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The Gabbers  JMC"JMC is fascinated by the politics of romance reading and writing, and by the genre’s position in the publishing and media worlds." read more...
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Is The Modern World A Model World?
« STDs in romance | Home | Voice Lessons »  Seeing that I’m blind (is that an oxymoron?) to the notion of flogging a dead topic, I want to put one more spin on the STD, pregnancy, condom conversations. Instead of dealing with those issues specifically, I want to pull back (you thought I was going for the pun, didn’t you?) and take a quick look at the idea of sexual conservatism in contemporary Romance. When I first started reading the genre, I had a difficult time with contemporaries because they just seemed to rife with sexual politics, to the point where I was often thrown completely out of the story as I tracked the power struggle between the protagonists. Over time, though, I realized that it wasn’t the sexual politics, per se, that bothered me (after all, it’s the power struggle that keeps me interested in the genre as a whole, to some degree), but rather that I was reading contemporaries through an incorrect assumption, which was that because a Romance was set in the current time didn’t necessarily mean it portrayed the same social or sexual or gender values as I held. In fact, I’ve started to wonder whether contemporaries, as a group, are actually more traditional than historical Romances in terms of the hero and heroine’s social and gender roles, as well as their sexual behavior. And the “condom question,” as I’ll call it, is one of the things that fosters my suspicion. Putting aside the question of whether it’s more in the nature of fantasy or reality to have condoms in Romance, and pushing away the issue of spontaneity, I believe that there are many unspoken assumptions behind the absence of birth control (condoms, pills, IUD’s, shots, etc.) in many contemporary Romances that relate directly to the traditional relationship between a Romance HEA and babies. How many Romances these days – contemporary or historical, but exempting paranormal – end without the mention of children? How many epilogues are we treated to in which the hero and heroine’s bouncing, burgeoning brood is featured? How natural do we believe the connection to be between the literal fertility of the protagonists and the fertility of their everlasting love? And seeing that the Romance is descended directly from the sentimental novel, which itself celebrated the nuclear family as the model microcosmic political and economic unit, it is no surprise that genre Romance would continue to idealize an image of the family as one man + one woman + children. As Catherine Beecher, Victorian America’s advocate of domesticity for women (and sister of Harriet Beecher Stowe) wrote at the beginning of her 1869 essay, The Christian Family,
For Beecher, women are the “self-sacrificing laborers” who “train” the children to a life of virtue and industry, the “chief ministers” in making the earthly family conform to the virtuous characteristics its heavenly counterpart. It gets a little perverse when she refers to the other residents of the home as “inmates” and to babies as “useless” and “troublesome,” but it is all in the service of designating the proper roles for each member of the family and the ultimate aim of a virtuous and happy life. Note the connection here between virtue and happiness. I would suggest that the tenacity of this philosophical relationship continues on in genre Romance, where a heroine’s virtue is often merged with her virginity (or symbolic status as virgin, since sex with the hero is always a “new” experience) and freedom from STD’s, and goodness (innate or through reformation, the latter most often reserved for heroes) becomes a precursor to the happy romantic ending. And in turn, happiness is often overtly connected to the creation of a family via children (biological preferred, but symbolic parenthood can be achieved through acting out a parental role to a younger sibling, stepchild, or surrogate child). Remember Minn Dobbs’s mother at the end of Bet Me? She simply wouldn’t believe that Min and Cal didn’t want children. How free, really, are the rest of contemporary Romance heroines and heroes to make the same choice? Things are shifting in the genre, to be sure. Many readers insist on condoms and/or other forms of birth control to prevent unwanted pregnancy and STD’s. But just as JMC asked the question of whether a character with any kind of STD could be a hero or heroine, I would ask whether there is a similar unspoken assumption about Romance protagonists wanting children. And in the same way the absence of condoms implies that protagonists are not “tainted” with any kind of sexually transmitted condition, to me it implies an innate embrace of children as part of the couple’s “natural” HEA. Which in contemporary Romance strikes me as much more traditional than in historical Romance. Right along with the contemporary heroines who don’t have much of a sexual history (if any), the heroes who financially support their women, and the dogs and children who may not initially be expected but who ultimately domesticate the alpha hero and give the heroine something to nurture. I realize that even in our contemporary world there are many women who are not highly sexually experienced, and I don’t mean to suggest that children (and animals) aren’t a wonderful blessing (or that the family isn’t a critical social unit). I just question how far the genre has really come in portraying “modern” characters, especially in its heroines, when so many supposedly smart, independent, self-supporting women in the genre are having unprotected sex in a supposedly contemporary world. This entry was posted by Robin on Thursday, January 29th, 2009 at 6:00 am. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site. 27 Responses to “Is The Modern World A Model World?”Leave a Comment |
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January 29th, 2009 at 11:29 am
Not sure what kind of woman I must be, but my recent contemp heroine is neither a virgin nor good, and there’s never one mention of children. As a matter of fact, my contemporaries end with a modern take on HEA… “I like you enough to keep dating you! Yea!” Because if I’m in love with a guy for a few weeks & he asks me to marry him? I run the other way.
