Purity’s Passion by Janette Seymour, a Guest Review by RedHeadedGirl

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by SB Sarah | November 11, 2010 | Thursday at 2:00 pm | 140 Comments

C-

Title: Purity's Passion
Author: Janette Seymour
Publication Info: Pocket 1977
ISBN: 978-0671810368
Genre: Historical: European

Well. That was…unpleasant.

I’m done with the 1970s-early 1980s OG Old School. That was one of the most unpleasant reading experiences I’ve ever had, and I read The Phantom of Manhattan. I finished it because I was kind of interested in where this story would end (and how much shit can be heaped upon the head of the heroine), and I have a finely developed case of trainwreck syndrome. (Also, my copy didn’t stink, so that helped.)

I’m having a really hard time coming up with a Letter Grade, because I’ve read worse, and I’ve read better. I had a more entertaining time reading Passion’s Bold Fire than this, but Purity’s Passion wasn’t badly written, not by a long shot. I just hated reading it. But it doesn’t deserve an F. I’m going to call it a qualified C-.

The heroine is Purity, whose beauty and fine young body drive men wild. She is born in France on the eve of the French revolution, the daughter of the bailiff on the estate of the Marquis de Fayelle. When she is about 8 or so, the French Revolution shows up on the doorstep and kills almost everyone in the chateau. Purity witnesses all of it.

And it’s pretty clear what kind of a book this is when a woman begs for the life of her lover, and in exchange, goes to the bed of the riot leader, and finds herself orgasmically enjoying the rape.

It’s pretty awful.

So Purity is rescued from a life of poverty in France by Mark Landless (you can tell he’s the hero because the cover copy says he’s the hero) (Also he has a scar on his face that does not mar his hotness), and brought to Bath where he is her guardian. The reason Mark comes for her is because the Marquise was his cousin, and Purity’s father tried to help the Marquise escape from the evil Marquis, and Mark swore to take care of the bailiff’s family, or something. He did a bang up job, considering the bailiff and his wife were murdered by the French Revolution. If you think this makes no goddamn sense, you would be right.

Anyway, in the course of the next 8 years or so, Purity falls in Girlish Infatuation with Mark, and makes him the Ugliest Tea Cozy In The World, which he tosses into the fireplace (not realizing she made it) and she is packed off to an upper class, ladies boarding school. In her dorm, the other girls have found porn, and, as happens in all these stories, start experimenting in all ways that they can without losing their all-important virginity. They make a pact to tell each other everything about their sexual exploits.

In the course of all of this, Purity meets Freddy, a wastrel younger son who thinks she’s very pretty. At one point, to discourage his attentions, she shoves him in a fountain.

The lead Mean Girl, Phillida, hauls up the mentally deficient son of the gardener to experiment with, and when he is in bed with one of the girls, he rapes her and she eventually kills herself due to her loss of virtue. Purity is disgusted by all of this, and refusing to tell them about Freddy, so for her punishment, she is tied to her bed hand and foot. The Mean Girl tells her she is going to let the gardener’s son have his way with her.

Yeah.

One of the other girls knocks over a candle and unties Purity, she runs home to Mark, to find him in the process of screwing a maid, and she flies into a rage and goes to Freddy’s house, where she tells him she will marry him, and they go to bed. Mark is like, “Hey ’grats on the wedding, see you there.” After the wedding (where he is cold and indifferent) he goes off with the Army to go fight Napoleon.

And on the wedding night she discovers that Freddy is a sadistic rapist who beats her and ravishes her every night, he’s in serious debt and only married her to make his rich great-aunt happy so the rich great aunt wouldn’t disinherit him. At some point, she runs into this 18-year-old soldier who was about to leave for a rendezvous with fate at Trafalgar, so she very generously has sex with him so he need not die a virgin.

Her coachman saw all of this go down, and blackmails Purity into screwing him many many times to keep him from telling her evil husband. Purity falls pregnant, and doesn’t know who the father is- it might be the young soldier or it might be the coachman- but it’s definitely not her husband. The coachman takes her to a midwife who gives her an abortificant, and in the process the coachman gets killed by a Plot Mob.

Purity doesn’t take the abortificant, and the rich great aunt realizes she is pregnant and is so thrilled she confirms Freddy as her heir. Freddy is fine with the fact that he’s not the father, until his cousins overhear Purity telling him that she doesn’t know who the father is, they promptly go tell the great aunt, and Freddy beats the shit out of Purity, rapes her (again), and she loses the baby and….he dies, somehow.

He owes a crap ton of money to everyone in the world, so she’s left with nothing, so she heads off to go find a job, because going home to Mark and his slutty screwing of the maids is not acceptable. This does not work well, since she went to a ladies finishing school and knows NOTHING about ANYTHING. She gets picked up by a woman who offers her a “position” as a “ladies maid” to a “family” but really it’s a position “on her back” as a “high-class whore” to “men who can afford the fee.” Purity runs out of the house, nekkid, and is picked up by Alastair Monmouth, who does “stuff” but is also pretty clearly a hypnotist. He hypnotizes her into taking a bunch of men to her bed. She knows that she did all these things, but had no control over herself when doing them. The men, I mean.

The shit hits the fan when Mean Girl from boarding school shows up at the same time as Mark (who showed up because Hypnotist is a war criminal) and Mean Girl throws all this crap in Purity’s face- hypnotist was using her as part of the payment to get these men to do things to further his Evil War Criminal Agenda. Mark is completely enraged that Purity would fuck men at Monmouth’s command and rapes her as she’s shrieking “Don’t rape me, Mark! Please don’t rape me!”

We’re at the midpoint of the book, and let us tot it up: Purity has had consensual sex twice, been raped by six men (two of them multiple times), and nearly raped by a seventh.

So she runs away from Monmouth and finds a Gypsy man that she knew in her previous term of homelessness, and he nearly dies in a prizefight, and while he is in recovery, they trek to Wales and become lovers. After a year or so, the Gypsy leaves her, and she goes back to Mark’s house in Bath with the intent of confronting him. And saying that she now knows what she had for him was just Girlish Infatuation, but now that he’s raped her and she went off on a Gypsy hermitage for a year, she’s forgiven him and loves him. And if he’s still angry with her for all the things that weren’t really her fault, that’s fine, she’ll leave. Mark has resigned from the Army and spent the past year looking for her, because he realized that Raping The Woman You Love Is Bad.

Oh, well, then. Good for him.

Turns out, Purity is not the daughter of the bailiff at the chateau in France, she was the daughter of the Marquise and some dandy at Versailles, and was smuggled out to be raised by the bailiff and his wife. And the Marquise was the childhood sweetheart of Mark, who fell in love with her daughter (That’s Purity), and was angry at the Marquise because he never got to have sex with her, so he took it out on Purity.

As long as he can identify his anger, or something.

So they get married, he rejoins the Army to defeat Napoleon once and for all, and she follows him to the Iberian Peninsula. Where who should show up while Mark is away killing Frenchies but Monmouth, who tells Purity that he has proof that Mark let him get out of the country ahead of a charge of High Treason, because of her, thus committing high treason himself, and in order to get possession of that evidence (a letter), she must allow him to fuck her in her marriage bed.

So she does, many times (because he can set a world record for turnaround time). And then in the morning, he tells her that Mark wouldn’t be so stupid has to put that kind of offer in writing, Monmouth just wanted to fuck her while she was in her full possession of her senses. And then Monmouth leaves and Mark comes home and it’s all good, except for this whole shame thing she’s got going on, and Monmouth shows up as the guest of honor at a dinner party they were invited to. Monmouth tells Mark EVERYTHING, all the depraved stuff he got Purity to do, Mark kills Monmouth in a duel and Purity is like “well fuck this noise” and goes back to the Chateau where she grew up and whips all the peasants into shape.

Mark goes on to Waterloo, where he finds a bunch of French POWs that are also Purity’s Peasants, and finds her and they run into each other’s arms and… curtain.

Okay, so there’s a lot to unpack here. And I really can’t separate the fact that I am a woman in 2010 reading this, with the benefits provided to me by second and third wave feminism, the fact that I live with an activist whose primary goals are ending rape and promoting healthy sexuality (I’ve learned a lot from her), and just the changes in perceptions of women’s sexuality that has happened in the 30 years since this book has been written. In addition to all of that, there has been several sea changes in the romance genre since the 1970s. I can’t look at this book in the context in which it was written; because that’s not the context I read it in.

This is about as subjective as you can get. I admit that.

First and foremost is all the rape. ALL THE RAPE. Seven rapists (three may not have know she was not consenting to sex with them, but we’re looking at her POV), including the hero. Six near-rapes I can think of. Four partners consensually, two of which raped her before or after she consented. It’s seriously fucked up.

And even when she is having consensual sex, the author talks about the men “taking her.” As if she’s not really active in the sex. Even in the case of the Gypsy dude, where he’s broken and battered and “not yet a real man” she goes to him and offers herself for him to take. The lesson here is passivity in all encounters.

(I am SO SO glad I was reading Zoe Archer’s Scoundrel on my iPod during my commute to school while reading this book at bedtime. Archer knows how to write a heroine that knows what she wants from sex and life and is an active participant in both. Sometimes even the instigator. Thank you, Zoe, you may have saved my sanity.)

We have several tropes of female sexuality here, and they are all disturbing. First, there’s Purity herself, who is only allowed to be a passive recipient. She’s cursed with having this body that drives men wild (says so on the cover copy) and the only man that could bring her to orgasm (I think… if I’m reading the 70s euphemisms right) was Mark, until Monmouth comes along (and comes, and comes, and comes- shortest turnaround time known to man, for real) and he deliberately brings her to orgasm several times because that’s the revenge on Mark that he wanted. (Instead of flinging herself off a mountain, she’s flinging herself into a pit of perfect despair. I don’t even know.)

The second trope is “those women who embrace their sexuality are evil whores” and we see this is Mean Girl Phillida. She was the one who organized the whole “let’s experiment with the porn!” thing, and she’s presented as mean, conniving, evil, and without morals- she’ll screw anything that moves. She told Purity that she fucked Mark just to make Purity upset. She told Mark about Monmouth being Purity’s pimp and being a war criminal, and gets killed but Monmouth’s men on the way (and tries to fuck her way out of it, and fails).

The other girls from boarding school we run into both die as a result of sex- one I previously mentioned killed herself because she couldn’t prove her virginity to prospective in-laws, and the other becomes a low-class whore Purity runs into while with the Army in Portugal, and dies of the pox.

Purity’s own mother is said to have Purity’s same problem- her body just drives men crazy and they can’t help but fuck her, but Purity’s mother didn’t have the same strength of character or whatever that Purity has. I really don’t know what that means, except maybe Purity refusing to “give her heart” to any man but Mark is strength of character? I mean, her other options were to give heart to one of her many rapists, so….

Oh, wait.

I know this seems kind of disingenuous, since I liked Magnus from Season of the Sun (to an extent), yet I want Mark dead. But I do. I hated all the men in this book. I feel bad for Purity because her author give her nothing- not a backbone, not a personality, not a talent, not a scrap of luck, nothing. Hot guy with scar doesn’t make all this better.

Here’s another thing, and I don’t know if it’s a OG Old School issue, or just a result of my small sample size, but there’s no flesh to the character of Mark at ALL. He’s this guy who stalks in an out of the story with a stony expression, and sometimes Purity thinks wistfully about him (or gets mad at him for screwing the maids. In fact, she’s more mad at him for screwing the maids than she is mad at him for raping her), but there’s nothing about what he thinks, or feels, or wants. I mentioned in my review of Adora I want a romance to be a story about a relationship. Yes, they tend to be more about the heroine than the hero, but the hero has to have something to him other than a scar. This is all Purity’s story, not their story, and we have no idea what makes him tick, or why she loves him, or why he loves her. They do, because the story requires them to love each other.

But really, I want to have some words with the author, because who puts her heroine through all this shit? Seriously? And to have the end be “and they run across the field into each other’s arms to swelling orchestral music” and THAT IS IT? No conclusion to what happened with Monmouth? Does Mark know about the blackmail or not? WHY IS THE DANGLING END OF THIS ANNOYING THREAD BOTHERING ME.

The argument of “IT’S HISTORICALLY ACCURATE OKAY” doesn’t really fly with me, or at least, not when the abuse of your main character is this thorough. You don’t have to put your heroine through all of this shit. You don’t have to make your hero a cardboard cutout with a scar on his face. You can make your characters likeable, even with all the abuse and horror (okay, that’s more of a dig at Bertrice Small, I admit that Purity was sort of likeable, if you like your friends rather dim). You can be historically accurate and not make the reading experience so miserable.

On a more shallow note, the writing was, on the whole, not bad. It wasn’t as over-wrought as Bertrice Small, (can you tell I really don’t like her?) and the dialogue sounded like the author had at least listened to how people talk (and then mixed it with a more formal “this is how people in Olden Times talked”). However, and this is another convention of the 70s, I’m pretty sure, while there was a LOT of sex (like a LOT), it’s not explicitly described. There are a lot of mountains of pure bliss, and jumping off mountains, and taking, but no specifics. Even when Monmouth is making her do all these depraved things, she revolts at his “most outrageous demand,” and he offers to get his servant to make her do it…. But I have no idea what that could be. Oral on him? Oral on her? Anal? Did they know about heterosexual anal in the 70s? Watersports? SERIOUSLY THIS DEMAND WHAT IS IT I NEED TO KNOW.

