Laura Kinsale sent us a link to a rant she wrote on her own BB, wherein she discusses political correctness clashing with her desire and goal to write a good story.
Kinsale’s frustration is with readers who expect enlightened heroes (read: not ‘old fashioned’ alpha heroes) but bemoan the lack of good stories:
I read a lot—a LOT—of reader commentary on the various romance sites regarding things like alpha heroes and “rape” and “forced seduction” and how all that is so 1970’s (or 80’s or 90’s, take your pick depending on your age) but we’re all enlightened modern women now and we just don’t like that sort of thing. Then in the next thread will be complaints that the genre just isn’t as compelling or interesting as it used to be and readers can’t find books they really enjoy, and gee, why are all the heroes vampires now?
The trend, as she calls it, of self-conscious political correctness in romance is somewhat stifling to Kinsale as a writer, and a recent review in Salon gave her the context to express what had been irritating her.
The book being reviewed was a discussion of eroticism and emotional intimacy in real-world marriages, but when applied to romance protagonists, the discussion takes on different significance:
Erotic desire, Perel argues, thrives on mystery, unpredictability and politically incorrect power games, not housework battles and childcare woes…. “The challenge for modern couples,” she writes, “lies in reconciling the need for what’s safe and predictable with the wish to pursue what’s exciting, mysterious, and awe-inspiring.”
Kinsale writes: “It sometimes begins to seem to me that a goodly percentage of present day romance readers are actually frightened of reading about a real conflict in a book.” Moreover, “Romance IS an erotic genre. And Perel has pointed out the elephant in the room: Erotic desire…thrives on mystery, unpredictability and politically incorrect power games.”
Kinsale argues that readers have become self-conscious about their own erotic fantasies, and the genre itself has been divided into two camps: the “safe Regency settings” that provide emotional depth, while “the erotic drive has been channeled over to vampire and fantasy books where realism is a non-issue,” leaving folks who prefer neither to complain that there’s nothing to read.
This long-ass summary of a really thought-provoking rant caused me to turn to my husband of six years and ask, “Can you have your emotional security cake and hump it too?” He of course, had no idea what I was talking about but was pleased that I’d mentioned both “cake” and “humping.”
I don’t know in all honesty what I think about the idea of the divide of the genre, or the idea that readers don’t want to read real conflict. But I do have to wonder about the idea that erotic desire “thrives on politically incorrect power games.” Is erotica as a genre then a subversion of current standards of societal correctness, particularly in America where we can watch ten men get shot before 9pm eastern but God forbid we see a naked breast during prime time?
When I consider the responses to our discussions of heroes, heroines, and plotlines on this site, I haven’t necessarily read a great deal of shunning of the alpha hero, though our discussion on rape scenes in romance was long and infinitely absorbing, even as most of those commenting on the topic agreed it was a cliche that was better left in the past. but are we uncomfortable with conflict and sexual power plays in romance, unless they are shelved under the erotica genre?
I’m still formulating my reaction, to be honest, but Kinsale’s rant gave me a lot to think about in terms of erotica, romance, and expectations of the genre. And I very much want to read what you think.
But, Candy, isn’t that part of LK’s point? That writers are tryng to veer away from traditional anything in books for PC reasons?
I was just saying that is what *I* prefer to read about when reading historical romance. And I get annoyed when authors try to bring PC concepts into a book that supposedly took place over 100 years ago. I don’t need 100% societal accuracy, but the reason I read an historical vs. contemporary romance is that there is something appealing to me about traditional male/female relationships. And why should I be made to feel bad for enjoying that kind of book? or why do writers have to change stories with this dynamic because it is not considered PC in today’s ‘enlightened’ world?
As far as the ice cream/vibrator comments goes, perhaps I bounced around a little too much there. What I meant by that was sometimes women are made to be so strong in books that there doesn’t seem to be a point in having a man around at all. She seems to be able to do everything on her own. I find that kinda boring. I’d like a little vulnerability and a little bit of acknowledgment that sometimes, you *do* need a man.
Like I said, I’m an old-fashioned kinda gal…
Kristin: of course you shouldn’t feel bad about enjoying what you do. And for what it’s worth, I’m as irritated as anyone else by heroines in historicals who are essentially modern women in corsets and hoop skirts. (Mary Jo Putney is especially guilty of this sin, much as I enjoy her books.) It’s possible to create strong female characters who still ring true, who are reasonable products of their time. Most historical romances fail miserably at this, both the ones with irritatingly headstrong modern heroines AND the ones with, for lack of a better term, more traditional attitudes.
I also just wanted to point out that what people tend to think of as “traditionally male” or “traditionally female” change with time, and they’re not necessarily what we think they are. To pull up an old example: Lace, satin and poetry certainly weren’t shunned by aristocratic men of the 18th century, though they have extremely fruity connotations in modern society. Again, no condemnation, just analysis and academic interest. For example: what do you mean by “traditional”? That’s a pretty vague yet loaded word.
I will say this, though: I am sick unto death of people using the term “PC” to mean “wimpy” or “modern,” and “un-PC” to describe brutality that they happen to find sexy. Not everyone does it, but enough do to drive me up the friggin’ WALL.
