Seeing Yourself and Seeing Perfection: Changing Standards of Beauty in Romance

Body ShopWhile I was gazing at my own navel the other day (and the stretch marks along side of it) I started thinking about where my own standard of beauty originated, and how the romances I read may have influenced my concept of the female ideal. What, you don’t think about that while getting dressed? OK, it was more along the lines of, “My chest wouldn’t fit in a single one of those bodices without ripping,” but that spun out into standards and ideals.

I think there’s good and bad parts to the female standard in romance novels. Among the good parts: sexual agency, self-actualization and discovery, physical and emotional achievement, and generally winning at the end, plus orgasms and being appreciated for who one is, without requirements that one change to fit another’s world view. Also, orgasms.

And most goodest among the good: a somewhat slowly but still changing tendency

toward

away from youth, virginity, thinness, and the ideal pictured on the cover. The old standard, alas, was very troublesome to me.

My first encounters with female beauty in books was, as @joyabella noted when I asked this question on Twitter, the Wakefield twins. So many women found their gateway to romance in Sweet Valley High, and that gateway came with the constantly repeated and thus unfortunately inculcated reference to the “perfect size six figure.”

First, let me say on behalf of every woman with breasts and a backside: Fuck you and your six.

Anything other than a six, obviously, was imperfect. And I have never in my life been a size six. Well, maybe when I WAS six, but since then? Not hardly.

In romances, there was slightly more variety, as I recall. The standard of beauty present in romances is changing, but back when I started reading romances in the 90s, there was a very set standard of thin, tall, lithe, hairless perfection with small breasts, long hair, and, judging by the covers, technicolor eyeshadow.

Among the things I most remember about romance heroines back in the day was on the fact that they all had perfect breasts and “gently rounded stomachs.” First, what does that mean? And second, what are perfect breasts? I read once that the perfect breast should fit in a champagne glass.

I immediately pictured this and thought, OW.

Champagne Glass

But that was all part of the romance standard of female beauty at the time: small perky breasts, long thin legs, that ever-so-clever ability to fit into boy’s clothing (hips not too big, breasts either, and no booty to speak of, either) and hairless legs, too.

Since then, since reading a lot more romances in varied sub-genres, and since growing up and developing what author Keri Ford called “my own ideas of beauty,” I’ve learned that not only is the old-skool female ideal of beauty utter hogwash, but that there’s a new and varied concept of beauty in romances, a shift I really like.

The heroines I used to read about when I first found the genre are quite different from the heroines published today, and I thank all available sweet bippys for that. Now, the heroines can be older, which I love. Plus, I have seen curvy heroines, heroines with grey hair, stretch marks, physical differences and various changes to their physical characters that back in the day I would not have seen. Flawless and perfect have given way to realistic variety.

I love it when I find the differences, those things that break from perfection. For me it underscores the happy ending that the hero and heroine are perfect for each other, and aren’t reflections of external perfection. From heroines post-mastectomy to heroines who had babies as teenagers and face physical changes from long-ago childbirth, I really love the differences, and the breaks from that irritating, offensive defined ideal. I love reading about real women, not unrealistic paragons of physical perfection. As Tara Quicksaid, “all types of bodies are loved.”

I love that romance’s definition of female beauty is becoming less strict – and I wish I could give good examples without them being somewhat spoilerific.  I like reading about heroines with physical traits that they see as flaws which trip them up and cause them no end of angst and worry, until they are loved exactly as they are. The change in romance’s subtext seems wrapped up in that change in point of view: the heroines doesn’t have to adopt the hero’s entire worldview. But she often accepts and celebrates his view of her, which may be different from her view of herself. His perception changes her view that she is awesome as she is, and she sees the awesomesauce in herself that he recognized.

Or, as Christie Ridgway said, “Romances have reinforced the wisdom I’ve gained over years of interaction with men: their idea of beauty is not strict.”

What standards of beauty have you noticed, back then or right now? (NOTE: please mark as a spoiler if revealing the character points you mention are part of the plot.) Do you notice the changing heroines? Has romance reading affected your concept of yourself?

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Random Musings

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  1. Aimelynn says:

    Just a side note, did you ladies know that they have rereleased SVH books for today’s teens? They are the same stories, but have been updated so that they are more modern. However, I almost threw my laptop out the window when I read the excert on the Amazon page and it refers to the twins being a “perfect size 4.” Are you fucking kidding me??!! So a “perfect size 6” wasn’t perfect enough??!!  Grrrr.

    http://www.amazon.com/Sweet-Valley-High-Double-Love/dp/0440422620/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1294084708&sr=8-1

  2. Buffy says:

    Mary Balogh is pretty decent at providing a variety in both her heroines and heros. I don’t recall that she’s ever written about a plump heroine, but I do know she’s written about women who were described, or described themselves, as plain. Simply Love features a war hero who is missing and arm and is severely scarred.

