A guest post by Janet (@Janetnorcal), an experienced romance reader very knowledgeable about Regency romance in particular, who posts often at Book Lovers Resource and Keira (@KeiraSoleore, whose avatar never ever fails to make me grin), an aspiring romance author who blogs at her own Cogitations and Meditations.
How the point-counterpoint blog got started: Janet Webb sent Keira Soleore a Twitter Direct Message:
Direct message from Janet Webb: Friday, February 11, 2011 5:50:00 PM
I know [..] doesn’t purport to speak for anyone but don’t you occasionally get tired of articles focusing on Ivy league/Rom writer? I do.
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Direct message from Keira Soleore: Friday, February 11, 2011 5:55:09 PM
The reason so much media attention is on Ivy Leaguers is because everyone used to think romance writers & readers were losers…
…The fact that smart accomplished women are doing it gives it legitimacy. Akin to academic scholars lending it legitimacy.
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From: Janet Webb
Sent: Friday, February 11, 2011 6:22 PM
To: Keira Soleore
Subject: We should do a point/counterpoint blog on this …
Oh, I don’t believe that although I think that the ignorant outside world believes that. I think I must have missed all of the disdain — or ignored it. I started with Georgette Heyer, who was beloved by men and women alike: there was no embarrassment involved in loving her books. I don’t think that smart accomplished women writing romance gives it legitimacy, nor do I think that academic scholars writing about it lend it legitimacy. I think the worth of the books themselves gives it legitimacy. Like “Sunshine and Shadow” by Laura & Tom Curtis. I could name a million more. Don’t misunderstand me: I love smart books by anyone. And I love academic writing about the genre that interests me most — I just don’t think it makes it legitimate.
I totally understand journalists going for the obvious story — Ivy League prof writes Romance. But that’s because they aren’t prepared to dig a tad deeper …
Cheers!
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From: Keira Soleore
To: Janet Webb
Sent: Tue, February 15, 2011 1:17:55 PM
Subject: RE: We should do a point/counterpoint blog on this …
See, we’re romance readers. We don’t feel any disdain. But I have only to look at the wonderful people I know who are outside the romance reading community to know the disdain and disregard they hold for romance novels. They do believe, unfairly so and without direct actual knowledge, that those are dirty books with poor writing; in other words “salacious” is the only way to describe them. Those lurid covers do not help at all!!!!!!!!
So that’s been my experience with romance’s reputation. Almost everyone I speak to in Romancelandia says similar things. So, yes indeed, the perception of romance in the larger world is more like “nudge-nudge-wink-wink porn for women” written by chubby, plain, not-so-bright sex-starved women. Do I agree with this? A thousand times no. But non-romance readers do believe this. The books are not getting the respect they deserve all by themselves.
That is why highly educated, successful women writing romance are needed to make a huge impact on romance’s perception. There is no one, not a single person, who has done more in this fashion than Nora Roberts. She has educated the media and the reading public to some extent. Without Nora, we wouldn’t even be where we are today.
And we have leagues to go. You don’t have to convince me, nor I you. We already know and respect the genre. We want wider acceptance and respect. That is why folks like Eloisa James, Julia Quinn, Lauren Willig, Cara Elliott, etc. are so important. Similarly, college courses offered in Princeton and other universities on popular romance give it further legitimacy for the world at large.
“I totally understand journalists going for the obvious story — Ivy League prof writes Romance. But that’s because they aren’t prepared to dig a tad deeper … “
>> I’m not sure I understand. Dig deeper for what?
Keira
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From: Janet Webb
Sent: Tuesday, February 15, 2011 2:40 PM
To: Keira Soleore
Subject: Re: We should do a point/counterpoint blog on this …
I’ll have to think about what you’ve said. It’s hard for me not to think that courses about Romance are to Literature as Rocks for Jocks are to Geology (see what I mean — outside world looking in). You’ll never believe what my mum just said about Betty Neels. That she quite enjoyed it and that it would make good hospital reading. Do you think that was because of the lack of Brighton? I know she really didn’t like Mary Balogh — because as a devotee of Austen and Heyer, she just kept seeing the problems and inaccuracies.
And you see, I don’t think I agree that professors who teach on the subject of the genre and smart women writers are changing the face of the genre and how it’s regarded. Does romance command more respect today? Just a few months ago the NY Times wrote a very tongue-in-cheek article about e-books and romance. I wasn’t feeling the respect.
Nora Roberts has a high school education — she’s as smart as beans and a fantastic writer and it’s the force of her books that command respect. I wouldn’t think she would even want that mantle. To me she is a butt to the seat writer who has a few close female writer pals but who speaks to the world — like she actually sponsors a local baseball team! She’s not cliquey, she’s not gossipy, she’s not whingey, she’s straightforward and she’s absolutely never complains, never explains. I could not imagine her in a million years complaining to a magazine, online or paper, about a review that she was unhappy with. She is so different in the way she interacts with the world compared to almost every romance writer I know. Now maybe I don’t know enough romance writers — I can definitely think of a few that are following in Nora’s footsteps.
To be continued … let’s keep the conversation going!
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From: Keira Soleore
To: Janet Webb
Sent: Sun, February 20, 2011 3:07:47 PM
Subject: RE: We should do a point/counterpoint blog on this …
The publishing industry is doing nothing to get romance noticed. Now, while the comments are still snide, at least romance is getting media coverage. Quite a bit of it as compared with before, because romance has shown itself to be a publishing phenomenon and there’s so much online conversation happened about it. Before, it was discarded as frivolous and not worthy of any ink in the media.
Despite being a publishing phenomenon, that is not what will sustain the upward swing of interest and respect towards the genre. Remember people have to read the books in order to be able to possibly respect them. Articles by respected individuals, university courses, etc. are standard guidelines of legitimacy. Application of those to the genre is a way to raise its profile. (I really wish publishers would lose those covers.)
Popular Literature is treated like that by the Literature Department. All genre literature is looked down upon. But the more university students clamor for those classes and the more teachers offer them, the more accepted the genre becomes. Like pop culture was accepted, so will romance.
Nora is all you’ve said and more. She took on the mantle of becoming the voice of romance for many years. Now that there are the Smart Bitches and many other bloggers, she’s stepped back from it all. Still when important stuff comes up, she’s there commenting, writing memos, being interviewed, etc.
Janet, who do you think is following in Nora’s footsteps?
Keira
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Ok, folks, can you answer Keira’s question? Any thoughts?
Related posts:
- The Romance Insider, the Reader, the Fan, and the Academic Researcher
- Academic Talks on Nora Roberts, Mary Stewart, Laura Kinsale, and Grace Livingston Hill
- HaMPO: Help A Moral Philosopher Out: Live Blogging An Academic Conference, Ethics of
- Monday Morning Stepback: At What Point in the Writing Process Do Writers Think About What Will Sell?
