Comments on: You Are What You Read

By: Idetrorce

Idetrorce — Sat, 15 Dec 2007 14:22:14 +0000

very interesting, but I don’t agree with you
Idetrorce

By: bettie

bettie — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 10:03:21 +0000

For me, the reason the “Romance novels are bad for women” school of thought is so insulting is because its proponents always assume women read romance novels to be the heroine, rather than just to be entertained. At the heart of it, those haters don’t believe we are capable of separating our sense of self, our morals and the beliefs we have held our whole lives from the actions and attitudes depicted in a work of fiction.

If the haters want to talk about things that are deeply sexist and ultimately harmful to women, I’d say the idea that we poor females can’t hold our own ideas in the face of a bunch of words on a page is pretty damn demeaning, oppressive and harmful.

By: Shiloh Walker

Shiloh Walker — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 04:40:02 +0000

The lolcat is darling but let’s be honest. Does any cat in the world have a negative self-image? >^-^<

Heh. Heh. Heh. It’s funny cuz it’s true. ;)

I doubt readers will think “Oh dear, I must have a social obligation when I go to the bookstore, I’m buying a forced seduction book and what will people think of me, oh me oh my!”

Again… it’s funny cuz it’s true.

As far as I’m concerned, I meet my social obligations just fine without having to bring my reading habits into question.

I mean, I pay my taxes, I’m not a law breaker, I raise my kids to be polite and honest and respectful, I don’t drive drunk, I ~~don’t~~ rarely speed, I have a job that helps take care of my kids. I give to charity, I try to recycle, and I vote.

If somebody wants to criticize my lack of meeting my social obligations (or their messed up perceptions of), they are welcome to. Just like I am welcome to ignore them. :)

If I had to consider “social obligations” when picking out my reading material, I’d rather not read.

By: Xandra

Xandra — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 03:01:24 +0000

I’ll toss into the discussion the old idea that romance–especially forced seduction fantasy–is the subversion of an element of the universal female experience. That the framework of the forced-seduction romance represents in metaphor the universal feminine situation of having to submit, and turning it into a victory through achieving something greater.

The specifics may vary–the sheikh, the Greek Tycoon, the alpha cop…a bargain, a revenge plot, enforced closeness for a number of reasons…whatever. The situation places the heroine at the mercy of something she is unable to control, yet the end result of the story is that through her own charater, that force that is uncontrollable–that alpha male or the rich and powerful male…ends up being tamed by her.

At one level, I’ve always looked at the paradigm not as an instruction manual for how things are, but rather a re-envisioning of how they could be, and in so doing, they are actually encouraging women to remain conscious of the possibility of things being different and better.

However, I’d still like to know how reading what Bliedel tells me I should be reading is any less oppressive than reading what some mysterious “they” tell me I should be reading.

By: Ann Bruce

Ann Bruce — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 02:16:35 +0000

I don’t get it. There is more violence against women in crime books and I don’t hear a call for arms against the women who enjoy reading that genre.

Because, sadly, we North Americans are a society that more readily accepts violence than sex. Church groups will protest sex, a beautiful and natural act, in the media more often and more vehemently than they do violence.

Let’s take the movie industry: Too much sex and it’ll be rated 18A/NC-17 and/or it’ll be stuck in the back room of the video store; Hack, shoot, or slaughter people, and it’ll get rated 14A /PG-13 so the general public can still watch it.

By: Ann Aguirre

Ann Aguirre — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 00:53:14 +0000

This is rather off topic, but does anyone know whether Lisa Kleypas named her heroine in Dreaming of You as a nod toward Sara Craven’s long and prolific career with HQN? Heroine Sara was even an aspiring author, as I recollect. I believe her name was Sara Fielding to start, but once she married Derek, she became… Sara Craven.

Coincidence or craft? I ask y’all.

By: Meriam

Meriam — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 00:39:22 +0000

Unh! I just lost my post. I was going to make a comment about bloodthirsty lesbians and crime fiction, but I'm calling it quits. ...

By: Meriam

Meriam — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 00:32:41 +0000

Not in any way related to forced seduction, but does anyone remember the little (non) spat between British crime writers Ian Rankin and the terribly bloodthirsty (The Mermaids Sining still makes me queasy) Val McDermid?

Rankin said:

“the people writing the most graphic novels are women”, before going on to specify that “they are mostly lesbians as well, which I find interesting.”

To which McDermind replied:

“There is still a funny notion that women should not write violent fiction…and yet women more often than not are the victims of sexual violence. So what are we saying – that the ones most likely to experience it should not write about it?”

And she rounds off by saying:

McDermid is the first to admit that there is snobbery in the literary world when it comes to the crime genre. “It is manifestly clear, however, from the kind of critical acclaim we get, that there are now very good crime writers.” It will be a “good day”, she continues, when a crime novel wins the Booker prize.

I feel the same way about Romance! (This is from an article in The – where else – Guardian.

I’d love to be intelligent and draw parallels to gender and genre and so on, but I’m sleepy. I just thought it was interesting.

By: Maria

Maria — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 00:07:18 +0000

I should add that if forced seduction is a fantasy of yours, that’s cool. But reading about it, even when well-written, usually makes a book a DNF for me. I don’t read crime novels because of the amount of violence against women, either. And K. Z. Snow is right, tv is worse.
And Teddy Pig, you might want to check out Ann Jones’ Kabul in Winter. Apparently Afghan men go at it like rabbits with each other when away from home.

By: Maria

Maria — Tue, 11 Dec 2007 23:58:54 +0000

I’m going to de-lurk and comment because I think this is a pretty important issue. Having read Bindle’s article on M&B, to me it seems that she must have personal experience with abusive relationships–either personally or someone close to her has gone through one. Because abusive relationships often start out like forced seduction: the “hero” pushes the “heroine” further than she wants/is ready to go in the relationship, then uses this to keep her in the relationship.
I’ve seen too many relationships where the guy kept the girl from leaving him by getting her to have sex with him. These were girls who were waiting for marriage and had been taught to be nice and somehow their boyfriends got them into a situation where these girls wanted to say no, but felt that if they did, it wouldn’t be nice. So while I don’t see forced seduction as rape, reading it in a book makes me very uncomfortable because I know that in real life these girls do not end up in happy relationships. Sometimes it just means that the guy was desperate to keep the relationship going, other times it means that he’s an abusive creep.
However, I think Bindle is looking at this the wrong way. Romance novels are a reflection of society, not an influence on society. There are still way too many voices telling girls that they need to be nice and that it’s a good thing when a guy is jealous, even if while he’s in a jealous rage he’s yelling that you’re a bitch for not calling him while out with your friends.