funded by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, is the first-ever national longitudinal survey of the influence of alcohol advertising on youth. Snyder and her colleagues conclude that greater exposure to alcohol advertising contributes to an increase in drinking among underage youth. Specifically, the analysis shows that for underage drinkers, exposure to one more ad than the average for youth was correlated with a 1 percent increase in drinking, and that an additional dollar spent per capita on alcohol advertising in a local market was correlated with a 3 percent increase in underage alcohol consumption as well. (from here, and more research into the link between advertising and alcohol consumption can be found here)

LV - So those are two activities which can be very harmful and consumption of both substances has been shown to be linked to their portrayal in film/the media. Given the horrific figures relating to violence against women, one might argue that relationships with men, while potentially pleasurable and even beneficial (like alcohol), can often have extremely negative consequences. According to the US Department of Justice’s 2000 Full Report of the Prevalence, Incidence, and Consequences of Violence Against Women: "Women experience more intimate partner violence than do men: 22.1 percent of surveyed women, compared with 7.4 percent of surveyed men, reported they were physically assaulted by a current or former spouse, cohabiting partner, boyfriend or girlfriend, or date in their lifetime."

EMS: Just to jump in for a second, Laura: you say "relationships with men," but the report speaks of assalut by "boyfriend or girlfriend." According to the this website website (which I have not evaluated), "Domestic abuse occurs in approximately 30 to 40% of GLBT relationships, which is the same percentage of violence that occurs in straight relationships. It is a myth that same-sex couples don't batter each other, or if they do; they are just "fighting" or it is "mutual abuse"." Here too, on the AARDVARK site, I read that "The rates of domestic violence in same-gender relationships is roughly the same as domestic violence against heterosexual women" and "The GLBT community itself is often not supportive of victims of battering because many want to maintain the myth that there are no problems (such as child abuse, alcoholism, domestic violence, etc.) in these relationships." One might argue that Bindel's brief against heterosexual romance fiction perpetuates this myth, because it suggests that violence against women is a problem only when women are in relationships with men.

LV: According to the Findings from the Australian Component of the International Violence Against Women Survey (2004) "Over one third of women who had a current or former intimate partner reported experiencing at least one form of partner violence over the lifetime, and four per cent in the past 12 months" (and there are more Australian figures here). In the UK, “One in four women will be a victim of domestic violence in their lifetime” and globally “At least one out of every three women has been beaten, coerced into sex, or otherwise abused in her lifetime, according to a study based on 50 surveys from around the world” (Amnesty).

LV - Unlike alcohol and smoking, it's much more difficult to establish quite how romance-reading relates to domestic violence. But what evidence there is, is discussed below, in relation to paragraph 4.

4. Why do I care so much about books that few take seriously? Are there not more important battles to fight? Challenging the low conviction rate for rape certainly seems more urgent than trashing novels that perpetuate gender stereotypes, but there is no doubt that such novels feed directly into some women's sense of themselves as lesser beings, as creatures desperate to be dominated.

EMS: "There is no doubt." Does that mean "there is evidence"? If so, where is it?

LV - There is some evidence in Julia Wood's "two-year study, which she described in the Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, [in which] Wood identified 'women's use of gender and romance narratives to make sense of violent relationships'" and "People commonly use stories to make sense of their lives, placing themselves within those stories, said Wood: 'Some of the images of men and women in these romance novels are entirely consistent with the dynamics of violent relationships'" (from here). As noted previously, Bindel is only saying that romances have a particular effect on "some" women, just as Wood's study was of a small group of women who had been/were in abusive relationships.

EMS: But "make sense of" doesn't necessarily mean "excuse" or "stay with," does it? Is there any evidence that women who repeatedly "make sense of" their situation by reading romance novels tend to change that situation in higher or lower numbers than women who do not?

We'll need to get this study or the full account of it to evaluate it properly--from the description here I'm not sure it qualifies as a "no doubt" proof, or even as very persuasive.

SSGF: I'm with Eric: we need to read this study in full, because it's very unclear (to me) as to whether Wood is looking at women already in an abusive relationship? Again, romance narratives might compound their problems, but I can't believe that they're the sole reason women are in those relationships. But this doesn't cover the blanket statement that Bindel seems to be making that all (or most) readers are adversely affected by the patriarchal ideology of the romance narrative. And if romances contribute to just one women staying in an abusive relationship, that is of course too many, but I think there's too many variables to be certain about anything.

EMS: And, as I've observed before, romance fiction is hardly the only genre or text that can be used to make sense (bad sense, destructive sense) of an abusive relationship. Thus, for example, this:
LV - Pointing out potentially unsavoury aspects of other genres/belief systems doesn't get romance off the hook, though, does it? I mean, if I commit a crime, it's still a crime, regardless of whether other people commit more crimes or worse crimes. And in fact, if other genres and belief systems could be used in the same ways as romance, might that not suggest that romances form part of a wider set of cultural ideas which validate abusive relationships? So if we're defending romance, I don't think we should distract attention onto the beams in other genres's eyes in order to dismiss claims that there's a mote in our own. But is there a mote in our eye? That is the question. And having now misquoted both the Bible and Shakespeare, I think I'd better stop.

EMS: Motes, shmotes! OK, you caught me, Laura. But my point--if I had one besides wanting to give Sarah something nifty to think about at church--was twofold:

• First, if romance does contain this set of cultural ideas, it may not do so any more than any other genre or branch of culture, in which case it's unfair to single it out for derision or critique; and
• Second, if romance and the Bible both contain such negative material, they also both contain material that contravenes or complicates or flatly contradicts it. The Bible contains the book of Lamentations, which is one of the more unsettling accounts of an abusive relationship I know, but it also contains the book of Job, which radically ironizes anyone's attempt to justify unfortunate events as divine punishment, and it also contains the Song of Songs, which is one of the loveliest accounts of equal and reciprocal companionate love that I know--in which, I might add, there is occasional play with hierarchy and power and so on.
  

SSGF: Eric, OMG, where did you GET that? I love Jesus the dom, spanking his little submissive! (I could go into a very long discussion of how Christianity is actually all about submission, but I'll do that another time!)

