While 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.
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?
Um, right back at you?
Isn’t there a bit of irony there? Telling a certain size of women to fuck off just for being that size?
I hate to disturb the lovefest here, but I wouldn’t say the average woman is a 10 or larger. Around here, the 6s and 8s disappear from stores first while the 0s, 2s, 14s and 16s hang out forever. Medium really is still medium, at least in Eastern MA.
Well, everybody comes in different shapes and sizes. Just like colors and such. Depending on which part of the country you live in, how much money you have, genetics, and what your race/ethnicity is will play a part in your shape and size. What you eat and how much you exercise of course influences your size, but there are many other factors that contribute to it.
My favorite book of all time is Bridget Jones. She seemed to be like most women. I am not skinny, but I don’t hate skinny people. I am me, and for the most part, I’m ok with me.
Kwana, I am hispanic, and I wish there were some latin inspired love stories. There is nothing really for us I think.
Principessa,
That sounds like a short story by Angela Carter, called “The Tiger’s Bride.” It’s a Beauty and the Beast retelling and it appears in the anthology The Bloody Chamber. Does the first line “My father lost me to The Beast at cards” sound familiar? It’s not technically a romance or a novel, but it’s quite sexy and romantic and might be what you’re remembering.
I think the fact that this topic is being responded by so many says that “Yes we the readers are tired of having all our H/h homogonilized”. But thank you for all the posts who pointed out that there are novels out there with not quite perfect H/h in story lines that mention it but don’t make it the focal point. (Russ from Miller’s Kill, Stan from Troubleshooters)
I think that novels of ethnic women are still under rated in the whole mainstream. (If a mainstream author has an ethnic female character they normally have some European blood, so their features (and skin tone) are “watered down’. I want to read a well written story about a woman who reminds me of the co-workers I had who not only were plus sized, but knew themselves to be beautiful because of it. I don’t see novels of strong Hispanic characters that show the richness of their culture. Or the Asian culture, (I went to buy seasonings for an Asian inspired meal the other day, and the women were BEAUTIFUL, petite with fine features but we don’t see those in romances. Historical romances focus normally on European History/White America history unless they feature the “Noble Savage” which is just as bad.
The true diversity of beauty has been lost is what I am seeing.
And that is a shame.
ooh, the Noble Savage historical romance is the worst! I would also love to see more ethnicities with less stereotyping. And I also don’t love the skin that is the color of a macchiato skim double whip with extra honey. Coffee colored skin, along with milky and creamy – time to let those descriptions go. I’m open to any eye color, including violet, it is of course over used, but hey – variety. Yellow eyes do exist, kbrum, outside of Romancelandia, but like violet – or green, for that matter – uncommon. But back to the SVH for a moment, the thing that bugged me the most was not the perfect size six or the aquamarine eyes, although those were bothersome, but the lavaliers, or whatever the hell the necklaces they wore were called. Why was the jewelry they wore so damn important?
Hale to Claire Fraser in the Outlander series, pushing 60 and still considered hot.
Late to the party (as usual), but I do have a few things to say. First, I grew up reading in the pre-romance novel revolution era (i.e., before SWEET SAVAGE LOVE, the first “bodice-ripper,” published in the 1970s). I read a wide variety of books—classics, mysteries, gothics, “chaste” romances—and encountered a wide variety of female characters (not always “heroines,” but important characters in the book), which convinced me that women didn’t have to be perfect to be loved. When I used to encounter the “perfect” heroines in so many early romance novels, it was eye-rolling time (but, to be fair, the heroes were all unrealistic physically too). I’ve been very glad over the last decade or so that our heroines have reflected different sizes, shapes, colors, beliefs, and backgrounds. I think it’s indicative of the wide range of people reading and writing romances.
Also, when I was 13 years old, I read GONE WITH THE WIND. On the first page, there is a reference to Scarlett’s 17-inch waist line. I KNEW I was never going to be that woman!
This is a very interesting topic. I’ve tried to figure out where my standards of beauty have come from for a while now.
I used to have very low self-esteem (still do, but not nearly as bad as it was).I’ve never had weight problems. I’ve always had a fast metabolism and I’ve always been either a size one or two. My problem was with my face. I thought it was hideous. Sometimes I still think it is, but most of the time I feel average, sometimes even pretty.
The main thing that messed me up was puberty—I had pimples, frizzy brown hair, braces, glasses, and basically the appearance of a complete geek. During those years, I’d always have daydreams about myself being much more good-looking than I was. The person in my daydreams looked a lot like me, but, you know, better.
After I got rid of the frizzy hair, the braces, the glasses, and the skin problems, I STILL didn’t look the way I imagined myself in my head, and I really couldn’t figure out why. The image I had of myself DEFINITELY looked a lot like me, but she still looked better for some reason!
One day, I finally got myself to seriously try to analyze my face and compare it to the image I wanted. It took a while for me to realize that the girl I was picturing had eyes much larger than my real ones. They were the same shape and color, but undeniably bigger. My nose also didn’t have a bump the way it does in real life.