My opinion on this subject pretty much falls in line with Keira’s. The obvious “solution” to counteract the stereotype that all romance readers and writers are dimwitted women with latent Fabio fantasies is to go to the totally opposite end of the spectrum – academia! Women with graduate degrees! See! We’re smart too! No, really!
The real picture of the genre is somewhere in the middle. Yes, you have women with post-graduate degrees reading romance. You also have high-school dropouts reading romance. Neither of these “types” is necessarily smarter than the other. I’ve met people with multiple degrees who are dumber than a bag of hammers, and high-school drop-outs who went on to educate themselves in a sort of non-traditional way and could converse on any topic you could throw at ‘em.
But the media likes “extremes.” Frankly, it’s easier for them and it saves them from having to do any hard work….like digging below the surface to find the real story. And the real story here? We’re all frickin’ different, we’re all diverse, we all bring our own “stuff” to the genre. Period. End of story.
When I talk about the genre with other librarians, the first thing I always harp on is that the romance genre is like any other genre out there. There are great books, good books and crap books. Not every mystery novel published is super fantastic. Likewise, not every mystery novel is crap. Plus, more importantly? Crap is in the eye of the beholder. You may not like it. You may not necessarily understand it. But that also doesn’t automatically make it wrong.
“Crap is in the eye of the beholder. You may not like it. You may not necessarily understand it. But that also doesn’t automatically make it wrong.”
Yes, that’s it. We make no claims that there are no duds among the romance novels. What we’re saying is that the number of duds aren’t any higher as compared with any other genre or other mainstream novels, because reading is such a subjective exercise.
It’s the blanket attitude to romance by the media and by the non-romance-reading populace that grates on my nerves and why I think the more people already established in other fields “do” romance, the easier it will be for wider acceptance.
Thirty-five years ago, when I was a philosophy student, my aunt said, “Magdalen, you’re the only person I know who has Immanuel Kant and Barbara Cartland on the same bookshelf.” Frankly, proximity to “The Critique of Pure Reason” wasn’t elevating Dame Barbara anywhere. That’s the problem I have with this debate. Non-romance readers may learn that people with doctorates are reading, writing and studying romances, but that doesn’t make the romances any better in their eyes.
Sure, The New Yorker ran a perfectly respectful and even-handed Profile of Nora Roberts. Six months later, The New Yorker’s website had this characterization: “hacks who love the hanky-panky [will get] to publish their own bodice-ripping, hay-rolling romps” on the subject of the short-lived “Harlequin Horizons” venture. I get it they were going over the top to mock Harlequin’s coy alliteration, but does that really sound like the romance genre had gained any legitimacy even after stories in the main stream press about Eloisa James and Julia Quinn?
Here’s what I think will have to happen before people scratch their heads and think, “Well, maybe there’s something worthwhile there.” Either Oprah or Michelle Obama announces, “I read romances. I love `em. Here are six of my favorites…” or J.K. Rowling writes a series of romances or someone writes a romance that is simultaneously awesome as a romance and as a work of Harold Bloom-proof fiction — and the author acknowledges that it’s a romance! Oh, and in that last scenario the writer has to be a woman. Has to be. Because if Jonathan Franzen, Michael Chabon or Stephen King wrote a self-proclaimed romance, it would be the exception that did nothing to disprove the rule.
I actually believe that most people — including a lot of readers — think that romance novels are more like doughnuts or bonbons than novels. Think about it — they’re sold in Wal*Mart and Target more than in independent bookstores, they’re marketed as a fungible commodity with specific lines having identical packaging and specific tropes having nearly identical cover art, and a lot of people buy them without paying particular attention to author, plot, or quality of prose. Even the industry supports if not exploits the notion that one romance novel is much like another.
I don’t see anyone’s Ph.D. thesis or professorial credentials changing the impression that ours is the CheezWhiz of genres: bland, uniform, and quite unwelcome at am English Department wine-and-cheese event.
I don’t know who is following in Nora’s footsteps because I don’t pay attention to authors. They are the least important part of a literature or a genre to me. Nor do I think it is the author’s job to be an ambassador of the genre they write in. I want to know as much about the author as can fit into a three sentence blurb in the back of the book.
In other genres and in the literary canon, the credentials of the author are neglible. Or more to the point, in the canon it is the legitimacy of the text that gives the author his credentials. It isn’t his credentials that give the literature its cache. I think the fact that the “credentials” of the authors are even an issue is more telling of the fact that the attitude toward the genre is exactly the same as it has always been than it is an indication of progress.
Because if Ezra Pound can be a fascist and arrested for treason, and Hemgingway can be a drunk, and C.S. Lewis can be a Christian apologist, and the Marquis de Sade can be the Marquis de Sade BUT the books that they wrote can be read and valued separately from their biographies . . . well, then, what that suggests to me is that romance is still a non-literature because it needs to be made legitimate not through the actual text but through how awesome the author is in public. So, I guess I would hope that there will come a time when romance does not need to be legitimized by the author’s credentials, and that we won’t need anyone who follows in Nora’s footsteps because the literature will do what literature ought: speak for itself.
Are we looking for respect, validation or … what?
AQ asked, “Are we looking for respect, validation or … what?” I can only speak for myself: I’m not looking for any of those things. What I’m definitely not looking for is affirmation from the world out there that what I read has merit because of a) the education of who writes it or b) who’s discussing it in the world of academe. Both of those things might be interesting to me — a romance reader — but I don’t expect a spillover effect. I guess I just don’t believe in it. That, to my way of thinking, is not the gateway drug to loving a book or a genre.
Great books, like cream, will eventually rise to the surface and get the respect and love and attention they deserve. I’m no expert and I don’t have a clue how to make that happen. Except by talking about my experience as a reader — if I share that, maybe I’ll intrigue or interest someone to give a favoured book a whirl. Or not.
Most of the references I’ve seen in mainstream media to women with graduate degrees writing romance have taken a tone of amazement. It grabs attention, albeit briefly, because it seems oxymoronic, a marriage of opposites, a juxtaposition quite unexpected. I don’t think it legitimizes or elevates the genre except to the extent that it possibly (and I’ve got no data here) generates enough curiosity in a non-romance reader that she picks up one of those books, tries it and likes it. Even then, she may draw the same conclusion as the media, that this is an odd exception. Only if she (and yeah, I know a romance reader might be a him instead) then reads and enjoys books by other romance writers has the spotlight changed anyone’s view of the genre itself. I’m sure that happens, but I’ve no idea how often.