    Laura Kinsale is also good at providing some variety in her heroines. In general the heros still tend to be quite attractive, but still have decent character flaws which make them more human.

    Julie Garwood was a romance novelist a favored when I was in my late teens. Reading her books now is like reading the same novel over and over again. Petite, beautiful heroines, who are stubborn and naive. Massively built Scottish warriors in kilts, who end up completely bowled over by this gorgeous little spitfire.

    It’s also interesting to note that as I’ve aged, my tastes in romance has changed. I favor specific authors because they avoid the 17 year old virgin and the 35 year old Earl. I prefer to read about the 30 year old widow persuing the 37 year old Earl for an affair, which turns into a love story.

  3. Anony Miss says:

    Awesome article and comment thread, all.

    @Susanna Fraser who said…

    (Books actually written in such eras get a pass—e.g. Anne Shirley is allowed to stress about her hair!)

    AND did you notice that her ideal of feminine beauty, her BFF Diana, is always beautiful and ALWAYS OVERWEIGHT, even when they were little girls and much more so after she gets married? Loved that growing up.

    And I wanted Anne’s hair.

    I’m currently wading through the Outlander books (the first one was a free Kindle book for a while! The next two were on sale! I couldn’t help it!) and I give mad, mad props to Gabaldon for not only her wide-tuchas heroine (who is often teased by her husband for having a non-fashionable but very desirable backside), but the constant smelly and hairy details that in no way detract from the couple’s incredible passion but do make it a lot more Real.

    Okay, no one’s romantic life is really that awesome, that often, but anyone who can write that she curled up next to his armpit hair has my vote.

    Security word: not39 – correct. Gabaldon’s heroine is pushing 48 in the current book (book 3 of 8, jeepers!)

  4. Donna says:

    The only heroine I can’t stomach is the TSTL. Stupid outweighs looks any day

    What Vivien said. And Marguerite. I don’t think I could say it any better. 
    I’m happy romantic heroines are a little more realistic.  Keeps me from having to rewrite them in my head. Which I used to do A LOT.
    I read a report once about how when men describe their wives/girlfriends it reflects how she looked when they developed feelings for her, not so much how she looks presently. Explains why my father still described mom as a red head 30 years after it faded to that funny brown some redheads turn after child birth… Lesson: no matter what, they see the woman they fell in love with. And isn’t that sweet?

  5. Barb says:

    Thanks for the great topic.  And have I got the author for you—Betty Neels!  Yes, deal ole’ Betty—she of English Nurse/ Rich Dutch Doctor fame.  Her heroines were often short, plain (only redeeming feature being their ‘fine eyes’), their hair was often mousy and fine, they were often plump.  Even her tall, beautiful gals were noted for their “splendid” figures—they were happy to find something in a size 14! The villainesses are the ones with stick-like bodies(translation-perfect size 6) and a tendency to look like a Vogue model.
    @Katrina—I hear you sister! Substitute Hawaii for Southern California and we could be twins.  The number of times I overheard, from undoubtedly well-meaning relatives, ‘she has such a nice face, if she could only lose weight, she would be pretty!” Gah!!!

  6. Donna says:

    Oh, and the too wide for beauty thing… I always read that as a euphemism for what it wasn’t too wide for… 😉

  7. Daisy Harris says:

    I have absolutely no recollection of reading the Sweet Valley High books, and yet the size six thing sounds oddly familiar. Worst part for me was that my mother WAS a perfect size six. Like, she could order things out of catalogues and they would fit! I, on the other hand was a 12 on top and a 8 on the bottom. Yes- YAY to variety! There’s something for everyone in this big awesome world!

  8. Kristen A. says:

    There was a time when the ideal was small breasts?  Not skinny-with-big-breasts, but actual fit in a champagne glass (the right kind)?  I swear, in the only book I’ve ever read when breasts not being too big was mentioned as a good thing, the heroine was still a B cup.  Isn’t that the most common cup size?  Average isn’t small!  Small is getting measured for your costume at the community theatre and having the guy taking the bust measurement ask “Where is it?”  I manage to be my weight and have hips by conveniently storing the fat that was supposed to go into my breats there.  Six is the biggest size I’ve ever worn.  I’m short; what can I say?

    Of course, if the small breasted ideal is one from back in the day, with my luck it probably coincides with the days that were rapetastic.  I’d rather have consent than be able to identify with the heroine physically.