LV: Wendy Larcombe's Compelling Engagements : Feminism, Rape Law and Romance Fiction. Annandale, N.S.W.: Federation Press, 2005 is described by her publisher as being

a ground-breaking work which investigates the narratives of rape law and of romance fiction, and explores the outmoded and strikingly similar depictions of their normative female subjects. These are women who are not only vulnerable but also evidently worthy of the protections or rewards promised: punishment of the rapist or the hero’s love. [...] Larcombe shows how the legal construction of gender and subjectivity in rape law is still working to disempower victims. She suggests feminism’s failure to accommodate women’s investment in heroines of romance fiction has limited their effectiveness in transforming rape law.

I haven't been able to get hold of either of these works to read them in full, so I don't know how much evidence, or what sort of evidence, Larcombe provides.

EMS: Does every woman (or man) who wants to be dominated think of him or herself as a "lesser being"? Again, on what evidence does she make that claim? This paragraph seems quite weak to me, but perhaps I'm missing something.

SSGF: Eric, from the BDSM perspective, absolutely not. In fact, most sexual submissives I know are incredibly self-confident, self-assured people who are usually Type A personalities IRL. In fact, in the community, if a submissive is needy and DOES imagine him/herself as a "lesser being," red flags are thrown up around them and clever doms learn to stay away. BDSM is not counseling, it's a sexual orientation. It shouldn't be used to work out self-esteem issues unless all the partners know exactly what they're doing. But that's not what Bindel is talking about. She's talking about a more pervasive unconscious drive that women apparently have to debase themselves because society tells them to. Part of the disconnect here, I think, is that most non-readers still buy into the stereotype of romance readers being undereducated housewives who shore up their "false consciousness" by addictively reading romances, whereas statistics show that, in general, romance readers have a higher education level than the general population, and are probably therefore slightly more conscious about how and why they read, and therefore less likely to "succumb" to the supposed patriarchal influence of romances.

SSGF: And furthermore, while Bindel is looking at how far we HAVEN'T come in feminist aims of an equal society and blaming it on romances, one could turn that on its head and look at how far we have come toward meeting goals of equality in the last forty years, which is precisely when romances have had their resurgence. As in, for hundreds (thousands) of years, equality for women was unavailable, even unimaginable, but since romances became popular, we've been creeping closer and closer to equality. Correlation or cause--you be the judge! (tongue planted firmly in cheek).

5. One argument from M&B apologists is that the heroine has moved with the times. True, she is now more physically active and sexually imaginative. The modern-day character often dares to have sex before marriage, knows what she wants in terms of her career and personal life, and even has a sense of humour.

EMS: So far, she's ceding points to us apologists. I'm getting suspicious. (Did she not have a sense of humour before? I haven't read enough category romances to comment--but then, has Bindel?)

6. As a result of the changing heroine, the hero has been required to catch up. But rather than becoming a "new man", it seems he has become even more masculine and domineering in order to keep the heroine in line. This is how the rape fantasies so integral to the plot have been able to persist.

SSGF: Oh, Lord, where to start. Hey, in the 90s, we tried the "beta" hero in a lot of category romances, and he wasn't so popular. I'm sure Bindel would say that this proves her point, but I'm not so sure. Yes, true, the hero has become more masculine and more domineering, but we've also gained much more access to his thoughts, to his point of view, and this gives us more access to understanding why he does what he does. Again, Bindel would probably say this is patriarchy at its worst, but I still wonder what part of the novels we're valorizing. If it's the end, where the hero is brought to heel--tamed, in fact (sorry, Laura, I know you don't like this word)--then the fact that he's super-domineering means the heroine's victory is that much more powerful (and empowering?).

LV - I also much prefer beta heroes (though because of the very different ways that people use the terms "alpha" and "beta" to describe romance heroes, they often aren't very helpful and you have to provide your own definition of each term before they can really be meaningful).

EMS: There's no logic to this paragraph, folks. Why would we expect the heroes to become more "beta" (mo' betta'?) if the heroines have become stronger? Wouldn't we expect precisely what has happened: stronger heroines need bigger challenges?

7. Take this description of a recent M&B novel, The Desert Sheikh's Captive Wife: "Tilda was regretting her short-lived romance with Rashad, the Crown Prince of Bakhar. Now, with her impoverished family indebted to him, Rashad was blackmailing her by insisting she pay up ... as his concubine! Soon Tilda was the arrogant Sheikh's captive, ready to be ravished in his far-away desert kingdom."

EMS: The "rape fantasy," if there is one, is staged as anticipation here. Does Tilda actually get ravished? Does the Sheikh remain arrogant? Bindel doesn't care enough to find out, but surely it makes a difference. This is one more retelling of E. M. Hull's classic The Sheik, evidently, but I suspect that its actual plot, turn for turn, and its characterization of both hero and heroine are radically different.

8. Or Bought: One Island, One Bride: "Self-made billionaire Alexander Kosta has come to the island of Lefkis for revenge ... He doesn't count on feisty pint-sized beauty Ellie Mendoras to be the thorn in his side! ... There's a dangerous smile on Alexander's lips ... As far as he's concerned Ellie's a little firecracker who needs to be tamed. He'll seduce her into compliance, then buy her body and soul!!"

EMS: "Seduce her into compliance" may mean "rape" in somebody's book, but I don't think it will mean rape in this one. And again, does anyone who reads much romance believe that Ellie will be the only one "tamed"?

9. Or Virgin Slave, Barbarian King: "Julia Livia Rufa is horrified when barbarians invade Rome and steal everything in sight. But she doesn't expect to be among the taken! As Wulfric's woman, she's ordered to keep house for the uncivilised marauders. Soon, though, Julia realises that she's more free as a slave than she ever was as a sheltered Roman virgin."

EMS: We're going to read this one collectively, here at TMT, in January: stay tuned for details. Dibs on the Wulfric costume!

SSGF: This one is fascinating to me, because the titillation factor is high on that last sentence, but the book is actually discussing definitions of civilization vs. barbarism and their treatment of women.

10. The first two were published this year, the third comes out in January.

SSGF: And we all know how accurate the front cover and back blurb are in depicting the atmosphere and actual ideology of the book (see all SBTB Cover Snark!). Great research there.