I do know from firsthand experience, however, that finding smart women reading and intelligently discussing romance can bring new readers into the genre. I hadn’t read romance in decades, but then a famous plagiarism debate, which I followed for academic interest, led me to Smart Bitches and Dear Author, where I found communities of smart, savvy women who read romance. Through them I was re-introduced to the best of a genre I had long ignored.
And because I can’t edit comments on my iPad, let me add another to clarify that I don’t think my belated recognition of romance as a genre I enjoy reading gave any validation or legitimacy to anything or anyone. It benefitted little old me; the genre and it’s readers were doing just fine without that.
Aback! *Its readers* Stupid auto-correct.
@Janet W: What Janet W. said
I don’t think we can talk about any of this without thinking about a few things:
Dealing with gender
Looking for approval from external sources can be very much a female thing and romance is the quintessential female project
Much of this disapproval and commentary is inherently and unreflexively misogynistic and the validation/respect/something responses are an attempt to address this I think.
Public versus Private spheres
I can’t remember who differentiated our lives into public and private spheres and then dumped womenkind into the private sphere but romance writing and reading and reviewing takes the private world of love and relationship and family into the public sphere and so is boundary crossing. If the housewife or the receptionist reads romance then women in these traditional occupations are still within the private sphere in their traditional supporting roles even if they are in the paid workforce and the subject matter stays there with them. When an academic writes or reads romances this is done in the public sphere which is not only public but gendered as male. So private/female sphere topics of relationships and loves enter a different realm of value and also question a defintion of gender which is defined in part by what is public and what is private.
Power
I also wonder if the validation/respect/something arises because we are feeling our power. Romancelandia has a strong interest in and understanding of the book making and selling process in a way that literary and genre fictionlandia’s don’t (possibly because of our outsider status). Our buying habits and engagement with the changes in publishing have shown us that we underpin most publishing houses existence and have power through this.
Maybe we want to use this power to influence or more effectively respond to all the changes or maybe we simply want the respect that goes with being the big girls on the block now.
These are just thoughts off the top of my head….. so may not make any sense!
@Merrian: Excellent point about gender and the public sphere!
Just re-read myself and would expand this sentence to say:
This means there is going to be a lot of pushback against romance as a way of maintaining boundaries. This pushback can be by women who want to move in the public sphere and so push this private/female stuff back into the private so they can feel accepted in the public male gendered sphere or by men who want to keep themselves uncontaminated by the feminine.
@Janet W:
Yes, but what does that mean to you in term of the great book. What has to happen to show you that’s it’s a great book that got the “appropriate” amount of love and attention? and if readers of the genre already know this then who else is required to acknowledge it?
@Merrian:
I suspect this has a lot to do with organizations like Romance Writers of America and their desire to prove worth. Since the organization has more non-writers / aspiring writers than published authors in their membership, I also suspect that that is why it made its way into the general reading population. Well, that and readers get sick of defending themselves so they look to their “authorities” and use their arguments as their own. shrug. maybe. I’m not a member of RWA so I can’t really say how the filtering has worked.
As far as numbers are concerned, I keep hearing this trotted out considering how much I know about book “tagging” for metadata for book selling purposes I’d really like to see some hard data to know which books are being included in which categories vs. how the reading public tags them when it comes to the money aspect I’m not so sure that I believe that romance underpins most publishing houses existence . If you take Harlequin and the smaller publishers like Elloras Cave and Samhain which primarily sell romance, does romance really underpin the other publishing houses. I get that romance is big but so is mystery, childrens book, and perhaps graphic novels. And when you look into Harlequin’s success one really does need to admire the “mass production” aspect of their category lines on a purely business model level.
Notice that when we do start trotting out the numbers that what we’re doing is playing to a more male model (perhaps US model) of respect and validation which really has nothing to do with “great” books and everything to do with validating something primarily of femaleness as having worth.
I agree with @Magdalen and also with @Merrian. It’s great to have the academic articles, and I think over time those will make a difference in literary criticism, but I’m not so sure about society in general. It’s a question: do we want that? Do we want to be part of that structure? What does it gain us?
I can’t help but think of , “The master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house.” Genre needs to be able to hold up its own head (genre has a head?), not depend upon outside sources for its power.
Most of the reasons people look down on Romance relate to gender oppression, which is so deeply, invisibly inscribed in our culture that fighting it from the top down is never going to work.
I don’t know what you call it — validation? credibility? — but my fantasy is to say, “Oh, I read romance novels,” and get the same judgment-neutral reaction I get if I say, “I read mysteries” or “I read thrillers”… and not an abashed attitude-adjusted reaction just because I’m large and imposing and I’m staring at the person very very hard.
Perhaps we need an RWA workshop on “staring very very hard.”
Great reading! Thanks to Keira & Janet for the point/counter-point.
I’m always intrigued that for everyone who pushes the academic study of romance, there is an equally loud voice saying…hey, it’s just romance. It’s just for fun. It’s just fantasy. These are not stories meant to be analyzed seriously. Do you think this counter-message clashes against the elevating romance message? I don’t know. I’m curious.
I think–unfortunately–journalists going for the easy story go for the bodice ripper angle. Until that clears, bring on the Ivy leaguers!
As to who are the big names in romance, it seems to me that the same type of professional who would succeed in other fields tends to also succeed in romance. Julia Quinn and Eloisa James are often put out there as the academics, but it seems like many former (or current) professionals—law, medicine, technology, marketing — are the ones also succeeding in the romance industry? Why does the outside world continue to assume that writers are all a bunch of “losers” as Keira mentioned, when it’s big business and the same skills that tend to succeed in any business will succeed here?
Until the pendulum shifts so that this very basic understanding is accepted, bring on the Ivy leaguers.
So I wrote this long post and it had some good points. I threw it away because really the only thing that matters boils down to this.
Women as a community are a powerful force to be reckoned with. Many cultures seek to separate women (and women very much are a part of this phenomena) and strip their power away. All these wonderful tools are available to bring the romance reading community together. So why isn’t there a concerted effort to join these together to create a market force to be reckoned with? Why are we still playing by the rules of the game that someone else designed? why are we staying instead their prescribed box?
I don’t get it. If one wants a certain kind of respect then you have to be willing to skew the rules of their game and make it your own because let’s face the rules are always skewed toward those already in power. People in power will never willingly give up that power just because. You have to take it or force it from them.
We already have power just in shear numbers sense but we do nothing with it.
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Such a great post and comments! I’m going to have to come back to read them all. I just wanted to chime in and say I totally agree with @JanetW here. Although I genuinely enjoy academic discussions about romance, and have no problem with Ivy League writers getting props, I think that good work speaks for itself.
