Yeah, that’s right. Rape. I can’t believe this blog has existed so long without us taking a long, hard (huh huh, long and hard) look at the presence of rape in romance.
First of all, I’d like to state
two
three things up front:
1. Rapist heroes are a big part of the reason why I disliked romance novels as long as I did. Heroes were rewarded for being assholes of the first order, and oftentimes their behavior to the heroine was completely indistinguishable from a villain’s, except romance novel villains tend to be jaw-droppingly ugly. From bad teeth to ugly noses to hunched backs, romance novel villains are dead easy to spot, which is in keeping with many fairy tale tropes that equate outer with inner beauty—but that’s an entirely different topic.
2. I still think romances with rapist heroes have a place in the genre. They’re not romantic to me, but legions of women found them romantic, and legions of women still do.
3. Rapist heroes are not nearly as common as they used to be. Between 1972 and about 1988, you couldn’t swing a dead cat without hitting a rapist hero in the face. Starting in about the mid-80s, though, the tides started turning, and by the mid-90s, rapist heroes were mostly a thing of the past, although forced seductions still popped their heads up here and there. (There are readers who maintain there’s no difference between forced seduction and rape, of course.) Despite the recent dearth of rapes in romance, some romances with rapist heroes are still considered classics of the genre, and seem to be experiencing healthy sales. For example, Whitney, My Love and The Flame and the Flower have been continuously in print since their first release (feel free to correct me if I’m wrong, though) and are generally reviewed positively by genre romance critics.
Why is rape, one of the most profound and traumatic violations anyone can experience, so prevalent for the first several years in romance novels? And why was it presented as something heroes were allowed to do and get away with, oftentimes without so much as an apology?
Assorted explanations have been floated around. One of them deals with sexual mores. The Flame and the Flower, which kick-started the historical romance genre as we know it, was published in 1972, which in terms of sexual mores had more in common with 1952 than 1992. Several people have suggested that the fictional rape scenario allowed the heroines to enjoy sexual pleasure while still maintaining their moral purity. Nice girls don’t seek sexual pleasure. But if the sexual pleasure was forced on them…well, that’s a different matter, isn’t it?
There’s a kernel of truth in that, but I think there’s more to it.
There’s the fact that domination fantasies in general, and rape fantasies in particular, can be very potent, and these books seem to tap into something primal for a lot of women. Check out this post, for example. But keep in mind that not all women are as conflicted about their domination fantasies as this woman appears to be, and not all women with domination fantasies came from repressive or abusive households. The seeds of turn-ons, kinks and fetishes are oftentimes buried deeply, and the roots can be tangled.
So, OK, so this explanation could be classified as an instance of “This turns them on for whatever reason. More power to them. Fantasize away, just make sure to play safe.”
I still think there’s more to it than that. In my opinion, there are at least three other powerful fantasies at work here other than those of domination:
The first is the fantasy of taming the brutal man. On one hand, EWWWWW HE RAPED HER, how can she want him if she’s even close to being sane?
Darlings, this is fiction. In the fiction, the impossible happens. The classic heroic rapist, unlike a real-life rapist, is tamed by the love of a good woman, and is ecstatic at the very idea of spending forever with the heroine in happily-wedded bliss by the end of the book. He’s completely reformed, and even if most of the classic heroes don’t grovel, their asshole behavior is at least held in abeyance for the last five pages of the book as they explain in tiresome detail to the heroines what was really going through their minds at assorted points in the book and the exact moment they fell in love with them.
(By the way, it’s really important, the Exact Moment. If you don’t get to hear about it from the horse’s mouth, then you get to watch the Dawning of the Realization of Lurve. It’s one of those ridiculous romance novel things that you go along with.)
The temporary cessation of cockheaded behavior holds the promise of future behavior that, while not completely bereft of shitmonkey moments, is at least a reasonable approximation of what a decent human being should act like.
The heroic rapist also rapes for reasons entirely different from the usual real-life rapist, which brings me to the second fantasy: The heroine represents the ideal of the irresistible woman. Many of the rapist heroes in romance novels do what they do because they simply can’t help themselves, I mean, look, the heroine is sooooo beautiful and radiant and desirable and WHOOPS, impaled her unwilling body on his chubby pickle once again. Poor hero. His mind was addled by her blazing beauty.
OK, you can see that I’m less than enamored with this particular fantasy. Frankly, it’s far too similar to the “but she was asking for it, she was wearing a short skirt!” defense for my comfort. But regardless, I can see how this fantasy can hold powerful appeal. This woman, her love sauce is something powerful. Men want her, and women want to be her—that is, unless she’s the sexually-liberated former mistress of the hero, in which case it’s a good bet that she’ll give Courtney Love a run for the money in the “insane, homicidal crack whore” department.
In keeping with the irresistible woman fantasy, the rapist hero is often an obsessed hero. He can’t function with his formerly delicious mistress. No whore can do. He can slake his lust on one, and only one model of female pulchritude. And the most embarrassing thing is, she often makes him spooge prematurely, even though all she does is move her body with shy, clumsy inexperience in a dance as old as time. If she runs away, he will hunt her down to the ends of the earth. He becomes insanely and irrationally jealous when other men pay attention to her.
OK, I’ve just described just about every romance novel hero in existence. What makes the rapist hero different is how the very fact that she makes him lose control, he, a man who has bedded women without count, makes him lose control even more. He desires her, and hates her for desiring her, and he punishes her accordingly. By the end of the book, though, he has submitted to the fact that he doesn’t just want her, he needs her, the way Ozzy Osborne needs Vicodin and red wine.
The more unkind critic would note that his dick has made judgment, and his dick apparently knows better than any other organ of his when he’s found his soulmate.
The less unkind critic would point out that many women secretly want to drive a handsome man crazy for love of their irresistible little selves, even though such behavior in real life would probably result in panicked calls to the police and restraining orders.
The heroine being mistreated also taps into our martyr fantasies. You know: “Nobody loves me, everybody hates me, I’m going to the garden to eat wormmmmms.” Self-pity feels good, y’all, and so is the knowledge that HA HA THEY’LL BE SO SORRY WHEN THEY FIND OUT HOW WRONGFULLY MISTREATED I’VE BEEN. The heroine is misunderstood and treated unjustly, sometimes to brutal extremes, but we, the readers, know that she’s pure and angelic and all that is wonderful about womanhood. She martyrs herself and either refuses to defend herself because dammit, her innocence and inherent goodness is evident to all, or she cocks up the explanation so badly that she creates another big old mess, which is good for at least another 150 pages of conflict in the book.