LV - And yet, people do pick up books at least partly as a result of looking at the covers. So presumably words such as "blackmail," "concubine," "ravished," "revenge," "dangerous," "seduce," and "compliance" are ones which attract some readers. Bindel might wonder what it is about these concepts that's attractive to readers.

EMS: I think Bindel knows what about these concepts is attractive: she just doesn't like it, and doesn't think they should be attractive. On the other hand, readers who know the genre also know that although the books may give them the frisson that these words promise, they will also end with an HEA, so that the book as a whole will take them from the ordinary world into the world of romance and then (as it were) carry them safely home. Even more, they know that they will get to indulge in a fantasy of power that is doubled: male power and female power, even if neither of these play out in a way that Bindel thinks is safe or sage.

LV - In another of the interviews Bindel's done, she spoke to Sheila Jeffreys, for whom

heterosexual sex is sexual desire that eroticises power differences. Lesbian and gay sexual practices do not escape her scrutiny. Two of her books, The Lesbian Heresy (1993) and Unpacking Queer Politics (2003), focus on how "queer" sexual politics have led to oppressed sexual minorities embracing any kind of sex, such as sadomasochism, in the name of liberation. Jeffreys tends to see things coming before they happen. She was the one who warned, in the early 1980s, that pornography and sadomasochistic sexual practices would invade the lesbian community. They did.

LV - Maybe I'm extrapolating too much from Bindel's overall positive response to Jeffreys, and from the word "warn," but I would guess that Bindel isn't exactly embracing sadomasochism. I've only found one other reference to Bindel's position on the issue: "Julie Bindel of Justice for Women even believes a 'bridge between lesbian feminism and S/M politics' is possible (Taylor and Chandler, 1995: 42). This is an unusual acknowledgment that sadomasochism does not necessarily rule out lesbian feminism" (O'Sullivan 118). [O'Sullivan, Sue. "What a Difference a Decade Makes: Coming to Power and The Second Coming." Feminist Review 61 Snakes and Ladders: Reviewing Feminisms at Century's End (1999): 97-126.]

SSGF: ::sigh:: If one sees BDSM purely as a representation of the repressive patriarchal power dynamics in society, then seeing it "infiltrate" the lesbian community must be devastating. But if one realizes that being kinky is, itself, a sexual orientation above and beyond being lesbian, then kinky lesbians do not herald the end of civilization as we know it. Kinky lesbians are just women who happen to enjoy playing with power dynamics in a relationship and I very much doubt the lesbian community has ever been free of them. Let's see, I know an incredibly feminine lesbian dom who calls herself "Master," and a very butch female dom who calls herself Daddy. The feminine dom is partnered with a very butch submissive. The butch femdom is partnered with an incredibly beautiful femme sub. I also know a butch femdom partnered with a butch submissive. How do we unpack the patriarchal power dynamics in these relationships? Or more to the point, should we unpack them? I would argue that we shouldn't.

EMS: "Heterosexual sex is sexual desire that eroticises power differences"? You mean, if I have hot power-exchange sex with another guy, it will still be heterosexual sex? Damn! No one tells me anything. More seriously, see Sappho's poem above, among any number of other texts.

11. In 1970, one of M&B's regular writers, Violet Winspear, claimed that her heroes had to be "capable of rape". Another, Hilary Wilde, said in 1966, "The odd thing is that if I met one of my heroes, I would probably bash him over the head with an empty whisky bottle. It is a type I loathe and detest. I imagine in all women, deep down inside us, is a primitive desire to be arrogantly bullied." These comments may have been made some time ago, but the tradition seems to continue in the many M&B novels that depict female submission to dominant heroes.

SSGF: Or maybe all women, deep down inside, have the primitive desire to control the arrogant bully, because that's certainly what romances give them, if we valorize the ending, not the middle.

LV - I don't think "all women" have either of these "primitive desires". The term "primitive desire" is interesting, because it suggests that these desires are innate/"natural". But if we accept that, does it mean that true vanilla-ness is deviant/kinky/subversive of the norm?

SSGF: I like the way you think! :-)

EMS: Face it, Laura: you're utterly bent! As for Bindel, has she in fact demonstrated that there are "many M&B novels that depict female submission to dominant heroes"? She's shown me the heroes; no evidence yet of the submission. Not in this article, anyway.

SSGF: Ooh, nice point, Eric. Is Bindel arguing by proxy that dominant male necessarily equals submissive female, without thinking that dominant male might just as easily equal dominant female as well?

12. My horror at the genre is not directed towards either the women who write or, indeed, read them. I do not believe in blaming women for our own oppression. Women are the only oppressed group required not only to submit to our oppressors, but to love and sexually desire them at the same time. This is what heterosexual romantic fiction promotes - the sexual submission of women to men. M&B novels are full of patriarchal propaganda.

SSGF: So what dynamic are the kinky gay men in Joey Hills' Rough Canvas replicating? Is Thomas in the feminine position as the submissive/bottom? Isn't that an equally egregious stereotype of homosexual relations as Bindel's view of power relations in romance novels?

EMS: Having gone through this article paragraph by paragraph, I simply do not find that she has demonstrated any one of these central points. She has not shown that heterosexual romantic fiction promotes female sexual submission, nor that the novels are full of patriarchal propaganda. She argues by assertion, with flimsy evidence or none at all. She has convinced me that she has a "horror" at the genre, but that "horror" seems mostly her own disgust with fantasies she neither shares nor enjoys, and with the women who have them. (But it's not their fault! Really--they can be saved!)

SSGF: For what it's worth, going back to the ritualized submission of BDSM sexual orientation and practices, the submissive has all the power in the relationship. It is the submissive's right and duty to say "Stop!" at any point, and the dom's responsibility not only to respect this negative, but also to make sure the submissive is alright, whether or not s/he says stop at all. While this might be viewed at patronizing from outside the community, it absolutely isn't when practiced in real life. Any dom who earns a reputation for not stopping or makes any kind of remarks about respecting safewords should be and usually is completely ostracized. The submissive has all the power, precisely because the submissive gives up the power.

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

SSGF: Nothing is ever black or white. Nothing is absolutely one thing or the other. Does Bindel's argument hold some water for some women? Probably. Her fault is in not realizing that romances can be and are empowering for other women. Her fault is in throwing around words like "misogynistic hate speech" without recognizing that others might feel differently and that for the women who subjugate themselves to patriarchal practices, romance novels are the least of their concerns.