Another thing about covers and content. I tend to bristle a bit at the suggestion that hot sex isn’t a subject worthy of respect, or that we should champion sedate covers over tawdry ones. Many romances have explicit scenes and graphic language and I like it that way. Do sexy, well-written books deserve less legitimacy than others? Maybe we should embrace the “salacious” aspects that are clearly part of what many readers love.
Jeannie Lin said:
and AQ said:
So many intriguing questions and points of views to ponder and explore … it’s a cornucopia. So, my perspective on the academic study of romance is that it’s not a gateway to respect for the genre — it won’t stop the kneejerk comments we’re all so used to. Or maybe it will — eventually and in a trickle-down economics kinda way. It’s certainly not that I have a “problem” with these stories being analyzed seriously. Analyze away and know that if you, an academic, write a book about an author or genre that interests me, I’ll be the first in line to buy it and I’ll plunk it on the shelf next to Pamela Regis.
AQ wonders why we’re not a market force to be reckoned with — and in an earlier post, praised the business acumen of the Harlequin worldwide juggernaut (my words). Do you know that if I was the Queen of the Circus, that I’d probably proclaim no more silly titles and equally silly covers day (or week or year) but that would be dumb, wouldn’t it? [Just read Jill Sorenson's comments about covers: "silly" is in the eye of the beholder, isn't it? I would argue for vibrant, individual, artistic, striking, whatever covers but not cookie-cutter covers!] Because as often as a reader or a writer or an anyone criticizes the way books are marketed to us, the quicker the pushback starts: usually somewhere along the lines of “how can you argue with success?”.
How do I, as a reader, know that a book has risen, like cream, to the surface? Excellent question and not sure I have a great answer. The best example I can think of is visiting a fellow Canadian ex-pat on Canadian Thanksgiving — she had some guests visiting her from Toronto — and after dinner we were all washing the dishes. Everyone had read Outlander except our hostess — me, the man and his wife, someone else — and our disparate backgrounds and our enthusiastic comments — made our hostess want to track it down. Is that reaching critical mass? I dunno but at the time I thought so.
@JanetW said:
Dross also floats to the surface. Quality isn’t always an indicator of sell through numbers. Popularity can be for a wide variety of reasons that have nothing to do with quality of writing or characterization or what-have-you. Witness the success of Da Vinci Code.
Malcolm Gladwell has an interesting book called The Tipping Point that says that if enough people do it, then after a while, lots more people will do it. So in order to get romance to the tipping point in not just reading but also talking about it with enthusiasm, we need all the leg-up we can get. So if academicians, Ivy Leaguers, lawyers, Hollywood stars, Oprah, etc. are what it takes, then that’s what we need.
@Victoria Janssen said:
Excellent, Victoria, thank you for taking up the mantle of an RWA workshop.
@AQ said:
Women are part of the group that sneers at romance.
@Magdalen wrote:
In Seattle, which is trade paperback and nonfiction heavy, saying I ready mysteries or fantasies gets as much of a moue of disappointment as romance.
Forgot to add this above…
@Merrian said:
Women, who read other genres or only mainstream trade paperbacks, form part of the group that looks down upon romance.
@Janet W:
Taking a slightly different tangent while playing into what you’ve just said.
Every romance novel at its core is about female sexuality even if there’s no sex depicted on the written page. I’d even argue that m/m romance trend marketed to a female readership has that same core. And yet, we seek to deny it. No, romance novels aren’t porn for women. No, it’s more than sex. etc. etc. etc.
The covers? shrug. One genres bare-chested male equates to sex whereas the other genre relates to brute strength and masculine power. But all of them have sex at their core and every single genre has a cover that brings to mind sex.
On the topic of sex, I find that romance appears to have a very narrow view of female sexuality and its power. Conformists almost. As if we aren’t really comfortable with the entirity of what it means to be female and the power that goes with that.
If someone gave us that same look when we pop open a mystery novel would our reaction would the same? When we get the media article on the geeks of Star Trek (as opposed to bodice rippers) is our outrage similar? Or is it that we see some of these bodice-ripper “attacks” as personal attacks on our own sexuality and our place of respect within our community? I mean how many mixed messages do we need to receive about female sexuality? How many people attempt to females of their inherent power by suppressing or exploiting that sexuality?
I’m trying to ask questions to get down to the heart of something and that’s all I got before I run. Sorry.
Per Outlander. Wasn’t marketed as a romance, author says it’s not a romance, I’ve never read it but it sounds like it breaks many of the romance genre rules or bends them. And yet, the romance genre claims it as its own. Even RWA gave it an award.
If this book had been marketed as a romance, sold only to the romance readership would it have the same “respect” that you see it having now? Would the readership have crossed over the way it has? Or would the genre readership have punished the book for not conforming and never made it past its “boundaries?”
Might not be back until tomorrow. Have to take a friend in for surgery so it all depends on her recovery. I am looking forward to seeing where this discussion goes. It’s quite fascinating.
One reason why I study romance: Romance reading and writing are a huge part of the imaginative lives of a lot of people, mostly women. I want to understand the narratives (in my case, novels) that attract romance writers and readers. If possible, I want to identify the fundamental constituents of the narratives themselves, and, if possible, the source of readers’ attraction to these narratives. I want to understand this very widespread human activity–romance writing and reading.
After the editors have chosen the title, after the cover artists have done their best (worst?), after the marketing people have gotten the novel out there, on sale, and after the librarians have put the title on their shelves…after all that, you have, finally, a reader and a novel: a writer spinning a narrative and a reader taking that narrative in. That’s the part that interests me.
I think (sadly) that while the academic study of romance will likely eventually make romance accepted by academics as a topic worthy of academic study, it will have little or no impact on respect for the genre in the wider culture. Because literary academics no longer have much respect or credibility in that culture.
For a variety of reasons (e.g. the rise of theory and its arcane vocabulary, the gradual demise of the canon of Western Lit as all we study, the interest in cultural studies, the idea that a college degree is for getting a job) literary study has come to seem trivial and irrelevant to a lot of people. Just look at pretty much any news story on the Modern Languages Association conference.
So for people who are inclined to look down on romance, I don’t think literary study will help; rather, it will just be another proof to them of the fall of the English department.
okay, no one answered me so I’ll answer myself. I’m not always comfortable with my own sexuality in public especially when I’m directly confronted by a stranger and it comes from romance novel. Usually because I’m rather taken a back and simply don’t react fast enough and the other thing is that a part of me sees it as such a tiny thing even though I also know it’s part of a larger trend.
The interesting thing is that when I was younger and primarily read romance only, I actually never even noticed the tacit disapproval and no one ever said a word to me even though I also classified them more like brain candy adventures rather than “hard” literature. It’s not until I was older and wrote a romance that I got the more direct “confrontations” and actually started paying attention consciously to what the media and others were saying.