I was pretty shocked and confused when I realized these differences, because I hadn’t even been AWARE that I was adjusting my features this way in my imagination. I never had anyone tell me “big eyes look better than small eyes” or “noses with bumps are ugly” and yet, I still changed those things in my mind.
To this day, I still have no idea where this ideals came from. Maybe it’s because most of the girls I thought were pretty in real life tended to have these features. Maybe it was all them Disney princesses with their huge eyes and cute, small noses. Maybe it’s just my personal preference. I have no idea.
This might be a bit of a departure, but actually, I don’t like it when romance novels have unconventional-looking heroines but the heroes are still OMG I WANT HER when he first sees her (because I don’t like it generally when the hero is like OMG I WANT HER when he first sees her anyway). It means that the focus is still on physical attraction, rather than building up to attraction based on all sorts of things that are (imo) more valuable.
It’s just a personal preference, I guess, since if you’re really looking for a funsexytime novel, physical attraction is super important, whereas I really like stories that focus on people growing to love each other over time. To be honest, I could care less if they even end up having sex or not. (Most Heyer novels, I think, barely even feature a kiss, which is part of why I like them.)
So what I’m saying is that, actually, I wish there were less emphasis on the body/looks period. I’d love a novel that generally ignored everyone’s bodies/looks except where it was crucial. Because, ultimately, the body is not our most important aspect, and self-love can transcend bodily love.
But I could go on about that for a while…
Sort of a tangent, but I have to correct something DiscoDollyDeb wrote. Sweet Savage Love was not the first real bodice ripper. It was published in 1974. The first real bodice ripper, the embodiment of the asshat hero who serial rapes the heroine who falls for him anyway, and the pioneer of what we know of as the modern romance novel is Kathleen E. Woodiwiss’ Flame and the Flower, published in 1972.
From Wikipedia:
I learned way more about sex from that book than the embarrassing and completely vague pamphlets my Mom gave me (which was her one and only attempt at sex ed; here! take these!) At 12, it totally rocked my world and I probably read it about 20 times. But it also set a pretty bad impression for a 12 year old girl and it kind of screwed up my worldview on men and relationships.
@robinjn: Yes, I agree that THE FLAME AND THE FLOWER was published first, but it did not make the huge impact on the culture as a whole that SWEET SAVAGE LOVE did. It was after SSL that the floodgates (in more ways than one) were opened.
I always think it’s interesting that SWEET SAVAGE LOVE and Erica Jong’s FEAR OF FLYING were published so close together and both presented very new and very sexualized ways of writing for and about (and by) women, but today Erica Jong’s book is really little more than a footnote, but almost every woman “of a certain age” (and you can tell by my screen name that I are one) remembers SSL or, at least, her first “bodice ripper.”
Spam filter: work73—I’m so old that I was actually working in 1973. Oh well, it was only babysitting—but, hey, it was a paying gig.
What Ridley said. I’m a size 4, I’m 40 and have had two babies but I enjoy reading about all sizes, colors, shapes and breeds. I read for the emotion and story not for a physical description of a heroine. I usually agree with the bitchery here but this thread was a bit insulting.
However, I must admit that I would NEVER buy a book about an overweight hero with a comb over. I do have some standards 😉
Could you send me some titles from the 90’s with the small breasted women? I’m a cup size A unless I go on a diet and can reduce the fat around my lungs and get a size 36, then I’m a B. Either way, after looking at my Dad’s playboys as a young girl, my breast size is a huge disappointment.
Currently, I’m reading an older Christie Ridgeway novel, The Perfect Kiss?, and am having a challenge relating to the heroine who’s magnificent and huge breasts keep getting mentioned along with her tiny waist which isn’t mentioned quite as often. I keep picturing the heroine with boobs practically in her face and bursting out of their confines. It’s distracting.
But I will give Ms. Ridgeway credit, because the first book I read of hers “First Comes Love” has a heroine with teeny breasts. So, at least she’s covering a range of body/booby types.
Anybody remember the Sweet Valley High book with the fat girl who got tired of being teased, so every day after school she ran around and around on the track, and all the other kids gathered to watch her do it, till one day (like a week later) she was not fat anymore, and then everyone clapped and cheered and loved her all of a sudden, and she became popular and (it is implied) never had to exercise again?
That was the last SVH book I ever read. o_O
Also, I agree with everyone who said variety of H/h and less obsession about physical perfection is the way to go.
I also think (and somebody might have said this already, can’t remember) that what we each perceive as ‘stereotyped’ or ‘overdone’ in romance novels might depend at least in part on our own appearance, perceptions, and/or hangups. For example, someone said they’re tired of reading about short heroines with large breasts. I’m 5’1” and DDD, and I get annoyed because the heroine is always taller than me, and even when she’s described as having “large” breasts, they turn out to be B cups, or C at the most. So I feel like the opposite is happening. 🙂