How to Use a Harlequin Presents to Teach Sexual Ethics

Oct 19 2011 Published by under Academia, Ethics, Genre musings

In Contemporary Moral Problems we’re in the middle of a unit on ethical issues relating to sexuality. Our reading for today was Thomas Mappes, “Sexual Morality and the Concept of Using Another Person.” Mappes’s basic claim is that sex is immoral when it involves using someone as a mere means, or without their informed consent. His actual formulation is:

A immorally uses B if and only if A intentionally acts in a way that violates the requirement that B’s involvement with A’s ends be based on B’s voluntary informed consent.

Mappes says there are two major types of using: deception and coercion. Deception can include lies, like “I’m on birth control”, “I’m single.”, “I’m clean”, “Yes, I love you.”, omissions, equivocations, etc. Coercion can be “occurrent” or “dispositional.” Occurent coercion is basically the use of force (physically forcing someone, as in tying them down and shoving something somewhere), and dispositional involves the use of threats of harm (for example, raping someone at knifepoint).

But, Mappes adds, there is a third type, a kind of coercion that seems problematic yet does not involves the use of force or the threat of harm. It is the coercive offer. To get at this concept, Mappes distinguishes a threat from an offer:

Gesturing to a rough and ready distinction between “wants” and “needs”, Mappes then gives an example of a coercive offer, which I will paraphrase as follows:

Mr. Troubled is a widower with three young children. He wants to stay in his home, in his town, where his extended family lives, but he has lost his job and cannot make his mortgage payment. No one can help him. Ms. Opportunistic is sexually attracted to Mr. Troubled. She offers to make his mortgage payments if he agrees to an affair. Mr. Troubled is not attracted to Ms. Opportunistic.

Mappes claims that Ms. Opportunistic is attempting to use Mr. Troubled in the immoral manner defined above. Mr. Troubled has a genuine need, and Ms. Opportunistic is attempting to exploit it for her sexual gain. She is making a “coercive offer.” To be precise, it is not so much that she coerces him (and nothing hangs on our use of the word “coercion” here), but that she takes advantage of the fact that he is already “under coercion.” If Mr. Troubled accepts, he is likely to say something like, “I had no choice.” and that response would, Mappes asserts, make some sense to most people. Ms. Opportunistic is taking advantage of Mr. Troubled’s desperate situation, a situation in which his consent is so constrained by his desperate need, that it would not be fully voluntary.

Contrast this with another case (from Mappes), one in which a movie mogul offers a starlet a big movie part for a sexual favor. There may be other immoral aspects of the offer (perhaps the mogul is married), but the offer itself is not coercive. It is the starlet’s want, but not her need to have the big part. Her acceptance, if it happens, is voluntary.

My students had a good discussion of the question of whether it is fair to say Mr. Troubled has a “need” while The Starlet only has a “want.” Many of them seemed to want to say either they both have wants, or they both have needs.

At any rate, being a romance reader, I was sure I had seen a plot like the Mr. Troubled/Ms. Opportunistic one, only way sexier, and it took about .0008 seconds to find several Harlequin Presents that fit the bill. I chose The Italian’s Mistress, a 2005 Harlequin Presents by Melanie Milburn.

 

Here’s the blurb:

 

Back in his bed…with a vengeance!

When it comes to Anna Stockton, Lucio Ventressi knows he has an offer she can’t refuse….

Anna needs money — Lucio has it! His deal? Become his mistress for three months and he’ll pay for her son’s operation. Anna has no choice but to agree to being bedded by Lucio. But she finds that his passion is sweet — even if it is born of revenge….

 

Now, knowing that sometimes the blurb is misleading, I actually purchased and read this book. And … it is not misleading.

Here’s how it all goes down: Anna is in her native Melbourne, working a day shift as a hotel housekeeper (and a night shift as a dishwasher), and Lucio, who normally lives in Rome, is occupying the penthouse. Anna had been engaged to Lucio years ago, but ended up in bed with his brother, who took pictures to prove it. Anna was kicked to the curb, pregnant. She now lives in poverty with her gravely ill son and her deaf sister. Anna, in housekeeper mode, happens to walk in on Lucio, and they have this exchange.

‘Sammy needs…an operation,’ she said. ‘I don’t have private insurance but if I wait until it’s his turn on the public waiting list…it might be too late.’

‘What’s wrong with him?’

‘He has a heart condition.’

‘Serious?’

She took a painful breath. ‘He needs the surgery to survive into adulthood.’

He swore again. ‘How much is this…operation?’ he asked after a short pause.