Why does any of this matter? Because whether or not academia recognizes the romance genre or individual works as great will have little or no impact of the feelings I hold. I’m the only one who can confront them given my own personal situation. For others like Wendy, I can see how academic study and worth could have a direct impact on her situation. Even so, I’m reminded that we had classes on Jane Austen back in my college days and yet I still hear trash talk about her now. So I don’t know how you confront the attitudes about the romance genre without confronting the attitude about female sexuality and females period. To me they are all wrapped together.
I don’t have any insight into Outlander so I won’t comment there but my mind also tangented to a question Pam (I think) had raised in another thread about realism. Then it went to Gone with the Wind which RWA also wants to claim as it’s own and I wondered if the most unrealistic thing about romances was the women themselves depicted in them because such a tiny slice of what it means to be a woman is depicted. It really is a juggling act for me. I see the value of the genre, I love the stories and yet I also see the great gaping abyss as well because where are the selfish, self-centered, tough, manipulative, growing up, vibrant, aggressive, etc. heroines like Scarlet O’Hare. I’m not sure she could be written as romance heroine today because on review I’ve read on other heroine who sound like a pale imitation of her. Might just be that I haven’t reached the right romance readers yet.
Laura V and I had a conversation last week that included Lord of Scoundrels. I stated that I really enjoyed the heroine Jessica in the first Act but that it went downhill for me once the story became fixing Dain the damaged hero. The truth is that had Jessica been a character consistent with what we are told about in the beginning I believe she would’ve/might’ve kick Dain to the curb or just taken what she wanted from him and walked or taken him to task instead of putting up with his bullshit. And let’s face it a damaged manipulative man doesn’t become less manipulative just because he’s been healed. Of course that’s not part of the narrative and more importantly it’s not part of the cathasis either.
And emotions are a very key part of the romance novel narrative. This genre more than any other genre exists / rides on the reader’s emotional level. I open up myself on a much more personal emotional level with romance than any other genre out there. That doesn’t mean that I don’t experience deep emotions with the other genres. That openness also means that I make myself much more vulnerable with the genre if I’m “betrayed” from my expectations. I really don’t think that vulnerability goes away just because I finished the book. So when that open piece of me receives tacit disapproval or direct confrontation, I’m much more exposed.
Again academic study and establishing a certain worth will do nothing to change my base reaction.
I hope that this post makes sense because if I don’t post it now without re-reading it, I probably won’t post it at all. And here’s the other thing, I consider my “hurt” or being put upon by others about this topic to be rather minor in comparison to what others describe.
I’d agree with this whole-heartedly (although since at the moment I’m pretty much only reading romances or non-fiction related to romances, I don’t feel able to make a comparison with my response to other genres). My first response to romance novels is emotional and, as you say, there can be some things in them which are very hurtful. Even though I can be analytical and academic in my response to a book which has that effect on me, the hurt still lingers.
That hurt, to me, is a lot more off-putting than any comments about the genre which I’ve had had to deal with. I can brush those off fairly easily.
PS.
Jessica, although I love you and appreciate your facilitator abilities there are also times when I’d rather like to know your point of view on topics.
You asked us:
You read the original discussion, felt it should have maybe a broader audience but never interjected any point of view. Well, what are your thoughts? I’m not talking individual responses to many of the great points that have been made within in the comments. I’m talking about a more cohesive response to the entire conversation. As someone new to the genre, well-versed in feminist studies and ethics, one already in academia, etc. do you see this issue differently? would you pull out different threads? what haven’t we touched on that bears further investigation?
@AQ: I’ve been meaning to respond, and I will today!
Have I used the “academics write some of these books” argument to encourage friends/family to read romance? Yes, but that’s just a conversation starter, more a way to broach the subject than the subject itself. What I enthuse about are the books themselves and the great community of readers/bloggers who speak so smartly about the subject.
I’ll be mulling this post and the comments all day, but now I need to get back to my paying job.
Interesting thoughts. My thoughts: the publishing industry has done all they can to keep the disdain going. Case in point: I LOVED the first two books by Julie James, but her books have gone the route of other mainstream romance. She wrote a great book with no sex in it. Why, then, must she add foul language and sex to sell her books? My opinion? That her publisher told her she needed to add that in order to compete and sell books. What a sad mindset!
And there are a LOT of romance books that ARE crap. Very unfortunate that a publisher will take a book that is weak in its content and character development, but strong in sexual content and publish it because they know that it will sell to those reading for that alone. That is why people disregard romance as literature and call it trash.
If the publishing industry let romance writers write the way they want to, I think it would weed out the bad writers and let the good writers shine.
Always a day late and a dollar short, but I offer my two cents as an “average reader”.
Jessica, thank you for posting this fun and stimulating point/counterpoint format. I enjoyed reading the issues and comments,
I ask AQ’s same question, “Are we looking for respect, validation or … what?”
I believe respect is in the eye of the beholder.
Does Romanceland want respect from the “old school” self appointed literary world? Or from its readers? Or from the cash register?
Because clearly the readers have demonstrated that they respect romance to the point that they have made it profitable.
I personally read for escapism. I don’t care for literary dissertations about romances, but I don’t criticize those who participate in them. To each her own. Especially in a literary world that has opened up as we embrace social issues of tolerance, diversity, and acceptance.
If the New Yorker chooses to write a scathing article about romance books, so be it. I feel such article demonstrates that they are the dinosaurs as readers move forward in exploring new worlds.
I can understand the frustrations of some authors (and even readers) when the “Ivy League” is brought to the front lines to counterattack the criticism. Yet the battle is also in the eye of the beholder. Perhaps those concerned about the New Yorker’s criticism believes romance writers with Ivy League degrees will convince the naysayers. But I am more of the thought that the crème rises and sales follow.
Regarding those Ivy Leaguers, it has been my experience that they are very approachable. I do not see them wearing their degrees as a proud ribbon on their book covers. Wasn’t Eloisa James’ “outed”? She wrote on her bio,
“When I rip off my power suit, whether it’s academic or romantic, underneath is the rather tired, chocolate-stained sweatshirt of a mom.”
She replied to me – on Valentine’s Day – for a short notice interview. I don’t see the New Yorker extending such kindness.
Likewise, Julia Quinn and Cara Elliott are equally personable. Their actions demonstrate their commitment to Romanceland for the long term. You may recall it was Julia Quinn who offered a free book to residents of Laredo when their one and only bookstore closed. Given other projects that Julia has supported, publicly and privately, this was not a publicity stunt. Further, Cara Elliott and Lauren Willig shared their “academia” experience as a workshop to the Beau Monde’ (RWA’s specialty chapter for Regency era). I took away from it that they taught at Yale because it was their Alma Mater, not because it was an Ivy League school.