  9. jayhjay says:

    I will admit to also having a pet peeve on the eye color an earlier posted mentioned.  I swear in 38 years I have NEVER seen a person with violet eyes.  Yet I have probably read 10 romance novels featuring them.  Do people really have purple eyes? Forget about the abounding emerald and piercing blue! 

    And as I redhead, I must add that I am always amused at the portrayal of redheads as wacky or fiery or in some other way wild.  Not that I don’t have a temper on occasion…. 😉

  10. henofthewoods says:

    I actually know (not well) a supermodel. In real life (off MTV) – she isn’t that noticeable. If I had not been told “she’s a SUPERMODEL” I would not have guessed modeling as her career at all. (She is too nice for that.)

    So – she gave me a dress that she thought would fit me. I floated for a week. For some reason it was incredibly flattering that she had noticed what I look like enough to give me this dress, especially since it does fit perfectly.

    Just want to point out that there may not even be 8 supermodels – instead there is good make-up and camera work that show off how interesting any human really is and clothing that makes someone feel like they are stunning.

  11. Kerrie says:

    The perfect heroines from the 80s and 90s certainly warped my sense of self-image, but I was also a teenager which is a very impressionable time. The perfection that always jumped out at me was – Creamy thighs during the Tudor period? Did she shave? And with WHAT? Not to mention that special almond-scented paste that seemed to crop up in Bertrice Small’s books. Where could I get my hands on that?

    I don’t see how those perfect heroines can affect anyone who isn’t going through adolescence, unless there are some self-esteem issues going on into adulthood. The perfection of these heroines is entertaining in all its eye-rolling ridiculousness. When I read a romance I want to laugh and gasp at the crazy OTTWTFery of it all – hence my tendency to stick with the Old Skool bodicerippers!

  12. Fiamma says:

    HAHAHA Love this post and it is timely. I was just discussing with my hubby the lack of female superheroes and he mentioned Wonder Woman. I said to him, we need more than that.  We need another Sidney from Alias or bring Eve Dallas to the screen. For that genre I want a savvy, sexy female whose boob size and long lashes are irrelevant.
    I always hated overly detailed descriptions of main characters and how they always had the perfect body and features. I also loathe clothing overload, yes Laurell K Hamilton, I mean you.
    I wrote a novel where the heroine is short, 39 yrs old, voluptuous with dark green eyes and dark red velvet colored hair. But more importantly, she can kick the crap out of bad guys, which is her line of work, and has the scars to prove it. Never once did it occur to me to give her a “size” and gush about her beauty. I figure readers should interpret the character how they wanted with the amount of scattered detail I give you. Voluptuous is perceived differently among people, see: model Gisele Budchen who was called that, so knock yourselves out.

  13. Cassie says:

    Don’t kill me, but the heroine of my latest Big Idea is even less than a six. Of course, she is (at this point) seventeen, in a medieval fantasy setting, and was never wealthy, so yeah, skinny with small boobs makes sense. She fills out some as she gets older and, uh, gets used to three squares a day.

    What’s even sadder than that perfect six? Knowing that our culture has gone down several sizes from there in terms of “perfection”—and there’s just not far to go before you hit anorexic proportions. I speak, unfortunately, from a lot of experience there.

    @Susanna Fraser—hell to the YES about hot bald men. 😀 Tamora Pierce’s Wyldon of Cavall comes to mind.

    I like atypical heroes and heroines in general, in fact. I particularly love LM Montgomery’s “The Blue Castle” for giving us leads who are thirty and thirty-six-ish (too lazy to look it up), not ravishing according to the fashions of their day, and oh, how I adore this most of all, working-class. This was before big-R Romance, I’ll grant you, so let me also give you a modern example: Camille from Edith Layton’s “To Tempt a Bride”. She’s built sturdy, with an average-to-hourglass figure (I picture a nice, solid size ten), brown hair, and brown eyes. She’s refreshingly blunt, and though she sometimes laments being a bit of a country girl, she doesn’t try to change herself in any way.

    The object of her desire, by the way? Tall, brawny, blonde… and still has bouts of malaria now and then. I had never actually seen a hero in less than perfect health until this one.

    So there is hope!

    (trouble58: yes, that’s my mother, all right, still trouble at fifty-eight. ^_^)

  14. Maria says:

    Heroes… Please don’t make my hero average. He doesn’t have to be tall, or over-endowed, but he can NOT be overweight or wimpy, physically or emotionally. He can (maybe even should) be flawed, again physically and/or emotionally.

    One of my recent favorites was a western with a deaf hero (and a school teacher heroine, of course) “A Hearing Heart” by Bonnie Dee. But if he’d been pudgy, I’d never have forgiven her.

    Sorry. If I want reality, I’ll read the paper—NOT a romance book. 