She told him and he didn’t even flinch, which somehow annoyed her. It was such a pittance to someone like him, pin money really, and yet it could save a child’s life. Her child’s life. She watched him out of the corner of her eye. He was thinking…no—calculating…planning.

‘I might be able to help you,’ he said after another one of his strategically timed pauses.

‘Why would you want to do that?’ Suspicion crept into her tone as she lifted her eyes back to his.

‘I have my reasons.’ His expression gave nothing away.

‘A loan, you mean?’

‘No.’

‘No?’

He shook his head. ‘No.’

‘What, then?’ Her stomach tightened.

‘I will pay for Sammy’s health care, but I have some conditions on the deal.’

‘Conditions?’ She swallowed the restriction in her throat. ‘What sort of conditions?’

His eyes held hers determinedly. ‘You can save your son’s life but you must agree to do something for me in return.’

‘I will do anything to save my son’s life,’ she said. ‘Anything.’

The corner of his hard mouth lifted in a slight smile. ‘I’m very glad to hear that as I was expecting much more resistance on your part.’

The fingertips of fear tickled along her spine. ‘What do you want me to do?’

He gave her another contemplative look. ‘I thought you would have guessed by now, cara.’

His eyes burned as they came back to hers, the line of his normally firm mouth now so tight it hinted at cruelty.

***

‘I will pay for my nephew’s surgery but in exchange I want you back in my bed.’

Her eyes widened in alarm. ‘No!’ ‘

No?’ The eyebrow rose once more. ‘I didn’t think that was a word you were accustomed to using a great deal.’

She closed her eyes so she didn’t have to see his derision. ‘I can’t do it.’

‘All right.’ He dismissed her with a step away.

‘Finish the room and get out.’

He was halfway out of the door when she came to her senses. This was about Sammy, not her.

‘Lucio…’

‘Yes?’ He turned to face her, his expression one of extreme boredom. She found it hard to hold his gaze and lowered her eyes to the floor at his feet, the collapse of her pride making her shoulders slump in defeat.

‘I’ll do it,’ she said hollowly. ‘I’ll do what you ask.’

‘Good.’

Giving Lucio the benefit of the doubt — because he so clearly deserves it — I read on, to see if he indeed would exact his sexy revenge. Maybe it’s an idle threat, and he’s really a big ‘ol softie? But no, he does. Over and over and over. Lucio is obviously a complete fucking asshole making a coercive offer here. But what makes this situation different from Ms. Opportunistic and Mr. Troubled is that Anna is sexually attracted to Lucio, and still kind of in love with him. Well, ok, Anna’s mind hates him, but her body — oh treacherous flesh! — can’t resist him.

So, it makes a good case to discuss on the topic of immoral sexual coercion.

Now, for romance readers curious about this book, I do understand the allure of the over the top Presents line, but even so, I can’t recommend this one. To take just one example, Anna and Lucio are both convinced the child is his brother’s (because Lucio always wore a glove). Despite this, a nanosecond after the above chat, with absolutely no discussion of how they are going to present this little arrangement to the child, here is what happens (click to enlarge):

There is no development whatsoever in the relationship, Anna is a doormat, Lucio is a complete jerk, and the whole thing is based on a Big Misunderstanding which gets resolved in the last paragraph. See, Anna did not actually have sex with Lucio’s brother. The brother just gave her a roofie, stripped her naked, and took pictures, to make it look like they had sex. Why? Don’t ask stupid questions. They are Italian magnates! This is what they do.

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Three Susan Napier Harlequin Presents: Win, Pass, Fail

Jul 21 2010 Published by under Reviews

A while ago, @Jane_l tweeted that New Zealand based Harlequin Presents author Susan Napier’s back list was available in e version for cheap, so I bought a couple, and it turns out I had already had one in my TBR. Here are three mini-reviews.

All three books had very unusual and complex plots, which kept my interest because they never crossed the line into rank implausibility. And each one had an unusual sexual trajectory, with the sex taking place between the hero and heroine prior to or at the very start of the action in each book. Finally, each book has what I have come to conclude is a Napier signature … a totally bizarre event.

1. FAIL


The Revenge Affair (1999) is my exact least favorite kind of romance. Regan is a good girl whose husband took her for granted, cheated on her, and then went and died. She decides to secretly take the place of her “professional companion” cousin one Saturday night in order to get revenge on her husband’s ghost. She wants to prove to herself, as well as to her dead ex, that she is sexy.