Indeed, there are other “professionals” who produce quality romance books, such as lawyers, doctors, and scientists, but so do housewives, secretaries, and housekeepers. Again, it is the eye of the beholder. It is important to know who did what before they published their opus? It makes great promo material but in the end the manuscript speaks for itself.
A random thought about men’s perspective of romance, I had the opportunity once to chat with Heather Graham in a social setting. We chatted about her various memberships in writers’ associations for other genres. She remarked that Stephen King was impressed with how RWA was an organized network to advocate for its genre. Get that man to give us a cover quote!
Finally, I would like to play devil’s advocate. On Monday, Jessica linked us to the Guardian Book Blog,
“I defend their (bloggers) right to be vicious and I don’t take it personally anymore, because I see literary viciousness as a dark art that sometimes needs writers as its canvas.”
Romanceland embraces, if not thrives from, open discussion of book reviews, author’s rants, publishers’ missteps, etc. If we accept this from within Romanceland, let us accept it from outside Romanceland. Let the New Yorker slice and dice romance. Respond by inviting the skeptic to read a romance book, attend an RWA meeting of a local chapter, and/or attend a book signing. Perhaps the skeptic will see romance in a different light (Sarah from Smart Bitches has written about her conversions). If not, “literary” criticism is still a good exercise for Romanceland to look at itself and see if this is the path on which it wants to be.
Thanks Janet and Keira, for such a great post, and thanks to everyone for all the comments. I have really enjoyed reading them.
Keira write:
This is the first time I have heard this. I know Roberts gets profiled because of hr voluminous sales, and she commands respect because of hr powerful sales and strong work ethics. But I don’t recall ever seeing her writing addressed by mainstream media. So I guess one of the questions your comment raises for me is what we want romance respected for. Do we want the writers respected because they work hard and know their market, or the books respected because they are good books? Both would be nice, obviously.
As @Angela/Lazaraspaste puts it :
Janet writes:
I think I agree with this. It’s just like popular culture: sure, we have people doing it in our communications departments, our literature departments, our sociology departments … but they are always considered less serious as scholars due to their subject matter.
@Magdalen:
I agree that this would make a huge dent.
@SonomaLass:
Agreed. It’s when reporting on romance, whether about the business, the writers, or the books, loses this tone, that we’ll know we’ve gotten somewhere.
And as someone who shares your history with respect to discovering later in life and then giving myself permission to read romance, I second the though that there is nothing about a certain kind of women reading them that lends to their worth form the point of view of the vast majority of the readers.
@Merrian: I really like your reminder about gender and your point about the power women romance readers have in the publishing industry. I am sorry I do not have time to say anything about the public/private points, but I agree with you that we need to think through them.
@AQ:
For myself, respect is not just a nice attitude we may or may not have towards a person or thing. Lack of respect translates into material, political, psychological, and emotional disadvantage. Greater respect for the genre would translate into, perhaps, better pay for writers, more prestige for them, and for readers, less embarrassment and shame. The lack of respect for the genre can also be seen as part of a complicated web, connected to many other ways in which women’s work, women’s interests, women’s sources of pleasure, and women’s creative achievements are devalued
@Victoria Janssen: LOL.
@Jeannie Lin:
I like the attitude that “hey, analyzing romance is not my thing, but you guys go for it” as suggested by @ka. This attitude doesn’t demean the activities of those of us who want to take it seriously as literature and read it s certain way. And obviously, it is important that the prejudice not go the other way, either.
@Jill Sorenson:
This is interesting, and you have made an intriguing defense of racy covers — when they do reflect the content — that has never occurred to me.
@AQ: I take it you are suggesting that the reason women romance readers get upset when their reading choices are belittled, more so than Trekkies, is because all romance is about women’s sexuality on some level, and for women in our culture, sexuality is complicated, conflicting, and a often source of shame.
I think the press on Trekkies and the like is much more respectful, usually focusing on the intelligence and encyclopedic knowledge of that kind of fan. I also think the press on romance focuses so much on sex for the same reasons you think readers may be made uncomfortable by it. We all live in the same society after all.
But I may be getting your point wrong.
As for how conformist romance is with regard to women’s sexuality … I am not sure in what way you mean. Do you mean that we don’t have a good representation of the diversity of forms of women’s sexuality, as in GLBTQ? This is absolutely true. but in this romance is no different than any pop culture product with mass appeal.
@Pam Regis:
I love that too. I just wish I knew what were the best tools for capturing it. Psychoanalysis, ethnography, autobiography, feminist theory … all so problematic in their way.
@Liz:
Thanks for this reminder that the academy itself is a fading cultural star. In today’s celebrity obsessed culture? We are back to Magdalen’s point that it takes an Oprah.
@AQ:
I’m afraid the best I can do is this set of magpie observations. Sometimes one has guest posts because one needs a break!
@Karenmc:
This is why I want to see them reviewed in mainstream press, and be up for mainstream awards. Sure, a lot of romance is crap, but some is very very good. If loads of crappy literature can get published every year without tarring the “genre”, why not romance?
@Tracy: Your points abotu Julie James are well taken. I, to, enjoyed the first two books more than the third, and felt the fresh voice of the first two was slightly less fresh by the third. Was it the addition of he sex? I don’t know. Literary analysis is not my strong suit.
The sex thing … Sex sells. There is pressure — I would guess, but maybe not, as explicit lines develop which can maybe carry the sex load (heh) for the genre — to put more and more edgy sex in any type of romance whether it suits the narrative or not. What do we say about this at the same time we are defending the genre? I would say this: Market pressures can lead to bad editorial decisions, and it doesn’t matter if those are pressures for more sex, fewer characters, shorter books, or more vampires. I would put them all under one heading: sales pressure.
@ka:
This is such an interesting point. But we need to have a voice to do this. I can;t get the New Yorker to publish my rebuttal to their piece on Nora Roberts. the best I can do, as with carp gate a few months back, is make an online reader comment o the NYT website and hoep I get enough recommends to keep it on the fist page.
This is why people like Sarah Wendell and Jane Litte are so important, because they have a voice, a platform, and an audience the regular reader does not. With Sarah especially, if she takes issue with the way romance is covered in mainstream media, her reaction often makes news itself.
@Jessica:
Better pay for writers? Looking at some of the numbers online it appeared that the starting HQ debut author used to earn more than the average debut fantasy/science fiction author before the increased number of releases and entry of small presses into the marketplace. And yet that appears to have done nothing in terms of respect. Back in the day, some Elloras Cave authors were doing quite well by author “pay” standards and yet there were horrible comments made about these authors within the romance community because they were digital authors and not “real” authors. Oh, and they wrote “porn” not romance.