I actually approached my first contemporary with the old “What would I want to read” adage. I think you’re right about (non-paranormal) contemporaries being more traditional than historicals. (Very few hoydens in contemps.) And I wanted to write a non-traditional contemp just so I could read it!
The heroine might not be likeable, but she’s firmly planted in this century, good or bad.
Thanks for the great discussion!
January 29th, 2009 at 1:01 pm
Most of the contemps I read are Harlequins, and since I have a soft spot for a couple of regular (“tender”) and Medical romance series authors, they always have children in them *and* have conservative world views. Apart from those, though, I’ve recently read three contemps that all featured children, but NOT the biological children of the heroine. In one case, the man had a child from a previous relationship, while in the other two the children were the heroine’s siblings’s offspring. I think the stories with non-biological children do reflect contemporary situations, since marriages frequently break up and people wind up raising other people’s kids.
To be honest, I find the sassy, highly educated single heroine who doesn’t want kids much less reflective of everyday life than the ones who *do* want kids. And I say this as a childless academic who married in early middle age. But the majority of people, men and women, want to have children, and I think the majority of romance readers are not post-graduate degree holders with 80 hour a week jobs who won’t even think about a family until their 30s. Romance readers are smart and diverse, and I think many of them have a pretty wide circle of friends and acquaintances, so they’re willing to read all kinds of scenarios. But while it’s undoubtedly true that romance lags behind Real Life, I don’t think it’s that far off.
I can’t speak to the condom issue because most of the contemps I read either have condoms mentioned or have unexpected baby plots, so they avoid the condoms as a plot point.
January 29th, 2009 at 1:39 pm
Victoria: I had Talk Me Down in the back of my mind as I was writing this, and had I talked about the books that I feel do buck the traditional trend, I would have talked about it. Because you’re right — it does diverge from the traditional model of contemporary Romance, IMO. And the fact that Harlequin published it shows, IMO, that there’s room in the genre for a wide diversity of romantic relationship models.
As for the historical/contemp split, I cannot help but be fascinated by the irony that in historicals you often have heroines who buck the assumed social mores of the period (and I say that knowing that the genre shows both historically accurate and inaccurate transgression) — in fact, it seems almost expected. And yet in many contemps, you seem to have the progressive woman who ends up choosing the traditional path by giving up many of the markers of her progressive life (big job, urban life, etc.). I wish someone would open up an in depth discussion of that phenom, because it strikes me as important, somehow.
Sunita:
I think the stories with non-biological children do reflect contemporary situations, since marriages frequently break up and people wind up raising other people’s kids.
That’s one of the things that fascinates me, Sunita, that many contemps deal with common, current situations but don’t necessarily put a contemporary spin on them. I wouldn’t call it a bait and switch, exactly, but I do sometimes see a sort of ideological revisioning going on in some of these books in which a more conservative, traditional vision is carved out of the story and the characters.