Of course, the john in question is our hero, “Adam” and they share a night of rapturous lovemaking. This was actually pretty interesting: Adam was way late, so Regan kind of wandered around his luxury penthouse, Goldilocks style, making herself a drink, trying out the stereo, and figuring out what she’s supposed to do. Come morning, Regan sneaks out before “Adam” awakes, expecting never to see him again.

They cross paths again a few months later, when Regan is asked to help a distant relative with her wedding. The groom? You guessed it! But instead of feeling embarrassed that he paid for sex the night before he got engaged — or at all — our hero is sure she is up to something. He lashes out at Regan every chance he gets, getting irrationally jealous, calling her a “conniving little whore” … you know the drill. To top it off, he says patronizing and hypocritical things like, “It’s dangerous to make assumptions when you don’t have all the facts”. Pot, meet kettle.

Bizarro Napier Moment: Regan runs away from the hero and hides in a tree while he wanders around on the ground below calling her name. If only she had pitched a rock at him from that height…

2. PASS

Price of Passion (2008) (which I believe you can read free here) [Amazon tells me I downloaded this one back in December. It is no longer available for Kindle to US customers.] is another very unusual story: Kate works for the publisher who publishes bestselling suspense writer Drake Daniels’s books. Drake is known as a party boy when he is on his book tours, and totally reclusive when he is writing. Kate and Drake have been having and on again/off again, no strings attached affair for two years, but now Kate thinks she may be pregnant (I was surprised by this, but that’s because I hadn’t read the subtitle of the book: “Pregnant Mistresses”) so she figures out that Drake’s top secret writing hideaway is in the sleepy New Zealand beach community of Oyster Beach and rents the house next door to his.

See what I mean about Napier writing complex and unusual plots?

Kate is in love with Drake, but has always completely deferred to his “no emotions involved” approach to their affair, and to his long absences due to his work and travel schedules. Now that she is pregnant, she has to … I’m not sure actually. She doesn’t want to use her pregnancy to force him to do anything, like admit he loves her. She doesn’t intend to ask him for money. Heck, she doesn’t even want to tell him about it at all. So the whole stunt of ditching her job and renting the summer house seemed rather unmotivated and murky to me.

Good sexual tension, as Drake can’t figure out why Kate is suddenly refusing to serve as his booty call. And I enjoyed the growth of their relationship — Kate becomes less of a dishrag and Drake less of an asshole — although I’m not sure the relationship ever really passed my egalitarian sniff test, even at the end.

Bizarro Napier Moment: The heroine backs over the hero’s 3 legged dog in her car.

(The setting of Oyster Bay New Zealand and the profession of suspense writer hopefully allow this to qualify as my July TBR Challenge read, a challenge I’ve been very remiss about!)

Book Binge has a full review here.

3. WIN



In Bed with the Boss (1998)  (a bargain in the $2.50 Kindle version) was truly fun, sexy, and romantic. You had the same kind of hero, on the surface, as the hero in The Revenge Affair, but he was so over the top he was comical, and so obviously in love with the heroine, it made all his bluster ok.  Kalera has been Duncan’s secretary for three years, and in the opening chapter tells him she is resigning to marry his archrival. Kalera’s beloved husband, a man portrayed as a wonderful partner to Kalera and a friend of Duncan, had died about two years prior, and in her grief, Kalera had a one night stand with Duncan. Of course, they put it behind them immediately. although she is still attracted to Duncan, Kalera feels her new fiance will be a more suitable partner. He doesn’t make her crazy or mad with lust, he;s solid, and he loves her.

Duncan, who has been waiting for Kalera’s period of mourning to end, is flabbergasted that his archrival has scooped her up, and uses every devious hero trick in the book, including making excuses to get her to stay late at work and crashing her dinners out with her fiance, to get Kalera to change her mind. Of course, it’s a Presents, so Duncan is contractually barred from saying, “Kalera, when we slept together, it rocked my world. Out of respect, I followed your wishes and stayed away, but I have wanted you ever since. There hasn’t been anyone else. I love you. Please give me a chance.”

Instead, he does all the things that seem proof to Kalera that he is absolutely the wrong guy for her — warns her off her controlling fiance (he doubts her judgment!!), crashes her engagement party (It’s all about him all the time!!), and tries to mack on her occasionally (He doesn’t think she means what she says!! He doesn’t respect her boundaries!!).

Amazingly, the fiance — an interesting, if not consistently drawn, character –  is going through a bitter divorce and Napier manages to give us a kind of secondary romance where they are concerned.