From Candy—“I will say this, though: I am sick unto death of people using the term
“PC” to mean “wimpy” or “modern,” and “un-PC” to describe brutality
that they happen to find sexy. Not everyone does it, but enough do to drive
me up the friggin’ WALL. “
I came back to clarify an earlier statement and comments appear faster than I can articulate here. Or try to at least. Like Kerry, I don’t always feel I make myself clear and find it more comfortable to lurk. (g)
This from Becca:
â€So it is demonstrably possible to have dark heros and dark heroines – or at least those with their own demons – without bowing to Political Correctness or feeling the need to stick a vampire into the series to create erotic tension. “
This is exactly what I tried to say earlier in my oh-so-inelegant way. I used strong instead of dark. When I said that it sometimes feels like we’re PC-ing our fiction to death, I didn’t actually mean it to sound as it did. Oops. Sorry bout that. What I did mean is that maybe in an effort to be as politically correct as possible—- to try and please so many readers who are so vocal on the Internet, writers and even editors are taking fewer chances. I don’t know this for sure—it’s just a thought. Actually, homogenized is a great term for what I think I was trying to get across.
Heh heh—now I’m not even sure of my point. I’m a way better lurker.
But, I do believe strong heroines are a great thing about today’s books. I love them. I had many a romance manuscript turned down in the nineties because my heroines were too strong. I’m jumping back into the game now because maybe what I write will work now.
Strong doesn’t necessarily have to mean “kick ass” (even though most of mine can and do)—it can mean so many things. Strength of character—of will. And I think that a lot of readers might be feeling disappointment in their kick-ass heroines because sometimes, the very things that make women strong end up absent. I believe a woman can kick-ass and still show compassion… and still be turned on by a strong, alpha male.
I once had a reader point out the strength of my heroine and say I’d have to make the hero weaker to balance the book properly. Why?
From this conversation, it sounds as if the real struggle is terminology. What does alpha mean to each of us? To me it can mean “in charge” but it can also mean protector or just plain strong-willed with all those great manly qualities. I see no problem with a well-written romance about two strong alpha characters. What’s missing, IMO, for some readers is the strong “compelling” elements. The heavy emotional elements. At least that’s what I hear in conversations.
Am I even making sense? I need coffee or something…
I think Nora said it perfectly. A hero can be an alpha, masculine, arrogant, protective, studly kind of guy without being an asshole or a rapist. To me nothing sexy or provocative about rape/forced seduction. Too close to the she means yes even though she says no argument.
In past novels it was often the mans anger and him forcing himself on the woman.
time has passed, we’ve evolved, why dont we see women forcing men in novels?
because… piss a woman off and the last thing we want to do is get naked!If she’s mad enough you may not see her naked for WEEKS!
we don’t force sex on men to assert our dominance. And rape/forced sex in novels are written in for just that reason, to show that MEN are dominant to women and we should submit to them.
However, I realize its all fiction and if the book is good enough and the story can carry the episode well, I can move past it and not hold it against the author.
Rape by villians is another topic all together.. diane gabaldons outlander series included male / male rape and male/female rape. both were handled well i thought and added to the story.
So what happened to the intrepid author who presented such unconventional heroes as the one in Seize the Fire where the hero was on his knees to ther heroine not once but twice!
STF is my favorite Kinsale. I just hope the author who so passionately wrote not that long ago about how she didn’t care what any of us thought hasn’t gone away.
Actually, I’ve seen Kinsale make some of the points she made in her latest post before, and I think the core of her position is in her comment about the “literalization” of Romance. If I understand Kinsale’s argument, it goes something like this: while so many of our fantasies, archetypes, myths (she’s mentioned Leda and the Swan on AAR, which is contributing to my inferences here) relate to the taboo, to violence, to dark eroticism, etc., in our Romance novels, we’ve moved farther and farther away from honoring those symoblic and metaphoric and mythic levels and have instead grounded all this stuff by inappropriately writing and talking about it in the same way we’d talk about real life issues. So in the issue of rape, for example, instead of looking toward the mythic and symbolic levels and aspects and functions of this trope, we act like “forced seduction” or what I call “Romance rape” is virtually the same as real-life rape, which, in Kinsale’s paradigm (as I understand it) is fully distinct from the trope of forced seduction or rape in Romance.
Based on this understanding of her position (which I stand ready to be corrected on), I don’t fully agree with Kinsale, because I do not think you can choose the either or in the material – mythic relationship. For me, anyway, taboos, for example, have their power not only because of their long-standing connections with archetype and myth, but because of their material implications. That rape, for example, has strong symbolic and mythic elements does not, IMO, distinguish it from its real-world counterpart, because IMO part of the power of the mythic derives from the vulernability and threat inherent in the material existence of rape (and vice versa).
That’s why in my own reading of forced seduction or Romance rape, I tend to think that part of the power of that trope is that it makes safe something that women find terribly unsafe in real life. And that it allows for a different identification of power, that it touches on all sorts of self-control and responsibility issues (this element, of course, has been well documented by Nancy Friday and others), etc. But I don’t think it can function symbolically without all of its real-life significance and potency serving as a counterpoint and a conscience.
I also think that women who HAVE experienced sexual assault have a very legitimate reason to find the device prolematic and objectionable in Romance. Because while Kinsale tends to take the deep view of these things, I don’t think hers is a universal approach, and so when she laments to lack of imagination, risk, and boundary pushing in Romance, she’s using criteria that aren’t applicable universally across the genre.
Perhaps because I read calls all the time for more boundary-pushing in Romance, I guess I’m not so imbued with the idea that Romance readers, per se, are guilty of such a glaring double standard (although I’m not saying we’re easy to please or innocent of double-standards in our expecations of the genre at times). Further, I think there is some Romance for which it IS appropriate to ask the question of whether certain books are romanticizing certain behaviors and values in a real-world material kind of way—in other words, where the mythic and the mystical are not invoked or evoked (however they might function in the individual reader’s imagination—or not).
