The moral judgments around sexuality in romance novels is a subject for another day – especially in regards to the double standard applied to men and women. Don’t even get me started. But that wasn’t what I was trying to say. I consider myself pro-sex when practiced responsibly (protection against STDs, unwanted pregnancy and unwanted feelings).

I got so irritated recently reading Someone To Watch Over Me by Kleypas. The heroine was a courtesan, and the hero’s unwillingness to pay attention to any other part of her personality almost had the book hitting the wall. But the sexually virile woman isn’t a valued archetype.

It’s like those Harlequin titles. The men just can’t be rich, they have to be billionaires. They can’t just be successful, they have to be magnates. It’s not enough for them to be sexy or know their way around a woman’s body, the author needs to take it to the extreme, and that extreme is a rake.

In the real world we call these guys murderers and lock them up. In romances they’re celebrated as heroes.

Same with the rake.

In the real world, a woman wouldn’t touch that penis with a ten-foot pole (Do you know where that thing’s been?). In romances, the alpha-whore is seen as an exciting and desirable conquest.

I think it stems from the need to take the literary archetype to the limit of its bounds. He’s protective. Just how protective is he? Would he kill for her? Real life, No. Novel, Yes.

He’s hot and all the chicks want him. But can the heroine steal him away from all the free p*ssy? Would he willingly go? Real life, Not so much. Novel, Yes.

Selene

Sebastian Ballister, aka Dain, in Lord of Scoundrels is dissolute, a scoundrel, and to some extent a seducer, but he involves himself only with those who are willing. To me there is a huge difference between that and a man who uses women as sex slaves. I can enjoy the first, but to me, love cannot ‘redeem’ someone from criminal behavior.

Rape is a crime, a vile act of violence committed on a weaker victim. I have no patience whatsoever with books where a despicable man, a criminal, morphs into a hero thanks to love. He didn’t love his previous victims (numerous!) and he deserves not happiness but punishment.

Redeem all the seducers you like, I can buy into that, but I will not buy into the rapist as hero.

by Elyssa Papa November 10th, 2009 at 1:32 pm

@Jane: Ha, I was just thinking of famous celebrities who are Rakes that I would not want to be around-’such as a famous actor who almost every woman seems to love but me. I just can't help thinking that he's a major player, a Rake, and totally not redeemable as a person.

and

by Elyssa Papa November 10th, 2009 at 2:01 pm

@Chloe Harris (Noelle): Okay, I'll name mine. Gerard Butler. He just gives me the squickies.

@ Elyssa Papa

In the interests of full disclosure I’m a mad keen Gerard Butler fan. He clearly doesn’t float your boat and that’s okay. He can float a whole flotilla for me!!

Can I just say that much of what is printed in the tabloids is either untrue or an exaggeration? He [GB] has stated on numerous occasions, for example, that he has never dated Cameron Diaz or Jennifer Aniston but the press keeps reporting it (if the latest mags at the supermarket are right, JA is back with John Mayer, but I digress). Apparently Brad and Angelina break up 2 or 3 times a week. (Must be exhausting!) One reportedly “intimate and cozy dinner” GB had with JA was actually a dinner with 3 or 4 other people as well, to discuss an upcoming movie project.

(GB freely admits to a “wild” youth/early 20′s but has stated in interviews that in his mid 20′s he realised where he was heading, didn’t like it, gave up drinking and cleaned up his act. This was also about the time he started his acting career.)

However, even if all the press is true – he hasn’t dated anyone under age, he hasn’t dated any married women. Far as I can tell, he hasn’t been accused of stepping out on a girlfriend. What’s wrong with him dating a single consenting adult if he wants to? He’s a single man. He hasn’t stepped out on a wife like Tom Cruise or Mel Gibson.

If the worst a celebrity does is have his name linked to a single attractive adult female – well, I don’t think it’s fair to compare him to a rake in the sense of the original post (ie where a rake = Sebastian from To Have and To Hold).

I get that you don’t go all gooey over him. that’s fine. But, I don’t think it’s fair to label him as you seem to have done. Just sayin’.

(not trying to start a flame war – I just thought it was a bit unfair, that’s all).

My point about contemporary/historical Roarke & Bobby Tom etc was simply that my (personal) definition of a romance “rake” is different to yours (and, from her post, Jane’s). I think Roarke is very rakish. He’s smooth, suave, sexy and I have the sense that he was never short of female company before he met Eve (and after too, because, well, there’s Eve). To me, that’s a rake. Another poster called him the “rogue”.

Most of the romance novels I’ve read have had the rake as that kind of character and that’s where I’ve pick up my definition from. I think (maybe) other people – Jane ?, yourself ? ++ other posters here – have the more historically accurate definition.

If that’s the case, then it’s easy to see where the diversion is.

If the authors of the “rake” books think of a rake like I do, they will, according to Jane’s definition (and I stress here that her definition is not wrong – in fact it is, far as I can tell from comments above, historically accurate) not in fact be rakes at all. That’s one of the bugbears isn’t it? The “he’s called a rake but he doesn’t do much ‘raking’”? If the definitions are different, then we’re at cross purposes.

The way I see it, the “author shorthand” referred to is consistent with my definition (which is not trademarked or anything by the way!!) of a rake and when I read those books, I don’t feel fooled or misled in any way – that is consistent with my headspace.

The man who is contemptuous of women – like the one from Sin and Sensibility referred to in the originating post, sounds like an asshole. (I stress I haven’t read the book and I only know what is stated in the post above). He doesn’t fit within my definition of a rake.