LV - Given Bindel’s admiration for Dworkin, it may be fruitful to examine possible similarities in their thinking. Dworkin, as noted in the obituary Bindel wrote about her, “came to represent the fierce debate on pornography and sexual violence.” Bindel has done research into “sexual violence and the criminal justice system. A founder member of the feminist law reform campaign Justice for Women, Julie believes that doing paid work, however ethically and responsibly, is not enough, and remains a committed political activist.”

LV - Dworkin “achieved fame when, in 1983 along with legal academic Catharine MacKinnon, she drafted and promoted the civil rights law recognising pornography as sex discrimination in Minneapolis” and later “Dworkin and MacKinnon were commissioned by the Minneapolis city council to draft a local ordinance that would embody the legal principle that pornography violates the civil rights of women, and is ‘hate speech.’”

SSGF: Personally, I don't feel repressed by the porn I watch and read.

LV - In paragraph 3 Bindel used the term “hate speech” to describe romances, and I wonder if she also believes that they are pornography. Certainly romances have been described this way by some feminist critics of the genre. 1979 saw the publication of Ann Snitow’s “Mass Market Romance: Pornography for Women is Different” and it was followed the next year by Ann Douglas’s “Soft-Porn Culture: Punishing the Liberated Woman.” Douglas’s comments are particularly relevant, as I think her ideas about romance may be similar to Bindel’s:

The Harlequins are porn softened to fit the needs of female emotionality. They are located inside the female consciousness, but so are most current hard-porn (heterosexual) stories and magazines; so, for that matter, are the Marquis de Sade’s Justine and John Cleland’s Fanny Hill. Female, not male, consciousness is the most satisfactory repository and register for the forced acknowledgement of male power. The Harlequin heroines initially resist domination, but so do the hard-core heroines. Breaking down female antagonism is half the fun. (27)

and

How can they [romance readers] tolerate or require so extraordinary a disjuncture between their lives and their fantasies? Probably the Harlequins are not written by men [...] but the women who couldn’t thrill to male nudity in Playgirl are enjoying the titillation of seeing themselves, not necessarily as they are, but as some men would like to see them: illogical, innocent, magnetized by male sexuality and brutality. It is a frightening measure of the still patriarchal quality of our culture that many women of all ages co-sponsor male fantasies about themselves and enjoy peep-shows into masculine myths about their sexuality as the surest means of self-induced excitation. (28)

[LV - I've put all of the Bindel paragraphs into a dark green (green being one of the colours of the suffragette movement).]

Louise Allen responds

Laura Vivanco

This is yet another update in the ongoing debate sparked by Julie Bindel's article about Mills & Boon in the Guardian. Louise Allen, whose novel Virgin Slave, Barbarian King was cited by Bindel because of the language used in its back cover copy, has now had her response printed in the Guardian under the title "My heroines are independent. This is not patriarchal propaganda."

But to return to the cover for a moment, though this time the contents of the front cover rather than the back, I have a suspicion that the cover art was inspired, at least in part, by the scene of Mr Darcy's bath, in the 1995 BBC adaptation of Pride and Prejudice.

Heroes learn something too; or, Exactly WHO is subjugated?

Sarah S. G. Frantz

So the online romance world got a little upset this past week about the "debate" in the Guardian. Laura posted about it here and Smart Bitch Sarah posted about it here, generating incredible debates in the comments of both posts. I think Laura did a fabulous job (as always) of talking about the fact that the books in question in the original article were Mills&Boon and how that affected the debate, and commenters at SBTB pretty much hashed over all possible issues of feminism and romance.

What I'd like to discuss in this post is the juxtaposition of a number of comments from the SBTB post that caught my attention. I don't remember if any of them were in direct response to each other or just to the general debate, but the combination interested me immensely.

First is this comment by Trumystique:

I was initially disgusted with the fact that the heroines consistently had one happy future.

This is the common charge leveled against popular romance fiction, of course: it's a tool of the patriarchy and that the heroine is subjugated by the fact that the only viable option established by the romance narrative is that she "dwindles into marriage."¹ For those trying to change societal expectations enough to establish more possible life choices for women, I imagine this does feel pretty limiting. And it's a charge that's been leveled against domestic fiction and the marriage plot since feminist literary criticism began doing its thing. To quote myself from my dissertation:

Feminist criticism has long argued that the marriage plot, in which the heroine's story necessarily ends either with marriage or with death, is inherently conservative. Rachel Blau DuPlessis explains that the marriage plot "muffles the main female character, represses quest," and "is based on extremes of sexual difference," finally arguing that the marriage plot "is a trope for the sex-gender system as a whole" (5). The marriage plot, then, replicates for women the repression of the patriarchal system to which they are subject. While admitting the validity of DuPlessis's critique, Laura Mooneyham White attempts "a partial defense of the marriage plot" (72) by maintaining that it "persists in the fictive imagination for some compelling reasons, and while the attack on the marriage plot as indicative of repressive social conditions and ideologies is well justified, feminist critics might benefit from seeing beyond the historical and cultural dimension of marriage" (76) to examine its narratological purpose. (150)

White argues that marriage plots, specifically those of Jane Austen,

emphasize that through marriage one becomes part of a social and economic entity. Marriage allows the heroine to join the wholeness of society even as she joins the unity of male and female. (83)

As I argue in my dissertation, however:

by examining Austen’s marriage plots from the perspective of Austen’s construction of the subjectivity of her heroes, it is possible to expand understanding of the marriage plot beyond its efficacy for the heroine. While White demonstrates convincingly that there is more involved in the appeal of the marriage plot for female readers than brainwashing about the benefits of subjugation to the whims of a husband, [I argue] that Austen is fundamentally refocusing the marriage plot to establish the benefits for the hero of concluding his narrative with marriage. The progress of Austen's heroes through her novels constitutes a narrative strategy that is just as empowering and much more practical for the female reader--and potentially revolutionary for the male reader--as questioning the effectiveness of the marriage plot for female characters in a world where marriage was almost an economic imperative for women. Austen's novels argue that civilized and civilizing associations with women in a permanent, romantic, heterosexual, companionate relationship are necessary for men to achieve their full potential. (151)

That is, then, that the MALE characters are also "subjugated" by the marriage plot.