    I’m with the other commenters who could do with less physical description of both heroes and heroines. A brief sketch at the beginning, maybe a reminder of this or that at an appropriate moment, let us readers conjure the rest. If we didn’t have imaginations, we’d be watching TV instead of reading.

  15. kathleen B. says:

    I loved Laura Kinsale’s chunky heroine in Flowers in the Storm and that is an oldie. By the way, I wear a 6, but a 10 feels so good that I buy a 12. 🙂

  16. Inez Kelley says:

    I loved Laura Kinsale’s chunky heroine in Flowers in the Storm and that is an oldie. By the way, I wear a 6, but a 10 feels so good that I buy a 12. 🙂

    Oh, I like you!

  17. robinjn says:

    For the heroes, the whole washboard abs thing just bugs the heck out of me. In order to get “washboard abs” a guy has to work super, super hard at it. He not only must be doing incredibly strenuous ab-centric work on a very regular basis, but his body fat must be at about 10% or less, which is pretty difficult even for guys to attain and maintain. And I hate to say it but on some of these male romance cover models, it looks weird and overdone to me. Like they have rodents nestling under there or something. Heck, even Michaelangelo’s David was not near as “cut” as some these dudes.

    And if you look at photos of renown “muscle men” of the late 19th and early 20th century, they look, well, flabby in a lot of cases. I just don’t think even active guys back then were often quite so sculpted.

    I actually really like Laura Ann Gilman’s Retriever’s series Sergei is older, just the beginning of a gut, and has some real issues, as does Wren. It’s a lovely change from Mr. and Ms. Perfection.

  18. AmberG says:

    Oh, the Wakefield twins. How often did I torment myself staring miserably in the mirror at my dull brown hair, brown eyes, shortness and overweight body as a teen. Far more time wasted on that nonsense than I care to admit. I will always be short and overweight, and my hair will always be untamable by anything except the crazy hairstyles my mom’s hairdresser invented for me. I love that man, and I love the hairstyles, but they will never allow my hair to fall to my waist and swing there like a perfect silk curtain or whatever. Short and spiky is the best I can manage.

    For all that, by the time I consciously got into reading romance, most of the women I was reading weren’t perfect. And looking back, the romances that I didn’t realize were romances also had flaws. Maybe they had ridiculously lovely bodies, but they were flawed in other ways. Or maybe they were fat and STILL ridiculously pretty, which I think I didn’t really appreciate until I consciously picked up my first bunch of romances. But the majority of the romance I read growing up did not have “perfect” anyones. Looking back at the effect of the Twins, I guess i’m lucky, since that sort of thing really does hit a teenager in all the sore spots.

    I have to say though, breast size… never mattered. Oh sure, i’ve heard the champagne glass comparison, or that “more than a handful is a waste”. I’ve also heard “the bigger, the better” and other such things. It’s been clear to me since I was very young that it literally didn’t matter, since the population of males seems fairly equally split. I always wondered why women make such a big deal of it when men never seem to.

  19. Trudy says:

    when someone loves you madly, you might feel as lovely as you’d think a supermodel might feel.  my son says there’s a lot of guys out there that like rubenesque women.  and he is stud gorgeous. it’s all in the eye of the beholder…and the writer. i’d say my biggest problem is thinking most real men have heroic tendencies – and it’s crushing when they don’t.

  20. Claire says:

    While a discussion of female bodies/body image in romance is a very important one to have, lately I’ve been pondering the hero’s common physic (broad shoulders, lean hips, long legs, greek god nose, etc.) and how that has impacted my ideas about the desired physical state of my male counterpart.

    Like so may other woman in the world, my man is not a romance hero… He is short, chubby, fuzzy, balding and a little pigeon toed… but I love him with all my heart.  So whenever I read about the classic romance male and have a little ‘oh yeah baby, turn around, deliver the package’ moment I start to feel conflicted.  Does this attraction towards broad shoulders and lean waists mean I physically love my man less?  Does my enjoyment of a little bit of squish in my man mean I’m missing something that romance is trying to tell me about?  Sometimes i’ll get myself all up in a tizzy about him losing 5-10 lbs., when really, who is that helping?  Any man i’ve ever known with the heros physic sucked… too concerned with themselves and in their charms by far… and I’m not saying that my man would ever act like that, but I’ve always preferred people who spend time on their brains instead of their bods.  For me, he is my perfect romance hero… sorta.  Does that ‘sorta’ mean I’m slowly sabotaging my relationship?  Has romance done me wrong?

    Are there any romances with a stockier hero?  Will I ever run out of questions?

    Sorry if this is out of turn, but its been on my mind lately and this seemed like the best place to let it loose.

  21. like every woman on this planet, they never look in the mirror and think hey, I’m gorgeous.

