Dangerous Books For Girls: The Bad Reputation of Romance Novels Explained Read online

  DANGEROUS BOOKS FOR GIRLS: THE BAD REPUTATION OF ROMANCE NOVELS EXPLAINED

  BY MAYA RODALE

  Copyright © 2015 by Maya Rodale

  Cover design © Maya Rodale. Logo design by Tokiko Jinta.

  All rights reserved.

  ISBN: 978-0-9906356-1-1

  For the readers and writers of romance novels,

  past, present and future

  PREFACE

  When my mother first insisted that I read romance novels, I laughed. She couldn’t seriously be suggesting that I, a college student at a prestigious East Coast university majoring in English, who read Ulysses for school and all of Proust for fun, would read one of those cheap drugstore books, the Fabio books, the fluffy reading material for uneducated and overweight desperate housewives of the flyover states.

  But she was serious. She pointed out that as a student focusing on women’s role in fiction, both as writers and characters, I couldn’t possibly refuse to study the most popular and profitable books by women, for women, about women.

  “Fine,” I grumbled, wanting to be a diligent academic. “Send me a syllabus.”

  She did. I started with Jane Austen, reading her collected works in a nearby park. I moved onto Forever Amber by Kathleen Windsor and was furious with the ending. I couldn’t get into Shanna by Kathleen Woodiwiss, but I was so absorbed by The Flame and the Flower that I took a taxi rather than walk to meet a friend just so I could keep reading. From there, I tried out newer romances by Susan Elizabeth Phillips, Eloisa James, and others. In my entire academic career, I had never moved through a syllabus so quickly and happily.

  Deep down, this was exactly what I had been afraid of. I suspected that I would enjoy romance novels so much that I would be ruined for “real books.” I envisioned myself dropping out of school with no prospects, romantic or professional, with nothing but a giant stack of mass-market paperback romance novels to fill my days and nights. A terrible fate indeed.

  Nevertheless, I got hooked on reading romance novels and still managed to graduate from college, write a book with my mom, go to graduate school, and get a job. Along the way, I started writing and publishing my own historical romance novels (dedication in the first one: Momma, this is all your fault ). I joined the trade organization Romance Writers of America. I made smart new friends and met my favorite authors.

  But through the years, a question nagged at me: When my mom insisted that I read romances, how did I know to laugh when I had never read one?

  We didn’t have romances lying around the house—in fact, my mom had only just started reading them. I didn’t know anyone else who read them—or so I thought. I hadn’t read reviews or noticed advertisements for them. I hadn’t really seen them in the supermarkets or bookstores. I hadn’t even flipped through one to giggle at the sexy bits.

  But somehow I just knew that smart girls didn’t read the Fabio books, and I had a whole bunch of other unflattering assumptions about the books and readership.

  How I inherently knew these things—and in fact, I’ve pondered whether they are true—is a question I’ve been trying to answer for the past 10 years. It has inevitably lead to more questions about whether I, as a romance novelist, was writing empowering stories or ones that tricked women into traditional, limiting gender roles. Was there any value in my life’s work or was I devoting my time and energy to something frivolous when I could be earning more money at a Real Job? Why did I read and write about first kisses and happily-ever-afters over and over again?

  This book is my answer.

  * * *

  In college, my professors allowed me to add a few romance novels to the list of great books for my final project. In graduate school, I studied women’s fiction from early eighteenth and nineteenth century England. In fact, my master’s thesis was an early version of this book. I wrote extensively (ten historical romances, three contemporary romances, and countless blogs). I read widely, including a lot of romance.

  In addition to a decade’s worth of reading, studying, writing, and thinking, I drew extensively on one-on-one interviews and the results of two surveys I conducted for this book.

  About the surveys: The first questionnaire for romance readers was a whopper and asked everything from basic demographic information (age, marital status, level of education, etc.) to readers’ thoughts on character traits they prefer, why they love reformed rakes, what is their preferred heat levels in romances, and whether they feel ashamed to be seen reading “trashy books” in public. The survey was shared widely on social media by myself and others in the romance community. As of this writing, more than 800 people have taken it. It was not meant to be a truly scientific study but a way to solicit the thoughts and feelings of a large number of romance readers.

  I also conducted a smaller survey of nonromance readers, asking such questions as “how would you describe a romance novel” or “how would you describe romance readers” because I wanted to see if the stereotypes about the books and readers were widely held, or if romance readers were oversensitive and perceiving slights where there were none.

  From both surveys I learned that there is undeniably a negative perception of the genre, and its readers and romance fans were all aware of it.

  Links to the surveys and downloadable versions of the results are available at www.dangerousbooksforgirls.com.

  Here’s one of the things I love about the romance community: The members are so smart, funny, opinionated, and willing to share. Through a series of interviews conducted in coffee shops and over the phone, I spoke with bestselling authors, senior editors, editorial assistants, scholars, cover artists, and journalists. Each person took an hour (or more) out of their busy days to have a conversation with me about the romance genre. Unless attributed to another source, quotes in this book were taken from these interviews.