This point was not lost on the SBTB commenters. kis wrote:

Problem with feminism as a science is that they consider men a control group, when they’re as much a variable as anything else.

And Xandra commented:

I’m having a hard time coming up with titles that didn’t end with heroes also coming to prioritize their relationships with the heroines.

While feminist ideology has focused on the heroines in domestic fiction with marriage plots, they've forgotten about the heroes and the fact that they end up exactly like the heroines: married and happy. And while they don't necessarily give up their high-powered careers as Greek tycoons (although some definitely do), they do generally slow down a bit to smell the flowers and be with their heroines and their families. Every example I can think of in modern popular romance fiction has the hero not only admit that his love for his heroine and its return is necessary to his happiness and contentment--is necessary, in fact, for him to be a complete person--but also has the hero in some way indicate through his actions in an Epilogue or similar ending that time with his family has become the most important part of his life, at the expense of whatever high-powered career he might have pursued at the beginning of the book. Although "at the expense of" is misleading as the romance presents it, because the hero is almost always depicted as more successful when making time for his family than he is at the beginning of the book. Shane in Crusie and Mayer's Agnes and the Hitman gives up his career as a hitman to be with Agnes. All of Susan Elizabeth Phillips' football heroes are seen after their football careers, happy and content doing something else that gives them more time with their heroines. Suzanne Brockmann's heroes might seem to be the exception, but they prove the rule in another way: they end up working WITH their heroines, spending time with them that way. And historical romances do the same--the heroes go back to their estates and learn how to enjoy being gentlemen farmers, taking care of their larger "families" of tenants, farmers, servants, and of course their own wives and children.

Romance novels argue, then, that *men* are better off when they spend more time at home, giving up their soul-destroying, high-powered careers, and focusing instead on the domestic bliss their heroines give them, along with the babies they make together with such abandon. And while this view of the narrative of popular romance fiction necessarily endorses the domestic and the marriage plot as the Ideal To Which We Should All Strive, which might in and of itself be problematic from an ideological standpoint, it is not only the heroine who succumbs to the lure of domestic bliss by any means. In fact, I would argue that it's much more important--at least for the Alpha Male hero of modern popular romance--that the hero admits the value of and strives for the domestic lifestyle that that the heroine does. So while we're still definitely prioritizing the domestic, it's not the heroine who "dwindles into marriage," the the hero who embraces it as his lifeline to all things good.

On SBTB, Lone Chatelaine speculates about the implications of this view of romance novels:

Maybe instead of us females berating each other for what we all think each other should want, we should instead start requiring more males to step it up and be real men, the kind of men that a strong woman could lean on if she wanted to. . . . But perhaps we should put a little pressure on the men to try and attain a female driven genre’s idea of the fantasy. I’m not saying that men should start trying to be highland warriors or dark broody vampires, but there are obviously some common and attainable qualities in romance novels that women like in men. Strong, dependable, nice, loving, honest, considerate, protective, etc.²

If critics are convinced that romance readers are unable to separate the fantasy of the romance from reality, why does that mean that readers are more likely to submit to the patriarchy's view of subjugated femininity and not, instead, insist that their male partners become sensitive, caring, dependable, honest men who are in touch with their feelings?³

1. Apparently a quote from William Congreve about a male character, interestingly enough.

2. My strong, dependable, nice, loving, honest, considerate, protective husband disagrees. He thinks that he'd look great in a kilt, with long canines. :)

3. If we want to take the unscientific "results" of myself and my reading experience and relationship expectations, everything I learned about how my husband should treat me come from the end of romances when the hero has admitted the necessity of love and his need for the heroine in his life. So rather than learn from romances that I need to subjugate myself to his masculine authority, I learned precisely the opposite.

Works Cited:
DuPlessis, Rachel Blau. Writing Beyond the Ending: Narrative Strategies of Twentieth-Century Women Writers. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1985.

Frantz, Sarah S. G. "How Were His Sentiments To Be Read?": British Women Writing Masculinity, 1790-1820. Diss. U. of Michigan, Ann Arbor, 2003.

White, Laura Mooneyham. "Jane Austen and the Marriage Plot: Questions of Persistence." Jane Austen and the Discourses of Feminism. Ed. Devony Looser. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1995. 71-86.

The picture is (obviously) Viggo Mortensen as Aragorn from the film version of The Lord of the Rings. Because who is a more perfect example of all things good about the Alpha Male than Aragorn? And he's awfully easy on the eyes.

The M&B heroine fights back

Laura Vivanco

In what might be considered a follow-up to Julie Bindel's recent comments on Mills & Boon romances, on Saturday the Guardian published an article by Tanya Gold. She's digging even deeper into the Mills & Boon archives than Bindel did, and is also making generalisations:

these are not disempowerment fantasies, they are in fact the opposite. [...] They were among the first popular novels to depict women who work - all Mills & Boon women work (unless they are kidnapped). Critics complain the books are materialistic and venerate the aristocracy. In fact the Mills & Boon heroine is ordinary, often orphaned (parents tend to die in boating accidents) and plain.

Since this is not an accurate description of all Mills & Boon heroines, I begin to suspect that this is the same Tanya Gold who's fascinated by Jane Eyre: ¹

This novel is simply the best novel ever written [...]. It's romantic fiction redux and it's there to heal your pain. [...]

Mr Rochester [...], whom Jane first meets when he falls off his horse, "has a dark face with stern features and a heavy brow; his eyes and gathered eyebrows looked ireful and thwarted".

Do you get the idea? Do you recognise this tender brute from Barbara Cartland, Mills and Boon, Neighbours? [...]

In Rochester, Charlotte wrote a hero no real man can ever touch. Jane Eyre should be subtitled Revenge Of The Parson's Daughter because she spoilt real love for us all.

He is the man in every film, book or TV series you ever wanted; the dark darling you can save from himself. Plus Thornfield would be fab to redecorate.

And Jane is so ordinary, "poor, obscure, plain and little", that anyone could get him. He chucks the glamourous beauty Blanche for Jane. He falls, like a god, into our laps.