One of the problems in talking about this, I think, is that it can easily shift into a children v. no children debate, when that’s not where I’m trying to get. I think there are plenty of Romances featuring children that aren’t necessarily pushing a conservative gender position for the heroine (no titles are coming to mind right now, but I’m sure I’m just blanking — oh, well, there are the Roxanne St. Claire Bullet Catcher books that started my own thinking on this topic, because of the questionable condom situations). So it’s not children, per se.
I think it’s subtler than that, a whole shorthand associated with children that play into certain assumptions about what I’ll call “natural womanhood” (inspired by SEP’s It Had To Be You, when Phoebe “reclaims her womanhood” while in bed with Dan) — namely that there is a certain moral and biological imperative for the Romance heroine to either have children or a child substitute in order to fulfill some social destiny.
For example, in Susan Donovan’s most recent release, The Girl Most Likely To, the heroine has kept a son from the hero for almost 20 years, and when she returns to her hometown to finally tell him (since she’s now financially successful and can ostensibly throw it in his face), it’s no time at all before they are back in bed and she’s begging him for another baby. Right after a conversation about how much they have to work out. Despite the circumstances that brought her to the town in the first place. And the massive distrust between them. It’s like, HUH?
And look at the Anne Stuart Ice books — Sebastian and Peter with babies???? Because the domestication works on heroes, too, although not too much or they’d lose the edge of danger that made them appealing in the first place. And I know that some argue that the hero’s domestication is evidence of ultimate female power in the genre, but if the power is concentrated around the ability to construct a functioning nuclear family, then it’s somewhat limited and incidentally conforming to a traditional gender role.
So yeah, it’s not the choice to have children or the desire to get married, but all of the assumptions that inform those things in the genre that I find sometimes problematic, especially when they run up against more progressive strains within the same book. Like the example I used initially when I started this topic elsewhere, having an independent, self-sufficient heroine who has non-committed sex with the hero take no apparent interest in a condom (although some authors would say it’s “condom implied” and not condom absent).
January 29th, 2009 at 2:03 pm
I take your points, and I’d forgotten about the Anne Stuart heroes. I see them in a slightly different way, though, probably because of my mongrel cultural background. In Hinduism you are taught about different phases of life. The householder phase is the one where both men and women marry and create families; it’s definitely not just about the women doing it. So for me, Sebastian and Peter with babies is about them moving on to the next phase of what they have to do as adults, for society: espionage is a young man’s game, and eventually they move on to the husband/father gig. But you’re right, from a western point of view it’s more jarring.
I think that romances conflate two issues about children: the importance of children for society, and the necessity of raising your own children for individual fulfillment. I totally get the first (I think that’s one of the powerful aspects of Children of Men), but the second should really be up to each person. But obvs, society would be screwed if no one had the have-to-have-a-baby gene! So they solve the first issue by making the second a condition of humanness (or femininity). Very off-putting for those of us who prefer borrowing other people’s children to having our own, especially when our natural dispositions are treated as aberrant.
I think the other contributing factor is the ideological divide/culture wars in this country (and US authors dominate the romance market). The contradictions you point out in novels are the same ones that we see IRL every day; women who expect equal pay for equal work but consider “feminist” a dirty word, for example.
January 29th, 2009 at 2:23 pm
Interesting points about the Hindu perspective, Sunita.
I think that romances conflate two issues about children: the importance of children for society, and the necessity of raising your own children for individual fulfillment. I totally get the first (I think that’s one of the powerful aspects of Children of Men), but the second should really be up to each person.
Yes! Thanks for articulating this so clearly. That’s it — this idea that a heroine’s social destiny and personal destiny are one — with little or no conscious awareness on the part of the heroine that she’s even making a choice (as opposed to the choice being mandated by the conventions of the genre, for example).
This also goes to your point about RL contradictions among and within women; IMO the genre tends to perpetuate those contradictions, often with little awareness that they’re even present (this is what I was talking about when I said it was initially tough for me to read contemps — I kept seeing these issues pop up without any conscious treatment in the books and it exhausted me). Not that I think Romance needs to be a philosophical well, or anything, but the repetition of certain values, over and over and over and over, has IMO turned some of them into genre conventions that continue to be repeated without respite or reflection. And every once in a while I think it might be good to reflect a little bit.