    This reminded me of something I read recently in Leslie Wainger’s Writing a Romance Novel for Dummies (Hoboken, NJ: Wiley, 2004):

    Overlooking her own great looks
    Don’t let your heroine realize she’s beautiful. This tip may seem like a small point, but especially in our visually driven society, it’s actually an important one. Most women are very critical of their own appearances. I look in the mirror and see flaw after flaw, not my good points – even though I know I have them! (61)

    I find this advice problematic because it seems to me that it’s unlikely to encourage writers to create heroines who both challenge current beauty ideals and also “see themselves and see perfection.”

    It seems to me that reading novel after novel in which a heroine criticises her own appearance normalises that and encourages women to look “at ourselves and each other […] like sections of prime meat” in order to find fault with ourselves and with other women’s bodies. In this sort of context, any woman who thinks “I’m gorgeous” or “I’m beautiful” is likely to thought unwomanly and/or vain and I don’t think it’s a coincidence that in romances evil villainesses have often been women who are confident about their looks.

    I’m not sure this is really mitigated by the presence of heroes who love their not-ideally-beautiful heroine and find her sexy despite/because of how she looks. That can just give the impression that he sees her “through the eyes of love.” In other words, it can read as though it’s great for her that he can’t see her flaws/doesn’t consider her flaws to be flaws, but the implication often seems to be that this is because he’s an exceptional/ideal man/the perfect man for her, not because the beauty ideal was wrong/limited and she really is beautiful.

  22. Overlooking her own great looks
    Don’t let your heroine realize she’s beautiful. This tip may seem like a small point, but especially in our visually driven society, it’s actually an important one. Most women are very critical of their own appearances. I look in the mirror and see flaw after flaw, not my good points – even though I know I have them! (61)

    I don’t quite agree with this, either.  I’ve too often seen it written as a heroine who finds some ridiculous thing to hate about herself—along the lines of “OMG, my hair is just too long and blonde!”—leaving me wondering what she’d think of herself if she were, say, ME, and had ordinary brown hair and eyes, a weight problem, and still got the occasional zit despite having left her teens far behind.

    I do think almost all women are self-conscious about some aspect of their appearance, and maybe that’s all Wainger means…but if a heroine is going to be pretty, I’d rather have her know it without being too vain about it and have other areas of struggle and self-doubt, or even have to fight to be taken seriously for her brains and abilities in a world that judges on looks.  Heck, I’ve experienced that without being a raving beauty just by having men be shocked, shocked! that someone with long hair and big boobs can intelligently discuss baseball or military history.

  23. kytten says:

    This couldn’t have come at a better time, as I embark on my new healthy eating/fitness regime.

    When I was younger 15-20 I fit into that 80’s romance novel heroine mould. Creamy skin, small high breasts, slim hips. No-one ever looked twice at me, so having women like that desired all over the shop actually did a lot to bolster my faltering self-esteem.

    towards the end of that period my hips dropped out and I gained a little weight. I became bulimic.

    To be honest, I had a huge fantasy novel habit, and the women in 80’s fantasy did my mental image of myself more damage than romance ever did. There were these women with these incredibly curvy yet muscular figures that would be impossible for anyone other than 10% of women to achieve, olet alone in most fantasy settings. Or practical for fantasy careers, and to a certain extent I think I internalised ‘if starving peasants/lithe and stealthy assassins can basically be shaped like the figure eight and have g cups yet only 10% body fat WHY CAN’T I.”

    It has taken me a long time to get my relationship with my body to a stage where I want to take care of itto make it strong, rather than to focus on making it beautiful by societies standards, and as I am currently overweight it is hard to be happy with myself. The simple fact remains that no amount of overweight heroines is going to make me feel better about mistreating my body for the last year and a half.

  24. Kathleen says:

    The “champagne breasts” description might come from the urban legend that Marie Antoinette breast’s were used as the model for the saucer type glasses.

    http://www.snopes.com/business/origins/champagne.asp

  25. I’ve too often seen it written as a heroine who finds some ridiculous thing to hate about herself—along the lines of “OMG, my hair is just too long and blonde!”—leaving me wondering what she’d think of herself if she were, say, ME, and had ordinary brown hair and eyes, a weight problem, and still got the occasional zit despite having left her teens far behind.

    Susanna, here’s the rest of the quote from Wainger:

    Most romance heroines are quite attractive, but if all your heroine does is admire her own beauty, readers aren’t able to identify with her. So, instead of working your heroine’s description into the story through her point of view, let the reader see her through the hero’s eyes. After all, no one can object if he finds her beautiful. Giving her a flaw or two doesn’t hurt either. Maybe her hair is a beautiful shade of red but has a tendency to frizz in the humidity, or maybe she needs glasses to read. Little touches like these make her more human and easier for the reader to empathize with.