(That sort of heroine, more often than not, makes me want to hit somebody. Preferably the heroine. Or the hero. Or tie the both of them, dump ‘em in a sack and drown them like unwanted kittens—except I’d never drown kittens, but I feel no such restraint with annoying heroines.)
What gets to me is when the heroine is martyred over and over and over again, mistreated and abused by the hero, but there’s no pay-off. No grovel, no apology, no nothing. For many people, though, the hero finally sorting out the assorted misunderstandings is reward enough, even if he doesn’t fall down on his knees, sobbing out apologies incoherently while offering to castrate himself. At least he now realizes how totally awesome the heroine is and how many worms she’s had to eat: long slim slimy ones, short fat fuzzy ones, and yes, even the dreaded ooey gooey ooey ones.
And moving away from fantasy-land, there’s the fact that many women hold on to relatively rigid views of what should constitute ideal male and female behavior. I’ve read lamentations on assorted romance reading boards about how heroines nowadays are far too mannish, and how heroes are impotent weaklings. These readers invariably long for old-fashioned romances, when the men were men. This attitude was summed up by a reader on some board somewhere who pointed out that there’s no point to the rapist hero apologizing or groveling for his behavior—doing so would make him a pussy.
To be honest, this worldview is so different from mine that it irks me, because I think it takes a real pair of balls to look over bad behavior unflinchingly, apologize sincerely and hold fast to the resolution to not repeat the mistake. The assumption that the ability to apologize for mistakes = pussywhipped drives me nuts, as do assorted stereotypical views of what’s gender-appropriate. But I can definitely see how someone who takes the opposite view would eat rapist heroes up with a spoon.
Hey, want to know something scary? Despite how long this article already is (1,589 words and counting!), I’ve only covered rapist heroes. I haven’t even begun to dissect the implications of other types of rape in romance novels. As Robin said in an e-mail to me:
(…) [W]hat does it mean when the heroine is vulnerable to rape by someone other than the hero? What about a book like Brenda Joyce’s The Conqueror, where the hero (if he must be called that) marries the heroine off to another man and then comes and rapes her on her wedding night, after having sent the groom away? Or what about rapes that are really meant to be angry expressions of power, like what Geoffrey did to Anne in To Love and To Cherish (or even what Sebastien did to Rachel in [To Have and to Hold], although I think it was more complicated there). Like I said, I have NEVER seen so much rape as there is in Romance.
Yup. Damn straight. For a genre that’s supposedly escapist fiction by women for women—how often have you heard the refrain “If I wanted realism/blood/death/unhappiness, I’ll turn on the news, not read a romance novel”?—rape is writ large on the genre’s landscape.
What does that say about the books, and about us? Hell if I know. Feel free to hash it out in the comments.
Oh, I agree that Olympia is delusional, and that her naivete is frightening. But I don’t see her as weak.
In my opinion, delusions are usually a sign that the person finds it difficult to cope with reality. I feel that Olympia didn’t know how to take charge of the political chess game she was born into, and in which she was a pawn. It’s really interesting to compare STF with FMLH, where you have Melanthe who is also a princess. Someone is always trying to use Melanthe, and like Olympia she isn’t free from that until the end of the book, but unlike Olympia, Melanthe is able to look that reality in the eye without flinching, and to do all she can to plot her escape from it.
To my mind Olympia has a much harder time coping with the fact that she’s so politically valuable that others try to use her. That reality is too dark for her. I feel that she has a desperate need to believe in something better, and that that is why she creates a dream world where she is a heroine to her people. She clings to her illusions even when they endanger herself and others, and that says to me that she needs them very badly.
I’m not saying that Olympia felt completely unloved as a child, but I also don’t think one has to be completely unloved to be less than sturdy when it comes to coping with painful realities. Being loved in childhood is important, but there are plenty of people who are loved in childhood and still don’t deal that well with reality. Just as some people are physically bigger and stronger than others, some are mentally stronger than others.
As for what attracts him to her, I think it’s more than Olympia’s vulnerability that draws him in. I think in a strange way it’s partly the fact that she has the ability to believe in ideals, as misguided as she may be in that.
I agree, that’s part of it too. I think he’s drawn to her ability to believe in something, but I don’t see this ability as such a strength in her, since a good chunk of what she believes in isn’t real.
I think that Olympia’s making up fantasies in which she cast herself as a heroine was also a sign of insecurity and low self esteem. Otherwise, why that particular fantasy? Her romantic feelings for Sheridan, someone who started out so self-centered and hurt her so much, were another sign of low self esteem to me. She wasn’t in a situation like Rachel was with Sebastian, where the only other option was prison. She kept being drawn to Sheridan even when he was just using her in the beginning, and I can’t see that as healthy behavior.
Re. the island, yes, she did become stronger and better able to cope with reality there, and that does show that she has some resiliency. I’m not saying she has none, just that she doesn’t seem to me to have enough to bounce back into true happiness after what happens in Oriens at the end. Also, even the island was a kind of artificial environment in that there are no other people there but Sheridan and herself. The island was the place where they were able to be themselves, but as soon as they got back to the real world, it turned them against each other.
At the end, she tries to recreate the island, a place where she felt loved for herself, and had not been a pawn. The island was a place where heroism and romance were real, came from trying to make life better for each other, together, and not from her imagination trying to hide reality from her. The island was one place where she really faced reality, and had something more meaningful than her dreams, so she tries to recreate it at the end. But to me, even the attempt to recreate it was a kind of attempt to escape reality. Because she wasn’t on that island anymore, she was in England.
Again, I’m not saying she had no strength at all, just that to me, at the end of the book, she was not a poster girl for happiness.
I would also like to reiterate that I think Kinsale wrote exactly the right ending for the book. It would have been a far less powerful story if Olympia had been happier.
And back to the subject of forced seductions for a second, what do you think of the scene where Olympia is trying to get Sheridan to penetrate her? Obviously she doesn’t have nearly the physical strength he does, but isn’t that a forced seduction, of sorts? I never really thought of it that way until this discussion, and especially your description of White Palace, but it seems to me now that if the genders were switched, that scene would definitely fall under FS.