As far as prestige, how many published authors receive this and what exactly does it look like?
James Patterson hits number one on the NY Times lists multiple times a year. I see positive articles about him, his marketing savvy, his cross-genre pollination and yet I still see comments about him being a hack, a mass-production by the numbers writer, not authentic, etc.
Stephen King has been hammered throughout his career for being blue-collar, foul-mouthed, and just generally crude. It is only recently that he has gained acceptance / prestige from the “establishment” per his own words. From the sounds of it, he got asked questions much like Nora did about when he was going to write a “real” novel only they didn’t use the word porn to describe his works or garner a negative reaction. (And, yes, Nora is one of my online author heroes. I’ve been exceptionally impressed by how professionally she conducts herself even in the midst of a personal attack.)
For readers less shame and embarrassment what has to happen? Do all articles written about romance readers, authors, books need to be positive, fair and without digs? Romance novels reviewed by the New York Times? romance novels never equated to porn?
On that porn part, how can we ever expect non-romance readers to stop equating romance to porn when the readers and authors of romance don’t do it themselves. Consider NY Times best-selling Lora Leigh. Me? I’ve read porn. Lora Leigh writes very hot, very erotic stories that have struck a chord with the buying public but of the books I’ve read by her, it’s not even close to books marketed as porn.
And what about those readers who read romance because of the sexy scenes and openly embrace that sexuality, aren’t we doing them a disservice by insisting that it’s not about the sex when clearly for some readers it is. One could even make the argument that monogamy and coupling are part of the species drive to pass on genes therefore any story that has a pairing up as a central theme is subconsciously about sex even if the sex isn’t depicted (when I originally made my comments along these lines I was thinking of an article I’d just read a psychology article about female attractiveness to men in committed vs. single states, subconscious reactions to females and how that interplays into monogamy’s role in the passing down of the female lines’ genes.)
How do we feel about the implication of sex in these covers (sorry, not really the examples I was hoping for)? If we were “caught” reading these books would our reaction of shame and embarrassment be the same as if the novel between the pages contained a romance story? I know my reaction would be different.
http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Queenpin/Megan-Abbott/e/9781416534280/?itm=9
http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Captain-Flandry/Poul-Anderson/e/9781439133330/?itm=2&USRI=poul+anderson+captain+flandry
http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Exile-and-Glory/Jerry-Pournelle/e/9781416555636/?itm=1&USRI=exile+and+glory
@Jessica:
I think the digs are different and unless you’ve been made aware of / sensitized to the coded language of the picked upon group, the words don’t have the same impact or even missed. I agree that there are many positive things said about Trekkies as well but I sometimes come away with the feeling that we are looking for the coded language and seeking it out. And with romance articles the digs can be coded specifically to romance, females in general, female sexuality or a combination of all three. With Trekkies the digs are much more specialized.
I think it is very difficult to unravel where our sense of belittlement for romance begins and our feelings about female sexuality and its/our role in our culture ends. For me, I’ve come to realize that the two are intertwined and I’m not sure they can be separated.
My perception of female heroines within the romance genre even within the erotic romance subgenre is that they are primarily virgins or near virgins with little or no experience with female orgasm. Courtesans who aren’t courtesans. Widows who are still virgins. Orgasm for the female equated only to love and rarely do we see a heroine engaged in an sexual encounter outside of her eventual “mate.” If the woman is sexually experienced and confident, they are typically cast as villains except potentially when the hero is a virgin.
Regardless of how much sex the couple ends up having or how edgy, kinky, chose your adjective, I call that conformity and enforcing a standard onto female leads which doesn’t reflect the real diversity of female sexuality, power or experience.
For all intents and purposes, the f/f romance with the romance genre is still in an incubator state so any representation is a plus at this point. I’m still flabbergasted that a few ago Zane’s f/f erotica book getting yanked from a signing and display because of customer complaints. Her m/f erotica was perfectly fine though. Just goes to show how difficult an incubation period it could be.
But this is because they built their own platforms. They didn’t wait or care whether the establishment gave them legitimacy, DA vs. SB did there thing and the establishment eventually came to them.
So why not ask the Smart Bitches or Dear Author if they’d be interested in hosting your guest post? Afterall the Bitchery and DA have been known to have Nora sightings from time to time. They might say no but what if they said yes. At worst it’s another rejection, at best you have a platform with a large readership that can garner enough attention that some of the New Yorkers’ readership may notice. Or not. You won’t know until you try but if you keep playing by their rules, the likelihood of The New Yorker letting you in sounds rather small.
*** eta BTW: I have decided to start tracking the virgin thing in my database because I want to find the non-virgin female stories and read them.***
@AQ: So, if I have this right, in your view, we don’t have a problem with respect and romance because (a) it gets as much (or as little) respect as any other literary genre, such as horror or SFF, and (b) the genre doesn’t need respect, because respect doesn’t amount to much, (or it’s too hard to figure out what respect is and measure it), and (c) as romance readers, we can’t really tell anyway, because our own views are so complicated by our mixed feelings about our own sexuality.
You know I disagree with (a) and (b). (c) comes close to patronizing, but is also well worth thinking about.
I wonder about pay for romance writers. I recall hearing once how much a writer gets for a Harlequin and thinking it was shockingly low for the hours of work.. I would be surprised if in fiction writing, we have gender equity when we don’t have it anyplace else. But this is an empirical question.
As for sexuality in romance, I agree with you that it is much more conformist than many readers like to think. Indeed the conservative view of sexuality presented in romance is what draws the majority of readers, I would think, and I would think the online readers , most of whom are reading e-press erotica, m/m etc., are not at all representative.
The point I was making about DA and SBTB had nothing to do with me personally. My point was that we are starting to have romance readers whose voice gets heard well beyond the borders of Romanceland, who can provide a positive view of the genre and their readers. Although I am always overjoyed when I have a good stats day, I have no ambition to be one of those voices.
@Jessica:
This!
@Jessica:
Respect for the genre and readers come first, the authors second imo. Hard work by authors and knowing their market is par for the course for all writers, except for some of the the rarified of the lit-fic ones, so that’s not significant. Even more important than the books be recognized as good books (all of them?) is that there should be no difference between how romance fiction is received versus mainstream lit-fic ones: there are great ones, good ones, duds, horrible ones. The genre, as in mainstream, runs the gamut and isn’t simply riddled with bad ones disproportionately, as is the reputation right now.
@Jessica:
No, actually you don’t have it right because I did a piss poor job of explaining it.
This has nothing to do with how much or how little “respect” I think any genre gets. I want to know how we know we’ve received the respect we want to / deserve to receive.