    To me that begins by making the point that no-one will identify with a vain person who’s fixated on her own beauty, which seems fair enough. However, Wainger does seem to be suggesting that authors should write about “attractive” heroines who feel bad about some minor aspect of their appearances. It’s not quite as bad as “OMG, my hair is just too long and blonde!” but it seems to come pretty close to it. Scenes like this (and I’ve read quite a lot of them in romances) seem to me to reinforce the idea that this minor thing is, actually a “flaw” rather than a perfectly acceptable, and possibly even beautiful part of the heroine’s appearance.

  26. Rebecca says:

    Responding to Rebecca Rogers Maher upthread, who asked about ways to convey an image without physical description: Yes, it is possible.  One of my favorite compliments to my writing was when someone asked me if the main (male) character in a series was handsome.  “Because I’ve read all the books, and basically he’s just described as tall.”  “Do you think he’s handsome?” I asked.  “Oh, yeah, I think he’s hot,” she replied.  I completely agreed with her, and apparently managed to get that across without too much physical description.  If everyone in the room turns their head toward the heroine when she walks in, and the women are jealous and the men are admiring, then who needs to mention how tall she is or what color her eyes are (and who could see that in a ballroom anyway)? 

    Think about Elizabeth Bennet in Pride and Prejudice.  She has a “lighter” figure than her sister Jane (who is generally considered the pretty one), and she has “remarkably fine eyes.”  That’s it.  But everyone has an image of her, and no one doubts that she’s lovely.

    Re: the size six/size four thing: I hate to say this, but if the SVH twins actually had the same physical dimensions now that they had in the 1980s they would have gone from a 6 to a 2.  (In fact, I teach high school students, and many of my younger girls wear size 0 or size 2, because they are still not fully grown, and women’s clothing sizes have shrunk so much.)  I’ve remained the SAME weight and size for the last ten years or so, and have watched my clothing size steadily shrink from a 12 to a 10 to an 8 (and now occasionally even a 6).  And these are clothes bought from the SAME stores over a period of years.  My mother has an old pair of “size 12” shorts that are almost too tight for me to wear, and definitely larger than today’s size 8.  European measurements in centimeters are far more honest.  But American sizes bear witness to a nation in denial about obesity.

  27. JJ says:

    Awesome post! Best part is the unanimous call for the everyday – and different in every way – heroines. I was out of high school before I realized men (not boys) look for sexy, not size. It took a while, but I came to believe that you can be sexy no matter what you’re working with, you just need to let yourself and everyone else know about Teh Sexxy. And I didn’t feel truly sexy until I finally believed my hubby when he said I was hawt sauce – sometimes you need someone else to see it before you can too. It helps to read about real women, and men who find them totally sexable, like Crusie’s Min and any other heroine who has a ‘flaw’ they can flaunt.

  28. jayhjay says:

    For the heroes, the whole washboard abs thing just bugs the heck out of me. In order to get “washboard abs” a guy has to work super, super hard at it. He not only must be doing incredibly strenuous ab-centric work on a very regular basis, but his body fat must be at about 10% or less, which is pretty difficult even for guys to attain and maintain. And I hate to say it but on some of these male romance cover models, it looks weird and overdone to me. Like they have rodents nestling under there or something. Heck, even Michaelangelo’s David was not near as “cut” as some these dudes.

    Yes, I love how these assorted Dukes and Earls get washboard abs from doing absolutely NO PHYSICAL ACTIVITY WHATSOEVER!  I mean, horseback riding will give you great thighs and probably keep you generally toned, but no washboard abs and bulging shoulders.  What are these guys doing all day that is giving them these bodies?  Especially when you think about all the alcohol they consume and rich food they eat at all these balls.

    Hee hee to the nesting rodents!

  29. Diatryma says:

    I promise I will read the comments later.  In a hurry—

    I think that reading romances helps with body image because once the heroine has been described once or twice, that’s it.  I get most of my stories from reading, so I don’t have the constant reinforcement of what bodies should look like—if I don’t pay perfect attention to the first chapter, I probably don’t have more than a sort of smudge for anyone in the book. 

    Then again, I really, really don’t pay attention to anything but the blindingly obvious.  In some books, I can’t remember who’s black and who’s white (and in those books, it matters hugely—I’ve probably forgotten in others where it doesn’t.)  In a more recent book, I had trouble keeping track of who was *human*.

  30. FranW says:

    @Kwana: “Now if only they can come a little faster…”

    I had to re-read your comment because, yeah, I totally got the wrong idea the first time.