I know that the mores of how explicit a sex scene can be has changed over the past 40 years- I think we were talking in the Book Club Discussion in September about how nothing is complete without anal anymore, whereas about 20 years ago, the idea of her going down on him was like, DIRTY. I can’t be the only one that’s read The Pearl, the Victorian magazine of erotica. For the time, the stories are rather lewd, but not as graphic as they could be. And as I was reading the section of Purity’s Passion that takes place in the boarding school, it almost seemed like I was reading a cleaned up version of Victorian porn.

Someone in the comments of the Season of the Sun review talked about how these OG Old School books with all the rape are more like forced orgasm fantasies. Which, if the main audience for this type of book is women who are just old enough to feel like they missed the Sexual Revolution, and are still stuck in the idea that active enjoyment of sex is something forbidden, then yes, I can accept that argument. It makes me incredibly sad, that this is one of the few acceptable places where women’s sexuality is even up for discussion, and even then it’s all passive reception on the woman’s part. You are allowed to enjoy it, as long as you didn’t initiate it, and you’re not an active participant.

My own theory on rape fantasies is that part of the attraction is that the onus of the active portion of the sex on the top, so if the bottom has no idea what they are doing, it’s okay. This is a completely unscientific theory, and does not, obviously, apply to everyone.

Here’s something that’s been turning over in my head for the past week: In the time these were written, by women for women, we, as a society, were still deep in the throes of putting the onus of preventing rape on women (“She shouldn’t have been wearing that short skirt” and “Well what the hell did she expect, being in a bar and having fun”) and still defining rape as unwanted sex that the woman resisted “to the utmost.” (You want an exercise in Rage? Look at the Model Penal Code’s suggestions on what rape statutes should be like. And then thank your lucky stars that very few jurisdictions even considered them). Anyway, I feel like there is some connection between the romance novels by and for women being so rape-heavy, and the culture being even more rape-culture-y than it is now. I don’t know if the rape culture created the trend in the literature, or it is just correlation, not causation. I’ve been pondering this for a while now, and haven’t reached any conclusions. Any thoughts, or am I just making shit up?

To conclude, as Abigail Bartlet says, “It’s our history. Better or worse, it’s our history. We’re not going to lock it in the basement or brush it with a new coat of paint. It’s our history.” The evolution from this leads to Vivian Vaughn (one of my favorite early 90’s writers, who we will be discussing in the future), La Nora, and the awesomeness that is Joanna Bourne, my beloved Caroline Linden, and my new favorite person, Zoe Archer. (SERIOUSLY. SAVED MY SANITY.) But just because it’s history and we can’t ignore the fact that it exists doesn’t mean I have to read it.

I don’t mind reading with a look of perpetual “WTF” on my face. I think I’ve made that pretty clear. But this? Reading with my lip curled in disgust the entire time? No. Many times no. No more OG Old School- I’m going to stick with the early 90s bubblegum.

EDITED TO ADD: I see while digging up the publication info that there is two more books in the Purity Series- Purity’s Ecstasy and Purity’s Shame (and no summaries for either, except apparently there are pirates involved (OF COURSE THERE ARE))). So I suppose that my complaints about the rather abrupt ending were addressed, and it’s possible that Mark and Purity have an actual conversation (but no money on that bet. Why would they start now?). However, looking at just the title for Purity’s Shame makes me go, “…my god, Seymour is going to heap another 800 pages of crap on her heroine’s head?” Of course my Trainwreck Syndrome is shouting, “Oooooo! We HAVE to find out how bad this gets. WE ARE A COMPLETIST IT MUST BE DONE” but I’m going to resist that urge for as long as I can.

Filed: General Bitching, I Read This Sh*t So You Don't Have To, Reviews, Guest Bitch Reviews, Grade C, Authors, Q-S

Tagged: wtf, virginity, victorian, sexuality, sex, scoundrel, redheadedgirl, pirates, make the burning stop, heroines, guest bitch reviews, feminism

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Kim in Hawaii said on 11.11.10 at 02:21 PM • [comment link]

The last line before going to the “more, more, more” link is

“It’s pretty awful.”

But I did peek at the rest of your review and appreciate your statement,

“And I really can’t separate the fact that I am a woman in 2010 reading this, with the benefits provided to me by second and third wave feminism, the fact that I live with an activist whose primary goals are ending rape and promoting healthy sexuality (I’ve learned a lot from her), and just the changes in perceptions of women’s sexuality that has happened in the 30 years since this book has been written.”

Thus, I wouldn’t have read the book at all.

Today is Veterans’ Day so I give a shout out to the RomVets - female veterans who are now writing romance. I know several paved the way “in the old days” for me to have more opportunities when I served on active duty.

Mahalo to you all!
Bridget said on 11.11.10 at 02:32 PM • [comment link]

Good God. People bought this stuff? People actually wrote this stuff?

I’ve never really been a fan of rape in fiction, but I know that some authors write in such a way that the victim is empowered and overcomes their trauma and ultimately the story is uplifting. Purity’s Passion sounds NOTHING like that. One rape seen is bad enough, but seven rapists? Seven? Seriously?

From your review it sounds like not only are women in general punished for enjoying sex, but that Purity in particular is punished just for being beautiful. She drives men wild and so the rapes are her fault? This takes it beyond ‘she was wearing a short skirt so it wasn’t rape’ territroy into scary, scary misogyny.

Normally I really enjoy DNF and WTF reviews, because they are hilarious and we have so many funny, intelligent people here. But this is the kind of thing that I’d rather not know people bought and enjoyed. Acknowledging our history is one thing, but reliving it in excruciating detail isn’t something I want to do again.

Don’t get me wrong - redheadedgirl, I love your reviews. I just wish you hadn’t had to read that shit.
HelenMac said on 11.11.10 at 02:59 PM • [comment link]

Oh, redheadedgirl, I feel your pain. Being a completist with trainwreck syndrome has left many a scar upon my psyche, I only wish that I could write reviews as awesome as you do, to exorcise the pain.
Freshechelle said on 11.11.10 at 03:47 PM • [comment link]

I can’t finish reading this because I have to get to work but first….I NEED ANOTHER SHOWER. That so-called story lines has left me feeling very dirty. I don’t miss those 70s rapefests.

Thanks for the term PLOT MOB.

Rock on RHG!
Babs said on 11.11.10 at 04:09 PM • [comment link]

Oh my. Wow. Just, erm…guess I should shut my mouth now since jaw-dropping was my reaction to this review.

Thank you RedHeadedGirl for reading this so we don’t have to.
sheriguy said on 11.11.10 at 04:09 PM • [comment link]

Good Lord reading the plot summary was painful enough . I can only imagine the utter pain of reading the book. I have read and enjoyed 80’s “romance” novels where there was some “forced seduction.” (Bertrice Small anyone?) Largely because I was really good at a young age at glossing over the ugly bits of a story. I do not think I would have been able to gloss over this ....stuff in my teens.
ms bookjunkie said on 11.11.10 at 04:11 PM • [comment link]

I read the review until The Evil War Criminal but then the need to vomit became too strong and I had to stop.

I guess there’s Old Skool, and then there’s Old Skool written by a reincarnation of Marquis de Sade?

spamword: force77 I guess the author wasn’t satisfied until Purity was forced by 77 men?
mari said on 11.11.10 at 04:19 PM • [comment link]

Dear Redheadedgirl - I admire your fortitude in actually finishing such an on-going saga.

And I’m wondering if I can be cheeky enough to suggest that a future review could be on the following book? [I shall admit that this was a DNF for me - although I did consider turning it into a drinking game. “Heroine faces improbable/cliched scenario - DRINK”. I’m not sure my liver would survive]

“Rebel’s Reveng” by Jane Toombs. Amber Quill Press

Mari
[RHG fangirl]
Maria said on 11.11.10 at 04:57 PM • [comment link]

RHG - I’m so so sorry that you had to read that. It definitely falls under the “I read this crap so you don’t have to” category.

I am confused on one point, well several but this one’s making me scratch my head. At what point did Mark rape Purity? You tell us she runs home from horrible boarding to school to find him ra-screwing the maid, and that she freaks and runs away. And then it seems like he’s not in the next 2/3 of the book.

Wait, maybe I’d rather not know. It’s just a whole series of Whiskey Tango Foxtrot going on.
Laurel said on 11.11.10 at 05:11 PM • [comment link]

Oh. Wow.

I’ve never read an Old Skool, so the “rape as wooing” thing is not something I have endured. But what puzzles me, regardless of societal context, is the notion that a woman being forced to have sex would have an orgasm. Orgasms are not just physical; the brain has to be going along for the ride for everything to line up. Otherwise, people wouldn’t fantasize while they masturbate. The physical stimulation alone would do the trick. Sure, I guess it could happen, but not during a traumatic experience.

So is the Old Skool Rape Orgasm just code for “she really wants him and can’t admit it to herself, him or society”?

It grosses me out just to kiss someone I’m not into. Can’t imagine closing the deal with someone I don’t like or want who forced it through any means.

Ick. Ickity ick.
Darlene Marshall said on 11.11.10 at 05:12 PM • [comment link]

You can blame the historian in me, but my biggest problem, and I admit, I skimmed over the review so I wouldn’t feel slimed, is the timeline:

French Revolution: 1789
Waterloo: 1815

How old was this “heroine” by the end of the novel? 26 years is a long time to be doing all that bed-hopping.
Sycorax said on 11.11.10 at 05:21 PM • [comment link]

@Maria
I believe he rapes her after the hypnotist episode.

Commiserations, redheadgirl. I hope the sharing helped. A year ago I read The Sheik, by E M Hull, because I was bored, and thought it might at least be funny. Bit mistake. It’s rather depressing to think that rape wouldn’t filter out of romance novels for another 60 or 70 years after that book. At some point I suppose women actually started having orgasms during the rape scenes (there is never any mention of sexual pleasure in The Sheik) but I’m not sure whether that’s good or bad. On the one hand, recognition of women’s sexuality; on the other, the message that if it’s the right man, rape is totally ok! *sigh*
Carin said on 11.11.10 at 05:22 PM • [comment link]

Just from reading the review, I feel really icky. That doesn’t read like romance to me!
Sycorax said on 11.11.10 at 05:29 PM • [comment link]

So is the Old Skool Rape Orgasm just code for “she really wants him and can’t admit it to herself, him or society”?

That, or “she really wants him, but nice girls don’t have consensual sex outside of marriage”.

Right now, the [Submit] button at the bottom of the page seems amusingly apt…
ks said on 11.11.10 at 05:40 PM • [comment link]

RHG, thank you for doing this so I didn’t have to. I had forgotten just how fucked up and rapey that really was (and I remembered a lot of it, it was just *that* fucked up).

I owe you a big drink if you ever make it to my corner of the midwest.
R. H. Rush said on 11.11.10 at 05:42 PM • [comment link]

I’m still reading this, so I haven’t gotten to the real awfulness yet, but I got stuck on the fourth paragraph—the heroine is a Frenchwoman named…Purity?
Vuir said on 11.11.10 at 05:54 PM • [comment link]

Why not an F?