But to get back to the vintage Mills & Boons, Gold states that

far from being misogynistic, men who are cruel to women are punished horrifically by the Mills & Boon gods. If your lover takes advantage he will be blinded. If he lies to you he will develop amnesia and think he is a child. If he cheats on you he will have his arms blown off by a landmine. Is that really a disempowerment fantasy? Or is that what I really, really want?

And Mills & Boon was multicultural long before it became fashionable. "I am a foreigner, and you English distrust foreigners," said the hero in They Meant to Marry (1934). "Oh, not since the war," replies his heroine. By the 1950s Mills & Boon woman had junked the Englishman altogether - and found time to smash the glass ceiling. In The Hospital in Buwambo (1957), Dr Sylvia Phillips is told "Africa is no place for a woman". She spits back: "We do everything nowadays" - leaving the hero to have his arms blown off (yes, another one).

Again, I suspect the influence of Mr Rochester, who loses his sight in a fire. Gold is quite clearly writing with her tongue stuck firmly in her cheek, no doubt to protect it from the explosions, as she concludes that "Mills & Boon women respect themselves and expect the men who love them to respect them too - if they don't, they'll get their arms blown off," but this is clearly a spirited defence of the novels from someone who enjoys reading romantic fiction. Read separately, Bindel and Gold's articles would be highly misleading; read together, they possibly balance each other out.

1 It seems likely that Tanya Gold writes for both the Guardian and the Daily Mail. Certainly the Tanya Gold who writes for the Guardian has also written about Jane Eyre.


The picture of the cover of The Hospital in Buwambo is of the Harlequin edition, and is from the Fantastic Fiction database.

The Best She's Read

Bindel said that "heterosexual romantic fiction promotes - the sexual submission of women to men": today at Romancing the Blog Sarah's talking about one novel which promotes the sexual submission of one man to another, as well as two other male/male romances:

each of these books tells the romance of a gay couple. One of them goes further than that and details the romance of a seriously kinky gay couple. And as such, my recommendation of these books will be taken by some as a political statement. And I guess depending on when or how you ask me, I mean it as a political statement, if recommending good romances can be seen as political (and I definitely think it can be!)

Sarah says that these are "the three best romances I’ve read recently" and she'd like to know what your recent favourites have been. So if you have any recommendations, please head over to Romancing the Blog and let Sarah know.

The photo is from the "Icing On The Cake" congratulations card from Pink Products.

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

Laura Vivanco

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

In addition

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Rake's Progress

Laura Vivanco

Over at the Word Wenches blog Rev Melinda issued me something of a challenge:

I'd love to see Laura Vivanco write about why we seem to love heroes who are so Out of Control that they can't keep their boy toy in their pants or their hands off the heroine. Why is that so fascinating to us? (And isn't that the total stereotype of the Lustful Animal Male?--aren't we skating pretty darn close to that Rape Fantasy in all this?)

Naturally I was very flattered that Melinda would think I'd have something interesting to say about this but because those heroes aren't ones I find fascinating, I can't draw on my own personal experience. However, I have a few thoughts on the matter and I'm hoping that we can discuss this further in the comments.

First of all, the stereotype of the "Lustful Animal Male" seems to be pretty much identical to what's referred to in academic circles as the "'male sexual drive' discourse" and it is, I think, what underpins the popularity of the rake in the romance genre (or "bad boy" in non-historical romance):

Foucault (1978), Tiefer (1995), and others have argued that sexuality is constructed within particular sociocultural contexts and discourses. The male sexual drive discourse was identified by Hollway (1984) as a principle discourse in the production of meanings concerning contemporary sexuality. This discourse has its origin in sociobiological views of men's role to pursue and procreate, and hence in the primacy and importance of the male sexual drive.

Themes associated with the male sexual drive discourse are well documented in the social psychological literature. Zilbergeld (1978) identified the following themes: sex is a male performance; the man is responsible for orchestrating sex; a man always wants and is always ready to have sex; for a man, all physical contact must lead to sex; and birth control is the woman's responsibility. Similarly, Reinholtz et al. (1995) included the following in their list of common themes in communication about sexuality: male sexuality as uncontrollable, female responsibility for male sexuality, sex as a force of nature, and men as dominant and women as submissive. These researchers also identified a theme they labeled, "romance," the cultural notion that when two people "fall in love," sex automatically follows and cannot be controlled by rational consideration. (Gilbert, Walker, McKinney, and Snell 755-56, emphasis added)¹

So how do these themes relate to romance heroes:

• the man is responsible for orchestrating sex. Rakes almost always are. Heroines may be "responsible" for inciting the rake's interest, but it is the hero who (with a few exceptions) has the expertise required to "orchestrate" sexual encounters, particularly the first one.
  
• a man always wants and is always ready to have sex: note the prevalence of "lust thought".²
• male sexuality as uncontrollable. This is why so many heroes are "so Out of Control that they can't keep their boy toy in their pants or their hands off the heroine."
• sex automatically follows and cannot be controlled by rational consideration. And this is how many people define "passion." True passion over-rides reason and so, in order to demonstrate that the hero and heroine are experiencing true passion, they must have sex even if this is a rather illogical/dangerous thing for them to do. The discussion at the Word Wenches blog began with reference to condom use, and Susan Holloway Scott/Miranda Jarrett wrote that

  a love scene that includes the ritual foil packet or questions about having been tested hits the “ick-factor” for many readers. Romances are fantasies, they protest, and fantasies feature great sex over the safe kind.

  I suspect that the reason "great sex" is being defined as unsafe sex may well be because of this cultural association between passion and lack of control. One can see that this also affects behaviour in the non-fictional world. Flood observes that

  Common constructions of masculinity and heterosexuality inform some men’s resistance to condom use. Some men learn that male sexuality is uncontrollable, and stopping to put on a condom once you’re aroused is impossible. Some young men pursue sex in unsafe ways, and at a young age, to gain status with male peers.

Given these ideas about male sexuality, it's easy to understand why a hyper-sexual male is considered a more manly male and, therefore, why romance heroes, who so often embody "fantasies" should be depicted in this way. Not all romances have these "larger than life", "fantasy" heroes, of course, but many do.