  This book is organized by themes. The chapters are presented in loose chronological order, but readers should feel free to read them in any order that strikes their fancy.

  * * *

  When I sign books, I often scribble “happy reading” to readers or in notes to authors I add “happy writing!” When we get past the sense of shame or snark that is often directed at the genre, that is what romance is about for so many of us: a sense of happiness, joy, acceptance, and love. It is about the ability of a good story to both entertain and empower us.

  WHAT WE TALK ABOUT WHEN WE TALK ABOUT FABIO

  When I mention that I write romance novels at cocktail parties, one of the most frequent responses from men and women alike is “Oh, like the Fabio books?”

  When the New Yorker wrote about HarperCollins’s recent acquisition of Harlequin[1] to the tune of $450 million, a significant portion of the post wasn’t about the deal or the genre, but…Fabio!

  When the popular reality show America’s Next Top Model wanted to take on the modeling challenge of a romance novel cover photo shoot, they enlisted...Fabio! After all, in the words of Tyra Banks, he is “Mr. Romance Novel himself.”

  When I asked nonromance readers to describe a romance novel in their own words, more than a few wrote “Fabio!”—exclamation mark and all.

  Fabio, of course, is the hunky model who has appeared on more than 400 romance novel covers, including classics like Johanna Lindsay’s Gentle Rogue and Savage Thunder. He defines the stereotypical cover model for which the genre is infamous—a hulking, muscle-bound man with his billowing white shirt open to the waist but still tucked into buff-colored breeches. His hair is long and blonde and flowing in a fake breeze. A busty young woman c
lings to him as her breasts spill out of her bodice.

  After those covers, he launched a hugely successful career as a model and spokesperson, even publishing his own romances. He’s so well known that people who know nothing about romance novels know to say “Fabio!” when the subject comes up.

  “It’s an amazing bit of branding that people are still so quick to make that association,” says Esi Sogah, a senior romance editor at Kensington and a person who also gets the “Fabio!” response when mentioning romance novels at cocktail parties.

  Romance novels are a billion dollar industry—and they’re the largest segment of adult fiction, outselling fantasy, mystery, science fiction, and the classics.[2] Thousands of titles are published each year for millions of readers. All of them are predominantly written by women, for women, and about women. They are largely produced by women, too; the publishing workforce is 74 percent female, according to a survey by Publisher’s Weekly.[3]

  And yet the romance novel is so often reduced to and personified by one man.

  Fabio.

  Honestly, I offer my sincere congrats to Fabio. From interviews and profiles I’ve read, he seems like a very nice, sincere guy. And what success! Even decades after his last cover, people at cocktail parties are still asking me if Fabio, now 56, has modeled for my recent books.

  I am happy for him and his success. I even like his work.

  But why is such a massively powerful and profitable female-driven industry exemplified by a dude?

  * * *

  There is and has been much angst about romance novels long before Fabio unbuttoned his shirt and stepped in front of the fan. More than just stories of girl meets boy, these novels embody and explore topics our culture is deeply uncomfortable with.

  Romances tackle divisive issues like class, love, women’s sexuality and pleasure, rape, virginity, money, feminism, masculinity, and equality—and ultimately how they’re all tangled up with each other. These books promote a woman’s right to make choices about her own life (and body). They take longstanding notions of masculinity and turn them around. They promote a different image of what it means to be a happy, desirable woman—one that doesn’t rely on the right shade of lipstick, but internal qualities instead. These books celebrate women who get out of the house and do all the things that, traditionally, young ladies and good girls don’t do.

  Rather than suggesting a woman needs a man or that the sexes are at war, romance novels demonstrate again and again that true happiness happens when two people find and prioritize love.

  Most scandalous of all, these are books by women, for women, and about women in a culture that doesn’t place much value on women.

  So when the subject of romance novels—and all those knotty issues—comes up, we talk about Fabio instead of women’s orgasms or men’s feelings.

  We laugh about Fabio’s very fitted breeches instead of asking who is watching the children or cooking dinner while a woman reads privately for pleasure or writes a romance novel or is out at work. Simply by picking one up, she is refusing, if only for a chapter, her traditional role of caring for others, and in doing so she declares that she is important.

  It’s easier to talk about Fabio’s pectoral muscles than to talk about how successful women can be when they’re working and working together.

  It’s easier to laugh about the bodice Fabio is ripping than to have an honest discussion about women’s sexual pleasure or to even acknowledge women’s sexual desires. After all, sex isn’t polite cocktail party conversation.

  Rather than discuss all that, we can just talk about one, supremely masculine man and the way the wind blows through his long, flowing hair.

  Maybe it’s what we don’t talk about when we talk about Fabio.

  * * *

  Romance novels are more than just Fabio books. They are also more than bodice rippers, mommy porn, trashy books, rescue fantasies, guilty pleasures, or any of the other “funny” but disparaging slang terms we have for them. For centuries, they have been the work of “that damned mob of scribbling women,” to quote that infamous line from Nathaniel Hawthorne, and they have been a source of private pleasure for millions more. For a majority of readers, they are escape, entertainment, and happiness. Romance novels have been—and still are—the dangerous books that show women again and again that they’re worth it.