January 29th, 2009 at 2:34 pm
Yo, Robin. May I bring my stick to our flogged horse? Fascinating topic, and love hearing Victoria’s take on it – LURVED Talk Me Down. I’ve written 24 contemporaries (about half category, half rom/sus, a few novellas) and have ended two with a pregnant heroine. One or two others have alluded to “families” that might be a result of the union. Almost all heroines were normally sexually active (one virgin) women – almost every love scene (but not all!) included birth control, almost always a condom.
Wanting a baby just hasn’t been a strong character trait of any of my heroines. And that’s how I see it – a character trait. Not necessarily a good or bad one, or even one that should be a major “tell” on the character (i.e. “she wants to be a mother, therefore she is a nurturing type). I think a ticking biological clock is a great element to a story, and that urgency would most definitely tell the reader something about the heroine — and how the hero responds to it says a lot about him, too.
As I mentioned in the other blog (one of them!), I think of condoms for my characters for health reasons, making the case that most of the heroines are smart and handle their own birth control. (Off page.) I do like the thought that a STD-carrying character isn’t heroic anyway, and I agree with that. The Bullet Catchers undergo rigorous training and medical tests, and they’re all good to go. (All night long.)
January 29th, 2009 at 2:35 pm
For me, it’s this sort of… accelerated idea that Love = Marriage = Children that strikes me as strange in contemps. Not the fact that the heroine MIGHT want children some day, but the fact that we are barreling toward this ending within a few days or weeks.
Yes, a lot of unmarried modern women are looking forward to getting married and having kids, but most of us take our time. Dating, sex, serious dating, living together, marriage… that seems to be the normal route of most of my friends. And that’s usually followed by the purchase of a house, then the purchase of some rental properties, and finally a bit of traveling before settling down. *g*
Certainly this isn’t the ONLY route, but it’s common enough that you should see it in books.
Is the Love = Marriage = Children just part of the fantasy?
January 29th, 2009 at 2:40 pm
Hey, Roxanne! Ooo, thank you! And I totally agree about the condoms. Whether you show them or not, it seems like common sense that your heroines use them.
And Robin, forgot to point out that in my haze this morning, I was PRETTY sure this was your post. It was fairly obviously your voice… and the name was Robin, but I’d never been to this blog and couldn’t make my weary self sure that it was you. *g*
January 29th, 2009 at 3:49 pm
Roxanne:
May I bring my stick to our flogged horse?
let’s make it some inanimate object that’s flogged and I’ll even stand you a glass of wine (drinks for everyone!).
I love what you say about wanting children to be a character trait. Of course, part of the issue for me is that I think that many women still struggle with the idea that childbearing is, ideally, a choice, and one that IMO is pretty important, lol. Not every woman is going to be a fantastic parent, and even some women who are great parents may not have come to parenting with the most enthusiastic expectations. Can the genre accommodate these women as easily as it accommodates the woman who doctors swear is barren but who pops out the tots with the hero’s super-sperm? I don’t know.
I do like the thought that a STD-carrying character isn’t heroic anyway, and I agree with that.
What about a hero or heroine who was given herpes by an ex-spouse, for example, and now has to live with the condition?
As for Lucy’s pregnancy, I am very curious to watch that progress, especially given the bits of past I glimpsed in those three books. In one sense it shocked me, but I wonder if that’s because I don’t know her through the course of the whole series. In another sense, I totally understood her reaction because of what happened to her in the past, and I was happy for her. And in a sense, she’s the one I wouldn’t guess for the baby, so that was an interesting twist on standard reader expectations. And, of course, I loved Vanessa, and she was pretty non-traditional, lol. Had I only read Lucy’s story, though, I might have wondered more at her pregnancy.
Ultimately, I think it comes down to how much I trust an author. If I feel that other things are being treated thoughtfully, I can let go of a couple not using the condom. If I don’t have that sense of trust, though, it can become a big issue.
Victoria: Yeah, it’s me and my big mouth.
