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The guilt of enjoying, even craving, these rot-your-brain amusements can be quite insidious for an educated and decently well-read person. Imagine a grown woman sneaking around the bookstore, scanning the romance titles while no one is around and trying to casually slip a copy of “I Thirst for You” between less incriminating books. I can almost never meet the salesperson’s eye, even though no one has ever made a comment. It’s not as if buying a book called, “The Prince of Pleasure” is bad enough, but the covers! Oh, the covers! I fully blame romance novel covers for creating every belittling assumption about romance readers. The tragically heinous abandonment of good taste is never so obvious as in the graphical tradition of romance pulp fiction. Romance covers collectively represent a limping Frankenstein of extreme gender stereotypes sutured together with pink grosgrain ribbon. Every human figure is always hyper-masculine or ultra-feminine, often to the point of actual disfigurement (seriously, look closely). Or the covers look like mauve dreamscapes with significant sword placements or coy images of overblown flowers. You have probably observed the romance cover trifecta: 1) Swooning woman with billowy clothing and/or hair, 2) almost-mad-looking guy holding the woman in a submissive position, 3) mullet. If the art department is trying to capture the sweet contentment of fulfilled desire, or the thrill of seduction they would do better to focus on the conflict, pursuit and tension; that is why we read the silly things! They assume that what we want to see is the kiss-and-make-up, but it’s the fight that gets the attention of the whole restaurant – if the couple is just making out people will be put off their meals. To be fair, most publishers and authors are trying to modernize the look of current titles, but of course there are spectacular failures in that department too; imagine computer-generated, hyper-masculine bodies... intriguing, but they do get pretty freaky. I get squeamish about the covers, but some fans celebrate the dreadful things with snarky glee and biting commentary. Check out the website in the side bar for some hilarious investigations into the nature of atrocious romance novel covers. Horrible covers aside, why do we disdain romance reading? Why do we dismiss romance readers as stupid, thinking only with a primal female lower brain? It doesn’t really make sense if you think about it. Love is one of those cross-cultural, universal things about the human experience. Almost every song you hear on the radio is about love, marriage is a building block of most societies and even in the most masculine shoot-‘em-up movie, the hero always gets the girl. Some will say that love is the province of women and that the search and obsession with love is a purely female instinct to bind a man to herself and her offspring. You can say that, but some of the most famous works of literature are male constructions seeking female adoration. The pursuit of physical love is undoubtedly one of the primary motivations of men everywhere. You need only visit Lavalife to witness how desperately men are seeking love. We’re in love with love. So why do we get so uppity when it comes to books about love? In the world of literature, fiction is looked down upon as a plebeian entertainment. If Literature is French cuisine and fiction is the fast food joint, then romance fiction is a handful of processed-meat jerky from the gas station washed down with a can of warm soda pop. Literature with a capital “L” rejects romance as a subject, unless it is tortured and tragic. Love is messy, painful even, full of misunderstandings, unrequited yearnings and cruel twists of fate, but I hope for a happy ending. Does it lessen my intelligence if I like to read about those things playing out, knowing that in the end all will be well? It is like a roller coaster ride: enjoyable thrill, fake danger. It is like reading a comic strip; usually pretty predictable, but still worth a moment of mindless entertainment. Reading a romance novel is like falling in love yourself without a moment of rejection, insecurity or self-doubt. It’s a nice little vacation and you always come back warm and glowing. It’s easy to dismiss the habit as maudlin; easy or more comfortable for some who would rather not explore tender, amorous relationships. But for those of us who enjoy those ruminations, even complicate them with academic microscopes, philosophizing or gender politics – it’s fun! Romance fiction does tend to follow patterns and it goes through trends and explores reoccurring themes. If you find that retelling satisfying, then you like those books. It is the exact same with mystery, horror, sci-fi, political intrigue or any other popular fiction. Yet, we don’t dismiss the readers of those genres as stupid, even if we might agree that those mass market paperbacks aren’t “Literature.” The easy explanation is that romance is seen as a genre for women that explores relationships and sex and is therefore “trash.” The complex answer is that people (and men in particular) are uncomfortable with close examinations of the sexual unions of others, even if those others are fictional. They don’t object to the actual “sexual union” part, but any kind of contextual appreciation or sentimentality is seen as dumb. Presumably, the interest in the gory details of the lives of others is akin to the much reviled pastime of gossiping, another activity that men like to think that only women engage in. Hardly. The truth is that we are all trying to get to the... ahem, “main event”... romance readers just spend more time looking at the view along the way. And we get to skip pages to the naughty parts. So to review – mass market books about love with girly covers = trash; mass market books about murder = totally normal. Reading the former makes you silly, reading the latter means you have an inquisitive mind or a manly appetite for blood and violence. Seems a little sexist, doesn’t it? Reading a book about love doesn’t make you an empty-headed maiden any more than reading a political thriller makes you a jaded spy. Not interested in love? Fine. But, don’t let your own dismissal of the topic extend to the people who may enjoy it. The next time you see a romance novel or a romance reader, go ahead and laugh at the cover, but don’t assume that you know what is going on between the pages... or between the ears. |
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