I do, though, think Kinsale is right about the mystery inherent in understanding all of the nuances of desire and attraction and sexuality, etc. And I think this even extends to the writing of Romance. Because while I find some of Kinsale’s comments to be aesthetically conservative, I find her books to be very subversive in certain ways. And that combination, which remains somewhat mysterious to me as a reader, doesn’t necessarily compute logically, but it does produce some mighty fine Romance.
PC in novels means something a little different for me: 1)Like Suzanne Brockman’s last couple of books she has slipped in snide references to how it’s apparently OK now for the US Military to torture prisoners (like it wasn’t stopped, prosecuted, and punished?) 2)Or Linsay McKenna and her native american heroines that are so full of angst and feelings of be misunderstood, that I doubt they are mentally capable of sustaining a relationship. I don’t want to read about them, I just want to send them to counseling.
Another hot button for me is the same as Kristin…authors who write historical novels, but insist on including modern political correctness. Totally heave that puppy out in the yard for the dog to pee on.
Rebyh..so true I’m still laughing, “Piss a woman off and the last thing we want is to get naked! If she’s mad enough you may not see her naked for weeks!”
Another hot button for me is the same as Kristin…authors who write historical novels, but insist on including modern political correctness.
I think I’m less convinced than other people that this is actually occuring; too often, I think the no-PC argument is used to justify heroes of the past who are bulying bastards and heroines who are dainty doormats. But I don’t think it’s always the case that history bears out our popular perceptions of it, especially when it comes to how we think men and women are being re-written according to current day standards.
As for Brockman’s side references—having spent an entire semester studying the so-called enemy combatant situation, all I can say is . . . THANK YOU, Suzanne Brockman!
Perhaps the problem of strong heroines so strongly dominating weak heroes is more a problem of the pendulum swinging too far away from the worst sort of hero. This mercifully isn’t the case with all but a very few novels I’ve read. It’s no more a desirable or believable setup than the simpering women with beastly heroes from the past. PC isn’t an excuse in and of itself, but I can certainly see that it would give authors some pause.
Equal partners whose strengths/weaknesses are so lovely to observe, in novels or real life. Like Nick and Nora in the Thin Man movies, the combination of wit and love and play is hard to beat. In comtemporary novels, it seems that this equal partner role is relgated to the Best Friend who brings ice cream and snark. Such inequal M/F matching takes away most of the sex appeal for me because the comfortable, fun outlet for power play has been removed.
The woman can certainly be in the heroic role without having to weaken the male. Nora Roberts’ Key trilogy is a good example of the women being strong, brave and entirely femme. Their men are appropraite matches, all strong and successful. Most importantly, the men are supportive equals and not the ones who come in at the last moment and fix the mess the women made. They’re proud like good boyfriends should be. 😉
I don’t really see much evidence of correctness, political or otherwise, in the vast majority of historical romances that have been published in the past 30-35 years. I’m with Robin: I tend to read “politically incorrect” as code for “hero is a brutal asshole but we’re going to try and pass him off as historically accurate because EVERYONE knows all men of yore were brutal assholes, and y’all are just too politically correct to appreciate his True Manliness.” And look, it’s OK to admit we like brutal assholes in our romance fiction. Hell, I have a huge soft spot for heroes who display distinctly asswipish behaviors, like Sebastian Dain in Lord of Scoundrels and Sheridan Drake of Seize the Fire. To veer into a tangent: I think for me, the extent to which I can buy into and forgive a hero’s bad behavior is often predicated on how well I understand what drives them to act so pathologically. Chase and Kinsale provided fairly detailed looks into their heroes’ pasts, so even while I winced and gasped at some of the things they did, I could sympathize. It’s not about political correctness or incorrectness for me, it’s about how convincing the motivations are for the characters.
Bla bla bla UGH how’d it get so late? More babbling tomorrow. Yeah, exciting stuff. Hang on to your panties.
“You can please all the people some of the time and some
of the people all of the time but you can’t please all the people all of the time”
And that’s why message boards and comment threads are fun.
I guess I just like men who are men…who know how to fix things, chop wood, fire a gun, laugh in the face of spiders and bats and mice….how can you do that if the woman can take care of everything herself? Why not just give the heroine a vibrator and a carton of ice cream and call it romance?
I like men who can do that, too. But my grandma could do all the things you mention, and she had several husbands (sequentially, not all at once)in her 92 years. She threw a couple back because they weren’t strong enough to keep up with her. She was an old-fashioned Southern girl—really old fashioned, born in the 19th century. But she was a farm girl, not a sheltered lady. She grew up working hard and expected a man to do the same. And if he didn’t respect her, he could go look somewhere else for a doormat. I do think a lot of the women in realistic historicals would have that same attitude. Those were the frontier gals who survived and raised kids who were survivors.
Physical competence doesn’t have to be ‘unfeminine.’ I think it’s more romantic to be with a guy because you want to be, not because you think you can’t survive without him.
But that’s where we get into different strokes—different styles of femininity. My father-in-law would be horrified if his wife invaded his workshop, and she never lets him use her stove. The gender roles work for them, and that’s great. They just don’t always work for everyone… variety is spice.
I’m not sure what an ‘alpha’ male really is, but I suspect most of the guys who are always trying to prove they are, aren’t.
Okay, I just posted a huge long reply with links to where I blogged about these topics and it all went blooey. So I’m going to go cry and try again later.