As for your great point about the time-frame, again, to use a generalization, doesn’t it seem like that compression is more common in contemps, where you’d think it would be less so, because of the widespread availability and non-taboo status of birth control? I think the epilogue is supposed to take care of that rushed feeling, but I know many readers aren’t fans of epilogues, especially if their only purpose is to show the fertility of the couple. OTOH, there are many readers who want to see their favorite couples with babies, so I don’t know.
In one sense I think the convention of the genre of HEA = marriage + children is really deeply rooted. But I also think it’s really taken for granted. And there are many couples who IMO shouldn’t be rushing to have children! I’m thrilled if they get a HFN. I remember reading Megan Hart’s post-Dirty short thinking, Elle? Really? *Already?* Not that I don’t want heroines to have kids. But I guess I’m to the point of wondering what purpose it serves, in the story, for the characters, in the thematic structure of the book. When I can’t come up with a reason beyond ‘because that’s what happens in Romance,’ I tend to get frustrated.
January 29th, 2009 at 4:23 pm
I have no idea why so many historical heroines are busy going against society and so many contemp heroines aren’t. Maybe that society seems restrictive in a BAD way, but the restrictions of traditional modern society seem to us to be designed to cull trouble makers from the herd? It’s easy to accept our restrictions as “good” and previous societies’ as “bad”? It’s hard for me to be sure, because I have authority issues. *g*
As for pregnancy in historicals though… I have to tell you, anytime I’m invested in a historical and the heroine is pregnant, it kind of scares me if she gets pregnant. *I* woudln’t want to imagine myself giving birth in the nineteenth century. Is it possible that that’s the stumbling block? Putting yourself in the story and thinking, OMG, that’s horrifying!
January 29th, 2009 at 4:35 pm
Btw, I’d like to note that I feel like a narcissist (sp?) because I only ever cite my own books in discussions, but it’s just my awful, awful memory, I swear. I was about to give the example of SEP’s Natural Born Charmer as an example of a non-traditional heroine. It was several minutes before I remembered the HUGE story arc of the cute, needy child in the book. I don’t care about cute children in books, so I don’t bother to remember them. *g* Or much of anything else for that matter. Ugh.
January 29th, 2009 at 6:13 pm
“How many Romances these days – contemporary or historical, but exempting paranormal – end without the mention of children?”
Most of the ones I read. If you’re reading sweet romance (many of the traditional Harlequin lines) or inspirational, I suppose you’re going to get babies.
“How many epilogues are we treated to in which the hero and heroine’s bouncing, burgeoning brood is featured?”
Uh, not that many. I’ll give an example of one: Cry No More by Linda Howard. When a book begins with a baby kidnapping, perhaps this kind of epilogue is appropriate. Even essential.
I’ve read your comments on this subject before and I find your word choices borderline offensive. My children aren’t a brood. I mean, what’s next? Whelps? Pups?
Look, I’m not a super mother, and I don’t have conservative values. I don’t believe a woman’s life is incomplete if she doesn’t reproduce. But I feel a certain disdain from you, directed towards those of us who have.
I know you’re a nice person and I doubt your intention is to offend. But I think the basis of your debate is that babies and traditional values are anti-modern, anti-feminist.
January 29th, 2009 at 6:32 pm
It’s easy to accept our restrictions as “good” and previous societies’ as “bad”? It’s hard for me to be sure, because I have authority issues. *g*
Heh, me too, Victoria. I think part of it is the dilemma of the “superwoman” and the way Romance deconstructs the expectations that women currently face. But I also think part of it is definitely the perception that past societies were more restrictive and current societies are more liberating.
As for pregnancy in historicals though… I have to tell you, anytime I’m invested in a historical and the heroine is pregnant, it kind of scares me if she gets pregnant. *I* woudln’t want to imagine myself giving birth in the nineteenth century. Is it possible that that’s the stumbling block? Putting yourself in the story and thinking, OMG, that’s horrifying!
I don’t get terrified, but it has struck me that many of the widowed heroes in Romance have lost their wives in childbirth, and yet the heroine will likely not face such difficulties. That’s always struck me as one of those unresolvable conflicts in the genre that I find curious.