Heroes tend to be bigger/better than other men in a variety of ways: often they're more handsome than other men, better at fighting than other men and usually have a reputation for having had more sex/being more skilled at it than other men.³ A high number of sexual conquests can be read as proof that the hero is more virile than other men. This may explain the way that heroes are often labelled "rakes" even when there isn't much evidence of their promiscuity within the novels themselves: it's often the label that counts, not a detailed and accurate exploration of the consequences of what, in some heroes, might otherwise be described as sexual addiction.

The rakish hero doesn't just tell us something about ideals concerning masculinity; his "taming" also tells us much about the heroine. Doreen Owens Malek wrote:

So what is the fantasy? Simply this: a strong, dominant, aggressive male brought to the point of surrender by a woman.
Why does this particular fantasy hold so much appeal for us? Because it dramatizes, colorfully and dramatically, a battle of the sexes in which the woman always wins. [...] We may want a caring, sensitive modern man in our lives, but we want a swaggering, rough-hewn, mythic man in our books. He provides the best foil; the more obdurate the hero, the sweeter the triumph when the heroine brings him to his knees. (74-75)

And I don't think this is just the heroine's triumph over the hero, it's also the heroine's triumph over other women. All those other women seduced and abandoned by the rake couldn't hold or "tame" him. She can. So, as Owens Malek says, "the more obdurate the hero", the more women he's seduced in the past, the greater the heroine's triumph. And if she can get him to lose control, to be unable to keep his hands off her (when he is somewhat more able to keep his hands off other women) this demonstrates that she is more alluring than other women. Recent laboratory-based research into facial attractiveness has in fact found some scientific basis for this, though of course individuals vary, and whatever the general trend, there will be exceptions, and other factors will also influence preferences outwith the laboratory: "Masculine traits in men indicate long-term health [...], higher reproductive success [...], but reduced commitment to relationships and offspring [...]" (Feinberg et al. 215) , which, in romance terms, means that the hyper-masculine men who are most likely to be alpha romance heroes are also those most likely to be rakes. As for women,

Preferences for male facial masculinity are influenced by the attractiveness and femininity of the female judges [...] . While relatively unattractive and masculine women demonstrated stronger preferences for masculine males as short-term partners than as long-term partners, the effect of relationship context on masculinity preferences was weaker for attractive, feminine women [...]. This effect of own condition on women’s masculinity preferences is thought to occur because more attractive, feminine women may be better able to obtain investment from masculine men during long-term relationships (Feinberg et al. 215-16)

So, in romance terms, while other women may find the rake attractive, it's really only the most "attractive, feminine women" who can "tame" the rake.

We can look also look at this dynamic of competition between women to attract the best male in economic terms, as Baumeister and Vohs do:

A heterosexual community can be analyzed as a marketplace in which men seek to acquire sex from women by offering other resources in exchange. Societies will therefore define gender roles as if women are sellers and men buyers of sex. Societies will endow female sexuality, but not male sexuality, with value (as in virginity, fidelity, chastity). The sexual activities of different couples are loosely interrelated by a marketplace, instead of being fully separate or private, and each couple's decisions may be influenced by market conditions. (from the abstract)

If we look at some of the key points in Baumeister and Vohs's analysis, we can easily see that it applies to the situations described in many romance novels:

• "cultural systems will tend to endow female sexuality with value, whereas male sexuality is treated by society as relatively worthless. As a result, sexual intercourse by itself is not an equal exchange, but rather an instance of the man getting something of value from the woman. To make the exchange equal, the man must give her something else in return and his own sexual participation does not have enough value to constitute this" (340). In romances the heroine is very often a virgin, whereas the hero is not. He is not diminished in any way by this lack of virginity or chastity, but for the heroine, it has been argued that her virginity is "a metaphor for the qualities of female power, honor, generosity, and courage with which [she] [...] is imbued" (Krentz 111). The hero's power, honor, generosity and courage are not symbolised in this way. We also often find economic exchanges of sex for objects of monetary value, as when the hero pays off his mistress.⁴

• "The laws of supply and demand can be substantiated in all sorts of marketplaces, and there is no reason that sex should be an exception" (Baumeister and Vohs 343) and "The economics of the sexual marketplace would suggest that [...] low-cost alternatives [...] to varying degrees will be welcomed by men. In contrast, women should generally oppose them as if they represent a threat to women generally" (343-44). Among the "low-cost alternatives" to sexual intercourse with a woman is masturbation, and it's interesting to note that romances generally do not include the hero masturbating (though there are some romances which feature masturbation listed here). His sexual appetite is demonstrated by the number of female partners he has had in the past, and he is only able to find relief from his current desire for the heroine with the heroine. Obviously this raises her value to him in the sexual marketplace.

• "Usually the price of sex will vary somewhat within a community. Some women can command higher prices than others for their sexual favors. [...] The more men desire any particular woman, the higher a price she can command. This is true in both senses of the word "more:" more men and stronger desire. Most obviously, her sex appeal will influence how much and how many men want her" (Baumeister and Vohs 344). Sometimes the heroine's "price" is upped by her virginity (which gives her an edge over the sexually attractive but promiscuous "other woman"), sometimes the heroine is depicted as having an incredible beauty which makes her the envy of other women and the target of the villain's sexual desire. Sometimes the heroine's high "price" is demonstrated predominantly through how much a particular man (himself of high value in the sexual market-place) wants her.

• "if low-cost sex represents a loss for the woman, it may be regarded as a gain for the man, and so the man who can boast of multiple lovers without incurring substantial costs (such as having had to marry each sex partner) may lay claim to high respect from other men" (Baumeister and Vohs 345). The romance rake also gains a high value to women, in part because he is a desirable commodity (because of his sexual expertise, good looks etc) and because demand for him is high in the sexual marketplace (he is desired by many women). Gaining the desired rake thus enhances the heroine's status vis-a-vis other women.

