Samhain Publishing Ltd Weblog

Taking Off the Gloves

You’ve heard the term “kid gloves.” Well folks, I’m taking them off. I’m both fascinated and frustrated by the “educated” people in society who continue to put down my favorite form of literary entertainment. The romance book.

Once termed “bodice ripper,” yesterday’s romance used to embody the stereotypical hero saves heroine happily-ever-after book. Hell, I cut my teeth on Johanna Lindsey and Kathleen Woodiwiss. I remember the heroine crying “no no” while the hero persuaded her to scream “yes yes.” In the twenty plus years since I’ve been a loyal reader, romance has undergone major changes, following society’s lead. Women are no longer burning bras or looking for white knights to save them. The common trend leads toward strong, kick-ass women who want equally strong men in their lives. Want, not need. The beta male has come and gone, and will probably come again. Romances are hotter, the stakes more riveting. But the central theme in each of these books is still about love.

Whether you read mainstream or erotic romance (no comment on Inspirational, of which I’m not familiar), you’re still looking for a great story in which the protagonists have their happily-ever-after. Romance is a billion dollar industry. So why is it still the most jeered at genre?

We’re living in 2008, where a woman was in contention for a presidential nominee. HELLO?? I think it’s safe to say women are becoming more independent and confident in themselves as regards to what they want. So it really irks me when I hear men, and women, putting down romance books as nothing more than trash.

The current poll at MSNBC is very telling. Their question: Do you read romance novels? Your choice of answers: 1.Yes, yes, bodice-rippers are my favorite choice of escape. 2. No Way. I don’t touch those books. 3. Sometimes, while on vacation or at the beach. It was all I could do to choose number one, particularly because I don’t read “bodice-rippers.” I read romance.

I hate to be sexist, but I’d bet the farm that a man wrote this questionnaire. Bodice ripper? Give me a break. I like to read about happily-ever-after. I like sex. I like love. What’s so wrong with combining all of those qualities into an engaging read? Because it’s a helluva lot more entertaining than some of those literary wonders that make you want to slit your wrists when you come to “The End.” Granted the prose might be stimulating, but suicides, failed marriages and death are not the stuff of dreams.

Is it because the majority of romance authors are women that the industry gets so little respect? Because the books are entertaining but don’t necessarily teach us life lessons in every line? Because, gasp, they might have sexual references or outright sex described in those books? And yes, I said those books. It still fires me up that while on vacation, I complimented a woman on her choice of reading material, a freakin’ NYT Bestselling romance. She then tucked it away, as if embarrassed, and said that there had been nothing else to read in the corner store, so she’d bought one of “those” books. This from another woman!

What does it say that you can’t feel good about what you read? I’d like to think that she was just a nut. But the majority of women I’ve come into contact with, at various stages in their lives and careers, from stay-at-home moms to Fortune 500 executives, snub their noses at romance while secretly reading them at home. Hell, I used to be one of them.

I remember going through The Basic School, Marine Officer school, hiding romances in my room. I could only imagine the crap I would take if my fellow officers, the majority men, saw me reading those books while trying to learn how to lead Marines. There, I wasn’t so much embarrassed by what I read, but I was trying to downplay my femininity to better fit in with my male counterparts. Now I wish I wouldn’t have, but hell, that was fifteen years ago.

Now I walk proudly up to the book counter with a half-naked man on the cover of a book. I make no effort to hide my choice of reading material while I sit in a coffee house or airport. Maybe it’s because I’m older, or maybe it’s because I’m more confident in who I am. It took a lot to pen that first erotic romance. More to combat the sneers and jibes from people who look down on the word “sex” when not used to mean gender.

Still, if society wouldn’t frown at what women want so much, I think we’d all have an easier time finding acceptance for reading what we want. Look at the surprise success Sex and The City, the movie, has earned. Gee, you’d think they’d realize women do spend money on things other than family. We go to movies, we watch TV, we read books. And we shouldn’t feel badly about what we consider entertaining.

Now that I’m done ranting, I’m going back to work, at least, after I’m done grocery shopping and watching my kids fight, er, play with each other. Look for the next installment of Ethereal Foes: Duncan’s Descent coming to Samhain in August.