I know that there’s something worse, but this book sounds like you hated so much it should have been an F. C- is a good grade.
Tracy said on 11.11.10 at 06:18 PM • [comment link]

Ugh. This just reinforces for me that I need to keep backing away from my mother’s Bertrice Small pile as quickly as possible. She offered me another one the other night. Blech!
becca said on 11.11.10 at 06:34 PM • [comment link]

This sounds like someone was trying to create another series like the Angelique series by, I think, Sergeanne Golon - I think I’ve got that right. It was an interminable series where Angelique has amorous adventures all over the world, is raped repeatedly and even bears children (but still stays tight in the Magic Hoo-ha)... I had a friend who loved that series, but I couldn’t read beyond the first one.
Erin said on 11.11.10 at 06:39 PM • [comment link]

Thanks for the review. The subject of this type of book has been touching home with me. I’ve posted on here very occasionally but for the most part I’m a silent lurker. I have been posting quite a bit over on the Amazon forums.
I’ve starting reading Fern Michaels “Whitefire”, can I just say how much I am really hating this book. I’m not a squeamish person and I really loved Teresa Deny’s “The Silver Devil” and her other book “The Flesh and the Devil”. All of these books were written during the same time
frame as “Purity’s Passion”. (On a side note, I cannot stomach Beatrice Small either). Ok, back to “Whitefire”...
The hero is a complete and utter asshole and tyrant. I can’t imagine even back in the day, that this would even be remotely attractive. (But, hey it obviously was popular). This is a direct quote and mind you this takes place on page 18 of the book: “She felt a reeling blow to the side of her head, and then Katerina knew no more. Banyen took her brutally, savagely, again and again. Spent, he staggered to his feet and stood looking down at the naked body of the young girl. A pity he couldn’t see her what she really looked like in the ebony night. His own words rang in his ears…I’m not a cruel man….I’m not one to inflict pain. He shrugged. Every man was forced at one time or another to tell a lie. Why should he be any different.” Awww, isn’t he just a great guy. Onward and upward, here is another quote from our sweet, manly hero, “He would rebuild his estates and get married and keep his wife pregnant nine months out of every year. He would have a mistress in his house and one in town for the awkward months” Argghhh, I’m not even out of chapter one at this point, and the book has met the wall about 3 times. I’ve trying to put my finger on exactly why I liked the Teresa Denys books and what the difference is. Her heroes are complete psychopaths as well, and in the case of “The Silver Devil” the hero remains one. I’m still having a hard time how to express the differences, but there is a big one. Another, thing that is bothering me about “Whitefire” is that it has been reprinted twice. I mean WTF? There are so many much more worthy books to republish, why this one? I still don’t know and I’m scratching my head in puzzlement. The only thing going for “Whitefire” is the time period and location, Russia during the reign of Ivan the Terrible. I will be very happy to never have to read another of these type books again, they really make me feel dirty and disgusted. Thank God romance books have progressed away from this crap.
anna said on 11.11.10 at 06:40 PM • [comment link]

Jesusgod there are two more books worth of crap for the H/h to deal with?! Seriously??! And the third is Purity’s Shame! Seriously??! Seriously??!
It looks like maybe Janette Seymour is a nom de plume of a Michael Butterworth. Maybe. I don’t know if it’s more disturbing to think the *gag* rapetasticness of the series (I’m assuming the other books in the series (?!?!?)) Derives from the mind of a man or a woman. Either way…blargh.
Thanks redheadedgirl for reading this crap so we don’t have to. You deserve a raise ;)
Justine Lark said on 11.11.10 at 06:44 PM • [comment link]

I’m with Vuir. What elevates this book to a C-??
Mary McElroy said on 11.11.10 at 06:51 PM • [comment link]

My head hurts….
Nadia said on 11.11.10 at 07:02 PM • [comment link]

Rosemary Rogers, Bertrice Small, Patricia Matthews, Jennifer Wilde, Fern Michaels, an author with a Dutch name that escapes me at the moment…much of the same. Loads of rapey WTFery on the heroine, less exploration of the male character. The focus was on her journey, her misery and eventual triumph. Although reading them today, we’d be all “wait a minute, you went through all of that shit and the grand prize is that jackass rapetastic Angry Boner Man?” This was the less-fortunate aunt of the Kick-Ass Heroine we get today. She got the adventure, she got to live large and be involved in major historical events and cross continents - but she was a mostly a pawn, not the queen.
redheadedgirl said on 11.11.10 at 07:14 PM • [comment link]

The second paragraph gives my reasons for the C-. Mostly because it wasn’t badly written, I just really hated it.

I try to differentiate between “This is bad!” and “I don’t like it!”

But yeah. French woman (who is really half English) named Purity. Yeah. YEAH. And two more books. ::shudder::
JennKinPA said on 11.11.10 at 07:15 PM • [comment link]

But what puzzles me, regardless of societal context, is the notion that a woman being forced to have sex would have an orgasm. Orgasms are not just physical; the brain has to be going along for the ride for everything to line up. Otherwise, people wouldn’t fantasize while they masturbate. The physical stimulation alone would do the trick. Sure, I guess it could happen, but not during a traumatic experience.

Very, very wrong. As a counselor at a rape crisis center, I can tell you that—unfortunately—some women who have been raped have experienced orgasm. Their bodies have betrayed them. They come to us for emergency contraception and support, but are often too afraid and too ashamed to report their rapes to the authorities because of attitudes like the above. “It couldn’t have been too bad; you must have enjoyed it.”

Rape is any unwanted, non-consensual encounter. It doesn’t have to be violent, and many times, isn’t. And physical stimulation alone is enough sometimes.
Caitlin said on 11.11.10 at 07:22 PM • [comment link]

What. The. Fuck. This sounds like… what.

Now, I will admit something that is hard for me to acknowedge sometimes- I have rape fantasies. But I consider myself a feminist, and have expereinced sexual assaults as well.

For me, at least, the rape fantasies were a way of taking a negative experience and turning it into something working FOR me, rather than against. SOmething that was for my pleasure, not his power. I also suspect, that my sexual assaults having been at a youngish age, while I was learning about sex and sexual feelings and all that fun, that I, in some way, learned that that was how it is. Just some thoughts from an intelligent, rational, strong-minded modern woman who occasionally likes a bit of ‘rapey-ness’

But this- This.. monstrosity? I suspect it would go FAR beyond my sick, twisted enjoyment, and far into ‘what.’
rich said on 11.11.10 at 07:32 PM • [comment link]

As a male i have found this slightly shocking and hugely enlightening. For a start a woman has written a book where the lead enjoys being raped, and then comments ^^ empathising with the character. I’m not easily shocked but I am honestly surprised by what I have read here today.
That is all.
Sandy D. said on 11.11.10 at 07:35 PM • [comment link]

You were nice, with the C-. I think D would have been more appropriate.

Maybe someone else here can read the other books and give us an update? It’s really too much to expect you to do so. But I have that itch to know just how much more trainwrecky it really goods, you know?

Not enough to read either myself, mind you. :-/
Katie said on 11.11.10 at 07:35 PM • [comment link]

@Laurel, unfortunately you’re incorrect - some portion of people (men and women) that are raped will orgasm, either incidentally or due to deliberate stimulation by their attackers. In many cases, that makes it even harder, because it invokes both disbelieving responses (like, forgive me, yours) and internalized feelings about rape. It can completely short-circuit all of our knowledge about how rape is an exercise of power and the victims are not to blame, even internally, and can kick off a firestorm of internal shame and guilt even in addition to that felt by rape victims.
darlynne said on 11.11.10 at 07:41 PM • [comment link]

Thanks, JennKinPA and Katie, for your responses and correction. I knew the original comment was erroneous, but didn’t have your qualifications or skill to rebut it with any authority. The more we communicate, the more we learn and that can only be a good thing.

redheadedgirl: Désolé.
Laura Vivanco said on 11.11.10 at 07:41 PM • [comment link]

what puzzles me, regardless of societal context, is the notion that a woman being forced to have sex would have an orgasm. Orgasms are not just physical; the brain has to be going along for the ride for everything to line up. Otherwise, people wouldn’t fantasize while they masturbate. The physical stimulation alone would do the trick. Sure, I guess it could happen, but not during a traumatic experience.

Laurel, I have to disagree with you on this, and I think it’s a false belief that can (a) further shame and harm victims of rape and (b) be used as a defence by rapists.

As far as I know, both women and men who are raped can experience an orgasm. To quote the conclusion of Roy J. Levin and Willy van Berlo’s “Sexual arousal and orgasm in subjects who experience forced or non-consensual sexual stimulation – a review,” Journal of Clinical Forensic Medicine 11.2 (2004):

The review has examined whether unsolicited or non-consensual sexual stimulation of either males or females can create unwanted sexual arousal even to the induction of an orgasm. Despite a limited published literature, case and anecdotal reports the conclusion from them is that such scenarios can occur and that the induction of arousal and even orgasm does not permit the conclusion that the subjects consented to the stimulation. A perpertrator’s defence against the alleged assault built solely on the evidence that genital arousal or orgasm in the victim proves consent has no intrinsic validity and should be disregarded.

In this paper the authors write that there

appears to be an autonomous mechanism that creates sexual arousal at a sub-cortical level (i.e., not perceived) to activate an increase in genital blood flow. This increase in vaginal blood flow would lead to an increase in the production of vaginal lubricating fluid. It may well be a basic mechanism to create automatically the conditions (a lubricated vagina) for painless penile penetration without genital abrasion if enforced coitus subsequently occurs. Thus “genital arousal” can occur in a sexually stimulated female even though she perceives/reports no “conscious central (brain) sexual arousal”.

Levin and van Berlo did find some reports of orgasms in cases of rape/sexual assault:

A brief study by Ringrose [...] about the elicitation of pelvic reflexes in rape victims, reported that in 25 cases of rape only one reported orgasm as a result of the sexual assault, an incidence of 4%. The low incidence may be due to embarrassment or the shame of giving a positive answer.

and one

senior nurse-therapist said when interviewed by one of the authors (R.J.L.):

“Approximately 1 in 20 women who come to the clinic (an established NHS, CHS Sexual and Marital Relationships clinic in a large provincial English city) for treatment because of sexual abuse report that they have had an orgasm from previous unsolicited sexual arousal. It is not detailed in the (professional) literature because the victims usually do not want to tell/talk about it because they feel guilty, as people will think that if it happened they must have enjoyed it. The victims often say, “My body let me down”. Some however, cannot summon the courage to say even that.”
Isabel C. said on 11.11.10 at 07:45 PM • [comment link]

Rape fantasies as such don’t bug me: not my thing, but okay. There are plenty of reasons behind them, from BDSM-y subtext to early experiences, that don’t have to do with fucked-up views of female sexuality. Plus, they’re usually labeled as such in one way or another—in fanfic, you have the “noncon” label, and Black Lace and similar usually do a decent job of indicating that This Is A Kink, Guys.

My problem with old school romance and its rapey-ness is partly the lack of labeling: there’s an undercurrent of “well, this is normal and awesome in heterosexual romance” there, which…ew. Might not bug me so much, except that it’s also combined with the Only Bad Girls Want It trope, and the heroine being ri-damn-diculously innocent, and it becomes less a kink and more an exercise in creepy attitudes toward women and their sex drives.

I also was better at glossing this over in my teens.

Also, what Katie and JennKinPA said.
Laura (in PA) said on 11.11.10 at 08:04 PM • [comment link]

Holy crap. Unpleasant doesn’t begin to describe it.
Sharon said on 11.11.10 at 08:16 PM • [comment link]

Good Lord! I’m dizzy and slightly nauseous just reading that review!
Glad I missed that one.

A point to the “historically accurate” nonsense—just because an author can line up her dates chronologically, or include props from a particular era, or whathaveyou, does not necessarily create a completely historically accurate novel.

The characters have to behave in historically accurate ways—I’m sure there were plenty of loons and degenerates in every era, but seriously—does this heroine’s trajectory seem like it was even remotely likely? Sure, it’s romance, and one expects the author to take liberties, but, sheesh…

There is also a point where you make your heroine’s life so repellant no one identifies with her or roots for her anymore.
redheadedgirl said on 11.11.10 at 08:24 PM • [comment link]

My problem with old school romance and its rapey-ness is partly the lack of labeling: there’s an undercurrent of “well, this is normal and awesome in heterosexual romance” there, which…ew. Might not bug me so much, except that it’s also combined with the Only Bad Girls Want It trope, and the heroine being ri-damn-diculously innocent, and it becomes less a kink and more an exercise in creepy attitudes toward women and their sex drives.

Yes, exactly.

I also was better at glossing this over in my teens.

AND YES. I don’t know how I would have reacted to this book in my teens. But @ks? I WILL BE ACCEPTING THAT DRINK.
Olivia said on 11.11.10 at 08:49 PM • [comment link]

I dunno, poking fun at old skool 70’s romance is kind of like shooting fish in a barrel -easy and kind pointless. Romance readers hate the stereotypical labels put on romance, labels created, in a large part, by these types of books. Yet here we are hauling them out to make fun. A bit like the pot calling the kettle black, IMO.

“I read this shit so you don’t have to” doesn’t exactly hash it either since the book is out of print.

I don’t want to pick on this reviewer because she obviously spent a lot of time and energy in this review, but to me this all seemed like trying too hard to be funny for funny’s sake. Sorry.
Isabel C. said on 11.11.10 at 09:01 PM • [comment link]

I don’t think it’s the pot calling the kettle black at all: in fact, by identifying and publicly calling out the problematic elements in question, we’re more firmly establishing ourselves as aware of the stereotypes and able to repudiate the issues ourselves, rather than coming off as naive or subscribing to the romance version of the Geek Social Fallacies.

Making fun of an entire genre is stupid. Making fun of a specific work because it’s badly written and reinforces Neanderthal sexism seems fine—unless you believe that making fun of things is bad across the board. Which I don’t.
Erin said on 11.11.10 at 09:08 PM • [comment link]

Olivia,
I have to disagree. What about the book I mentioned. It was originally published in 1978, re-released in 1997, and again just re-released in August 2010. I happen to be reading the 1997 edition. The 2010 copy has a lovely picture of a flowers on the cover. No warning about what it contains whatsoever! Not even a product description. What do you say about that?

http://www.amazon.com/White-Fire-Fern-Michaels/dp/1420119567/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1289498748&sr=8-1
Aimee said on 11.11.10 at 09:19 PM • [comment link]

Yeah, I agree with the people that said a C- was way, waaaaaay too generous. That’s an F if I ever heard one. Just reading the description made me laugh with bile in the back of my throat.
Sharon said on 11.11.10 at 09:28 PM • [comment link]

I agree with Olivia’s point in that snark for snark’s sake gets tiresome, but I don’t think this review is completely guilty of that—I think it’s important to look at the evolution of romance, even if that discussion begins with a snarky review of a really bad book which is at the same time a really good example of some very bad scenarios prevalent in 70s/80s romance.
redheadedgirl said on 11.11.10 at 09:41 PM • [comment link]

Specifically, this book was reviewed by request- someone asked if I would review, I said sure I’ll read it, and more fool me. Having done that, there’s nothing left to do but share the pain.