I’m disturbed by the idea that by authors scuttling “politically incorrct behavior” (read: characters abusing one another) we’ve somehow lost the ability to set up genuine conflict in our stories.
Yes, romance IS, by it’s nature, erotic (no matter what certain—not all—Inspy authors would have you believe) but is it impossible to have erotic conflict without one character—usually the hero—humiliating/hurting/disrespecting the other in some way?
I’m not buying it. But I never liked the “politically incorrect” books, anyway. I’ve met enough jerky, macho men in my real life. I don’t need to read about them, too. My definiton of “Alpha” is someone who is so strong, he doesn’t need to be abusive to get the job done. An abusive asshole “Alpha” is just a weak man with a big mouth and a desire to punish those who threaten his sense of self.
And yes, I HATE all this “it’s all the fault of PC” crap, no matter who is spewing it. I’m sorry, Ms. Kinsale, but as an excuse for having trouble coming up with good stories, it rings false. Particularly when you follow it with “I don’t give a damn what the readers think anyway.”
And so long as I’m shooting off my own big mouth…
1)Like Suzanne Brockman’s last couple of books she has slipped in snide references to how it’s apparently OK now for the US Military to torture prisoners (like it wasn’t stopped, prosecuted, and punished?)
Abu Ghraib is one of the incidents we KNOW about, in terms of US military/CIA torture of prisoners. To assume it is an isolated incident is naive, considering how hard the current administration has lobbied to have the strictures on torture as a tool for interrogation eased.
They failed, due to pressure from a bi-partisan coalition that insisted it put our own service-people in considerable danger and produced extremely unreliable information. (Plus…you know…it’s WRONG, and we’re supposed to be the GOOD GUYS. A “Christian nation,” according to the President.)
Pardon my rabid cynicism, but I think the folks that particular “tool” are just working a little harder to not get caught these days. No cameras on the cell blocks would be a fair start, I imagine.
I just can’t WAIT for the hate mail on this one. 🙂
You know someone is going to read this thread and get to the end where Laura Kinsale steered us back on topic and thing, ‘But I wanted to talk about raaaaaaaaape!’
But not me!
Oddly enough, and I said so to Ms. Kinsale, I’m reading The Dream Hunter right now, so when I saw her name in my email inbox, I was a little startled. Is she looking in my handbag?
Now that I’ve read her page and have chewed on it, what sticks in my mind is the question: Alpha heroes and questions of PC aside, are readers afraid of conflict? Do we dislike and vocally decry romances that feature heavy emotional conflict between the protagonists? Are we afraid of confrontation and conflict in any venue? Do we look down on characters who emotionally don’t have their poop in a group?
In a completely unrelated thought, I’ve long suspected that while the internet is the best thing that happened to me in a while, it has done a grievous damage to our collective ability to interact in person. It’s safer and easier to interact via monitor and chat room, because we don’t have to hear our own words or deal with awkward communications or tensions – just shut off the screen and walk away. Problem of emotional entanglement in the immediate? Solved.
Perhaps that tendency to eschew conflict has carried over somewhat to our reading material. Our hesitancy over conflict could also be related to the minor advent of the ass-kicking heroine – conflicts when the heroine is ass-kicking are often external as well as internal to the relationship. Sure there’s the desire to remain independent but the forces acting against the couple are more easily defined by the mystery to be solved, the antagonist’s efforts against her, etc. Does the ass-kicking contemporary heroine have any deep emotional issues to work against (Eve Dallas excused from this hypothesis) or can she focus her considerable talents on the case at hand, thereby avoiding any wrenching emotional difficulties? But I could be talking out of my ass here, so I’ll move on.
I am still stuck on the question of conflict: does it make us uncomfortable in our fiction? I have to keep asking myself, because I am not a big fan of the awkward conflict, and tend to hyperanalyze my communications with anyone, verbal or written.
As a total aside, and I should make this a separate comment: I am so bemused by the idea that a strong heroine has to be “balanced” by a weak hero. What kind of outdated heterosexist alpha-beta-standard asshattery is that?
Also, off-topic, I love discussions like this because, woodamn, y’all are some smart people, and I love reading our conversations where there’s conflict that’s respectful and reasoned. Thank you.
Oh wow and yet again…I’ve never read any of Laura Kinsale’s books and now I’m all eager and things. She’s making scarily good points and that gets me excited.
Look, rape is ugly. Rape is horrible. Rape is one of the worst things that can ever happen to a woman. But these are freaking books. Rather like I don’t get squicked by the tentacle ugliness in hentai, I can’t get emotionally worked up over a fictional character having a traumatic experience. Do I get involved in a good book? Sure. I am going to get out the signage and picket because somethign icky happened? No.
But as Ms. Kinsale pointed out, that wasn’t her point. So I shall endeavor to grope my way back to her point. Someone on here (and I go look, but that’s a lot of work) talked about NR’s Key trilogy and the “good boyfriends” contained therein. I think that’s the problem.
We’re overindentifying here. Nothing wrong with that per se, that’s supposed to be a sign of a good book, right? That you identify with and feel for the characters. But at a certain point, you have to realize, not everything in a book is going to be all hugs and puppies. It’s gotten so the H/H can’t even have a good fight without a huge discussion of emotions. Sometimes, love means having to say “are you out of your fucking mind?” We can’t use any book as a way to act out our dreams of perfection. Conflict is a necessary part of a good book and a good life.
“As a total aside, and I should make this a separate comment: I am so bemused
by the idea that a strong heroine has to be “balanced” by a weak hero.
What kind of outdated heterosexist alpha-beta-standard asshattery is that?”