January 29th, 2009 at 7:03 pm
Hey, Jill! I understand what you’re saying. I know you weren’t talking to me, but I’m tugging on your sleeve anyway. *g* I do think that a lot of straight contemp – both ST and series – have a heavy focus on family. Not rom suspense or urban fantasy, etc. Not Blaze or the lines that focus specifically on kick-ass heroines, but just straight contemp romance. (Was Blaze the kick-ass heroine line?)
For example, SEP writes my absolute favorite unsympathetic heroines. She’s my go-to for heroines who aren’t sweet, but they seem to always be redeemed by family and family love. Children or other people’s children. Which is absolutely fine, but I like other stuff too.
And I do notice more family involvement in contemps than I do in historicals. (As a matter of fact, historicals used to have a TON of “man needs a new mother for his children and must marry” scenarios, but those have fallen by the wayside. Maybe this is cyclical?)
OTOH, I think the popularity of rom suspense and paranormal and urban fantasy is resulting in less conventional heroines in contemps. Fewer happy endings that result in marriage and family.
I apologize if I sounded like I was down on children. Don’t tell my kids. *snort* For me, it really is the accelarated path from, “Hey, that guy is cute,” to “We’re in love. Let’s have babies!” that doesn’t feel natural, just for my personal tastes. Perhaps because I had a very long and careful trek from falling in love to thinking, “Yes, this is a man I could raise children with.”
January 29th, 2009 at 7:08 pm
I’ve read your comments on this subject before and I find your word choices borderline offensive. My children aren’t a brood. I mean, what’s next? Whelps? Pups?
Look, I’m not a super mother, and I don’t have conservative values. I don’t believe a woman’s life is incomplete if she doesn’t reproduce. But I feel a certain disdain from you, directed towards those of us who have.
Wow, Jill.
First let me apologize for offending you. I am sorry for that.
But can I please point out in my defense that I’m talking about *books* here, NOT real women? And that I am, myself, a bit more than borderline offended at being accused of “disdain” toward women with children *in real life*, especially based on a mere handful of comments I’ve made? You don’t know anything about me, about whether or not I have children, about my relationships with children, about my family life or my own community of friends and extended family. Or even about my philosophical views on real life children. I guess I mistakently thought that the fact that I’ve loved and recommended a boatload of Romance that contains children would be enough to make it clear I’m not anti-children in Romance or RL.
So let me make it perfectly clear: I love children (and small animals, since I included them in my piece, and could do an equally forceful column on the presence of dogs in the genre). Do I believe that the repetitive use of children in Romance is a means to naturalize the gender roles of women, something I find frustrating? Yes. And I don’t expect you to agree with my interpretation there. But I will say that one of the reasons I am so frustrated by the convention is that children are IMO *such a big deal* in RL that I think they are fetishized in Romance to the point of being insignificant as separate human beings in the genre. But I honestly didn’t think it was necessary to track a defense of real life children as the product of thoughtful, loving parents to ensure my discussion on the Romance genre won’t characterize me exactly the way you just have. I’m really sorry to have been wrong about that.
As for brood, it is defined as “children of a family.” I have actually only ever heard it used in casual conversation as a noun in reference to large human families, *by parents* of large families. I’m sorry if you find it offensive, as I certainly did not intend it that way.
But I think the basis of your debate is that babies and traditional values are anti-modern, anti-feminist.
Just to clarify, the basis of my argument is my belief that children are often used in Romance to a) naturalize the heroine’s femininity, b) allow her to get in touch with her nurturing instinct, and/or c) to maintain the idea of the heterosexual, nuclear family (and no, I’m not gay, and yes, I am the product of a heterosexual nuclear family myself). In other words, that children are used more as symbols than as people, and their symbolic purpose *can be* problematic for some feminist principles, namely that femininity or goodness or worth is not defined purely by maternity or maternal skills.
January 29th, 2009 at 7:16 pm
For example, SEP writes my absolute favorite unsympathetic heroines. She’s my go-to for heroines who aren’t sweet, but they seem to always be redeemed by family and family love. Children or other people’s children. Which is absolutely fine, but I like other stuff too.