And I wanted to discuss the rapey-ness. Which we’ve been doing, so success on the merits, there.

Generally, this is what I do here- I do the older stuff because I like it, and even when the plot makes no sense (See Surrender to the Night), I still generally enjoy myself. I know that a lot of people won’t read the books I review, so I try to make the review as entertaining as possible (not just for the people reading it, they are generally fun to write, too). If that involves calling a spade a Plot Spade, well, there you go.
LG said on 11.11.10 at 09:51 PM • [comment link]

I have a romance novel from the 70s sitting, waiting to be read, and now I am afraid to touch it. I’ve never read any romance written prior to, I think, the last 1980s, and even the earliest of the ones I’ve read have occasionally had bits where I felt…uncomfortable, knowing that certain scenes were probably expected to be enjoyed by the reader.
Nan said on 11.11.10 at 10:05 PM • [comment link]

I like reading these kinds of reviews because 1) they’re well-written and entertaining and 2) they remind me of how much the genre has improved, something I’m still absorbing since I used to read romances in high school (in the ‘80s) but was turned off by many of the elements discussed here and when I picked them up again a couple years ago it was like, hey! This is so much better! I do think these function less as book reviews (ie. information on a book you might actually seek out to read) and more of a historical/contextual/literary function—both the review itself and the comments here are intelligent and interesting. However if this book shows up in my library’s paperback donation pile, not only will I not read it I will be highly tempted to throw it in the recycling bin. And redheadedgirl, I understand the completeness urge but spare yourself the sequels. Please. Spend your time reading some Georgette Heyer so you know there were writers back in the day who could actually write AND didn’t feel compelled to submit their heroines to multiple rapes. Everyone has their favorites: I recommend The Nonesuch and The Toll-Gate.
Donna said on 11.11.10 at 10:19 PM • [comment link]

Do not fear the 70’s. If it hadn’t been for Rosemary Rogers and Kathleen Woodiwiss, I never would have found Linda Howard, Nora Roberts or Elizabeth Lowell and from them to the WTFry that is Shannon McKenna or the incredibly fabulous Meljean Brook. Would I recommend Sweet Savage Love to my 16yo goddaughter? No, but then 30 years from now she may be saying the same thing about the Twilight series. We learn, we grow, we take the good with the bad & we keep reading.
Donna said on 11.11.10 at 10:29 PM • [comment link]

p.s. I live for snark.
Karenmc said on 11.11.10 at 11:19 PM • [comment link]

Very busy at work, but I can’t resist adding to the conversation. RHG, you’re to be commended for finishing this piece of whatever. I’m a completist, too, so I understand (I’ve also read Scoundrel, and agree with you - thank god for writers who assume their audience has intelligence and a sense of self worth). Give yourself a break on the next book, because we don’t want you self-combusting on public transportation.
meoskop said on 11.11.10 at 11:29 PM • [comment link]

Do I really want to do this? I guess I do.

Hi, I lived and read through the 70’s. It’s not really fair to call a book in the Purity series (or Angelique, or one of a dozen others) a romance novel. Unless you consider all levels of heat and partner swapping today to be equal the most inspirational hand holding work today. Then, like, now, the market was a pretty diverse place and not all of it was palatable then or is palatable now.

Most self defined Romance Readers of the era would not have considered that a Romance. Exactly. Plantation books, serial ‘he just raped me and all I did was fall on his dick, or and his too, plus that guy over there’ books, there were a lot of ‘acceptable’ porn reads marketed as romance because Women Could Not Read Porn.

This is still somewhat true today. There is not relationship development because relationships are not the point. The point of those books was to have the heroine in as many ‘forbidden’ sexual situations as possible, excusing her with her lack of consent, often involving the nastiest most hobo-esque guys, and the most soaps-wouldn’t-dare plot twists possible.

Then there was Laurie McBain.

I mean, I don’t want to say I liked those series, I personally did not, but I don’t want people to file this under ‘70’s romance’ when it’s really ‘70’s erotic read’. You didn’t leave one of these books on the top of our nightstand unless you were participating in key parties. And if you don’t know what a key party was, that’s another conversation.
Olivia said on 11.11.10 at 11:30 PM • [comment link]

Erin—what do I have to say about that?

I’m sorry you read a crapy Fern Michaels book? I’m not sure what your point is as the Fern Michaels book is a reprint and readily available to any unsuspecting person, and Purity’s Passion is not.

Redheadgirl—you were asked to read the book and report on it. Fair enough. My intention isn’t to give you a hard time. Your review was funny. It simply struck me as easy pickings based on antiquated tropes. That’s all.

Isabel—I agree with most of what you are saying. Only I think that the people who make fun of romance out of ignorance use examples based on the stereotypes these older novels created. For us to do the same seems rather pointless. We all _know_ these older tropes are ridiculous. It’s kind of like making fun of bellbottoms. Yeah, it makes me laugh but well, duh, they’re bellbottoms.

-FWIW, I started reading SBTB because of a bad review, Savage Moon. I laughed until I cried. I have no problems with bad reviews.
meoskop said on 11.11.10 at 11:32 PM • [comment link]

What I left out, and should say, is that I think it’s important to study those books not with horror but with understanding. Yes, they’re dreadful to us in a way some books today are dreadful to me, and will no doubt be dreadful to others, but they were the beginning of women being allowed to want to read sexually.

We might be stuck with “Romance = porn” partly because of them, but without them do we ever move into “woman can read porn if they want”? I don’t think so.
Isabel C. said on 11.11.10 at 11:41 PM • [comment link]

Ahh, see, I’m quite happy to make fun of bell bottoms/mullets/sideburns. Sure, they’re easy targets—but not everything in life has to be a challenge. ;) Sometimes, it’s nice just to kick back, have a few drinks, and mock the thing that’s really, really mockable.

God knows I’d go insane at family weddings otherwise.

Besides, I’d say making it through this one would be challenge enough.
Erin said on 11.11.10 at 11:52 PM • [comment link]

Olivia,

It seemed that you were busting down the review as being pointless, when I feel that it was not. Maybe originally it was meant to be a fun snarky review and turned into something else. Then again, I like snarky fun reviews that make me laugh for the sheer joy of it. IE: The Classic from this site the “Playboy Sheikh”. This subject hit close to home for me because I just read a reprint of one of these so-called romances and discussing it is interesting. If I didn’t express myself clearly enough, my apologies. We all have different opinions and are entitled to them.
Erin said on 11.12.10 at 12:01 AM • [comment link]

Oh, one more point that I forgot to make. They are reprinting these lovely “Romance Classics” and who knows maybe “Purity’s Passion’s” will be among them. They after all reprinted “Whitefire” not just once, but twice. Now I have a head’s up…just in case they do!
Worthafortune said on 11.12.10 at 12:15 AM • [comment link]

this reminds me of my very first romance by Fern Michales. Captive series. Sounds like the most ridiculous WTFery ever.
Isabel C. said on 11.12.10 at 12:16 AM • [comment link]

Meoskop: Interesting, yeah. The plotline does resemble the Beauty’s Awakening type thing more than most novels I’ve seen reviewed here: the wide variety of men and so forth. Still leaves the gender issues pretty creepy, but it’s good to point out that this was closer to Penthouse Letters or whatever.

And I think you can read with both horror and historical perspective/understanding. We read Pamela in one of my college courses, back in The Day, and it was…interesting: on the one hand, yes, this is fundamental in the development of the novel, and it was a not-too-bad view of sex for its day, but on the other hand, most of us alternated between telling Pamela to die in a fire, needing to take a shower every two chapters, and thanking God we weren’t alive back then. So it’s possible to say simultaneously that books like the Purity stuff—or the rapier bits of actual romances—played an important part in getting to where we are now, but DEAR GOD DO NOT WANT GET IT AWAY.

I…am having a slow day at work, clearly. :)
DM said on 11.12.10 at 12:27 AM • [comment link]

I’m with Meoskop. These aren’t romances.

This is not to say that they shouldn’t be reviewed (and snarked) here. But like chick lit, they were a category of fiction written by and marketed to women that were not necessarily focused on a courtship and a happy ending. I think a better term for them would be something like “female melodrama.” Christine Monson and Theresa Denys et al were writing sprawling books that spanned decades and continents and whose heroines had endless gothic adventures and lots and lots of sex, much of it against their will. The limited opportunities for women that made these books popular fantasies are pretty easy to parse (and the review does a nice job of this) just as the societal conditions that make chick-lit popular today are pretty obvious too. And like most of the commenters, I find the fantasies of my particular era a lot more palatable.

But I dislike lumping these books in with romance, because they don’t tell the story of a courtship. Pamela, Pride and Prejudice, The Sheik (and yes, I realize that there are consent issues in that book complicated by the coyness with which it is written) all tell the story of a courtship between two people resulting in a happy union. As do the books of Nora Roberts and Mary Balogh and all the other authors we love today. Based on the puny number of pages devoted to the hero and heroine on stage together in what I’m dubbing the female melodrama (usually a tiny fraction because there was so much raping to do and what with the slow speed of international travel in days of yore) it’s tough for me to think of these as romances.
meoskop said on 11.12.10 at 12:27 AM • [comment link]

Isabel C: It’s an awkward position to be in - defending Purity. I totally agree we can refute it. I just hate seeing it get conflated into being a typical representation.
Isabel C. said on 11.12.10 at 12:31 AM • [comment link]

Meoskop: If anything, it’s a nice reminder that the categories were as broad and the dividing lines as fuzzy then as they are now. (Is Black Lace romance, for example? Hard to say: some seem to be, some really don’t.)

And it’s interesting that consent and gender issues seem to span both romance and melodrama, and that attitudes shift roughly in parallel. Could be a thesis here, except that grad school frightens me deeply.
DS said on 11.12.10 at 12:48 AM • [comment link]

Published 1977. I never read this one, but there was stacks and stacks of books like this available. Sort of a pedigree of daughter of Sweet Savage Love out of Forever Amber by Some Really Bad Paperback Original Male Oriented Historical.

I have never understood why these books were so popular and I lived through that period. But they were all over the place. I used to work at a job where women would bring in bags of these type of books—the rapey romances—and trade them in the lady’s lounge on break. I have the couple I read burned in my brain after all these years.

And, yeah, there were considered romances by the people who read them. The current definition was made up by RWA and RWA didn’t come into existence until 1980.
MaryK said on 11.12.10 at 01:04 AM • [comment link]

Fortunately, these books were before my time. :D I’ve seen them used but have always avoided them because you can tell by the cover copy that they’re depressingly unromantic ergo they must not be Romance. I thought they were “historical novels” actually, the salacious reading of yesteryear. :)

Is this the type of book generally considered to be Old Skool Romance? When I think “Old Skool,” I think of Kathleen Woodiwiss, Virginia Henley, Johanna Lindsey, etc. The H and H weren’t always likable, but at least there did tend to be a single relationship in the pattern of today’s Romance.

If this book is what is meant by “Old Skool,” I feel more tolerant of people who diss Romance based on Old Skool books.
Erin said on 11.12.10 at 01:12 AM • [comment link]

I don’t understand why some of them are still so popular or why they ever were. There is a huge community of readers (myself included) that hunt down the old out of print books to read. Based on others recommendations etc. Sometimes it is hard to find the details about these books. The book I mentioned earlier was part of a reading challenge for myself. I have been hunting down romances that feature exotic locations, unusual heroes or heroines etc and this one was recommended to me. I was looking for something out of the norm and boy did I get it, to my displeasure. On the same token I have found some real treasures. It is a crap shoot. I love the reviews on this site, the snarky ones especially.
Romantic Girl said on 11.12.10 at 01:18 AM • [comment link]

I agree with DM, I don’t consider this a romance at all. It’s more an epic or soap (especially considering there are two more books with the same heroine). Also agree that it doesn’t mean that it shouldn’t be reviewed or discussed here. I’m not sure if this was considered or labeled a romance back then, but I’m just so glad that it wasn’t my intro into romance as I might not have read another.

I’ve read one book where the heroine was raped (by villian) and I could barely stomach it. RHG, I’m impressed that you acutally made it through the horror that is this book. It would have gotten a big DNF from me.
SB Sarah said on 11.12.10 at 01:28 AM • [comment link]

I think it’s important to re-read and re-examine older romances because they are part of the genre whether we like it or not. If you look at them clinically or academically or even with huge whopping basketfuls of sarcastic humor, they need to be looked at because without the large-scale perspective to match the examination of heroes, heroines, tropes, plots and trends right here-and-now, you miss a full understand of what and how the genre is and came to be.