Exactly? What’s up with that? I ignored the statement, btw. (g)
But from this discussion alone, it’s easy to see that different people look at adjectives in different ways.
Weaker to some could mean he isn’t physically as strong—or it could mean he’s physically strong but not the leader type—more the bodyguard type. He doesn’t mind standing back when he needs to.
Who the hell knows? (g)
But, I do know that I once wrote a scene where a former rape victim stood up for herself with some arrogant yoohahs and the hero stayed in the background. He knew she “needed” to deal with the situation herself and yes, he had a hard time standing in the shadows, but he was more than ready and willing to kick ass when needed. He later got to bring out his “protector” mode—but in that particular scene he was smart enough to realize she had internal demons to fight.
An editor told me I’d ruined the romantic fantasy—that he should have jumped in front of her immediately.
Everyone wants something different.
Nora’s quote about the padded room hits it dead center—we’ll go nuts trying to please everyone. So write what appeals to you and go from there.
SB Sarah said: I have to keep asking myself, because I am not a big fan of the awkward conflict, and tend to hyperanalyze my communications with anyone, verbal or written.
Perhaps this is part of the bifurcation that was mentioned wherein romance is splitting into “safe” Regency types and erotically charged fantasy/paranormals. The former category might be considered safe because whatever happens in those pages – be it rape, murder, etc. – can be neatly tucked away into a thought that says, “It’s in the past.” No conflict. The latter is safe because of fictional world-building where the characters exist by entirely author-created standards. Any squicky parts can again be thrust into “it’s just fantasy.” Also, the erotica aspect brings about conflict on a sexual level, in that the H/H play out their games in the bedroom rather than throwing beer bottles at each other on the front porch. Because the erotica is SO over the top, the conflict they stage in those parameters is avoidable because of its gratuitous nature.
I had a bigger point, but I haven’t had coffee yet. Will try again later.
elephant in the room: Erotic desire…thrives on mystery, unpredictability and politically incorrect power games.
the genre itself has been divided into two camps: the “safe Regency settings†that provide emotional depth, while “the erotic drive has been channeled over to vampire and fantasy books where realism is a non-issue,†leaving folks who prefer neither to complain that there’s nothing to read
It sometimes begins to seem to me that a goodly percentage of present day romance readers are actually frightened of reading about a real conflict in a book
The trend, as she calls it, of self-conscious political correctness in romance is somewhat stifling to Kinsale as a writer
Trying to get back to whatever it was LK was actually saying . . .please note SHE introduced the idea that rape/forced seduction somehow is the missing ingredient that makes the “safe Regency settings†so bland and boring:
alpha heroes and “rape†and “forced seduction†and how all that is so 1970’s (or 80’s or 90’s, take your pick depending on your age) but we’re all enlightened modern women now and we just don’t like that sort of thing. Then in the next thread will be complaints that the genre just isn’t as compelling or interesting as it used to be and readers can’t find books they really enjoy, and gee, why are all the heroes vampires now?
Somehow I don’t feel stifled as a writer by some looming cloud of PCness. I’m not aware of any such thing when I’m writing or plotting. I’m with la Nora on this one (PC has nothing to do with it. Trends have nothing to do with it. Character and story have everything to do with everything.). I write, that is all (yes, I hear George Sands in my head as I type that). My characters, their issues and needs, drive the story. And since I write historicals some of those needs and issues might be extremely un-PC. But as long as they’re motivated (I’ll also refrence Lord of Scourndrels which I just read for the first time this past weekend) I think un-PC, even asshole-ish behavior, is more than welcome in Romancelandia.
Ok, this is getting long, but I also want to add that I agree with the numerous people who mentioned the pressure some writers feel to please everyone. The pressure is real. No one likes those 1-Star Amazon reviews. Julia Ross said something really brilliant about this in her interview on Risky Regencies: “my stories and definitely not for everyone, so I don’t troll the Internet looking for negative comments from readers who prefer a different style. One of the greatest attributes of romance is that there’s enough variety to suit all of us, so no author needs to please every reader, and it’s far better that way.”
I have that printed out and hanging in my office. It’s a mantra of sorts . . .
I think the dilemma here (“here” being the original complaints that Kinsale was referring to) lies in the difference between fantasy and reality, or realistic fiction. No woman wants to be raped, and even what are sometimes called rape fantasies are usually more along the lines of domination and kinky sex. This probably stems from what someone already mentioned:
“letting a woman put the responsibility for her desires that she’s deemed unacceptable or inexpressible onto the man. ”
So this type of scene works erotically for readers as a fantasy—but then, if the author has done a good job and the reader is identiying with the character or at least finds the situation believable—we start thinking about how in real life this would so NOT be cool, acceptable, sexy, etc because if a woman is struggling and saying no than in real life that is rape! Only in ficiton a good author can set it up so that hero somehow “knows” what the heroine really wants and thus it isn’t rape. It’s the disparity between what is erotic in fantasy and what would be acceptable in reality that, if not handled very well, can make this approach problematic for readers.
Rinda, I would have loved that scene myself.
Elizabeth Lowell wrote a couple of books, a decade or so ago, which involved a shady organization by the name Risk, Ltd. The head of this was a woman, and her lover and second in command was very much an alpha man. I loved the interactions between those two characters, because as much alpha as he was, she led and stood her ground. Her more recent series with Rarities Unlimited follows the same pattern. I love the idea, and wish she would write the stories of those two couples.
I don’t like kick ass heroines with wimpy heroes—even if she’s the body guard and he’s the geek, by golly he has to be strong and kick ass in his own way.