I don’t disagree with the sentiments of many of the posters above, it’s just that the terminology I’d use is different. I think “your” rake and “my” rake are different beasts. Make sense?

I will note as a matter of personal reading preference that I prefer not to think about STDs while reading romances of any genre. However, in contemporaries, it’s hard to avoid–the fantasy is shallower because the characters are closer to our own world. But historicals are more fantasy than reality and I prefer it that way.

Also, I’m glad to know I’m not the only one who’s brain screams: STDs!!! Syphillis, gonorrhea, herpes!!! when reading a rake hero. It is amazing to me how many men in romancelandia get away with having lots and lots of unprotected sex with all variety of women (including prostitutes) without any health consequences. I get that its hard to write a HEA when the hero’s wang is liable to fall off from STDs, but you know, maybe that’s a good reason NOT to write rake heroes.

Oh my goodness, how could you forget that scene where he deliberately kisses and folndles another woman in front of her? Oh the agony! But back to the point, I think the issues raised above are more pertinent to the historical rake rather than a modern man who has a lot of lovers. The power imbalance issue is far different and I think most contemporary heroes (I’m sure there are exceptions, no need to list them!) don’t commit a lot of adultery.

I also would never consider Roarke a rake anyway, regardless of the time frame, because he clearly has had actual relationships in the past and is open to having relationships. He may have slept around a fair bit, but I never get the sense that it was indiscriminate, even if I sometimes wonder at his taste. ;-)

I’m not going to repeat the whole article but there is also some comments on the origin of the term. While had always in the past bought into the folk etymology– I also always liked The Rakes of Mallow, a cheerful song with memorable words and tune (in fact a bit of an earwig) that we sang in grade school: “Beauing, Belleing, Dancing, Drinking, Never rising, ever sinking, Live the Jolly Rakes of Mallow….” I bet you couldn’t even get away with that one in grade school at this time, even if you called it a folk song.

ETA: I never bought into the HEA of Gaffney’s book. In fact, I remember being fascinated with it much as I was fascinated with Burford’s Edward, Edward but never wanting to think about it again.

I’m really surprised that so many readers think about the rake hero getting an STD if he was sleeping around so much. I guess I never thought that realistically about romance books. It’s the same as the way everyone bathes so much in medieval romances. No one wants smelly heros or heros with an STD. Why even go there? Romance books are fun fantasy for me not reality.

So, according to what’s in my mind when I think “rake” – I like ‘em. I’m happy to read them. I loved Bobby Tom Denton – he was awesome. I love Roarke. I love that type of hero in a contemporary, a paranormal or a historical. But, I don’t like heartless, amoral, lying, cheating “heroes”. That, to me, is something other (? what?) than a rake.

I’m tired, so I’m not sure if I’m making sense. I don’t think it’s a problem for a single man to have enjoyed a healthy sex (consensual) sex life before the meets the heroine in a romance novel. Bobby Tom didn’t lay a hand on another woman after he met his match. I found their HEA totally believable. I didn’t think he’d stray just for the sake of it. I don’t think Roarke will ever cheat on Eve but he was with many women before her. I don’t have a problem with it.

But, I think Jane’s talking about something else and we just have different definitions. Maybe others feel the same???

Going to rest now…. sorry if I’ve rambled!

After a hundred (or several hundreds) books or so, I started to hate (not the hero for he had no choice about it) the author for making him a rake and then for showing me just how much of a rake he is. I didn’t like the books that opened with the hero getting serviced at a ball or a card game party by his mistress or current paramour, which is about every other book.

And usually, his past is taken as a matter of fact, by himself, by the heroine, by almost everyone, as though a man has no choice but to be a rake to prove himself. And once he met the heroine, his rakish past is not mentioned again, and no remorse is shown for how he has lived his life. Which is why, I like Tempted All Night by Liz Carlyle, wherein the hero, Tristan, regretted his past. He had become a rake for a reason, which is not really justifiable as he could’ve taken another path, but at least, there’s a reason. And in Wicked All Day, still by Liz Carlyle, Mercer felt ashamed of his past.

I’ll admit that I have a harder time reading the romances with the repugnant “heroes”…I have a hard time believing in the their conversion. So I guess I prefer my incorrect definition of “rake”, when it comes to my romances!

I'll echo a lot of the other commenters by saying that my view is that rake storylines are female rescue fantasies. The stereotype of romance readers is of women fantasising about being swept off their feet but I think rake books tend to be more about heroines sweeping heroes off their feet. The heroines are *different* to other women; they *see* the kernel of goodness in the wastrel and are able to bring it out. They are *unique* among women. All of this is very appealing to the reader. I also suspect the exaggeration of the characteristics of the rake character (drunkenness, debauchery etc.) is a way of super-sizing the reader-experience.

Beautifully said, Tumperkin. The Rake in romance is a literary device, in many ways. His whole purpose is to see the error of his ways for that one special woman, to deliver the fantasy fulfillment for the reader.

It is not impossible–see Warren Beatty, reformed rake and devoted family man–but it is rare enough and startling enough to be endlessly fascinating.

@Gennita Low:

Gennita, I gave up on Mr. Clooney long ago. He invariably dates softcore porn girls–cocktail waitress was totally a step up for him. I think George likes him some seriously nasty kinks in bed and I am just not nasty enough a girl.

@Julie James:

LOL, you’ve just made me even more interested in your books.