Clearly there’s a huge difference in the heroine’s sexual journey between 1977 and 2010 novels, and when I saw the date of publication in RHG’s review I thought, “Oh, I know what this will involve.” But look at how many older romances are being reissued in print and in digital format. The hunger for old backlist is a avid and growing one, and romances from way-back-when that may contain anything from forced seduction to rape by the hero and the villain (maybe they’re twins, maybe they’re the same person) are being reissued. There is an audience for older romances.

So when the “bodice ripper” accusation is flown again and again because those tropes keep reappearing in reissued books, it’s important that romance fans who take a lot of crap for their reading know why, and can locate a book like this one in the larger timeline of heroine agency, sexual agency, and for-the-love-of-God-thank-you a greater understanding of female sexuality in popular culture.

I think RHG should read The Windflower next. Sort of a cleanse-the-palate experience.
Joanna S. said on 11.12.10 at 01:45 AM • [comment link]

This was the less-fortunate aunt of the Kick-Ass Heroine we get today. She got the adventure, she got to live large and be involved in major historical events and cross continents - but she was a mostly a pawn, not the queen.

Whether one wants to argue the 70s Romance vs. 70s Erotica categorization, many posters have passed over this point, which I find to be excellent. Female authors and readers have certainly come a long way in defining female desire and ownership of that desire. But we also like to ignore the past because it can often be unpleasant. Most of us talk about history, especially women’s history, in terms of “Whew! So glad we’ve moved on and do not need to revisit those sets of hellish circumstances,” and so modern Women’s Studies departments frequently do not require or provide medieval courses for students because they function under the supposition that the past sucked universally for all women, and so we need to move on to change the things we can now. So, in essence, young women are taught, at least liminally, that the only successes with regard to feminism have only come in the last 30 years or so. As a medievalist who specializes in looking at rape in literature and in Women’s culture in the Middle Ages, I can tell you that this is a myopic view. Yes, women had it bad, in particular with prosecuting rape cases because medieval society called rape raptus from the Latin meaning “to grab, to seize, to abduct, or to take by force.” It was still a crime of power that used the act of sex to assert that power; yet, it was often excused based upon the perceived level of purity of the victim, much like today. In other words, you were worth more as a rape victim if you were an inexperienced woman, than if you were a widow because, in the latter case, you had no virginity to “ruin” and enough sexual knowledge having been a wife that you might have “enjoyed it” (which aligns with all the above conversations about rape victims experiencing orgasm without consent). But, this was not the sum total of female experience in the past, and in fact, women were more likely to be able to read and write in the Middle Ages than men (because it was seen as a leisurely activity), and because women were the most literate portion of the populace, albeit in the vernacular, many authors, such as Dante and Chaucer, chose to write solely in the vernacular. And, in the case of Chaucer and earlier English authors, such works were written at the behest of powerful women (e.g. Anne of Bohemia, wife of King Richard II). In other words, much like the romance novels today, women in the Medieval world determined Romance literature as well as the themes within it. And so, much like in the past, heroines and the representations of their sexuality have changed because, over time, we have demanded that they change, just as we continue to strive for equality in all aspects of society.

As much as we want to forget and move on, we must both acknowledge and contextualize, or we will not have progress. We will continue to be, as the above author notes, pawns, not to because we are women but because of how society defines what “woman” means. It is important to critique this literature because if we do not say what we do not want, need, or desire in explicit of terms as possible, society will continue to assume that rape fantasy is actually rape reality, and as we can see from this discussion, none of us are comfortable with that reduction.
DM said on 11.12.10 at 02:33 AM • [comment link]

I should probably clarify that I think these books are important reading for romance scholars and critics and writers, and that I do understand that they were marketed and bought by some women as romance, though certainly by others as historical adventure distinct from romance. And I concede that they share some characteristics in common with romance. And I know the definition of romance settled on the by RWA post dates these books.

But I still believe that these books were a distinct, manifestation (I resisted saying “flowering”) of their era, and that what I’ll call courtship romance (does Pamela Regis use that term? someone does) existed long before these books, and was published alongside these books, and that the development of the relationship between hero and heroine that distinguishes romance from other genres is sorely lacking in these books. That is why I think they form a distinct category.
Isobel Carr said on 11.12.10 at 02:49 AM • [comment link]

This might explain the two 60-something nurses in Reno who said they couldn’t read romance because of “all the rape”. My jaw dropped, and I asked what on earth they were talking about. And they replied “Well, how else does the heroine loose it?” *insert sound of jaw hitting floor* Clearly they were reading books of this type when they were first published.
Lyssa said on 11.12.10 at 02:56 AM • [comment link]

I was reading romance novels at the time these books were being printed. I remember Natasha Peters’ “Savage Surrender” a book that starts with rape (by the hero) and continues through out the long book () being raped over and over. But I remember the novel because at the time (I was young) it was a ‘racy’ novel. And I was curious about what went on…but that did not make it good reading. I mean the heroine did learn to sword fight and stand up for herself, but she also was tortured..(there were the horrid “sadist” rape scenes, vs the simply horrid one by the ‘hero’). I also remember “The Flame and the Flower” by Woodiss, which featured rape as a ‘meeting’ between the hero and the heroine, (though there is that excuse that the hero did not know the heroine was not a doxy bought for his pleasure). But point is rape as a plot within romance novels for a while was used I believe to allow the ‘good girl’ to have sex. Why authors chose this route rather than another I have no idea. Combined with the horrific rapes, they also seemed to have very few minor psychological problems afterwards. I think this is almost worse than the rape scenes themselves, to have characters undergo torture that mentally is very damaging to self image, to sexuality, to who the woman (or man) see themselves, and to have them ‘bravely face the world’ is hog wash. Some survivors are able to do this in real life, but not without serious support, and strong self esteem already being there. But whereas apparently ‘rape’ was considered fine, the realistic portrayal of how this affected the survivor was not…so toss realism aside for the next horrific thing to happen.

And rape scenes have not gone away, they still pop up when any character says ‘No’ and the other protagonist proceeds without that ‘No’ changing before hand to a “Yes, yes, (cue herbal essence commercial) Yes” then it is RAPE. When a protagonist gets another drunk, or under the influence, or crawls into bed while they are sleeping…it is RAPE. Having Consensual sex is an active thing, a choice by both parties. So if you are reading a book where there is any doubt of that, you are reading a book that has a possible rape being portrayed.

spam word: Shown28 I could have shown you 28 examples of books with just as horrific rape scenes, but I prefer not to read them any more.
Francesca said on 11.12.10 at 02:58 AM • [comment link]

I’m kind of embarrassed to admit that I read all three Purity books back in the early eighties and actually enjoyed them. I got rid of them many years ago because I felt I had outgrown them.

I will offer fair warning to anyone who feels compelled to read the other two that the WTFery reaches a level I don’t think I have ever read anywhere else in the third book.
redheadedgirl said on 11.12.10 at 03:04 AM • [comment link]

I will offer fair warning to anyone who feels compelled to read the other two that the WTFery reaches a level I don’t think I have ever read anywhere else in the third book.

Oh come on! Don’t tell me that! That just makes my OCD and Trainwreck Syndrome ping WORSE.

SOMEONE HELP ME
DS said on 11.12.10 at 03:36 AM • [comment link]

I’m wondering if this: http://www.savoy.abel.co.uk/HTML/mike.html is the Michael Butterworth who may have written them. He coauthored some Elric novels with Michael Moorcock in the 70’s.

There is another Michael Butterworth, also a British author writing about the same time, but he seems to have claimed his female pen name of Carola Salisbury.
Kristen A. said on 11.12.10 at 03:42 AM • [comment link]

Since so many people have already said everything of actual significance that came to my mind, I just want to mention how much I like the term “Plot Mob.” Also, that I mentioned “Potato Rage” at an SCA event last Saturday, and it was immediately adopted by everybody at my table at feast.

P.S. As something being set in the French Revolution is usually enough motivation for me to read it, I’m glad that I found out I shouldn’t read this before I might stumble across it in a library one day.
Erin said on 11.12.10 at 04:09 AM • [comment link]

Speaking of male authors masquerading as women during the 70s, 80s and early 90s era:
Jennifer Wilde, aka Tom Huff
Christina Savage aka Kerry Newcomb
Shana Carrol aka Kerry Newcomb
Elizabeth Bright, aka Tim Myers
Christina Nicholson, aka Christopher Nicole
Pamela South, aka Donald Bain
Lee Jackson, aka Donald Bain
Stephanie Blake, aka Jack Pearl (cousin to author Donald Bain)
Saliee O’Brien, aka Francis Leroy (Frankie-Lee) Janas
Francesca Greer, aka Frankie-Lee Janas
Madeline Brent - Peter O’Donnell

Just found out this information recently, really interesting.
SandyH said on 11.12.10 at 04:16 AM • [comment link]

Yuck… Not my cup of tea at all but if you must continue the train wreck go over to PaperBackSwap and order them :)
redheadedgirl said on 11.12.10 at 04:22 AM • [comment link]

@Kristen: Go get The Forbidden Rose by Joanna Bourne RIGHT NOW. No, you do not have time to put on pants. RIGHT NOW.

Unless of course you have it already. Then you obviously don’t need to.
Kristen A. said on 11.12.10 at 04:29 AM • [comment link]

I have already read The Forbidden Rose- actually I was in such a hurry to read it I requested it from two library systems to see which one came in first.
Mimi said on 11.12.10 at 04:42 AM • [comment link]

anything that compels you to read it to the awful bitter end deserves at least a D+! and now that my curiosity is piqued by the sequels….DO IT!! READ THEM…REPORT BACK TO US!!! *said in hypnotic tones*
SnarkInfestedWaters said on 11.12.10 at 04:54 AM • [comment link]

I can’t understand why people would buy and read a whole genre of rape fiction. I was uncomfortable just reading this review. There is a whole slew of WTFery to address (which has already been done), but mostly, I just don’t get how this ever had a market. At least the super mushy over romantic romance novels—I can see how those would make someone happy, how they could be an enjoyable read without necessarily being great literature. So, ew.
DM said on 11.12.10 at 05:12 AM • [comment link]

I think a large part of the appeal is this:

She got the adventure, she got to live large and be involved in major historical events and cross continents

We wanted to read about women who were at the center of an adventure. We were tired of being Rowena instead of Ivanhoe, of being Constance instead of Dartagnan. And the author whose imagination could compass a heroine who moved great events, who was actuated, but was also a person of her time, was rare. So we got women who moved at the fringes of great events, mostly in and out of beds.
JamiSings said on 11.12.10 at 05:13 AM • [comment link]

First off on anal - um, yeah, if there’s anal in a book I do NOT want to read it! Sorry, that’s an exit only hole and unless he’s a doctor doing something medical like giving her an enema for extreme constipation, NOTHING should enter the anus.

It’s my theory that the rape and rape fantasy is really a badly executed forced orgasm fantasy. I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again, some women have been taught to believe they are not suppose to enjoy sex. My mom told me repeatedly that “Only men and whores enjoy sex. Good girls never have orgasms.” She also kept saying that sex for women should only be about procreation, not pleasure. She absolutely flipped out when she found out my gynecologist wanted me to masturbate on a daily basis. Exploration is a big time no-no far as mom is concerned.

I think that’s why so many women have the rape fantasies - because it takes away the guilt - and why so many old school romances have rape in them. But as it becomes more acceptable for women to orgasm the less we’ll see this. Novels are already trending that way. Now it’s just a matter of getting it into women’s heads.
Marguerite said on 11.12.10 at 06:17 AM • [comment link]

First, I just wanted to say that Romance Reader at Heart seems to have the summaries for the other books:
The basic summary for each of the three.
Two more seemingly only
vaguely related reviews for Purity’s Ecstasy.

Second, I just wanted to say what a great discussion is happening! It’s discussions like these (causes and influences on the rape-as-only-acceptable-sex trope! feminism in medieval times! the “evolution” of modern romance novels!) that keep me coming back. Okay, these and the fantastic (and fantastically amusing) reviews. ;)
Marguerite said on 11.12.10 at 06:26 AM • [comment link]

Oops. Either I got the HTML wrong, or I’m not allowed more than two links in one post. Anyway, in addition to the listing for Purity’s Ecstasy in the “Sheik” category, they also put it under the “Pirate” section.

Captcha: lower48. Yes, this may be one of the most rape-a-riffic books in the lower 48 United States!
Carrie Sessarego said on 11.12.10 at 06:35 AM • [comment link]

Redheaded girl, Don’t do it! For the love of God! But pleeeease review Windflower, please pretty please? You’ll love it - there are pirates and a pet pig.
redheadedgirl said on 11.12.10 at 06:40 AM • [comment link]

A pet pig?

Sold.
Zoe Archer said on 11.12.10 at 06:41 AM • [comment link]

I saved your sanity?

WOO HOO!

That’s really all any author can hope for. Either that, or driving readers mad. Think of all the lunatics, crouching in corners, muttering to themselves, “The book. The BOOK!”