What I want is characters that are fleshed out enough and consistent enough that I can see why they react the way they do, that I can believe why they are feeling the way they do. Good characterization should be plenty enough for conflict—just look around you. People are not black and white.
Oh and with Robin I say, Thank God for Suzanne Brockmann!
I dislike them, but I don’t decry them. My friend loves the books that are (to me) overly emotional and dramatic. What she loves, I hate and won’t read.
I’ve tried vampire and fantasy books, but they tend to have characters that I can see “Shatner Acting.” I picture them having the same overly dramatic tone and inflections as William Shatner, and I just can’t enjoy them.
I’m not frightened of reading about real conflict, I just don’t want to. I don’t enjoy it. When everyone in the book is brooding over some shitpile that they’re dealing with the entire time and can’t find anything pleasant going on in their life until the last 10 pages, I don’t want to read about it.
My own life has enough emotional shit that I have to deal with. Why should I read a book that leaves me depressed and angry? (The anger tends to be directed at myself for finishing the damn fool thing.)
For me, conflict has to be balanced out with joy. 10 pages of happy at the end of a book can’t balance the 340 pages of despair and anger. And I appreciate that I’m essentially asking for the moon because that’s a difficult balance to achieve. I have discovered that there are a few authors who can wrap up the moon in a 350 page book.
(That’s not to say that I haven’t ever enjoyed overly emotional books just jam packed with conflict, but it’s a rare author who can make me like the characters enough to get over the Shatner-esque qualities of it all.)
And I had no idea that I thought this much about William Shatner, but apparantly I do.
Azteclady said: I don’t like kick ass heroines with wimpy heroes—even if she’s the body guard and he’s the geek, by golly he has to be strong and kick ass in his own way.
Did anyone watch “Firefly” or see the film Serenity? This comment brough to mind the married couple in that world, Zoe & Wash. Zoe was literally an Amazonian-style bodygaurd, the captain’s second-in-command, while Wash was the ship’s pilot and a self-confessed coward when it came to a firefight. However, when the team needed him, he was the best pilot they could ever ask for and his (literally) ass-kicking wife’s admiration ran-eth over. I loved that balance, in that each had their own sphere of command. But that’s Joss Whedon for you. A tangent, I know – just loved that series. **sniffs in woe **
I loved that couple in Serenity!!
They had an excellent balance and he didn’t seem wimpy in the least. They both knew their strengths and used them!
Excellent example. Joss Whedon is my hero!
For that matter, look at Farscape. Two kick-ass characters who complimented each other. I miss that show!
I write a lot of werewolf and vampire romance—I like characters that get pushed up against the wall, or into a corner, (virtual or otherwise) and struggle with the best way to handle it.
But I like to give the characters a way to deal with the threat so that they aren’t total victims. Sometimes they play the victim, waiting for the moment to strike. Sometimes they goad the attacker—so they’ll have something to use against them later.
I’m with Rinda…It is too weird to read a book with a strong heroine and a weak hero. A chick like that isn’t looking for a wimp to take care of. She’s risen to the top of her game because she wants to be equal to the best mate she can find.
On another note, this whole convo reminds me of the funny but sensual scene in a 70’s movie ODE TO BILLY JOE where he’s kissing her, and she’s loving it but she keeps saying no, no, no—and she tells him that she has so many pages of no’s to get through before she can say yes…because she reads romance stories.
So, that begs the question…how much do we protest because it seems to be the standard? And how much do we protest because it actually offends us?
I’m offended when a woman is held down until she gives in because she has no choice. I’m offended by books that have an older hero that falls for a woman that doesn’t look like a woman at all because she has such a youthful appearance…that smacks of pedophilia.
I’m also offended by older men spanking a woman like she deserves an attitude adjustment…but not offended by a consenting couple who toy with smacks on the ass as foreplay. (Haven’t written that myself, but…)
I will drop a book cold if the man spanks the woman by taking her over his knee. That’s as bad as rape to me, or worse.
At least with the vampires and werewolves, sometimes the cornering is posturing, or set-up to see where the emotions really are. In the case of werewolves, the women are always equipped to rip a man’s belly or genitals with a claw, or snag a carotid out of his throat. It equals the playing field. They can play a little rough because the danger isn’t just in her court, it’s in his, too.
Way off topic, but mentioning Joss Whedon practicaly begs for this link:
Enjoy!
OK, seriously, I have a pretty dim view of Romancelandia, but even I don’t think there’s a dearth of conflict in romances (I’d say that there’s too much contrived conflict, in fact), or that fights between the protagonists devolve into discussions about their Feelings. There is sometimes a distressing tendency for the characters to muse endlessly over their feelings (one Cheryl Anne Porter book I read a few years ago was absolutely TERRIBLE about that—the action would literally stop mid-gesture to have the hero ponder about his fucked-up relationship with his dad), but they rarely discuss them with each other.
But maybe I’m reading entirely different romance novels from the rest of youse?
Now, setting all that aside, I can agree that there’s a lot of anachronistic navel-gazing in Historical Romancelandia. But I’m not convinced it’s a problem with PC, I think it’s a problem with sloppy writing. Historicals from Days of Yore were anachronistic in other ways, and I’m sure Historicals of the FUTAR will be anachronistic in new ways as our filters for perceiving our present change. Even good writers can create excellent characters who don’t really ring true for their time periods—not for me, anyway. Judith Ivory is an example. This problem with characterization is inherent in the way we deal with books set in the past, and unless it’s particularly egregious, I don’t let it bother me too much.