You know, I never thought of it that way, but you are right. There’s definitely a double standard when it comes to these types of scenes.
“In my opinion, delusions are usually a sign that the person finds it difficult to cope with reality.”
One of the most interesting things to me about STF is the question of what constitutes reality for any of these characters. Sheridan’s reality, for example is profoundly real to him, even if it isn’t shared by anyone else. His time with Olympia on the island is very real for both of them, in part because they have to fight for their physical survival. Political upheaval is very real to the world of Oriens, but not, for example, to Fish Stovall, whose reality is not only a world away but several powers of experience away. So I guess I’m not as inclined to see life on the island, for example, as any less “real” than what happens in Oriens. Although I absolutely agree with you that Olympia doesn’t understand how powerful her political opponents are—I think she does grasp early on what their intention is, though, which is why she seeks Sheridan out. In fact, she’s the one who makes it clear to Sheridan that his life is worthless is he marries her when he comes to propose—he didn’t even seem to think of that, despite his knowledge of human nature’s (and especially Julia’s) dark side.
Actually, I was thinking this morning about how much I think Olympia copes with on her journey to Oriens. When I think of all the stuff she went through, I would have been over the edge (or over the side of the ship, as the case may be) way before the island.
I absolutely agree with you, though, that her happiness with Sheridan will require some real healing for both of them, and that they will both probably be dealing with flashbacks and PTSS for quite a while. I really wish Kinsale had written an epilogue (or a related novel with an appearance by Olympia and Sheridan) letting us know if they ever made it to Vienna. That scene where he’s talking to her about dancing with her in Vienna is one of my most favorite in the book.
You make a good point about reality, Robin, and yet, we both agree that Olympia is delusional, no? So, even though it’s true that each person’s reality is to some degree subjective, I believe there are also measurements on which most people agree, which we use to determine whether or not, for example, someone is delusional. 🙂 I see relative mental and emotional health as something that exists on a continuum, a spectrum, if you will. While I wouldn’t characterize Olympia as delusional to the point of insanity, she does have these delusions which prove dangerous to herself and to others, and about which Sheridan tries to warn her more than once.
Therefore I put her somewhere in the middle of the spectrum. Prior to the revolution in Oriens, she’s not mentally ill, but she’s also not mentally strong IMO. Now you put what happened to Oriens on top of that, and I think she’s going to be in some major emotional pain for possibly years to come. I’m not saying she will never recover, just that I think if she does, it will be a very long process and one that would require more than just Sheridan’s love.
We all, I think, to some degree, bring our own life experiences to books when we read, and so, it’s inevitable that we have different impressions of the same characters and books. I’m sure that part of my reason for feeling as I do is that I know that if I blamed myself for the deaths of many people, I would have a hard time coping. Then too, at the end of the book, we see Olympia so withdrawn into herself that she is almost unable to speak, and for me, it signals that she’s in tremendous pain. I have hope that she’ll recover enough to be happy someday, but not complete confidence. But we can agree to disagree on that. Maybe someday I’ll reread the book in its entirety, and change my opinion, I don’t know.
I really wish Kinsale had written an epilogue (or a related novel with an appearance by Olympia and Sheridan) letting us know if they ever made it to Vienna. That scene where he’s talking to her about dancing with her in Vienna is one of my most favorite in the book.
I loved that scene too. But I think an epilogue would have undercut the power of the book, and of its central message. This discussion of ours sent me into the archives of another board where I once had a lengthy discussion of Seize the Fire, and I found this old post of mine, which sums up what I think is so unique and special about this book:
“I found SEIZE THE FIRE to be about idealism and cynicism, and about the nature of the world, is it a good place, or a cruel one? A fairy tale or a horror show? Is it a place that makes sense, orderly, or is it chaotic and filled with senseless violence?
STF seems somewhat existentialist to me, perhaps even concerned with the basic question of whether life is worth living, whether it is worth it to invest emotionally in others.
On some level, many of Kinsale’s books are about this—can another person be trusted? Is it worth it to take a chance on love? But usually, it is clear to the reader that it is and the characters simply don’t know it. Or that, maybe in something like FMLH, you
cannot always have the one you love, but you still are better for loving them, and for putting them ahead of yourself.
In STF, she goes to a darker place, are you even better for believing in someone, or does it just open you to more pain? Are they the hero you want them to be, are you the hero you want to be for them, or are you just as lost and confused as they are, and then, is it better to be lost and confused together, or is that just a source of more heartaches?
I think she does answer the question that, we need to love and trust to survive. But, she also says, you have to trust and love in this very fragile thing, this very flawed person, someone who is not a hero. Someone who may be powerless or may be wounded. You have to see them for that and still love them, not in a fairy tale, but in the real world, a place where your good intentions can have harmful consequences.”
“I found SEIZE THE FIRE to be about idealism and cynicism, and about the nature of the world, is it a good place, or a cruel one? A fairy tale or a horror show? Is it a place that makes sense, orderly, or is it chaotic and filled with senseless violence?”
Yes! And my answer would be that it’s both.
“I think she does answer the question that, we need to love and trust to survive. But, she also says, you have to trust and love in this very fragile thing, this very flawed person, someone who is not a hero. Someone who may be powerless or may be wounded. You have to see them for that and still love them, not in a fairy tale, but in the real world, a place where your good intentions can have harmful consequences.â€
Good points, LFL. And I think it’s a lesson Sheridan had to learn, as well, especially in terms of accepting himself. I think where you and I diverge in our assessment of the book is in terms of Olympia’s innate strength as a person. Despite the fact that she made a grave error in trying to apply one form of reality (the one she created in her mind while safe in England, reading a lot of political philosophy) to another (Oriens, in the middle of a potentially bloody power shift), I think I see her as fundamentally less shallow or unstable as you do, thus the differences in the way we see her relationship with Sheridan (it was also fascinating to me to see that revolutionary idealism—the kind that creates tremendous bloodshed all over the world—as borne of a certain kind of innocent and idealistic fervor). I don’t want to suggest that Olympia will simply bounce back after a few months or anything; she just surprised me many times during the book with her ability to deal with some pretty scary and potentially deadly situations, from the island, to the sultan, to Sheridan’s betrayals. I think had she the clear-sightedness of a heroine like Melanthe that Sheridan would have found her cold and intimidating, and she would have found him warped and dangerous.
