Why Young Readers Don’t Like Romance Novel Rapists
Romance writer Moriah Jovan notes a disturbing new trend among the youngsters in "Romancelandia" (that would be the realm of romance novel fan-dom). Women "who love romance novels" are mocking older romance novels for their fantastically retro covers, dated cultural references—and rapist love interests. Not fair!
Writes Jovan:
In the 1970s and 1980s, there was a host of “rape romances” that are routinely sneered at by younger romance readers and/or people young to romance reading. The device is that the hero is cruel, arrogant, and (as I saw in a comment about my favorite one, written in 1974) he “rapes her until she loves him.” Sounds harsh now, right?
Yes. Raping a woman "until she loves him"—shit, that could take forever!—does sound pretty harsh. Kids today, with their expectations that the idealized coupling presented by the romance novel not involve incessant raping! Jovan?
Let me put this in some context. [Great -ed.] In the early 1970s, a lady named Nancy Friday interviewed women on the subject of their sexual fantasies and published them in a couple of books: My Secret Garden (1973) and Forbidden Flowers (1975), just at the cusp of the “rape romance.” Without taking Friday’s scholarship into account, I find it interesting that many women’s fantasies at that time featured rape prominently. I also find it fascinating that these books were published nearly simultaneously with the early rape romances and thus, probably didn’t inform each other.
Mind, this definition of “rape” is not a legal one; it’s a highly stylized one in which it allows the female to retain her Good Girl status while still A) having sex and B) enjoying it because the hero is a different kind of rapist: One who is attractive, who is uncontrollably attracted to the heroine, and who gets her off after he’s made it possible for her to have an out, i.e., “I was raped.”
Why did she need an out? Because, at the time, a woman’s enjoyment of sex (especially outside of marriage) was still taboo.
Jovan's insight into why women were attracted to "a different kind of rapist" isn't invalid. And the idea that women might turn to fantasies of sexual control in order to satisfy their own desires while wiggling out of societal constraints didn't expire in the 1970's.
But if young fans of mainstream romance novels now find this idea silly, outdated, and ripe for mockery, why not respect their own idea of what's romantic? Shouldn't we focus on the positives—girls feeling comfortable expressing their desire for consensual sex—instead of attempting to force young women to appreciate rape in context? Remember: The great sin these women are committing is nothing more than gentle mockery—putting concerns like "I can't believe that guy is so rapey!" on the same level as "I can't believe they printed that ridiculous stallion on the cover!" or "I can't believe they're listening to Fleetwood Mac!"
Still, Jovan tries to convince young readers to appreciate the "zeitgeist" of the romance novel—even though they've expressed a clear "unwillingness to go along with [it]":
I’m not sure why there’s this unwillingness to go along with the zeitgeist of the time in which the book was written, but instead to apply today’s standards of fashion or technology or pop culture as markers of timelessness. We don’t expect that of our historical novels, so why do we expect it of “contemporary” romances that cease to be “contemporary” the moment the galleys are finalized?
I'm not a fan of romance novels myself, but I do think these vintage genre works can prove relevant to modern women—just not in the way Jovan suggests. Young readers don't just find the fashions and soundtracks of 70's romance novels ridiculous—they find the very romantic ideals they're based on offensive. To me, that's a sign that the role of women in sex and relationships is flexible, socially informed, and changing fast—even in the relatively mainstream world of romantic paperbacks. That doesn't mean we throw out vintage romance entirely—Jezebel's Sadie Stein, for example, has done some great work discussing the trappings of dated romance novels from a modern context—but if we're not allowed to mock, why would we even read the old stuff?
After all, romance novels are written to indulge women's sexual and romantic fantasies. If the fantasies in the book—like, you know, rapist boyfriends—aren't getting the job done anymore, what's left to appreciate?
6:01 pm
yeah now they like romance novels without sex, or any real physical contact. This lack of sex is of course do to some super magical thing embodied in the form of an ageless man with wonderul lessons to teach the world. No not jesus a vampire.
11:05 pm
In the book about romance novels that Smart Bitches, Trashy Books put out they had an excellent excellent point that one thing that gets missed and ignored about those rape-y stories: these were novels where women who were raped were not spoiled forever. They found love, they moved on. So yes, rapey! heroes. But also, as messages to women go, a damn sight better read than Tess of the Durbervilles. As an example.
11:35 am
@ll: That's an interesting point, but one I can't entirely get behind in the context of rapists-as-love-interests. I'm not too personally familiar with these works, so let me know if I'm off-base here:
Sure, the woman who is raped isn't "spoiled forever." But the rapist-turned-boyfriend ain't spoiled, either---he's never punished for raping a woman. If we look at it that way, the rape victim isn't spoiled because she is never identified as "being raped"---she's just playing her set role in the rape-courtship.
So while the rape victim here isn't spoiled, it's important to look at WHY she isn't. Is it because, in these books, being a victim of rape is not seen as a source of shame? Or is it because, in these books, RAPING is not seen as a source of shame? If she's only un-spoiled because she doesn't leave (or out) her rapist, is that the kind of "moving on" we should hold up as a romantic ideal?
12:57 pm
You missed my point.
Romance novels are being studied in a scholarly fashion. When doing literary criticism in a scholarly fashion, one takes into account the time in which the book was written. I don't think romance novels should be excluded from this.