Dude, what is with this thread and the derailment of points I try to make? RAR.
OK, more work to do, so I have to stop writing. Dammit. Though I’ll obsessively refresh this window to read new comments, because they’re fascinating.
Thanks for the Joss Whedon link, I had never seen it. I didn’t think I could admire him more, but damn. That man gets it!
I know exactly why you’re seeing more of those scenes stopped in the middle for introspection or inner dialogue of the characters…I just went through edits on a book (2 1/2 years of going back and forth, I kid you not) and the editor INSISTED I put that in.
I argued that it stopped the action and that the players don’t always hesitate to think about their motivations. Why should the reader know more than the character itself really has gone into?
But the book is STILL not out because of those type of insistences from the editor.
Carys, that’s fucked-up. Knowing a character’s motivations is good, but insisting that it interrupt the flow of action like that? NOT a good thing. It’s downright jarring, as a matter of fact.
Now that I’ve read her page and have chewed on it, what sticks in my mind is the question: Alpha heroes and questions of PC aside, are readers afraid of conflict? Do we dislike and vocally decry romances that feature heavy emotional conflict between the protagonists?
You make some great points, Sarah. I think I understand this aspect of Kinsale’s argument the least, and I’ve really be struggling through it.
Here’s her quote:
And she follows is a couple of paragraphs later with this:
Now I personally think that WOMEN have ALWAYS felt self-conscious about our fantasies, because our sexuality has always been connected to social norms and standards of morality that attach in a patriarchal culture. I don’t think my statement is either “PC” (term used under protest) or a “literalization;” I think Kinsale and I may just have different aesthetic sensibilities.
But, when I read her comments, combined with the reference she made some time ago on AAR regarding Leda and the Swan and mythology mroe generally, I get the sense that what she’s talking about when she mentions “conflict” is clashes of the more epic variety (in a ‘clash of the titans’ sort of way—without the hideous image of Harry Hamlin in a toga, of course). That she’s seeing Romance as a stage or a forum upon which the action of the novel provides the reader with an opportunity to play out some of our own internal conflicts. This is why, I think, she uses the sexual fantasy aspect of Romance in her comments, because there’s so much dark, mysterious, and uncontrolled (and perhaps uncontrollable) stuff in our individual and collective psyches, and what better genre to play that out but Romance? What better place to have these epic struggles both portrayed and catalyzed within us than Romance, where so much of the genre seems to implicate desire, fantasy, mythic struggles, dark and stormy nights, etc.?
IF I’m understanding that correctly, I think that point is wonderfully provocative and worthy of discussion. Why has Romance become so much less epic—and I’m not just talking about the epic scope of the novel, but about the thematic and psychological elements and struggles it has at times presented—and so much more narrow and terrestrial in its focus? My first answer, of course, would be limited word and page counts (!), but is it only publisher limitations or something more? Do publishers and editors have it wrong in what they’re guiding writers to write (and is that why so many Romance readers seem to be migrating to other genres, namely sci-fi and fantasy), or do readers no longer want to explore the deep waters of their own psyches in Romance?
Where I get thrown off is in the comments Kinsale makes about the “therapy session”—unless she’s just referring to the resistance in Romance to an open-ended ending vis a vis the interior conflicts the characters experience (I can’t help but think about the HEA discussion going on over at Dear Author in regard to this question). Or maybe she’s referring back to her point about “literalization” and saying that the overt psychologizing is cheapening those mythic levels, flattening them out and making them too much a part of real world experience.
In any case, I do think the kernel in Kinsale’s argument is related to this litera – symbolic, material – mythic distinction, but I’m still grappling with the way she’s putting that together and articulating it relative to Romance (and in this, of course, deciding on the extent to which I agree and disagree with her position).
Robin & Azteclady…my point being that if I want somebody’s heavy handed political opinion, I will read the newspaper. I read fiction for escapism, so politics in my fiction is a big turn off.
I think the readership is split on this issue, and that’s why erotica is climbing dramatically in popularity through the romance readership. Erotic novels often don’t have the HEA. Happy for now sometimes is a relief to the modern reader because it gives satisfaction and hope without falling into sappy disbelief.
There have always been the romances that are safe and tame. Those where the heroine discusses all her feelings with a friend, or even the hero—and the reader gets that feeling of “therapy”, that this is a healthy relationship, and it’s all good. (How many real relationships are ALL GOOD, though?)
In my experience, erotic heroines tend to be dealing more with issues that women really have: depression, loneliness, weight, abuse, loss, feelings of inadequacy or urges for revenge, and lust—and the conflict of that with moral/religious upbringing.
A Harlequin heroine, for example, can’t be revengeful. That’s just not done. She could defend herself, and be hurt, but to act on anger?
In an erotic novel, the story starts when she picks herself up and looks around for something to knock her abuser in the head with. Or where she realizes that she CAN walk away, or run away and start a new life…but she still deals with the emotional aftermath. It doesn’t get swept under the rug or ignored, it directs her actions and reactions.
But that’s just my take on it.
Azteclady! THANK YOU for that Whedon link! I’m snagging it for my blog!!!!
I think the question has alot to do with the nature of escapism. Escapism doesn’t have to be about escaping to a BETTER place—just to a different one. The romance genre, though, is defined as being a better place—or at least one where everything ends up as it should. (And I realize this is an issue of debate. And probably something that is evolving as we speak. Regardless, many publishers still define romance as having a happy ending- among other things, of course 😉 If you take the issue of rape though, as modern readers we feel that a story with rape in it could never really end HEA because rape is unforgivable. When we read, we seek to escape from circumstance- from our immediate surroundings and problems. But it is way harder to escape from our own concept of the world- our morals- our ideas of right and wrong. We take those with us.