Bizarro Napier Moment: It is not easy to choose, but I will pick the scene when Duncan shows up at the restaurant where Kalera and her fiance are dining in the outfit described below, plants himself at their table, rubs up against the heroine, and then takes her out onto the dance floor and practically ravishes her in front of her steaming mad fiance:

“He was dressed from head to toe in black, his sculpted silk velvet jacket cropped like a matador’s, the wide lapels and cuffs stiff with flamboyant gold embroidery.”  Duncan is wearing “soft black ankle boots”, and he also sports, not just any earring, but “an elongated jet and chased gold teardrop” which bespeaks his “wickedly frivolous elegance”, much like that of “an Elizabethan fop.”

Jane of Dear Author has a full review here.

I think I need to take a break from Presents, but I scored a couple more Napier’s in my supermarket book bin, and I do plan to read them. She definitely does interesting and unusual things within a pretty tightly controlled subgenre.

EDITED TO ADD THIS PHOTO of BRIAN ORSER. IDEA COURTESY OF VICTORIA JANSSEN:

Carmen on Ice

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Do you REALLY Heart Harlequin Presents? Test your love with this quiz

Jun 30 2009 Published by under Genre musings

See how well you know your Harlequin Presents/Silhouette Desires:

1. Our hero is a billionaire tycoon, running a multinational corporation. How much time does he actually spend working?

a. His picture is next to “workaholic” in the dictionary

b. He tries to keep it under 80 a week, to leave time for charm and elegance.

c. Absolutely none.

2. In what way is our hero least likely to show his frustration?

a. Run a hand through his hair.

b. Clench his jaw.

c. Nibble on his fingernails.

3. Our hero’s lips are least likely to be what?

a. Hard and sensual

b. Mocking

c. Covered in Cheeto crumbs.

4. Our heroine’s attitude towards marriage is least likely to be which of the following:

a. She will never allow herself to be dependent on a man! Never!!

b. She must get married immediately! Like, right now!!

c. Sure, someday, if she meets the right guy.

5. The hero touches the heroine’s arm as he shows her through a doorway. Her physiological response is most likely which of the following?

a. Nothing. She barely notices.

b. It tickles a little, so she scratches it.

c. Sweat, heart palpitations, dizziness. Please call the paramedics.*

*Spontaneous combustion if skin is bare. Call fire department.

6. What is our hero’s attitude towards other women least likely to be?

a. Some of them — his mother, baby sister and geriatric secretary, to be exact — are wonderful.

b. Most of them — especially his lovers past and present, and indeed any woman not mentioned in (a) — are scheming superficial bitches.

c. He doesn’t have an attitude “towards women”. He judges people individually.

7. Which method for luring the hero to bed is most likely to be successful?

a. Candlelight dinner, mood music, sexy lingerie.

b. Talk to another man.

c. Tell him in insulting terms that you do not want to have sex with him. Extra points for physical punctuation mark, such as a slap.

8. Our hero is not an American. From which country is he least likely to hail?

a. Greece, Italy or Spain

b. An exotic Sheikdom

c. Any former member of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.

9. English is not our hero’s first language (see question 8). When does he speak his native tongue?

a. All of the time. (Our heroine has a translator app on her iPhone)

b. Most of the time, but uses English when heroine needs taming.

c. Never, with the key exceptions of one term of endearment and one minor swear, both used over and over. (Example: Greek –Agape mou/Theos! Italian: Bella mia/Dio! Spanish: Querida/Por Dios!)

Warning: the following questions are “adult rated”.

(I am sorry to be explicit, but we must be thorough to get accurate results.)

10. Which best describes our heroine’s vagina?

a. Her vagine hang like a wizard’s sleeve, as Borat would say.

b. Hot, wet and tight.

c. No one knows. It has never been viewed or penetrated by any mortal being, save perhaps her gynecologist.

11. How often does our hero sport wood?

a. Rarely. Work is stressing him out and his wonderful geriatric secretary forgot to refill his Viagra prescription.

b. Whenever he is nekkid with the heroine.

c. Every time he sees, hears, smells, touches, or thinks of the heroine. That is to say, all of the time, except for the required grace period of 60 seconds after each ejaculation.

Scoring:

Give yourself 1 point for each (a) answer, 2 points for each (b) answer, and 3 points for each (c) answer.

0-13: You have never read a romance novel in your life. Why are you here?

14-26 points: You can do better. Put down your Jennie Crusies, Ann Aguirres, and Jo Beverlys and pick up the nearest copy of The Secretly Ruthless Italian Gazillionaire Tycoon’s Conveniently Pregnant Virgin Mistress Bride right away.

26 and up: You win! You may now use “heart” as a verb, do things to deserve “punishing” kissess, and fall in love with the next man named Dante who crosses your path!

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