Of course what happened in Oriens was far beyond what Olympia had faced before precisely because she inadvertantly contributed to a number of deaths, as you pointed out. I do, however, think that Sheridan will help her ultimately understand and accept that her comprehension of the full situation in Oriens could only come in hindsight, and that she must accept her dark side with the same ease she accepts Sheridan’s.
Although it’s not exactly a literary reference, there’s a line in David O. Rusell’s film “Flirting with Disaster,” where Tea Leoni’s character says to Ben Stiller’s character something like, “all marriages are vulnerable. If they weren’t being married wouldn’t mean so much.” I guess that’s one of the reasons STF is such a compelling book, because, as you said before, Kinsale really does take an unflinching look at the most extreme circumstances of that vulnerability.
“I found SEIZE THE FIRE to be about idealism and cynicism, and about the nature of the world, is it a good place, or a cruel one? A fairy tale or a horror show? Is it a place that makes sense, orderly, or is it chaotic and filled with senseless violence?”
Yes! And my answer would be that it’s both.
That would be my answer too. Although I would add that the world of the book, as depicted through the side characters and their actions, was more latter than the former. Absolutely there was also beauty and goodness in that world, but most of the side characters seemed to me to confirm Sheridan’s view of the world more than they did Olympia’s.
“I think she does answer the question that, we need to love and trust to survive. But, she also says, you have to trust and love in this very fragile thing, this very flawed person, someone who is not a hero. Someone who may be powerless or may be wounded. You have to see them for that and still love them, not in a fairy tale, but in the real world, a place where your good intentions can have harmful consequences.”
Good points, LFL. And I think it’s a lesson Sheridan had to learn, as well, especially in terms of accepting himself.
Oh, yes, absolutely.
I think where you and I diverge in our assessment of the book is in terms of Olympia’s innate strength as a person.
Yes, it seems that way.
I think I see her as fundamentally less shallow or unstable as you do, thus the differences in the way we see her relationship with Sheridan
I wouldn’t say that I view Olympia as shallow. To the contrary, I see her as having a lot of depth. Just because a person is somewhat delusional and not a powerhouse in the self-confidence department, doesn’t mean that he or she is shallow. Not at all. I actually saw Olympia’s desire to be heroic as springing from a deep well of motives, which included her fears of not being worthwhile enough as well as her need to contribute to the world and make it a better place. I think there was a need to belong there, too, but that more than that, she was genuinely caring and wanted to help the people of Oriens.
I think that her attraction to Sheridan even when he was hurting her badly was also partly a sign of caring, that in addition to being drawn to his “heroism,” she saw some of his pain and wanted to heal him, and though I see this impulse as a sign of a lack of self-preservation, I can really empathize with all of this.
One of the brilliant things about this book, to me, was that at times I wanted to shake Olympia or even slap her for being so blind, but at the same time, Kinsale made me dread seeing Olympia get hurt, and when she did get hurt, it was wrenching to me. I don’t think I would have had such a strong response to the character if she hadn’t been portrayed with tremendous depth, so that she really came alive to me.
(it was also fascinating to me to see that revolutionary idealism—the kind that creates tremendous bloodshed all over the world—as borne of a certain kind of innocent and idealistic fervor).
I think that’s what revolutionary idealism is like. Even the horrific Fascism of Nazi was IMO born partly out of a fervid desire to make the world a better place.
I don’t want to suggest that Olympia will simply bounce back after a few months or anything
Then maybe we are more in agreement than we think.
she just surprised me many times during the book with her ability to deal with some pretty scary and potentially deadly situations, from the island, to the sultan, to Sheridan’s betrayals.
Yes, but that’s very different than dealing with what happened in Oriens.
I do, however, think that Sheridan will help her ultimately understand and accept that her comprehension of the full situation in Oriens could only come in hindsight, and that she must accept her dark side with the same ease she accepts Sheridan’s.
Yes, I know he will try, and I love that. But I think it’s a lot easier said than done. Most of us don’t accept our own dark sides as easily as we do the dark sides of those we love. We judge ourselves by a different standard, and Olympia had a very high standard for herself—she expected herself to be heroic.
I guess that’s one of the reasons STF is such a compelling book, because, as you said before, Kinsale really does take an unflinching look at the most extreme circumstances of that vulnerability.
It’s a compelling book for that reason and many other reasons. I wish it were a book I could reread without finding it so painful, and yet, if it weren’t so painful, it would not be making its points half so powerfully.
(it was also fascinating to me to see that revolutionary idealism—the kind that creates tremendous bloodshed all over the world—as borne of a certain kind of innocent and idealistic fervor).
“I think that’s what revolutionary idealism is like. Even the horrific Fascism of Nazi was IMO born partly out of a fervid desire to make the world a better place.”
Oh, I totally agree, but it is, IMO, rarely portrayed that way in Romantic fiction. I loved seeing how the abstract idealism of Rousseau and company shape and influence Olympia’s intellectual and political realities, and how the point of origin for her is so clear. I also thought it was fascinating that Sheridan eventually picked up the banner himself in wanting to be a “hero” in rescuing Olympia, despite his drive to rid her of such notions throughout most of the book. The way even he is not free of such idealism is one of the things that bonds them so profoundly, IMO.
“‘I don’t want to suggest that Olympia will simply bounce back after a few months or anything.’
‘Then maybe we are more in agreement than we think.’”
I think where we differ is in calculating the different proportions of factors influencing Olympia’s actions and therefore her chance at true happiness at the end of the novel. While I don’t think either of us imagine her waltzing with joy anytime in the near future (which would, IMO, defeat everything Kinsale is trying to set up in the book), I might be slightly more optimistic about their chances at closure and ultimate peace.
I’ve just been reading all the comments on this topic through again, and I’m very struck by how thought-provoking, funny … and sane the post and comments have been. There’s been no name-calling, no hair-pulling – and this despite the fact that many of the posters have very different views on the subject. This is a first for me.
So yay for SBTB and all the smart readers out there. I’m off to play a game I like to call ‘my imaginary PhD’ or what I would study if I had enough time and money. Current thesis title: historical accuracy in romantic fiction or (to quote Candy) WHY do heroes behaving badly have to rape?