  And you thought it was just about Fabio.

  THE ROMANCE REVOLUTION

  THE REAL REASONS ROMANCE NOVELS GET EVERYONE’S UNMENTIONABLES IN A TWIST

  And no matter what anybody says, I don’t believe all this trouble started when women got the vote. As far as I’m concerned, it goddamn well started when you taught each other how to read.

  —Fancy Pants by Susan Elizabeth Phillips

  Whether we call them gothics, domestic fiction, sentimental novels, chick-lit, trashy books, romances, or romance novels,[4] affordable novels written by women, about women, and for women have promoted powerful and revolutionary messages to women for centuries.

  Today the commonly accepted definition of a romance novel is the one created by trade organization Romance Writers of America: a novel with a central love story and an emotionally satisfying and optimistic conclusion.[5] These are stories in which two individuals come to a greater understanding of themselves through a romantic relationship. It is virtually guaranteed that no children, dogs, heroes, or heroines will die. There are obstacles and dark moments when all seems lost before ending happily.

  To understand the power of these books, we have to consider not just the themes championed over and over again, but the context in which these stories arose and proliferated. The eighteenth and nineteenth centuries were rife with revolutions—the American, the French, the Industrial—and it was understood that they were fueled by widespread reading.

  Who was reading and what they were reading was particularly concerning. “Reading—and the novel in particular—was very much associated with the promotion of ideas which might lead to fundamental changes in the status quo, including the position of women,” writes Belinda Jack in her book The Woman Reader.[6] Stories of personal transformation and social change presented a powerful image of how the social norm could be altered for greater happiness.

  But some certain reading material (ahem, novels) were considered more seditious than others. It was generally accepted in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries that novels were supposed to be as true to life as possible. But because they were still fictional works, there were fears that they could be mistaken for reality or assumed to be possible in a way that more obviously fantastical stories could not.

  Novels were also considered to be trouble because women were fond of reading them. One strategy to blunt the effects of novels on women was to make sure that women were at least reading the right thing, such as texts that reinforced traditional ideas of femininity and women’s roles. “Once women were reading in significant numbers—and this is true across cultures—reading material telling them how to behave appeared more or less simultaneously,” writes Jack. Conduct books and collections of sermons became perennial bestsellers. They not only gave advice on how one ought to behave (like a good little girl), but they also started to establish the connection that one learns how to live a good life from books—something we may take for granted now.

  When novels came along, there were real fears that women would take their cues from these “ridiculous” books instead of more respectable books. “We incline to think that a far larger number of persons receive the bias of their course and the complexion of their character from reading novels than from hearing sermons,” one nineteenth century author wrote.[7] Not only that, but there were genuine concerns that women would develop unrealistic expectations about their lives by reading fiction. Another nineteenth century author painted a dire picture: “She [the novel reader] dreamed and spoke of splendid matches, ’til she became quite unfitted of the matter-of-fact world in which her lot was cast.”[8]

  In order to stop
the spread of these revolutionary ideas through books to disenfranchised people, the government in England enacted legislation called “the taxes on knowledge.” First, the Stamp Act of 1712 made printed materials expensive, hoping to price them out of the hands of women and poor people. Taxes were placed on paper and advertisements, so “the bigger the book, the bigger the tax.”[9] Similarly, the stamp duties on newspapers and pamphlets were understood to be “targeted attacks on the reading matter which the state feared most.”[10]

  The window tax—which one had to pay on any more than six windows in one dwelling—made free reading light (sunlight) expensive. Long hours at the factory meant people were too exhausted to read even if they saved up for a book and a candle. Charles Dickens claimed that this was the most effective of all the taxes on knowledge.[11]

  When those measures failed—they weren’t repealed until 1855—snark and scorn were deployed to diminish literature that appealed to women. Critics elevated intellectual literature composed by educated white males and denigrated anything that was mass produced or created by females.

  As a result, “those books” became impolite conversation. By being made to feel ashamed of their reading materials, women didn’t read them or if they did, they didn’t talk about it—thus potentially smothering the primary way other women could discover them. If they weren’t reviewed in the paper—and they weren’t—you might find them though a friend’s recommendation, unless your friend wasn’t admitting to the collection of embarrassing romances stashed in her bedside table drawer.

  But neither the taxes on knowledge or mockery on a massive scale was enough to stop this scourge of novel reading. The revolution carried on as women continued to read and write the novels that appealed to them, despite being subjected to snark—if they were regarded at all.

  In 1858, Wilkie Collins lamented the discovery of the “unknown reading public” that read for amusement rather than information (horrors). Mocking the medium as formulaic and unrealistic and its audience for being stupid was a way to minimize the impact of the ideas within. So much so that even today women who read and love romances will call them “trashy books” or “smutty books.” That is, if they talk about it at all.