SEP is an author who can take me to the heights and the depths in one book. Rachel, from Dream a Little Dream, is probably my favorite SEP heroine, and DALD is probably my favorite book (a close battle with Ain’t She Sweet), but why did *all three women* have to be pregnant at the end of the book? Yeah, the scene was funny, and touching in being able to see Rachel’s contentment, but it felt very framed to me. And I almost blew a gasket reading Nobody’s Baby But Mine, because I felt that the characterization of Jane’s trickery was just offensive on every possible level. And I didn’t like Cal, either. Although Cal kind of gets his in DALD, lol.
January 29th, 2009 at 7:20 pm
Oh, no, Victoria, you didn’t sound down on children! I’m really not a googoo gaga type, either, to be honest. My hubby and I dated for 8 YEARS before we got married, so I hear ya about the rush-rush in romance novels.
“I think the popularity of rom suspense and paranormal and urban fantasy is resulting in less conventional heroines in contemps. Fewer happy endings that result in marriage and family.”
Agree. And I love modern heroines. My own heroines are modern! I write edgy rom suspense, so this isn’t in defense of my own Care Bear epilogue. I guess I’m just speaking up for the baby-lovin’ gals like Kimber An, who are strong women in their own right.
Sorry if I jumped on you, Robin. *embarrassed*
January 29th, 2009 at 7:27 pm
I think for some readers there is no happy ending without babies, or at least marriage. And I’m really glad there are books that are perfect for them! I even enjoy them myself!
But I am also really glad for the rise in non-baby-having heroines, because personally? When I hear a newborn crying at the store? I feel a rush of relief so strong I could fall to my knees. “Oh, I am SO glad that’s not me anymore.” ROFL And when I hear a heroine is pregnant with twins, I can’t help but say, “Oh, GAWD! I’ll have to sleep with the lights on tonight to keep the bad dreams away.”
Okay, that’s a bit of an exaggeration. *g* But if I could’ve somehow given birth to an independent four-year-old, that would’ve been perfect.
January 29th, 2009 at 7:52 pm
Oh, damn. I didn’t mean to imply that you don’t like children, Robin. For whatever reason, I took offense to the word “brood,” and I shouldn’t have. I hate making anyone feel bad, and I’m a little teary-eyed right now for having done so.
Can I end this by saying SEP’s Dream a Little Dream is my favorite book of all time, and Rachel my favorite heroine?
My sincere apologies.
January 29th, 2009 at 7:54 pm
Let’s see if I can express myself clearly and if I’m not getting your point, Robin, please let me know!
One of the reasons I wind up diverging a bit from the position Robin is articulating is that while for some people the tropes of romance reflect real-life attitudes, at other times they don’t at all. I agree that children and animals are frequently used as plot points and symbolic markers in romance, and sometimes it’s really annoying because it’s this fake world that often undermines the centrality of the heroine as her own person. But at other times, I think that children and the whole happy-families scenario can serve much the same function as forced seduction can, i.e., it allows the reader to safely explore a fantasy that she wouldn’t want in real life.
I may be totally off base here. But I’m speculating this way because for as long as I can remember, I wanted a career and lots of control over my life. As for the same amount of time, I’ve read sweet romances with 1950s style heroines and incredibly conventional storylines. OTOH, I can’t stand forced seduction/rape scenes in romances, and I avoided the genre in the 1980s when the bodice ripper era was at its height. Or at least I avoided those books and read Regency trads. And this was when I was refusing to get married and was working really hard to get ahead in my male-dominated career. I love my life and my job, but damn, I love my non-PC romances too.
I’ve branched out a bit, though. My most recent contemp was this wonderful Ellen Hartman book in which the heroine is raising her nephew, but she decides to take a chance, throw up her job, and become a children’s book writer. At the same time she meets a hero who is very successful but whose life is way screwed up. She doesn’t exactly fix it, but she shows him that he can live with it.
January 29th, 2009 at 7:59 pm
Jill, I just sent you a private email.
I really, truly never thought anyone would take what I was saying and apply it to real life. It just never occurred to me. Maybe that was a mistake, cause it sure backfired on me here, lol.