  31. Jennifer Armintrout says:

    I recently wrote a fat heroine in a historical erotic romance that I did under my pseudonym, and someone made the comment on my blog that it was a shame because she’d had such high hopes for my pseudonym.  I thought, “Wait, what does that mean?”  We can’t all walk around complaining about the ideal, but dooming anything that challenges that ideal to failure.

    Not on the topic of weight, but still a body expectation topic, why do historical romances either take pains to describe how the heroine denudes herself of hair, or refer to her legs as smooth, as though no hair grows on them?  I’m reading one where they woman is being taken to the King because the hero committed treason, and she’s caked in filth and riding all day long and she’s uncertain of her fate or her husband’s fate, but she uses the blade of a dagger to shave her legs in a stream.  Is the eradication of all female body hair really that freaking important when your husband might be hanged, drawn and quartered?

  32. Mama Nice says:

    Thank you for this article and the reminder – in this season of resolutions – that one of my top resolutions should be to love myself as I am.

    That being said, one of the things I really like about Crusie’s heroines that I didn’t notice until the 3rd one I read – was she’s actually rather vague concerning the size of the heroine (unless it’s a plot point, like Min in Bet Me or the divorced woman who was starving herself in Fast Women (hope that’s the right title!). With books like Welcome To Temptation, Faking It and even the recent ghost story – the actual size and appearance of the heroine is not dwelled upon, at least not in the usual orgy of description common to many romance novels. We get some basics, and a comment here or there that hint that the heroine is no size 6, but other than that – there’s plenty of room for the reader to fill in the gaps on their own.

  33. Jennifer Armintrout says:

    I don’t see how those perfect heroines can affect anyone who isn’t going through adolescence, unless there are some self-esteem issues going on into adulthood.

    Kerrie, I think you’d be hard pressed to find an adult woman in the western world who doesn’t have self-esteem issues into adulthood that are directly related to body image.  You’ll probably hear a lot of, “I don’t have a problem with self-esteem, I just want to lose another ten pounds.  FOR MY HEALTH.”  But we all know that’s bullshit.  If we all truly wanted to lose weight for our health, we wouldn’t have commercials for diet pills and foods that talk about making healthy choices while showing slender women wistfully holding up the perfect slinky dress, only to twirl victoriously in it by the commercial’s end.

  34. Lisa says:

    Just my quick 2 cents…

    I grew up with a mother who wanted me to be skinny. The books I read all featured beautiful, perfect women who either had rich men willing to look after them or were just hugely accomplished in their field. At that age 10 – 12, this was both inspiring in some ways but hugely depressing in others as I was nowhere close to beautiful or perfect and I had no confidence whatsover in my potential to be successful.

    Betty Neels saved me. At a time when I was becoming increasingly miserable and when my escape into the fantasy of books just kept renforcing my shortcomings, her books gave me whole new perspective on love. That you didn’t have to be the most beautiful person in the room with the big title or big money. That just being kind, compassionate, having a good heart and caring about others could get you your happily ever after.

    After that, the spell was broken 🙂 A perfect girl just became a girl and not a veiled pot-shot at me, lol. I ignored parts of stories that mad me feel bad, embraced the parts that made me feel good.. and basically fell in love with reading all over again.

  35. Lisa says:

    @ Laura Vivanco/ Susana Fraser

    Elizabeth Lowell’s Desert Rain features a heroine called Holly who, under her professional name of Shannon, is a supermodel. (It’s not a great book upon rereading, but I loved it as a college student). Holly is completely confident in her looks, although as some people have pointed out, she’s unremarkable when not working. The hero has mistrust of beautiful women, and I remember her either saying to him or thinking about him while in her plainer guise, “You have no idea how beautiful I can be.”

    Now, am I a stunningly gorgeous supermodel? Not even close. But I really liked Holly’s honest acknowledgment of her looks. I mean, she’s a supermodel, for goodness sake. I would have been really annoyed with a heroine recognized the globe over as stunningly gorgeous who couldn’t stop obsessing about her moderately asymmetrical boobs. That would have seemed more vain to me than a heroine who said “Yeah, I’m beautiful. But I’m insecure about other areas of my life, like my intelligence or my relationships.”

  36. orangehands says:

    Ah, the Wakefield twins beauty. The “beauty perfection” did more damage to my writing than my self-esteem. Most of the writing I did in elementary school/middle school had – within the first three pages – a paragraph describing my protagonist, from the hair and eyes down to the smallest physical detail. She was usually browner, bigger, and taller than the twins, but my god did I manage to match those description lengths word for word. And yep, they sounded just as stupid in my writing as they did in those books.