The economic aspect of the sexual marketplace may also help to explain the rake's progress to the heights of desirability within the romance genre. The term used to be a derrogatory one meaning "An immoral or dissolute person" (American Heritage Dictionary) and in William Hogarth's series of paintings which depict the life of a rake we see "the decline and fall of Tom Rakewell, the spendthrift son and heir of a rich merchant, who comes to London, wastes all his money on luxurious living, whoring and gambling, and as a consequence is imprisoned in the Fleet Prison and ultimately Bedlam" (Wikipedia). For the romance rake, however, there are generally no lingering physical or financial repercussions of his previous sexual activities and in gaining "multiple lovers without incurring substantial costs", his "value" has actually been enhanced.⁵

• Baumeister, Roy F. and Kathleen D. Vohs. "Sexual Economics: Sex as Female Resource for Social Exchange in Heterosexual Interactions." Personality and Social Psychology Review 8.4 (2004): 339-63.
• Feinberg, D. R., B. C. Jones, M. J. Law Smith, F. R. Moore, L. M. DeBruine, R. E. Cornwell, S. G. Hillier, and D. I. Perrett. "Menstrual Cycle, Trait Estrogen Level, and Masculinity Preferences in the Human Voice." Hormones and Behavior 49 (2006): 215-22. [PDF available from Feinberg's website]
• Flood, Michael. "Mobilising Condom Use Among Heterosexual Men." HIV Australia 5.4 (2007).
• Gilbert Abino, Lucia, Sarah J. Walker, Sherry McKinney, and Jessica L. Snell. "Challenging Discourse Themes Reproducing Gender in Heterosexual Dating: An Analog Study." Sex Roles 41.9-10 (1999): 753-74.
• Krentz, Jayne Ann. "Trying to Tame the Romance: Critics and Correctness." Dangerous Men and Adventurous Women: Romance Writers on the Appeal of the Romance. Ed. Jayne Ann Krentz. Philadelphia: U of Pennsylvania P, 1992. 107-14.
• Mumford, Kevin J. "'Lost Manhood' Found: Male Sexual Impotence and Victorian Culture in the United States." Journal of the History of Sexuality 3.1 (1992): 33-57.
• Owens Malek, Doreen. "Mad, Bad, and Dangerous to Know: The Hero as Challenge." Dangerous Men and Adventurous Women: Romance Writers on the Appeal of the Romance. Ed. Jayne Ann Krentz. Philadelphia: U of Pennsylvania P, 1992. 73-80.
• Rotundo, E. Anthony. "Body and Soul: Changing Ideals of American Middle-Class Manhood, 1770-1920." Journal of Social History 16.4 (1983): 23-38.

1 "Sociocultural contexts and discourses" have shaped ideas about masculinity and manhood in general, not just male sexuality. For example

the comfortable classes of the late eighteenth-century North [of the USA] [...] defined their ideal of manhood in terms of social and spiritual qualities [...] The good man of this era [...] was not just a person who gave the utmost to his community. He was also a man of God. [...] Benevolent restraint, then, was the key to piety. A Massachusetts youth copied into his journal the gist of a sermon he heard: "Let your moderation be known to all men - moderate the desires, and keep the passions and affections within proper limits. . . preserving that happy mediocrity, which leads to no extreem." (Rotundo 24)

but "The ideal of manhood changed dramatically at the turn of the nineteenth century. The key word now was 'self.' The good man was bent on 'self-improvement' in this, the era of the 'self-made man'" (Rotundo 25) and

the signs of a new, physical ideal of manliness were beginning to appear during the early nineteenth century. The concerns that men discussed in their letters and diaries suggest that a link was slowly forming between the male body and ideal manhood. For instance, the Christian moral code that many men tried to follow called for the control of sexual impulse and abstention from strong drink. (Rotundo 26)

By the late nineteenth century "A true man was now a physical creature, full of animal qualities and primitive urges. Men took nicknames like 'Tornado' and 'Savage' that connected them to basic, natural forces. They feared that humans had 'put reason in place of instinct and are going to no good end'"(Rotundo 26-27) yet

The good man was not [...] a victim of his own physical impulses. He took pride in his powerful will which vanquished laziness and lust. Parents held up this standard of inner control to their sons, calling on them to practice "Spartan" self-discipline and to live "pure in heart." Young men responded with despair when they could not live up to the principles of self-control. (Rotundo 27)

2 There is a marked contrast between this idea of the ever-ready male, whose health might be damaged by continence, and some of the beliefs that were prevalent in the nineteenth century:

between roughly 1810 and the 1850s, several prominent physicians and reformers had formulated a new scientific conception of impotence. The writings of Rush, Graham, and Lallemand contributed to the novel theory that licentiousness could diminish the individual's bodily energy. The resulting depletion, they reasoned, induced the state of debility, which in turn adversely affected male sexual performance. Rather than viewing impotence as a curse from heaven that impeded procreation, nineteenth-century authorities promoted the theory that it was predominantly a male disorder, caused by insufficient self-control, that resulted in the inability to perform sexually. (Mumford 39)

According to current medical thinking,

While we may have heard horror stories about "blue balls" and "lover's nuts," they are not harmful conditions. There may be some discomfort if a man doesn't ejaculate, but it passes. He can still have a pleasurable sexual encounter without orgasm, especially once he gets past adolescence.

and furthermore

Lack of interest in sex is actually very common among both men and women, and this may be related to the complexity and responsibilities of day-to-day living. In his work, Bernie Zilbergeld has found that 30% of men felt, at least at times, that sex was a burden. Yet while we have come to accept that women have a right to say "no" to sex, we sometimes deny men this same right by expecting them to be "sex machines." They're not.

Both quotations from the University of Alberta's "It's Your Call - Making Sexual Decisions" website.

3 This can eventually make some series of linked novels feel rather silly: how many supermen can there be in one family/group of friends?

4 On some of the recent threads about historical accuracy it's been mentioned that it's anachronistic for a romance heroine to refuse to marry a man to whom she's deliberately lost her virginity. It may well be, but I wonder if this could be read as an indication that she refuses to endorse the cultural value society still places on female virginity and the way in which sex is still often considered to be something a man gets/takes/is given by a woman. This doesn't mean, however, that the novel as a whole will reject other aspects of the sexual marketplace.

5 There are, of course, many exceptions to this general "rake's progress" in romance. The rakishness of Mary Jo Putney's Reginald Davenport, for example, is clearly shown to be a consequence of his alcoholism and Reginald gradually comes to realise that if he doesn't reform he will undoubtedly end up dead as a direct consequence of his lifestyle. This brings him closer to Hogarth's rake than many other romance rakes.

The illustration is Plate 3, "The Tavern Scene" from William Hogarth's series titled "A Rake's Progress," and is from Wikipedia.