I wasn't making a moral judgment as to the rightness or wrongness of it or how its presented, and I did make a point to separate legal rape from what is presented in the 70s and 80s romance novels.
My point was that to purport to study or review romance novels without taking into account the time in which it was written is to be intellectually dishonest and/or lazy.
5:15 pm
@ Maria Jovan:
"My point was that to purport to study or review romance novels without taking into account the time in which it was written is to be intellectually dishonest and/or lazy."
From your article: "I’m not sure why there’s this unwillingness to go along with the zeitgeist of the time in which the book was written, but instead to apply today’s standards of fashion or technology or pop culture as markers of timelessness."
I'm not really concerned about "markers of timelessness" as regards romance novels. I just prefer my books without rape as love. I guess I'm intellectually dishonest and lazy, too; how dare I apply my "modern" standards of "repeated rape doesn't cause women to love their rapists" to my entertainment? Shame on me.
I will remember next time that I am tempted to be snarky about patently offensive things in literature that has already been printed that I have to remember that it is a product of a racist, sexist, vastly broken culture, and that I thus cannot criticize it, because to expect better of the books I read is to be intellectually dishonest and too lazy to place them in historical context.
11:17 am
I found this very interesting. I have read trashy romance novels since 6th grade and now I am a librarian. When I was younger, the only ones I could get my hands on were the old rapey-heroes and virginal ice-queens. I actually think it did affect me in my formative sex-ed years. I learned that good girls get raped by their love interests, otherwise they are bad girls and bad things happen to bad girls. How horrible is that? Thank goodness romance novels have moved past this "ideal relationship". I don't think I had even really noticed the lack of rape scenes in contemporary romances until a few months ago when I picked up a new Johanna Lindsey novel and there was an actual rape in the second chapter. By the hero of the novel. I refused to read any more and classified it as a bad book.
I do think that one needs to read novels within the context of their time, however, good novels are rather timeless. (This being said, very few romance novels would qualify as good literature and so cannot hope to be timeless). I would also argue that reading romance novels is an excellent way to get at the social constructs and feel of a certain time period. This information is more useful for culture studies than literature studies, but still very valuable. The average woman reads romance novels (or man) and it is these average people who make up a large segment of society.
Do I think that I should still be allowed to snark old romances from before I was born? Oh yea. That is part of the fun.
1:44 pm
Funny how this issue has been on my mind lately. I recently caught Jack Murnighan's segment on NPR's Guilty Pleasures series. He admitted to loving romance novels for the rape fantasies. He read an excerpt from "Sweet, Savage Love" by Rosemary Rodgers that made me physically cringe.
"He held her weak, trembling body, and when she would have protested against the liberties he was taking, his lips covered her mouth ... stifling the words she tried to utter ... She struggled then, but only half-heartedly; both his arms imprisoned her again, she closed her eyes and let him have his way ..."
He admitted to reading them in faculty meetings and that they made his heart go "oingo boingo." Then he said this, "See, I had always thought that the idea of coercing the fairer sex into abandonment stemmed more from the male than the female gray matter. ... Not unlike the great late-teen realization that girls like sex too, the very thought that men and women were occasionally conjuring the same sugarplums made me feel much closer to my female compeers in general, and less like a creeping lust monster." Even though he's fully aware that his fellow female faculty members might be horrified by his reading habits.
I guess it must be because I'm younger that I DO find him to be a creeping lust monster. My mom had a well-hidden box of romance novels I occasionally dipped into as a teen (she never knew I found them). I never judged her for enjoying the rapiness of the stories, nor any of the other women fond of them. So I couldn't figure out why this guy disturbed me so much. I still don't quite know.
I also vividly remember reading Margaret Atwood's essay on rape fantasies and strange men coming through your window at night ...
"Listen," I said, "those aren't rape fantasies. I mean, you aren't getting raped, it's just some guy you haven't met formally who happens to be more attractive than Derek Cummins and you have a good time."
I think that's the deal with the older romances. They don't bother me as a woman's rape fantasy, somehow, because it isn't as troubling from inside the woman's head in a society that requires women to resist premarital sex. But from the male perspective, ie getting off on (at best) dubious consent and the whole she-secretly-wants-it thing ... is really disturbing to me. It's funny because the rape scene in The Fountainhead made me so angry that I was literally shaking, and I read this at the same time of life.
That said, the romance novels became less titillating to me once I actually learned about sex. The rapiness was never a turn-on. No one watches Birth of a Nation because they love the story; it's racist and disgusting. People still watch it for the cinematic progress, but I don't think there's much literary progress going on in romance novels. So I hope they slowly go out of print to make way for less problematic fluff. It's one thing to take cultural context into account when reading from a critic standpoint, an entirely different matter when reading for fun. In terms of silent film, give me The General any day.
2:23 pm
I think the change is cause for celebration. As the mother of two young daughters I find it greatly encouraging.
10:49 pm
Late reply, but to be clear, I'm not championing old school romance novels and their rape-y heroes. I'm noting that as the Smart Bitches pointed out, it was a change. Not the most awesome change, but a change for the better. As others have noted here, rape-y heroes are no longer anything like the norm. Which is totally of the good.
1:07 am
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