    While the visual hold-up of beauty has done damage to my self-esteem and body image, romance (and books in general) have not. I managed to come into an age of romance where there was a growing trend to being different: short, fat, not milk white, etc. However, I do think romances have affected how I look at and react to male bodies more than visual mediums. The muscles (oh, those abs of whatever handy metal is on their planet), the height, etc. Men in visual mediums had a lot more options to be different (I can name, for example, twenty male actors easily who are fat guys, and can maybe get to five female actors), but in books they are – no matter how ridiculous – the same 6’2, handsome man with a disturbingly long Mighty Wang. (Seriously, the penis size on these men is just wrong. Twelve inches is not attractive, its painful. Just read a Linda Howard for proof there.)

    Barb & Katrina: Oh hell yes. Add another one from So Cal who got the “such a nice face, you’d be so pretty if you weren’t fat” comment. I agree with whoever said it up above – people did more damage than anything I read. (Though visual mediums really did a damn big number too.)

  37. Kristen A. says:

    I find this advice problematic because it seems to me that it’s unlikely to encourage writers to create heroines who both challenge current beauty ideals and also “see themselves and see perfection.”

    I think that what bothers me about it is that too often, the heroine is the only one who *doesn’t* think of herself as beautiful.  It’s not enough that the hero thinks she is.  She might think that she’s too tall, too curvy, too short, or too flat.  But when every single guy in the book thinks she’s hot stuff, how am I supposed to think that she’s anything other than an unrealistic ideal?  People have different tastes.  She can be sex on legs for the hero without making me think that guys do double takes when she walks down the street.

    Same “tastes differ” thing regarding the hero.  I’m all about the hot bald/balding men, too.  And the short men in my family have the prettiest wives.  Most of them about the same heights as their husbands.  The prettiest one routinely wears heels that make her taller than her husband.  I’m with my S.O. in spite of the fact that I have to stretch a bit to kiss him, not because of it.  And he’s average height.

  38. Josie says:

    Ladies, do you think you might be taking this a bit too seriously?

    NOBODY looks like the heroines in romance novels. Even movie stars don’t. (For that matter, off screen, even movie stars don’t look like movie stars.)

    This is just as true for men who never look like the heroes as it is for women who don’t look like the heroines.

    If your self image is truly shattered by your failure to live up to a fantasy image (and this isn’t just all so much rhetoric), you have far more problems than they way the latest Avon heroine is described.

  39. Amanda says:

    Growing up, it wasn’t the skinny heroines who bothered me so much, but the fact that “tiny” was considered attractive.  I knew I could be thin if I really tried (or if I ever became coordinated enough to run a mile without tripping my own feet,) but I knew I would never be small.  And even the “tall” heroines were able to snuggle their heads into the hero’s chest!  I’ve been six feet tall since I was 15 years old.  It became very clear to me very quickly that I could never have a HEA because there is a distinct shortage of 6’10” men.  (Unless you live in a Nordic region where average height is 6’5” or something.)  It was, to say the least, depressing.

    Then I read a book that was called “Cinderella school” or something similar.  I remember it wasn’t a very good book, but the cover and title were dull enough that I could get it home from the library without too many questions from my mom.  The best part though, was that both the main characters were 6 feet tall, and the hero loved it because she was perfect height for easy kissing.  There was hope for me yet!

    And as it turns out, it’s true.  Much easier to sneak kissing in when there are no tiptoes involved!

  40. Maria says:

    Great Topic 🙂

    I like romance novels where the descriptions of the heroine and the hero are kept to a minimum because it lets me fill in the gaps with what I imagine they look like. That doesn’t mean that I don’t like the ones with a variety of body types, ethnicities, etc. Sometimes though, physical descriptions can go to far, like being reminded on almost every page of a main character’s tawny (or violet etc) eyes. There were several things I loved about Chase’s Scandal, so much so that I was giving a running commentary to my sister in law as I read, occasionally reading parts out loud to her while we were driving down south for Christmas. But, I started to get really annoyed every time Dain put his huge hands around Jess’ tiny waist.

    @Megs: OMGosh I read every Nancy Drew I could get my hands on from about 5th grade to 7th grade. I always wanted to know what togs were. In high school I was 5’8” and about 120 lbs and trust me when I say I had no breasts to speak of. I was teased mercilessly for it. I used to look down my shirt and say, “are you ever going to grow?” I’m just a little bit overweight now, but I almost don’t want to lose it because I know my girls will be the first thing to go.

    A long time ago I commented on a forum on amazon about HEA’s in historical’s always including a title and money. I think the point I wanted to make, but couldn’t articulate is the same point about body types here. I’d rather see variety instead of the same thing over and over. Try eating cheese pizza every day for the rest of your life. If someone came by years later and offered you broccoli, even if you didn’t like it, you’d probably accept it just so you didn’t have to eat cheese pizza again that day.

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