I mean we as modern people seem to all agree that rape is a crime and is wrong. We would also agree that murder is a crime and is wrong. But do we complain about murder in our romances? Is that even an issue? Yes, too much violence is sometimes an issue. But crime in general? No. And I think the difference is that the expectations of physical intimacy in the romance genre are very specific. If we were reading a rape scene in a Stephen King book or in a memoir by a rape victim, we wouldn’t be so up in arms about it because our expectations for those books are different.
Really this is a kind of catch 22 issue though. We want the genre defined—that way we can find what we are looking for and authors will write what we want and publishers will publish it. BUT we don’t want it so defined that it becomes repetitive and strict and not open to any changes. Which makes me think- no you can’t, in fact, “have your cake and hump it too.”
But we shouldn’t just focus on rape. To include rape or not to include rape wasn’t really the only point of Kinsale’s argument. She was talking about sacrificing a good, well-written story in the interest of being morally perfect. Or said another way, making the story suffer for the modern reader’s sensibilities. Personally I’m tired of all the repetition in the genre. I love romance—but it is getting harder and harder as someone who is not interested in paranormal to find something that isn’t easily confused with something I’ve already read. I’d like to see romance where the relationship is the central focus—but there is no guarantee of a happy ending, no guarantee that you won’t be disturbed or saddened or angered by what you read. I mean, one of the very coolest things about reading is that it gives us the opportunity to challenge our own ideas with little to no consequence. And, honestly, I think that’s what is often missing from the romance genre.
I do want a happy ending in my romance. That’s one of the reasons I read romance, in fact.
The thing is, I don’t define happy ending necessarily as marriage, kids, perfect rosy future. Having the protagonists inequivocably on the road to solving whatever issues separate them, or simply at the beginning of a committed relationship, is more than good enough for me.
Do epilogues with babies and flowers work? Some times—Cry No More by Linda Howard is an example of the (for me) perfect epilogue. For the most part, though, I’d rather not have the too perfect ending tacked on after the conflict resolution.
And I do want conflict in my romances, by the way. In case, you know, I hadn’t hammered that point enough earlier.
Rinda wrote:
But, I do know that I once wrote a scene where a former rape victim stood up for herself with some arrogant yoohahs and the hero stayed in the background. He knew she “needed†to deal with the situation herself and yes, he had a hard time standing in the shadows, but he was more than ready and willing to kick ass when needed. He later got to bring out his “protector†mode—but in that particular scene he was smart enough to realize she had internal demons to fight.
see, now that’s exactly the kind of book I like to read.
-becca
[W]e as modern people seem to all agree that rape is a crime and is wrong. We would also agree that murder is a crime and is wrong. But do we complain about murder in our romances? Is that even an issue?
Since we were talking specifically about the hero raping the heroine, I’d have to apply the same rules to murder. If the hero murders the heroine, it’s a problem for me. LOL!
But to take the issue more seriously, I don’t think crime, of any kind, is verboten in romance. I think it has to be really well motivated if it’s being perpetrated by the hero or heroine, or it has to be committed by one of the villains of the piece. The beauty of villains is that they can do anything to anyone.
Zeek, you are very much welcome—I’m always happy to spread the Whedon love!
spam foiler: police53 *giggling*
Thanks for clarifying, dl. I have to say, though, that it’s difficult for me to disconnect politics from any Romance set in, connected to, or featuring the military. That’s why I assumed it was the (what would probably be called Liberal) tone of the remarks that wrankled you, especially since that’s what people usually mean when they refer to “PC” these days.
I’m a reader who looked initially to erotic Romance to break some of the more entrenched Romance stereotypes—i.e. the virgin heroine and her magical hymen to heaven, a pasted on HEA, hero as savior, etc.—for exactly some of the reasons you point out, Carys. Unfortunately, my experience of reading erotic Romance has been that’s it’s much more traditional than I would have thought, and when it starts out so subversively, the trek back to traditionalism frustrates me even more. I’ve commented extensively on Pam Rosenthal’s A House East of Regent Street as examplifying my argument about this. I HOPE, though, that over time there will be more opportunities to interrogate some of these traditional Romance devices and stereotypes, and I’d love it if that happened in erotic Romance.
I feel the same way, bebe, and one of the thing I have trouble with in Kinsale’s argument is the idea that “readers” don’t want this. SOME readers don’t—perhaps the readers publishers and editors imagine when they put out books (would Harriet Klausner be that reader, do you think?)—but not ALL readers feel that way. And a lot of us who don’t have tried to make ourselves heard.
I’ve commented on this here before, but I’ve tried twice now, unsuccessfully, to get a letter to Avon indicating the untapped market for historical Romance in those of us who want more diversity in the genre. The first note I emailed yielded a note that the person no longer worked there, and the second one—forwarded very graciously by Julia Quinn on my behalf—yieldeda response indicating that she would have the submission guidelines sent to me so that I could properly submit my MS! Too bad I DON’T want to WRITE a Romance novel!
I also agree with Candy that if you surveyed Romance from the 70s, 80s, 90s, or whenever, that you’d find a lot of chaff among the wheat, and that the books we keep re-reading from those decades are memorable because they were exceptional even then. We have standouts published now, too, although I think it’s far tougher for authors to write deep books in such ridiculously limited page and word counts limits. But as readers, I don’t think we have much control over that, do we?