But sanity’s good. So, you’re welcome. I’m all about heroines with agency, including sexual agency. Forced seduction? Meh? Disconnect with their own sexual desires? Feh. Passivity? Bleh. Heroines who are just as driven about their ambitions as the heroes? Yes, please.
Gina said on 11.12.10 at 06:41 AM • [comment link]

The Kadin by Bertrice Small was one of the first romance novels I ever read, and I remember being all “oh okay, okay, huh that’s not right, hmm, okay” then got to the very rapetastic end and the WTFness of it all hit me. Seriously, I have never been so fascinated and pissed off at a book at the same time. And it’s hitting me again, now that some other commenters brought up that author. Man, that book was a trip, but it sounds like this book takes the cake.

And my vote is for anal, possibly on him. They had dildos back then, right? Heh.
redheadedgirl said on 11.12.10 at 06:58 AM • [comment link]

That’s really all any author can hope for. Either that, or driving readers mad. Think of all the lunatics, crouching in corners, muttering to themselves, “The book. The BOOK!”

I’ve read some of those, too.

(This is why we love you.)

That’s one of the things I loved about London. Once she was given the chance to see that there was more to life, she grabbed it, with both hands. (And then told it to get on that altar and…. mmmppphmmm.)
Maureen said on 11.12.10 at 07:27 AM • [comment link]

I hate to point this out, but rape Gothic such as you describe was actually seen as pretty feminist, by many. Meanwhile, a lot of anti-rape epics also included the heroine getting raped a lot or getting into sexually humiliating situations. The difference was that then the heroine kills the rapists, so that makes it perfectly all right. People got mad at me when I suggested that in the 70’s and 80’s, women became swordwielding or magichurling heroines by getting raped, but they knew I was describing the exact truth. Fortunately, most of this is gone, but a lot of it came straight from the rape side of the romance genre.

Jo Clayton’s Aleytys series is probably the worst along these lines; the Diadem gives her amazing powers, but not until she’s been raped at least ten times per planet. Other picaresque series of this type usually have the woman rising from slave to ruling empress to slave to goddess with lots of sex scenes, like Tanith Lee or… well, there were lots of ‘em in the 70’s and 80’s, but I can’t remember them now. A lot of them were pretty literary, and went for four or five volumes. English women seemed to write a lot of that lush epic picaresque stuff.
Maureen said on 11.12.10 at 07:58 AM • [comment link]

Tanith Lee’s Birthgrave series. Yeah, that’s a perfect example of this kind of epic.
Zoe Archer said on 11.12.10 at 08:05 AM • [comment link]

That’s one of the things I loved about London. Once she was given the chance to see that there was more to life, she grabbed it, with both hands. (And then told it to get on that altar and…. mmmppphmmm.)

Heh. That’s all. Just: heh.
Char said on 11.12.10 at 08:32 AM • [comment link]

Reading through the posts and in particular DMs, it occurred to me that this type of adventure over the top rapistic novel might in part be a responce to the Barbara Cartland books from the 60s -on (maybe even now, she left a 100 to be published when she died).

It is my understanding, and I maybe wrong, that her view was that romance ended with the first kiss, so that’s where her books ended - the first kiss.

I read a few of her books, I remember them as being peaceful, totally focused on the relationship and it didn’t move very fast and, obviously, not very far.
Suze said on 11.12.10 at 08:40 AM • [comment link]

I think RHG should read The Windflower next. Sort of a cleanse-the-palate experience.

THIS! You’ll be ruined for all other pirate romances, though.
Literary Slut Kilian said on 11.12.10 at 08:46 AM • [comment link]

I remember Angelique, read some of the books when I was a teen years ago. Don’t remember a thing except the name and that I was immediately reminded of her and her adventures when I read Misery by Stephen King. All that rapiness drove me into the worlds of Elswyth Thane, Georgette Heyer and Mary Stewart instead.

Thanks for taking a bullet for us, RHG, so we don’t have to.
Carrie S said on 11.12.10 at 09:29 AM • [comment link]

RHG, I realize this is a slight spoiler, but I just want to reassure you that the pirates’ relationship with their pet pig (in Windflower) is purely platonic. I just know we can all sleep better now having established that extremely important fact, except for those who are so pure of heart that they didn’t even consider the dreadful possibilities until this very moment and are now reeling in horror. It’s OK, folks, it’s not THAT kind of romance ;)

any76 - why do I bother using a stupid initial when 76 percent of the time I forget and type my whole name anyway?
Susan said on 11.12.10 at 10:54 AM • [comment link]

OMG, Thanks, RHG, you really took one for the team with this book. Please don’t read the sequels - life is too short.

Yes, this sounds like a typical bad Old Skool 70s bodice ripper. Goddess knows I read enough of them back in the day. They were considered romances, but I agree with those who don’t consider them romances now. And I agree with those who call them manifestations of the era. For those who are too young to remember, back in the 70s, there was a lot of uneasiness about feminism. Yes, more than there is now. Do some research about the campaign to defeat the ERA and you’ll see what I mean.
infinitieh said on 11.12.10 at 10:55 AM • [comment link]

Kudos to RHG and OMG to the book! I’m so glad I didn’t read romances until a couple of years ago (aside from a short spat of Harlequins in college which were strange enough).
Susan said on 11.12.10 at 10:56 AM • [comment link]

But you know, now that I think about it, I bet the author laughed all the way to the bank. Just like B. Small, R. Rogers, & J. Wilde.
cate said on 11.12.10 at 01:36 PM • [comment link]

@Erin - I’m with you on Teresa Denys, The Silver Devil remains in my top 20 romances, but the hero, is ,as you said, an utter
psychopath. The only thing I can say about him is that TD made him faillable, & bizarrely,I like him,whilst loathing him !
Unfortunately I never made it more than halfway through her only other book.
As for male writers masquerading as females…Bernard Cornwall ( Sharpe) writing as Susannah Kells - A Crowning Mercy & Fallen Angels, & making a really good job of the romance genre.
As for the rest of my 70’s,& 80’s BR’s ...Now, & oddly enough ,then. They just make me want to beat someone with my Le Creusets ! ...But when you had the limited choice available to a reader of romance in the UK at that time, - Barbara Cartland, Catherine Cookson ( Super Virgins or slit your wrists heroines - you choose !) I used to thank god for Mary Stewart , & take whatever else I could get my
hands on with a sigh of relief !!!!!
Brandi said on 11.12.10 at 02:03 PM • [comment link]

I can’t understand why people would buy and read a whole genre of rape fiction.

For the same reason(s) lots of people write tons of rape (“non-com”) fanfic now?
Jenyfer Matthews said on 11.12.10 at 02:10 PM • [comment link]

I’m so glad to hear that you have enough self-preservation to say “Enough! No more!” with regard to the old school romances. I can say, based only on your review, that this would have been an DNF for me.

Though the genre has changed in many ways since these kinds of books were popular (thank goodness!), I do think it is this sort of book that non-romance readers still associate with the genre - so is it any wonder the genre gets a bad rap?
SB Sarah said on 11.12.10 at 05:07 PM • [comment link]

One thing to note in the rape-heavy romances: the heroine, subject of that violation from whomever (or several whomevers) in the course of the plot had a happy ending. I don’t know if I can underscore enough how striking that is to me, and how important I think it is. The female who was forcibly assaulted and initiated into sexuality against her will had a happy ending. Yes, maybe it was with her rapist (Hi Luke! Hi Laura! And Shanna and… I have to stop now or I’ll run out of bandwidth) but she didn’t end up an ostracized, scorned prostitute, dead, or a dead ostracized scorned prostitute. She had a happy ending with love and fulfillment and some purpley-expressed manifestations of joy.

As Candy wrote (or maybe it was me and I can’t remember) in the Bosoms, the wages of sex are not death or disease. The wages of sex ultimately are happiness. That’s a rather large contrast with what is usually communicated - to wit, “women + sex = NO NO NO OH GOD WON’T YOU THINK OF THE CHILDREN.”
Erin said on 11.12.10 at 06:16 PM • [comment link]

@Cate
“I’m with you on Teresa Denys, The Silver Devil remains in my top 20 romances, but the hero, is ,as you said, an utter
psychopath. The only thing I can say about him is that TD made him faillable, & bizarrely,I like him,whilst loathing him !”

That is exactly how I feel about him as well. He was strangely likable in a unlikable way. lol. I think another point about the SD, yes the first time with Felicia was forced, but Domenico would never have allowed Felicia to be raped repeatedly, gee, I think he would have done worse than letting his hunting dogs tear the guy up lol. I did like the Flesh and the Devil, but not near as well as The Silver Devil.

I remember hazily my first romance book was a Harlequin by Violet Winspear (I really thought her name was cool beans), I read this at some point in Middle School in the late 70s early 80s. Prior to that it was the Edgar Rice Burroughs Tarzan Books, hey they were kinda romances and I got into watching those from the weekly Sunday Afternoon Tarzan Theatre on T.V. I used to think Johnny Weissmuller was pretty dang hot as a kid. He was a senior citizen at that point, but they had frozen him for all time on film in all of his bare chested manly glory! Jane was such a lucky girl!
http://www.geostan.ca/ in the famous words of Pepe Le Pew - He could screech to me with jungle love any damn time he felt like it!

Mary Stewart was another favorite with me as well. I loved “Touch Not The Cat”
Then I discovered Kathleen E. Woodiwiss and it was off from there. Funnily enough the only KW book that I can stomach now is “Ashes in the Wind”

It’s so much fun rambling down memory lane!
cate said on 11.12.10 at 06:25 PM • [comment link]

@Erin - Mary Stewart remains one of my heroines of romance ....And the woman who inspired me to go around the Greek Islands ! Ah ! The Moonspinners ( & not the dreadful travesty of the film of it !)
Erin said on 11.12.10 at 06:45 PM • [comment link]

Cate,
I agree about the Moonspinner’s movie even though I like Hayley Mills. I especially agree with your comment about Mary Stewart.
Leigha Adrian said on 11.12.10 at 07:33 PM • [comment link]

I’m thinking it deserves the F and a warning for several ‘rape’ scenes.

It seems though that the ‘rape’ involved in this book may be more of the rougher sex variety. I mean it’s Victorian style and if you look into it they basically started the whole kink thing.

If it is really ‘rape’ not like the ‘ooo there’s a burgler, please shag me’ bit that you’d maybe do with your boyfriend…than count me out for that novel.
Sharon said on 11.12.10 at 09:15 PM • [comment link]

I consider the book The Moonspinners and the movie The Moonspinners two completely separate bodies of work. I love Mary Stewart first and foremost as the gold standard for all romantic suspense, but I love Hayley Mills and enjoy the movie as a young adult/teen adventure story as well.

M.M. Kaye included a rape scenario in Trade Wind, which is probably the least popular of her historical romances. I like the book overall, like both the hero and heroine, and the scene works somehow—yes, it’s wrong and distasteful, but it somehow fits in time and place and given who these people are and the culture they are inmeshed in. I think one could write the same book today without the rape scene and the book would be just as good.

Love M.M. Kaye, but her mysteries are pretty lightweight, with the exception of Death in Zanzibar which ties in to Trade Wind—I think Death in Zanzibar may have been written first, but I could be wrong.
Alexis Harrington said on 11.12.10 at 11:01 PM • [comment link]

I think I remember this book—or series of books. It seems like there were several and I think they’re in some boxes out in the garage. Purity’s Impurity, or Purity Visits the Farm—just kidding. These books were written just about the time that the genre was taking off and publishers would buy almost anything. And the advances they paid were much larger than they are now.

The name of the heroine alone is enough to make me gag.
redheadedgirl said on 11.12.10 at 11:04 PM • [comment link]

It seems though that the ‘rape’ involved in this book may be more of the rougher sex variety. I mean it’s Victorian style and if you look into it they basically started the whole kink thing.

Uh, sure, I suppose, if you define “rough sex” as “rough sex without the consent of one of the participants.” And she only enthusiastically consented to sex with three people in the course of the story.
Elemental said on 11.13.10 at 02:16 AM • [comment link]

Wow. Rape can be a very powerful element of a story and character when handled thoughtfully and sensitively, but this….just seems so overblown it becomes faintly ridiculous. You can only have so many horrible things happen to a character before the audience starts to realise they’re being manipulated to feel bad, and start becoming numb to the whole mess. If it is a kind of old-school stealth erotica designed to focus on the rape fantasy, that actually seems better than if it’s meant to be a romantic tale of the triumph of love. At least then, the story would be attaining it’s goal.

Mind you the theme that you have to undergo years of agony, loneliness and torment (possibly ending in death) before you’re allowed any moments of happiness is tiresomely common in old romances, including a lot of “Great Romantic Stories”. Apart from the lack of rape, one trend I like in modern romances is that the characters are often allowed to enjoy themselves a bit more.
thetawnytart said on 11.13.10 at 04:41 AM • [comment link]

The review of this book really struck a nerve with me because I was disturbed by the treatment of rape in the book. As an aspiring novelist who writes romance I have used rape and sexual assault, but not as part of the book that is meant to be romantic. Rather it was used as a tool to show the growth of the main character and illustrate their triumph over adversity. If art and writing is meant in part to comment on society I think it makes sense to depict violence against women as part of the evil in our society. When it is approached from the perspective of conquering trauma might even be a positive thing for women to read about characters who have faced similar experiences and overcome them. But depicting rape as this book seems to as something that is so ordinary as to be expected even from people you care about is disgusting.