Oops, meant to say “Nazi Germany.”
Oh, I totally agree, but it is, IMO, rarely portrayed that way in Romantic fiction.
Yes, as I said on AAR, I think idealism is usually romanticized or sometimes even glorified in Romantic fiction. The heroine’s naivete cures the hero of his cynicism. I love that here, Sheridan (and the world) cured Olympia of her idealism as much as she cured him of his cynicism.
I also thought it was fascinating that Sheridan eventually picked up the banner himself in wanting to be a “hero†in rescuing Olympia, despite his drive to rid her of such notions throughout most of the book. The way even he is not free of such idealism is one of the things that bonds them so profoundly, IMO.
It was also a sign that he was starting to believe in something again. I think most people have at least a smidgeon of idealism in them, and a sense of justice. I think even Sheridan has a sense of justice, he just doesn’t think there’s much justice in the world. At the end, when he says “If we all only got what we deserved… Pray God to spare me that,” I think he’s saying that justice for humankind would be a terrible thing, and that we should ask for mercy instead.
It’s a very dark world view, another thing you don’t see too often in Romantic fiction, or most other genre fiction, for that matter. I think genre fiction is based on justice prevailing, heroes winning, bad guys getting theirs – everyone getting what they deserved. This book dances away from such easy answers. Yes, Julia dies, an yes, Sheridan begins to heal, but it’s all messier and more painful than in most genre fiction. It comes at a high cost.
And usually, the revelation of the hero’s trauma or suffering would come much earlier in the story, so that we could watch him heal. Here, it gets dropped on us at the end. That Sheridan is finally able to talk about it is a huge thing, and very positive, but at the same time we, the readers, are left with this horror story very fresh in our minds.
This book does so many things that romances usually don’t do, yet it always keeps the love story at its core. I think it’s quite a feat. There’s so much to admire in it, and if I love four other Kinsales more, it’s because the others also have so much to say, also move me very deeply and bring me to tears, and because I get more reading pleasure out of them. Seize the Fire is more painful, but that’s as it should be, I think.
I think where we differ is in calculating the different proportions of factors influencing Olympia’s actions and therefore her chance at true happiness at the end of the novel. While I don’t think either of us imagine her waltzing with joy anytime in the near future (which would, IMO, defeat everything Kinsale is trying to set up in the book), I might be slightly more optimistic about their chances at closure and ultimate peace.
Yes, I agree with all that. And I too think that if Olympia were peppy or joyous at the end, it would defeat everything the book is about.
“And usually, the revelation of the hero’s trauma or suffering would come much earlier in the story, so that we could watch him heal. Here, it gets dropped on us at the end. That Sheridan is finally able to talk about it is a huge thing, and very positive, but at the same time we, the readers, are left with this horror story very fresh in our minds.”
I was thinking this morning about Prince of Midnight and its relationship to STF. Now there’s a book that many feel is very dark, although it follows more the structure you outline where the hero’s trauma is pre-existing to the book. EXCEPT, it seems to me that Leigh and S.T. compete for the traditional role of hero in that book. Despite everything, S.T. is still the romantic idealist, and Leigh is trying to beat that quality out of him. He’s reckless, although clearly not naive; despite his initial self-pity and isolation, he is soon determined to be a hero, pressing on in his pursuit of Leigh and her cause, even when she pushes him away again and again. He lands himself in a somewhat precarious situation in cultville, inadvertantly placing the lives of some of the young women there at stake (as well as his own). Death and destruction follows. And when S.T. goes back to his old dizziness, it’s Leigh, who had been, IMO, much less strong for all her hardness, who plays the idealist and pulls him out of his self-centered defeat.
Although there are many circumstantial differences between the book, which may ultimately account for the differences between STF and POM, POM does, IMO, present another take on the idealism/realism split and perhaps comes down more firmly on the side of idealism. Of course, perhaps it’s the fact that S.T. has already been through the fire, so to speak, that makes his idealism more “realistic,” but there are a number of points in the book where circumstances turned against his reckless bravado and he could have found himself and those he was trying to protect deep in the soup.
I don’t know where I’m going with all this, but our conversation about STF got me thinking a little more critically about the potential consequences of S.T.‘s romantic ideals.
Any thoughts?
Interesting subject. S.T.’s idealism never seemed as dangerous to me, perhaps because it felt more superficial than Olympia’s at first. He was quick to tell Leigh he loved her, even before he really knew her and truly loved her. There was a kind of glibness to his desire for heroism, at first, or so it seemed to me. It felt like he was at least partially stepping into his role as the Prince of Midnight, rather than being completely himself. It was like a mask that he hid his fears behind.
Leigh, of course, didn’t believe him at that point in the story. As the book progressed, I started to believe in S.T. more (and I think he was becoming more genuine), and started feeling more sympathy for him when Leigh didn’t believe in him as much as he needed her to.
I agree with you that The Prince of Midnight maybe comes down a bit more on the side of idealism than Seize the Fire, but it’s still a very dark book because Leigh has lost her entire family. But it ends on a sunnier note, and even in the epilogue (which I love), S.T. is teaching Leigh to be less practical.
One of the most interesting thing about The Prince of Midnight’s take on idealism and cynicism, is that it also plays with the traditional romance tropes by making the heroine the cynical one, and the hero the idealistic one. Kinsale does that again in For My Lady’s Heart.
In that book, you have the Ruck / Melnathe pairing where Melanthe is the more cynical, realistic one, and the Allegreto / Cara pairing which is more traditional in the sense that the male is the realist, but nontraditional in that he has to give up the woman he loves to someone more idealistic than himself.
I think the idealism / realism split in For My Lady’s Heart is fascinating too, and one of the things I find most interesting there is that the event that frees the characters to find happiness, Gian’s death, is a kind of senseless accident. I’ve heard a couple of people complain about that, but personally I love that aspect of the book. Had Ruck killed Gian, we would have had a much more traditional story in which the heroine is rescued by the hero, and her stark realism might have seemed excessive. I love that Kinsale doesn’t do that. Gian remains a kind of force of nature that the characters might never have been able to defeat with either idealism or realism. They luck out, and then have to deal with their differences.