Anyway, don’t get more upset than I already made you. I’m sorry if I sounded harsh in my response to you. You just surprised the hell out of me, frankly.
January 29th, 2009 at 7:59 pm
I agree that children and animals are frequently used as plot points and symbolic markers in romance, and sometimes it’s really annoying because it’s this fake world that often undermines the centrality of the heroine as her own person.
Sunita, I was just coming by to articulate my thoughts on this! Took me long enough to formulate them.
Yeah, I think that in some books, children are shorthand for the woman becoming complete. And for LOVE becoming complete. (Of course, heroes are used for this too.) They are shorthand to show that everyone is truly happy and WORTHY and fulfilled.
January 29th, 2009 at 8:12 pm
But at other times, I think that children and the whole happy-families scenario can serve much the same function as forced seduction can, i.e., it allows the reader to safely explore a fantasy that she wouldn’t want in real life.
I don’t disagree with you, Sunita. One of the problems with generalizations, is that there are a millions exceptions, as it is with the generalization I’ve been making about kids in contemporary Romance. And part of the problem is that my initial interest had more to do with the birth control question and how its absence sort of automates the arrival of children (how many heroines even consider abortion or adoption, while they’re in active heroine mode?), and therefore how children seem to be a “natural” element of the HEA in many Romances.
But that certainly doesn’t preclude exactly the kind of analysis you allude to here, that there is also the opportunity for indulgence in a certain alternate reality that is not necessarily conservative or traditional. It’s like the virgin heroine, who on the one hand can suggest an equation of virginity and virtue, but who can also provide an experience of untroubled first sex with a guy who is the love of the heroine’s life. I actually think these things can and perhaps most often do occur simultaneously within the same books.
January 29th, 2009 at 8:16 pm
They are shorthand to show that everyone is truly happy and WORTHY and fulfilled.
One of the umbrella ideas for my thoughts on this subject is that there is sometimes a sense of “earning love” in Romance. Not that it’s enough to be the best person one can be for the sake of personal evolution, but that a certain level of goodness is required to be worthy of true love. I suspect there’s a whole cultural consciousness behind this idea, and maybe people really feel like this (I am one of those “love is a gift” type of people), but it’s something I often wonder about but that doesn’t seem to get a lot of play in discussion.
January 29th, 2009 at 8:23 pm
I wonder if the absence of contraception and the immediate arrival of children is part of the compression of all the Good Stuff That Happens Once You Have Lurve. Especially when wordcounts are getting shorter by the day.
That still doesn’t entirely explain the lack of condoms, though. I get that people think they’re unromantic, or too real-life, or whatever. But given the importance of sex scenes in romance novels, and given that many such scenes are relatively detailed, I’d rather have them included. And many authors do a really good job of integrating them into the scene, whether for humor or something else. Maybe we just need to get past the generation of readers for whom they were optional.
January 29th, 2009 at 8:36 pm
I wonder if the absence of contraception and the immediate arrival of children is part of the compression of all the Good Stuff That Happens Once You Have Lurve.
I think you’ve hit the nail on the head.
January 29th, 2009 at 11:17 pm
Sunita, I think the no condom thing may partly reflect a position of “don’t interrupt my fantasy with the thought of unsavory images of STDs.” And I get that, especially since Romance doesn’t track RL, especially around sexual fantasies. We tolerate all sorts of cleaning up and omissions when it comes to sex in the genre. And for some readers, I think the idea that we know the hero and heroine are meant to be is enough to make the lack of condom or birth control totally okay.
But I wonder if children weren’t so expected the the genre if there would be more mentions of condoms, even if the STD issue may never be overtly confronted in the genre in a mainstream way.
I guess what it comes down to for me is that I want to feel the choice of children, the sense of why and when. Not every heroine I meet in the genre seems particularly ready for kids, let alone eager to start a family. Some heroines seem to make a sharp turn into wanting children when they didn’t for 99% of the book. Which can certainly be a reality-based scenario, but I hold fiction to higher standards in that I demand a certain logic that may not inform everything people do in RL.