@SB Sarah’s comment “One thing to note in the rape-heavy romances: the heroine, subject of that violation from whomever (or several whomevers) in the course of the plot had a happy ending.”
I think that is an interesting point to bring up and maybe does somehow mitigate the problems with the book. But some part of me almost wishes she told Mark (?), the one who raped her that she is in love with, to go fuck off and maybe had more problems (although how she could actually have more problems I don’t know) and overcome her trauma on her own and find someone who won’t sexually assault her. But I guess it is progress to some degree that she got a happy ending. Lord knows she deserved it.

I think the attitudes that created the rape-romance books that told women it was wrong to enjoy sex are in fact changing and that is no longer the norm, at least in the U.S. Definitely a good thing.
Karen H said on 11.13.10 at 05:18 AM • [comment link]

Life is too short to read crap like this book (so thanks for sticking with it so I don’t have to)! I started reading romances in the mid-90s and eventually read Rosemary Rogers since “Sweet Savage Love” was held up as a great book. I couldn’t believe what happened but it was a lot like this Purity plot. I did read the second book also but by the third, I gave up. I mean, Steve and Ginny were supposedly the great loves of each other’s lives and they were hardly together but very busy with other folks! I did try another of her more recent books but it wasn’t much better in terms of the things that the heroine has to go through so I have dropped her off my list.

On the other hand, I’m still reading Catherine Coulter even though one of her early books (in the Earth/Fire Song series) had a secondary character rape another secondary character in front of the heroine and THEN (I’m still amazed at this) he became the hero of a subsequent book in the series! TOTAL WTF!! But it hasn’t happened since and I like the FBI series so I do read her.

I’m kind of surprised right now as to what people will like as I am finally reading “Outlander” by Diana Gabaldon. My used bookstore owner commented it was one of the most romantic stories she’d ever read when I told her that I was reading it but didn’t care for it that much. I’m only going to finish it because I’m 83% through it (it was free for my Kindle or I probably still wouldn’t have gotten around to reading it) and I hate to be a quitter. But I am NOT planning to read any of the subsequent books and I don’t understand why everybody thinks it’s so great. Yeah, (spoiler alert ahead for the 3 people besides me who haven’t read the book yet) the spanking and the witch burning and the hand mangling and torture and the heterosexual and homosexual rapes are probably historically accurate but I definitely don’t need to read about them. And I say the same thing about “The Girl with…” series. I won’t be reading them either because I read for enjoyment and the things that I have discovered happen in those books to the heroine are in no way appealing to me. Yes, I’m a feminist and I know the author was supposedly one, too, and Lisbeth supposedly triumphs over the evilness that is done to her but why on earth would I want to read about all that? And don’t tell me “the writing is great” because there’s plenty of great writing out there and it’s not used to make me sick to my stomach.

Anyway, I see that my secret word is “means69” and I’ll let you all think of appropriate responses to that!
Philippa Chapman said on 11.13.10 at 01:15 PM • [comment link]

I was reminded of Angelique as well. I read a few in that series [I was a teenager and they were in a modest ‘pick up and read’ type library at a hotel or something].

There was another in which the [supposedly] feisty heroine declared she’d never, never NEVER marry Count X because he was lame, ugly and scarred. Did she marry him? Yup, she was basically told to by her parents or some such. Was he all those things? Well, when they finally did the deed it was dark and her hands felt scars on his thighs [I think]. It wasn’t until she’d been laid prostrate and limp with satisfaction that he let her SEE him naked. The scars were minimal and he was otherwise most studly. Did she give him a piece of her mind and put his balls in a vice? [sigh]. Nope. All was forgiven because he was HAWT and could make love all night long. GRRR.
Laura Vivanco said on 11.13.10 at 01:52 PM • [comment link]

it was used as a tool to show the growth of the main character and illustrate their triumph over adversity. [...] When it is approached from the perspective of conquering trauma might even be a positive thing for women to read about characters who have faced similar experiences and overcome them.

I often find that when a “heroine triumphs over adversity” she does so very rapidly/easily. If she doesn’t, then she’s likely to receive negative comments from some readers, who see her as a whiny, passive victim instead of a strong, confident, admirable survivor.

I suppose I could have added this as a negative response to the “what have you learned from romance novels” thread because, as I’ve suggested elsewhere, I think some of the embedded messages in romances might make some of us feel worse due to the implicit (or explicit) messages they contain about those who are unable to “triumph” over adversity.
SuperiorJane said on 11.13.10 at 02:55 PM • [comment link]

Oh My StarZ !

These sorts of novels were what both of my grandmothers had stacked up in their bedrooms. When I was a little girl I would sneak in there and read snippets. It was horrifying and yet..could I look away ( can you not watch a train wreck ? ) for love nor money.
One book that has stayed with me ( sadly ) involved the forced “breeding” of slave women on some horrid plantation . I was roughly 8 or so when I found that book on her floor and read the 1st chapter, mouth agape. I was a pretty smart kid and I knew what I was reading was “naughty”.... I just had no idea how so.

These were also the sorts of “romance” that made me a huge huge scoffer or reading THAT sort of book. Because A. My GRANDMOTHERS read them and B. They were AWFUL !
If my friend Heather Ferguson had not allowed me to peruse her copy of ” Morning Glory ” by LaVyrle Spencer when I was in 9th grade ( THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU !!! )) I never,ever would have known any different, and would really have missed out.
kkw said on 11.13.10 at 11:59 PM • [comment link]

I enjoyed the hell out of Old Skool romances, although it is likely that I wouldn’t have the tolerance for them anymore. I would be willing to read the next installment at let the bitchery know (assuming I can find it). I actually liked the 70s ones more than the 80s - possibly this is an imaginary distinction I made up in my head - but as I recall, there was a time when heroines had lots and lots of sex, with multiple partners, and lots of kinks, including a heavy serving of rape all around. They were adventure heavy books, with heros who were ciphers (I’m not sure they had even 2 dimensions) because it wasn’t about the hero, or the relationship. But then it seemed like it was made a rule that the heroine was only ever allowed to have sex with one man, otherwise she’d be a whore. So the obligatory raping had to be done by the hero. Which I found awkward, and infuriating in a way that I hadn’t previously - because it wasn’t like all men are potential rapists and have fallen under the compulsion of this irresistible vagina (which is both unlikely and problematic but I’m pretty good with the suspension of disbelief) but instead Our Hero is the one and only rapist, which just serves to undermine his heroism. And then, because the heroine was only going to ever have sex with one person, and that person had to be the hero, and heros are not equal to rapists, there were no more rape scenes. Which was progress of a sort, but the plain vanilla sex that came to predominate for a while kinda bummed me out, as did the restrictions on the heroine’s adventures, sexual and otherwise, so I’m pleased with the diversity that’s available in the romance world today.
Deb Kinnard said on 11.14.10 at 02:56 AM • [comment link]

Why stop at 90s romance? There’s been a swackload of good romance, both contemp and historical, written in this century. Or do you secretly enjoy a bad read in a “OMW it’s so bad it’s terrific! and now I can bellyache about it” sort of way?
Dragoness Eclectic said on 11.14.10 at 05:17 AM • [comment link]

*scratches head*

I must have missed the rapetastic Beatrice Small stories, then. I read all of The Last Heiress series (as of last year, anyway), and quite enjoyed it, and didn’t remember it being at all rapetastic. The matriarch was widowed several times and had lovers as well, but it was all consensual. There was threat of rape by the villains, but fortunately hero & heroine stopped them, like good heroes do.

Did Ms. Small change her style in recent years or something?
redheadedgirl said on 11.14.10 at 05:29 AM • [comment link]

I did a review that hasn’t been posted yet of Adora, which was 12 kinds of rapetastic, and the only other book of hers that I’ve read was The Love Slave which starts with the heroine subbing in for her twin sister in her twin’s marriage bed, goes on to have her kidnapped and raped by Vikings, then sold to a man who trains her to be pleasure slave for a sultan, who then gives her to some other guy, who then gives her BACK to the guy who trained her to be a love slave in the first place, because he’s the hero and that’s where she’s supposed to end up.
Susan Reader said on 11.14.10 at 06:36 AM • [comment link]

This is going to ramble a bit….

The school scenes remind me very much, down to the details, of some Victorian porn I read many years ago. I’m reminded of the main character in Elizabeth Peter’s Die For Love (a mystery, BTW), figuring out that a Famous Romance Writer plagiarized one of her books from Victorian porn.

A couple of people mentioned E. M. Hull’s The Sheik. What I find interesting is how utterly Hull rejected rape as acceptable male behavior in her later books. Sometimes it’s almost pathological, as in The Lion-Tamer where the hero won’t make love to his wife, who adores him (he’s clueless about this), because she might feel assaulted. It’s a little funnier in Sons of the Sheik, where one of the sons goes out and kidnaps his own European beauty and brings her back to the desert fastness to have his way with her, whereupon he is reamed out by his father for this utterly despicable act. I remember the kid’s defense as something along the lines of “But Dad, you did it, why can’t I?”.

The absolute tip-top rapey 1970s WTF for me is Lolah Burford. I found her books when I was trolling through a used book store in the 1990s. First up, Maclyon where the hero (on the other hand, let’s just call him the main male character) kidnaps a girl from a party and rapes her for the hell of it. This binds her to him forever, and about half of the book is about her struggles to stay with him because he is Her Man. The Scottish Rising of 1745 comes along about Chapter 2 and complicates matters greatly. They both eventually wind up as bondservants in the Carolinas, and do finish up together in the end. It’s told in alternating chapters; his experience, her experience, back and forth. It’s the only book I ever mutilated. Eventually I ripped out all the chapters about the girl and threw them away. The chapters about the guy make a resonably cohesive story about a young man discovering that just because he’s young and cute and rich the world does not owe him a living (or even much respect), and learning to deal with it. The chapters about the girl are just rape-and-suffering on and on and on and on. She starts off raped by the guy, then by British soldiers, then by a British officer who puts her down a hole and hauls her up every once in a while to rape her some more, then by…pretty much every male character she meets in her quest to be reunited with Her Man.

But Burford wrote another book, called Vice Avenged. Here, again, it starts off with the main male character (MMC) raping the main female character (MFC). But this time their respective fathers (who are both peers, maybe both dukes) get together and decide that the MMC needs to be taught a lesson for punishment. They arrange things so horrible stuff happens to the MMC (I think at one point he winds up as a galley slave or some such), and every time he makes it out of one mess they dump another one on him. Eventually the MFC finds out about it, and starts to think that maybe this is a bit too much and gets the fathers to back down. I think the MMC eventually apologized to her. In any case, she decides he’s OK and marries him.

So, two rather different experiences for the females. Somewhat confused by Burford, I picked up another book by her. I got as far as the part where the duke discovers his long-lost illegitimate son, brings him into his household, and…seduces him? I decided I would never understand her characters’ motivations and gave up. Truly, truly, WTF. The seventies were a strange time.
Susan said on 11.14.10 at 07:20 AM • [comment link]

RHG: (In stern voice used when correcting dog) LEAVE IT!

And yes, B. Small has changed her style some in the last few books. For instances of rape of heroines, try Love Wild & Fair and Skye O’Malley. I’m not sure if she changed because the times did, or if she started to wonder what her grandchildren would think. Suspect R. Rogers might have the same concern.

And Susan Reader, you’re right. The 70s *were* strange. We had horrible taste in clothes, TV, and music. I know - I was there. Disco - what WERE we thinking? Love Boat - Arghhhh! Actually, I don’t think Lolah Burford was in the romance category back then. I would call her stuff historical erotica now, on the BDSM side.
Anne Ardeur said on 11.14.10 at 09:42 AM • [comment link]

I think I’ve read this, or one in the series. Or a clone of it, maybe. When I was 14 (maybe younger. Probably younger), and thought Kathleen Woodiwiss was the bee’s knees. And I hated it even then.
Bridget said on 11.14.10 at 12:43 PM • [comment link]

@Laura Vivanco - I know what you mean about heroines getting over it insanely quickly. But have you read The Hunger Games trilogy? It’s quite violent (though no rape) but also a love story, and the main characters all take pretty much the whole third book to deal with their problems, without it seeming overly angsty or whiny. They had serious problems; it took them a long time to deal with it. It felt real. One of the many reasons I love those books :)
Laura Vivanco said on 11.14.10 at 01:49 PM • [comment link]

But have you read The Hunger Games trilogy? It’s quite violent (though no rape) but also a love story, and the main characters all take pretty much the whole third book to deal with their problems

Bridget, I don’t think I could/should read it; I have to be very careful about the kinds of books I read. However, I read the review of the final book at Dear Author (and the comments people made about that review) and, interestingly, it seemed that one of the reasons that quite a lot of people were disappointed by the final book in the trilogy was that they wanted a more upbeat ending, more of a “triumph over adversity.” For example, Jia herself wrote that

I anticipated the story arc of the Hunger Games trilogy to be one in which Katniss gains agency and freedom. [...] This never happens. Katniss remains a pawn until the end. Even in the climactic act, which should have been emblematic of her reaching autonomy, Katniss was driven to it, reacting to her circumstances. [...]