There’s a similar discussion going on over at <style=“font-weight: bold;”>An Innocent A-Blog. Excellent commentary both there and here. Here’s my comment on both discussions:
In Margaret Atwood’s, “Rape Fantasies”, a story from the Dancing Girls collection (McClelland and Stewart, 1977), a group of women sitting around talk about their rape fantasies. The protagonist points out that they are missing the point: ” … you aren’t getting raped, it’s just some guy you haven’t met formally.” She describes a series of her own ‘rape fantasies’, in which the perpetrator is invariably inept, leaving her, in the end, disappointed.
Here’s one:
““All right, let me tell you one,” I said. “I’m walking down this dark street at night and this fellow comes up and grabs my arm. Now it so happens that I have a plastic lemon in my purse, you know how it always says you should carry a plastic lemon in your purse? I don’t really do it, I tried it once but the damned thing leaked all over my chequebook, but in this fantasy I have one and I say to him, “You’re intending to rape me, right?” And he nods, so I open my purse to get the plastic lemon, and I can’t find it! My purse is full of all this junk, Kleenex and cigarettes and my change purse and my lipstick and my driver’s licence, you know the kind of stuff; so I ask him to hold out his hands, like this, and I pile all this junk into them and down at the bottom there’s the plastic lemon, and I can’t get the top off. So I hand it to him and he’s very obliging, he twists the top off and hands it back to me, and I squirt him in the eye.”“
The story closes with this private musing: “… I think it would be better if you could get a conversation going. Like, how could a fellow do that to a person he’s just had a long conversation with, once you let them know you’re human, you have a life too, I don’t see how they could go ahead with it, right? I mean, I know it happens but I just don’t understand it, that’s the part I really don’t understand.”
The protagonist in Atwood’s story is confused, finding her own rape fantasies tepid and unsatisfying and not understanding why. In part it’s because she can imagine the setting but little of the plot: she can’t get past her need to issue stage directions. That’s because sex is not about stage directions. It’s not about posing so that your hair spills invitingly across your breasts (simultaneously concealing and inviting). It’s not about superstructures of leather and lace worn to be pulled off in acts of taking or tease. It’s not about ‘power exchange’, that clinical term favoured by those looking to be or beat a willing corpse. It’s not about ‘tops’ and ‘bottoms’. That’s all a tepid act, and one reason literary and performative sex is almost invariably self-parodying.
A good sex scene (not to mention good sex) should acknowledge that sex is a visceral assertion – against mortality, against enemies—but also toward them in a collision of contradictions made manifest in the moment. By exposing these contradictions, sex is also against the kinds of orderly or hackneyed stage directions the mind dreams up in efforts to deny or bury the body.
And rape fantasies? Although they leak out of the pages of so many torridly titled bodice rippers, they aren’t about sex any more than rape is. Rape fantasies are a (sadly) socially acceptable way of rationalizing and repressing the viscera, of perpetuating the stereotype that women lack viscera, that sex means being penetrated by others whose purpose is to enact urges we don’t ourselves possess. Describing women’s sexual fantasies as rape fantiasies is a misnomer, a subterfuge invented to make women’s sexual narratives conform to the social norm that women do not ourselves possess the visceral (and animal) sexual identies men are admitted to have. In my view they aren’t rape fantasies at all, but rather a denial of women’s sexual desire, a re-writing of the view once espoused by some radical feminists that all sex is equivalent to rape. In other words, criminalizing male sexual desire (in literature and in life) is preferable to admitting our own.
I am going to challenge the claim that women have rape fantasies at all. While women may fantasize about strong (or supplicant) males and various forms of power exchange, these are not fantasies about rape. They are half-admitted-and-half-buried narratives of female sexual desire, in which women are not yet quite able to take possession of our own desire and visceral power. I’d like to see some more ownership by women writers of female sexual identity, including all its contradictions.
“S.T.’s idealism never seemed as dangerous to me, perhaps because it felt more superficial than Olympia’s at first.”
Although I hate to say this, since it sounds like an insult to Kinsale (although it’s not meant that way), do you think that’s due in part to the gender difference? Because I felt the same way you did, even though S.T. did some REALLY reckless things in the book. But I think we’re really supposed to want his idealism to prevail, especially because Leigh is sooooooo cut off from herself and we see how damaged both she and S.T. are from the very beginning. I need to think more about this—and possibly read POM again, since it’s been a while—but it still seems to me that the gender switch might not be totally insignificant here.
“He was quick to tell Leigh he loved her, even before he really knew her and truly loved her.”
Yes, like Olympia did with Sheridan. Remember how she regrets that she wasted the words on him when she didn’t even know what it meant to love him, so that by the time she really means it, she feels that her declaration has lost its potency?
“There was a kind of glibness to his desire for heroism, at first, or so it seemed to me.”
Very true, but later it felt kind of desperate for me, especially when he robs the carriage.
“It felt like he was at least partially stepping into his role as the Prince of Midnight, rather than being completely himself. It was like a mask that he hid his fears behind.”
How do you think this differs from Olympia’s adoption of the heroic fantasies, especially if they’re in part a coping mechanism for her? Do you think he knew the difference whereas Olympia didn’t, or that he was simply better equipped to get out of trouble, or had a better handle on the outside world as it related to his self-concept? It’s interesting, because I think POM could have been a book as dark as STF. And while I’m so glad it isn’t (I love the epilogue, too, especially the way Kinsale tips her hat to John Lyons, both there and when he’s gentling Mistral), I’m not sure where to locate that crucial difference beyond the fact that S.T. may be idealistic, but he’s not naive. Perhaps that’s the toxic combination for Olympia, along with the fact that she cannot be anything but a political pawn for those more powerful. On one level, S.T.‘s lack of naivete makes Leigh’s disgust with his Romanticism more powerfully convincing, but we still don’t reject him as completely as she does, perhaps because the fact that he’s already been “broken,” makes his idealism deeper and more considered than Olympia’s, more fully earned and therefore safe to believe in. And yet he seems to lose it so easily when he comes back to England, as if it’s dependent on his physical well-being. I don’t know, but I think I need to re-read POM this weekend.
“I am going to challenge the claim that women have rape fantasies at all. While women may fantasize about strong (or supplicant) males and various forms of power exchange, these are not fantasies about rape. They are half-admitted-and-half-buried narratives of female sexual desire, in which women are not yet quite able to take possession of our own desire and visceral power. I’d like to see some more ownership by women writers of female sexual identity, including all its contradictions.”