My example of King & Patterson was not to point at them and see they don’t get respect either. I made them because even after all the words contained within this conversation, I don’t understand how we are defining “respect” and who exactly we want that respect from. King may feel disrespected and I may disagree with his assessment, but because the specific denotation of the word along with its measurement hasn’t been given both of us would be correct.
No, as far as I’m concerned anything can be defined and measured. You give me criteria to work with I’ll be the first in line to jump into the project. But who is defining the criteria and the standard by which we measure our data?
Is it the readers? the authors? general public? literary establishment? academia? The answer to this question changes everything. Our approach, what we look for, how we interpret the data, etc.
I think the genre deserves respect but when I get involved in these conversations I’m often left feeling that it’s like “porn:” I’ll know it when I see it but only if I look through the eyes of some unknown “they.”
I hate that answer. I mean I really really hate it because when one takes such a pie in the sky concept and combines it with all of the possible connotations of the word respect then respect becomes completely unattainable and we will forever be bound to resentment and disappointment.
Nope. I can’t be sure how you’ve consolidated all I wrote down to that one sentence so I can’t answer for how I stuck my foot in my mouth and pulled it out of my ass. There’s certainly a piece of it there but it’s not the essence of what I hoped (and obviously failed) to convey.
Welcome to the world of fiction writing. The “pay” or rather income stream generated from books is depressingly low for all but a handful of writers. Very few writers can write as a primary source of income. I believe Lara Adrian posted her results after she hit the NY Times best seller list for the first time. My memory says it was about $50,000 on a 1099 so take out personal taxes plus fica and business side of social security AFTER paying the agent and your own marketing and miscellaneous experiences such as travel to book signings, reader/author conferences, paper/ink for the printer, etc.
And being an author isn’t about pay, it’s about units sold. In essence, an author sells a product but if no one buys that product then their “pay” is nothing. So if income is a standard for respect then the tangent of that is which books that readers read are they willing to pay for and why because that would be an indicator of how much value aka respect a reader has for a particular story or author. Interesting line of inquiry. Also a potentially ugly one because you get to see the dark side of the reader aka the product consumer and if you combine that inquiry with the word respect… ugly.
I was told and believed that erotic romance was here to break the rules. That was part of the marketing strategy that digital publishers and authors used. The truth is that although they do have the power to do so, and in many ways have succeeded, on the front of sexual female the overall conformity doesn’t feel that different except that the story is guaranteed to have more explicit sex. But I am talking specifically about erotic romance and not erotica. Digital publishers typically sell both now but there initial concentration was erotic romance.
Yesterday I did another mini discussion with a friend who thinks every pig-headed thing there is to think about romance readers. Basically when she was done she’d called me stupid and brainwashed and choose your adjective. Of course she was talking about the anon. romance reader out there and not me specifically cuz ya know I’m sitting right there but the truth she does think lesser of me just because of it, and yes, I’ve known that for a while although she covers it up well.
She’s only read one romance and it was mine so she has this wonderful tightrope walking of previously being supportive and yet they are stupid because women who read them are part of the suppressed population which are imprisoned culturally and don’t even know it. It’s not just romance reader who are included in that tag.
I’ve had another discussion with a friend who has read a Nora Roberts romantic suspense. she enjoyed the suspense but got so sick of the romance. The long gazes into each other’s eyes. Said it was absolutely ridiculous.
The final friend is a former bookseller from way back who didn’t sell romance, thinks of romance as soap opera full of angst and ridiculous scenarios. Probably sex too.
The first one will have a debate with you about the topic. She may read a few just to say she did but romance is firmly slotted into a position and she’s quite insistent about that position so it’s unlikely that she’ll change that position without her deciding that she needs to do intensive research on the subject in order to re-evaluate the conclusions she’s reached. I tried to find out where/how she reached her conclusions because many of the things she said sound like some of the research that Jessica has posted links to but got no answer. When I countered the stuff like women who read romance have unsatisfying sex lives and are looking for wish fulfillment with I know women who are happily married with seemingly marvelous sex lives. She didn’t stop to evaluate, she simply used my statements to prove her case.
The second friend is also female but she doesn’t proscribe to the twelve-steps of intimacy dance that romance uses at its core. Like the woman above, she thinks the dance itself is ridiculous and just a bunch of game playing. She often says that when she looks deeply into someone’s else with a smile on her face that she’s thinking she f***ing bastard, I hate your guts even her mouth is uttering the words how lovely to see you again and her body language is non-aggressive and if not welcoming not off-putting either.
The third is male. For the most part only really reads books reviewed in the New York Times. His digs are the most amiable although he probably doesn’t even think of them as digs so much as gentle ribbing.
I have spoken to all of them at length about the topic of romance because of my project and none of them will ever “respect” romance the way I believe people here want it to be respected. That said, none of them would ever consider confronting a romance reader to tell her she was stupid or brain-washed, etc. I don’t think they’d purposefully give those looks of disapproval but who knows.
Having academia do classes on romance wouldn’t reach either of the women. The male would find it interesting but it wouldn’t shift his opinion. Getting the NY Times to review more romances with serious reviews would also impact the male but not the females. Even so, romance novels simply aren’t his type of books (yes, he have a very narrow range) so he’ll never actually read one.
What I’m really interested in here (well, among of things) is how and when their impressions were formed about the romance genre and its readers. I also don’t believe that these people would ever be reachable although they are at least somewhat reasonable about it and willing to discuss it at length.
In my mind, they will never give romance any respect and prestige. On the other hand, they would never seek to oppose the giving of respect or prestige either. Seriously they don’t normally think about romance except that I’ve brought the topic directly into their lives. So is it important to convert them? get them to at least re-evaluate their mindsets? try to get them to read a few romances just because? Are their positions more insidious than those who would directly confront a romance reader or not? Or doesn’t it matter because the only person they really have to hurt with their opinions is me? And, yes, I have felt some pain here but it was up to me to unravel where it came from inside myself. I haven’t fully managed it yet but every conversation gets me a step closer. I also know I need to work on my triggers to enable myself to properly react to confrontational digs instead of being taken aback by the transgression which I’ve come to see about an act of D/S (not sexual) exchange. Essentially I’m being put in my place. So although I see the big picture desire for respect, I’m also of the opinion that just might be the little personal exchanges that are by far more important.
@AQ:
This is an excellent question.
Thank you so much for clarifying your views. I have to apologize for getting them so wrong. I agree with you that defining respect is not easy, but I think the ending the way that “Harlequin” stands in our culture for reference to trash would be one indication. Getting reviewed in major media outlets would be another. And not having our friends feel free to mock our reading choices might be a third.
I’ve got to move on to other topics but thank you to everyone for the discussion.
@Jessica:
Point of note: None of the friends I interviewed even thought of Harlequin when we were talking about romance novels.