Objectively, I think it is an excellent book, gripping and realistic. I think it accomplishes exactly what it set out to do. But it’s not the story I expected and it is the not the story I wanted to read.

and here’s a comment from a reader called Amy:
this might sound shallow, if I pick up fiction I expect glimpses of hope and love even at the worst of times. I expect the story to make sense. I don’t need a happy end, but I want a heroine who takes action, someone I can root for.

All that was missing for me from Mockingjay. Katniss was broken and pushed around, things just happened around her.
JamiSings said on 11.14.10 at 09:43 PM • [comment link]

@Susan - Disco RULES thank you very much. Better lyrics and because there was no Autotune people actually had to be able to sing to get a recording contract - not like today when all they need is a pretty body and know how to lipsync. And the clothing back then is WAY better then today’s. At least men wore their pant waists AT their waists rather then at their knees like they do today.

The books might’ve been crap but the music and clothing is FAR SUPERIOR to today’s. *blows raspberry*
zinemama said on 11.14.10 at 09:58 PM • [comment link]

RHG, looking forward to your review of Adora! I read it at 14 and can’t imagine reading it again, but while certain images got imprinted indelibly on my innocent (up till then) young mind, I don’t remember enough of it to say much more than that it made quite an impression. I know there was an awful lot of WTF in there, and am grateful in advance for you tackling it so I don’t have to!
Alexis Harrington said on 11.14.10 at 11:45 PM • [comment link]

I just finished the Hunger Games trilogy about a month ago. It’s amazingly violent but there’s no sex beyond a few kisses, hand-holding, and “warm” feelings. I really liked the books despite the savagery (and I don’t think I’m far off with this description) but I was surprised that they’re YAs.

Despite references in some passages to fantastic colors of costumes, surroundings, etc., the very tone of the books made me think of gray shades.

No rapes—just decapitations, full body meltdowns (literally), and yeah, kind of a less than HEA.
beggar1015 said on 11.14.10 at 11:59 PM • [comment link]

JamiSings:
Disco RULES thank you very much

I just read this as I was listening to the Bee Gees. Yeah! Disco rules! But no, can’t say the same thing about the clothes. Lord, what were we thinking?

Susan: Ain’t nuthin’ wrong with The Love Boat! At least they had power and working toilets.

catchphrase: ways38
There are 38 ways to get down, get down, get down, get down, get down tonight
Janine Ballard said on 11.15.10 at 07:53 AM • [comment link]

I read Purity’s Passion roughly 20 years ago, and haven’t been able to scrub it from my memory. It remains the single most painful romance reading experience of my life.

The story had the quality of a nightmare I could not wake up from. I kept reading because I hoped Purity would get some happiness in the end, but the suffering just went from bad to worse.

I have always considered this the most horrifying romance I’ve ever read and would not hesitate to give this book an F grade.
And I have a fairly high tolerance for conflict and darkness in a romance, and don’t even categorically oppose rape. My favorite book in the romance genre is Gaffney’s To Have and to Hold which does contain rape, and still, I haven’t found a more horrific book in this genre than Purity’s Passion.

I really appreciated this review (finally, someone else who has read this nightmare!) but have a hard time fathoming the C- grade.
orangehands said on 11.15.10 at 10:49 AM • [comment link]

I read the review (and managed not to throw up, yeah me), and then the comments. One of the things I find very interesting is this basic underwriting that these books are “historic” or “old school” in whatever genre (erotica, chick-lit or romance) they fall into, as if they aren’t still popping up today. I’m not just talking about the re-releases of these books like Erin mentioned, but newly written books. Not as explicit, not in the same way, but they’re still there.

I’m not saying the rape fantasy is bad. There were a lot of reasons for it then (the good girls don’t like sex trope, the first allowance of female sexuality, the subtext of BSDM before (actual, with consent) BSDM entered into romance novels, people working through their rapes in real life, the forced orgasm fantasy, etc etc.) I don’t really get it, but I understand that other people get it, and need it, and and I don’t have any right to dictate people’s fantasies.

But I think we as a society are so fucking clueless and off about what consent really is, what rape is, that we’re ignoring that it is still popping up in books and being treated as part of a normal, sexual scene. There are a lot of books that I find blur the line, and a lot of books I didn’t even realize where blurring the line until someone pointed it out. (This is not to say all, or the majority, but it appears more than I think is given credit.) As rape activists have been trying to point out, there is a difference between saying yes to sex and saying nothing, and there’s a pressure that can happen for men and women that may not be our understanding of rape but blurs the line of complete consent. (The no, no, no, yes scenes, the really drunk scenes, the power imbalance scenes.)

Like RHG said, I’m a product of the first, second, and third wave of feminism, and all the acts that went in-between those waves, I worked with rape victims, hell I am one, and I try to promote healthy sexuality. (I may call myself a prude but I’ve also spent a lot of time talking to girls/women about female masturbation.) And even I don’t always recognize this blurred line because I think society has so enforced rape culture that rape in its more subtle shades can show up and slip by without any acknowledgment for what it is. Sometimes because the characters themselves don’t see it that way, sometimes because we read the scene from the pursued instead of the pursuer (and so we can read his/her desire while she’s saying no), and sometimes because it’s just that subtle and we don’t know to call it rape, and sometimes because we have been taught not to think about it as rape. Laurel mentioned that rape victims don’t orgasm, and people were quick to point out she was completely wrong, but that idea and misconception is not an uncommon one, and neither is a lot of other myths about rape.

So anyway, RGH, good post, and interesting comments. Very thought-provoking. Though now I need to go scrub my brain with bleach so I can forget the description of the book and sleep well.
David said on 11.15.10 at 01:18 PM • [comment link]

I am interested in reading P&P, is a favorite of one of my friends, who reccommended it to me !
Thanks for the review
thetawnytart said on 11.15.10 at 08:54 PM • [comment link]

@Laura Vivanco I read and enjoyed the Hunger Games series but I think people who commented that Katniss seems to lose her autonomy in the end of the book are right. The third book is mostly spent dealing with fall out from the first two, which I agree is more realistic than heroine’s just getting up and brushing traumas off of them, but she just seems to kind of re-disintegrate every 30 pages or so. Of course she was forced to kill people so it doesn’t come off as whiny, since her mental issues were genuine. I think when the character dealing with something comes off as whiny is when it is just them thinking about how terrible their life is or was without any new experiences going on. I think there is a big difference in tone if, for example, character X has a PTSD flashback in a grocery store and you see what she sees etc or her just sitting at home saying I can’t go to the grocery store because I am scared (I have no idea why I picked grocery store) I think that’s more about how it’s written than what is written.

I guess it comes down to a matter of personal taste. I agree with the reader Amy that you quoted. I like heros and heroines who take the bull by the horns and I like there to always be some sort of redeeming good even in the worst of circumstances, maybe because it meshes with my world view or what I would like the world to be. I agree with you that some characters who are “overcoming adversity” are just being passive and complaining, in which case it isn’t interesting to me. But, in a rape case for example, my ideal character would be a person who was raped and then took that and turned it into a tool to help others, like becoming a rape counselor perhaps. I think those are the kinds of characters we like to read about, or at least those are the kind of characters I like to read about.
george said on 11.16.10 at 08:37 AM • [comment link]

I’m an aspiring feminist and I’ve been efforting to find blogs such as this one. Keep up the good work girls.
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Sarah said on 11.16.10 at 10:40 AM • [comment link]

I once read part of an academic paper that I thought had a compelling theory about why there was so much rape in Old Skool romances, particularly rape by the hero. The idea was that the story was a way for women to confront in imagination the possibility (or reality, for many) of being raped and bend it into a story line that ends with the rapist hero repenting and the heroine finding happiness - to bring an uncontrollable reality under control in imagination, and to re-tell the story in a way that is healing in some way. This is related to the point that SB Sarah made above that these story lines do represent an early step away from the story of rape leading to ostracism and death for the victim (as happens in Tess of the D’Urbervilles - not to mention as happens in the reality of many cultures, including European). I’m not that familiar with rape fantasies in a BDSM context, but from what I know I think they may be for some people a similar way to take emotional ownership of a situation that is about ownership being taken away when it happens in reality.

Also, I don’t have a theory about this, but human beings seem to be really fascinated by all kinds of violence in storytelling. If you read old versions of fairy tales (such as the original versions collected by the Grimm Brothers), they’re often extremely gruesome, with people eating each other’s lungs, cooking each other in ovens, etc. Not to mention violence in tv shows and Hollywood movies - today’s fairy tales. There’s something exciting about violence (for whatever reason), and maybe that’s true of sexual violence as well - when you’re reading about it in fiction.

Last, I agree with those who pointed out that a lot of today’s romances have really questionable sex scenes where one character says no and the other character finds a way to seduce the first into wanting it after all. Real life is complicated, and there’s nothing wrong or unusual about feeling ambivalent or changing your mind. But it does bother me that these scenes are written without any recognition that what they’re describing is at least morally ambiguous.

Personally, I think it would help us recognize these situations as problematic if we had a more nuanced set of words for not-ok sex. Rape is a very strong word (with legal implications), and we hesitate to apply it to lots of situations that don’t seem to deserve such a severe judgment, but because it’s the only word we’ve got, there seems to be this implication that any sex that’s not rape is totally morally acceptable. From my personal experience of being manipulated and pressured into giving consent when I didn’t want sex, I know that’s not true. (No there was no alcohol or similar involved - I was in complete possession of my faculties, except for a lot of missing self-esteem.) Sometimes people who recognize that these situations are not-ok sex want to call them rape as a way of communicating that this is not acceptable behavior, but I think it would be better to reject the hidden assumption that all sex that’s not rape is acceptable.
thetawnytart said on 11.16.10 at 06:24 PM • [comment link]

@Sarah
I think you are absolutely right. I am currently in law school and last year in criminal law we studied rape law. There are lots of situations that do not qualify as rape legally but that we would probably all consider to be immoral. For example fraud in getting consent. If a Doctor says to his patient you have a terrible disease and the only way for me to cure you is to have sex with you and she agrees that is not rape even though it is a complete lie. And no I didn’t invent that fact scenario we actually read that case. Fraud only eliminates consent if it involves lying about the act itself. So if the Doctor said I’m going to do a pelvic exam and then has sex with the patient that would in fact be rape, but not the first scenario. I think clearly the first scenario is morally wrong and should be punished but because it legally isn’t rape it isn’t dealt with. So I think you are right that we need a broader range of names for things that we may not want to term as rape as well as a better definition of what is rape.
orangehands said on 11.16.10 at 11:01 PM • [comment link]

Rape is a very strong word (with legal implications), and we hesitate to apply it to lots of situations that don’t seem to deserve such a severe judgment, but because it’s the only word we’ve got, there seems to be this implication that any sex that’s not rape is totally morally acceptable.

I completely agree with this.
redheadedgirl said on 11.16.10 at 11:10 PM • [comment link]

@ thetawnytart

I wanted to bring that up, but my notes on those particular classes are sketchy (I think I got too damn pissed off at that point- did you have a bunch of rape apologists in your class, too?) and couldn’t remember where “fraud in the inducement” and blackmail falls on the “rape/not rape/wasn’t rape before, is now” continuum.

And I remember that doctor case. ::shudder::
Elemental said on 11.17.10 at 01:51 AM • [comment link]

I don’t really have anything useful to add, but this is a very interesting and informative discussion.
thetawnytart said on 11.17.10 at 02:06 AM • [comment link]

@ redheadedgirl
We didn’t have a lot of rape apologists, or at least many who wanted to argue it in the class. Our teacher, who was really awesome, ended up arguing for it not being rape herself. And then I think someone said we don’t want to burden physicians at which point I got really REALLY pissed off because if anything I would want to give the doctor with his “special serum” extra jail time for abusing his position as a doctor. I don’t remember blackmail…my guess would be that the MPC makes blackmail rape and some states probably have it as not rape… I don’t know rape law in any of the states, but I hope none of them still have the very old school rule of unless you resist as much as you can then it’s not rape. Sadly I bet there are.
Maddy said on 12.09.10 at 08:51 AM • [comment link]

Ok, so, this is kiiiind of unrelated to the current review. I was reading the one for Season of the Sun, where you mentioned being 3rd-gen Swedish from Minnesota. Have you ever read Scandinavian Humor (and Other Myths)? It’s quite funny, and all about, well, Scandinavians who live in Minnesota.

On the subject of this book though… yeah, poor girl. Maybe the pirate’s'll treat her better (which wouldn’t be hard), but by the sound of things, probably not. Ah well. Zoe Archer is now on my list of authors to check out, though.
redheadedgirl said on 12.10.10 at 02:50 AM • [comment link]

Have you ever read Scandinavian Humor (and Other Myths)? It’s quite funny, and all about, well, Scandinavians who live in Minnesota.

I *loved* that one. It was all funny because it was true.

Zoe is awesomesauce squared. That is all.
Rich said on 12.13.10 at 06:26 PM • [comment link]

redheadedgirl: you nicked my line!

That is all.

Being as you obviously have a talent for writing infectious reviews full of character i’l take it as a compliment ;)

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