Your comments, Amy, about the boundary breaking nature of sex reflect precisely the complexity of female sexuality and sexual desire, and make me ambivalent about discarding the term “rape fantasy.”
In the same way that Andrea Dworkin’s position on heterosexual sex as rape was simplistic, IMO saying that women don’t have rape fantasies at all is somewhat of an oversimplication. It’s certainly an oversimplication I’m sympathetic to, since I am very much on the side of liberating female sexuality from some of the more parochial restrictions we build-in to our sexual socialization, I do think that some women would very much defend the idea that they do have rape fantasies. Of course they’re not “rape” in any realistic sense, since the sex is consensual, at least in so far as someone is creating the scene with themselves as submissive in the fantasy. But I do think that the taboo of rape, the power differential, the sense of having no control (forgetting the irony of the fantasizer’s mind controlling the fantasy)is critical to the fantasy. It may be a revision of rape into a pleasurable experience, both for all I know, some women have rape fantasies and then mentally have their “attacker” arrested, tried, and convicted all as part of the fantasy. But in a more mainstream sense, I still think that the illicit connotation of the “rape” is, for some women, critical to the success and tantalizing effect of the fantasy. And if the point is to empower female sexuality, it may be that the conversion of something that in the real world makes women a victim but in the fantasy can yield a very different outcome may not be such a terrible thing. It may not reflect the ideal state of female sexuality, but echoing the answer that some people gave to my question about fantasizing about rape in a more equitable social environment, I think it’s possible to imagine that even in a world of totally liberated female sexuality that women might have “rape fantasies,” for reasons that might be the same or different than they are now.
IMO you are certainly right, though, in discussing the way that textualized sex limits and defines and confines and circumscribes and flattens, etc. the act and all of its attendant emotions (although I don’t necessarily agree that it’s all “self-parodying”), and in the case of Romance, that limitation is even more apparent, which is another reason I’m resistant to the idea of eliminating the rape fantasy category. For one thing, if you’ve read any Romance, espcially that written in the 80s, there is some actual RAPE in those books, completely above and beyond the rough sex some of us might argue over in other books. There is a tremendous continuum of sex in Romance, from rape of the heroine by men other than the hero, to SMBD fantasies, to so-called forced seduction, where the heroine seems ambivalent about her participation, to angry and punitive sex that the hero inflicts upon the heroine, to sex that is portrayed as rape but written in such a way as to clearly titillate the reader, and on and on. I don’t think in all cases that it’s about the subversion, sublimation, denial, or infantalization of female sexual desire. Sometimes it can be that, in the same way that sometimes it can be about the empowerment one gets from contolling the fantasy in their own mind in response to what they’re reading, and in the same way it can be about rewriting a scene of personal victimization so that one is no longer the victim. Absolutely I believe that women are, as a group, ambivalent about our sexuality. But I think the so-called rape fantasy can serve an empowering purpose, depending on the circumstances, depending on it’s origin, and depending on the relationship between the fantasy and the fantasizer. Same with other types of sexual fantasies, some of which place the woman either in the submissive or dominant position.
One thing only touched on in this discussion is the difference between a fantasy as it’s written by an author and a fantasy as it’s created in someone’s head, either spontaneously or in response to an author’s rendering of a certain sexual situation. IMO there’s a lot to unpack in that difference, and there’s where we’ll see a lot of what you’re talking about, right alongside a lot of other stuff that, as you say, embodies all the contradictions at the heart of trying to define something as complex as female sexuality.
“S.T.’s idealism never seemed as dangerous to me, perhaps because it felt more superficial than Olympia’s at first.”
Although I hate to say this, since it sounds like an insult to Kinsale (although it’s not meant that way), do you think that’s due in part to the gender difference? Because I felt the same way you did, even though S.T. did some REALLY reckless things in the book. But I think we’re really supposed to want his idealism to prevail, especially because Leigh is sooooooo cut off from herself and we see how damaged both she and S.T. are from the very beginning. I need to think more about this—and possibly read POM again, since it’s been a while—but it still seems to me that the gender switch might not be totally insignificant here.
Well, it’s been a long time since I reread POM, but to me it doesn’t sound like an insult to Kinsale, because I’ve always thought that she intended S.T.’s idealism in the beginning of the book to be more superficial than Olympia’s. Olympia was really fervent, whereas early on in POM, S.T. seemed like he was to some degree bringing out a canned speech that he hadn’t truly thought about. So for me, to say that is actually a compliment to Kinsale’s skill.
“He was quick to tell Leigh he loved her, even before he really knew her and truly loved her.”
Yes, like Olympia did with Sheridan. Remember how she regrets that she wasted the words on him when she didn’t even know what it meant to love him, so that by the time she really means it, she feels that her declaration has lost its potency?
Good point, I had forgotten that. But, here’s the difference. S.T. had said those words to other women before, and the sense I got from the book was that he mainly used those words as an opening for an exchange in which he traded his glamour and fame for sex and, at most, affection that was as superficial as his words. I don’t think (though I could be wrong) that Olympia had said those words to anyone before she said them to Sheridan. She certainly didn’t say them to a lot of men. And I think it’s fair to suggest that the more people you say “I love you” in the romantic sense to, the cheaper it seems to an observer.
“There was a kind of glibness to his desire for heroism, at first, or so it seemed to me.”
Very true, but later it felt kind of desperate for me, especially when he robs the carriage.
Yes, well, there were two things going on. His heroism had been his stock in trade, and he wanted to regain his celebrity. I think (though as it’s been a while since I’ve read the book, I could be mistaken) that it was the closest thing to love he’d had, so even though it wasn’t love, he wanted it back. He also wanted to regain his success. The other thing was that as he came to genuinely love Leigh, he really wanted to be a hero for her sake. It became his way of wanting to prove his love. But that was later on. It’s in the beginning of the book that he seems glib to me.
To be continued in my next post.
“It felt like he was at least partially stepping into his role as the Prince of Midnight, rather than being completely himself. It was like a mask that he hid his fears behind.”
How do you think this differs from Olympia’s adoption of the heroic fantasies, especially if they’re in part a coping mechanism for her? Do you think he knew the difference whereas Olympia didn’t, or that he was simply better equipped to get out of trouble, or had a better handle on the outside world as it related to his self-concept? It’s interesting, because I think POM could have been a book as dark as STF. And while I’m so glad it isn’t (I love the epilogue, too, especially the way Kinsale tips her hat to John Lyons, both there and when he’s gentling Mistral), I’m not sure where to locate that crucial difference beyond the fact that S.T. may be idealistic, but he’s not naive.
I think that’s a lot of it! He has the life experience to know better, and isn’t as young as Olympia, so for that reason, we judge them differently. S.T. also has a bit of an ulterior motive early on. He wants to get into Leigh’s pants. Both he and Olympia want to bolster their self-image IMO, but in Olympia’s case there are fewer defenses. As much as Leigh hurts S.T., it never feels to me like she takes advantage of him. In STF, I feel that Sheridan is taking advantage of Olympia’s naivete and blindness. Sheridan is too emotionally wounded to be able to do better, and therefore I forgive him, but I feel that taking advantage of Olympia is almost like conning a disabled person. It’s very hard to watch.
I do also feel that S.T. is better equipped to get out of trouble, but I’m not sure he had a better handle on the outside world as it related to his self-concept. He needs the adulation of strangers to feel good about himself, so he’s not that different from Olympia. It’s interesting to compare them to Samuel in TSATS. Samuel also has a messed up self-concept in the beginning, but yet his brand of heroism is done in secret. He doesn’t need the outside world to tell him he’s okay, but not because he knows he’s okay. He still looks for outside approval, only from Dojun, and the Ashlands. It appears that Kinsale is really exploring the whole issue of self-concept in those three books, and to some degree, in FFTS also. Jervaulx is almost the reverse of S.T.: someone who holds on to his self-concept no matter what the outside world has to say about him.
On one level, S.T.’s lack of naivete makes Leigh’s disgust with his Romanticism more powerfully convincing, but we still don’t reject him as completely as she does, perhaps because the fact that he’s already been “broken,†makes his idealism deeper and more considered than Olympia’s, more fully earned and therefore safe to believe in. And yet he seems to lose it so easily when he comes back to England, as if it’s dependent on his physical well-being. I don’t know, but I think I need to re-read POM this weekend.
I’m not sure that S.T.’s idealism seemed deeper or more considered than Olympia’s to me. Maybe a little. I have to think about that more.
Hey, LFL, I’m going to re-read POM this weekend and then email you my response to your post. Samuel, by the way, is a very interesting counterpoint, as is Jervaulx.
Good idea, Robin. We’ve hijacked this thread long enough. 🙂
I think there’s a lot of really well-thought out analysis on the subject of rape in romance, but one thing keeps me from buying any of them: The authors.
The notion that the woman who wrote about rape and rapist heroes was brilliantly commenting on the political climate of the day, or that she was providing therapy to her readers by reconciling masculine and feminine attitudes towards sex just boggles my mind. Or even that she was doing this unconsciously—I just don’t buy it.
I think the reason there is so many ideas about rape and the rapist hero in novels and why women like it is because, just like the convultions a writer would have to go through to make the rapist hero into a bonafide hero, we are trying to make sense of something that is really, really basic. We are jumping through hoops trying to find a socially acceptable reason for rapist heroes and the women who love them.
It’s taboo, it’s sex, people mix taboo and sex all the time because it increases their level of pleasure. Because it’s dangerous. Danger is sexy. Someone wrote about how men love guns and killing. That’s dangerous, that’s sexy.
Rape is definitely a taboo and a fear of women, far more than men. Of course authors would chose that method of making sex dangerous—and thus increasing the reader’s pleasure.
At the time rape was this fuzzy thing that happened to bad girls. Most readers at the time probably had a hazy notion of what rape was and didn’t have any clue about the very traumatic repercussions of rape. Now they do, so rape isn’t sexy anymore.
Most readers at the time probably had a hazy notion of what rape was and didn’t have any clue about the very traumatic repercussions of rape. Now they do, so rape isn’t sexy anymore.
This reminds me of an article I read a while back about a serial rapist up in Washington who was scaring all the women senseless in the early 80s. Some radio station interviewed the local police chief about what the women could do to defend themselves. And the police chief jokingly said something like “Not much you can, ladies. Just sit back and enjoy the ride.”
Callousness and tasteless humor aside, a lot of people back then still view rape as violent sex, not sexual violence, with the idea that if a woman had enjoyed sex before with other men, or if she encouraged the advances right up to before the rape, that it somehow made the rape OK. So you have a great point, Ammie.
Like you, I’m not sure I buy into the idea of romance authors in the 70s consciously or unconsciously attempting to reconcile the conflicted attitudes about sex, but I think their writing certainly reflects the conflicted attitudes, and then nosy biddies like us come along and go “Look at that, now—isn’t THAT interest?” And author intention doesn’t necessarily factor much into literary analysis, anyway. After all, Flannery O’Connor insisted to her dying day that her bizarre, violent stories were about the grace of God and nothing else, and now there’s all this scholarship viewing her stories as anything BUT about grace. I’m with you, though: the rape was there for titillation, and in my opinion, as a lazy sort of shorthand to indicate what a very manly man the hero was. But that doesn’t necessarily mean that all that other squirrelly crap wasn’t in there too.
Hm. I’ve always liked rape fantasies. I haven’t always been comfortable with that fact, as I was raised by two ‘60’s era feminists, but have become more so as I aged and learned more with the help of my wonderful spouse.
I think that one reason I do is that I regret having remained a virgin for so long. I converted to a very conservative form of Christianity at age 13 (just when the hormones start buzzing) and ended up deconverting at age 26, a year after I got married. I also was very interested in sex and read a lot of romance novels and non-fiction research into sexual behavior, but felt guilty about my liking these horrible “unGodly” things. I actually went through phases where I’d throw away or get rid of my romance novels, and then give in and buy more/read more months later.
It’s possible, of course, that they influenced my sexual development. I would now describe myself as a BDSM female submissive, after some hard thinking and work to resolve who I am. While it’s still challenging to integrate, as I am also a committed feminist, I have no problem accepting that I find being tied up and “forced” into things I already want to be incredibly arousing and sexy.
My spouse doesn’t find coercion as sexy as I do. That’s okay. My spouse isn’t me. You aren’t me, either. At least I hope not, because if you are, you’re wearing my underwear.