November 7, 2011 • 28 mins
Believe it or not, romance novels are the best-selling fiction genre. Join Cristen and Caroline as they explore the common romance novel heroes, heroines and themes, ultimately asking what romance novels tell us about female arousal.
Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
It's ready. Are you welcome to stuff mom never told you?
From House top works dot Com. Hello, and welcome to
the podcast. I'm Caroline and I'm Kristin. Kristin, I want
(00:20):
you to picture a large man, a burly, burly man,
with his hair blowing in the breeze, and he he
has a lady on his arm, and she's wearing petticoats.
Would that would that lady be me? Am I in
the It sure could be Okay, it could be cool. Yes,
it is you wearing petticoats and you are on the
(00:42):
cover of a romance novel, and your romance novel happens
to have sold a billions of copies. Actually, romance novels
in general, not just not just not just the Christen
Conger edition, my best selling uh podcast romance right exactly
something like that. Um. Yes, today we are talking about
(01:06):
romance novels and why they are so popular. They still
get a pretty bad rap I think in general, but um,
enough people are buying them. Yeah. Here's the thing, Hi,
high minded literary folk out there, don't laugh too much
at the romance genre. Because it is huge, and it
is far outpacing all of the books that that you
(01:30):
might be buying. For instance, the Romance Writers of America
reports that in two thousand and ten, romance novels sold
one point three eight billion in sales. Right, that is crazy,
And that's down just a little from two thousand five
when sales hit the one point four billion mark, and
(01:50):
down just slightly from two thousand nines figure of one
point three six billion. And actually good news for the
romance novels sales are projected to up to one point
three six eight billion this year. And if you're if
you're thinking billions million, that's not much of anything, Yes,
it is, it actually is, because the closest category in
(02:12):
the running is religion and inspirational books and those just
brought in seven and fifty nine million last year and
not even touching, not even touching romance novels. So what
we're getting at here is that romance fiction is the
best selling fiction genre in the publishing industry, and the
(02:34):
top imprints are Mira Grand, Central Publishing, h hu In
which I think used to be known as Harlequin, Jove Berkeley,
and even within this genre because it is so large.
There are sub genres such as history, suspense, fantasy, sci fi, um,
Christmas romance novels especially popular to keep you warm on
(02:56):
those cold winter nights. Yeah, I suppose uh are normal
romance fiction all sorts. Yeah. Actually, And the number of
US romance readers has increased eighteen percent since so it's
not as if this is dying off anytime soon. I
mean a lot of people are picking these up, and
a lot of people are picking them up in the
(03:18):
mass market paperback form um. Although e books are starting
to kind of siphon off some of those sales, but
it's it's mostly the romance reader out there. It's mostly
a woman picking up a mass market paperback. Right. Nine
out of ten romance novel buyers are women. And the
question that we post from the podcast title today is
(03:39):
why are romance novels so popular? And the fact that
they do appeal to women so much really explains those
huge numbers, because, as we've said before in the podcast,
women make up a majority of book buyers, and you
can even see this among e book readers UM with
the Kindle, for instance, if you look at the best
(04:01):
seller list on UM the Amazon Kindle, a lot of
them again, are romance novels, right, I know, yeah, it
just it just appeals to to a lot of women
and not all women. I know, I know, don't be sensitive.
I know a lot of people aren't running out there
buying romance novels. But a good thing to think of.
Also if you're if you're getting touchy, like, well, I
don't read that stuff. Is that? Not all romance novels
(04:25):
are like the the fabio painting on the cover where
he's you know, holding Kristen in her petticoats. Um, you
can also think of romance novels as Jane Austen. Yeah, yeah,
like pride and prejudice and sense and sensibility. So there's
there's more highbrow that's right. Because if you go to
good reads dot com, which is um a great site
(04:45):
for books and reading if you've never been to it before,
they have a list of their all time favorite romance novels,
and Jane Austen is at the top, followed by Stephanie
Myers and the Twilight series. But let's get into romance
novels because I think one of the reasons why they
get a bad rap, aside from perhaps the cheesecake artwork
on the covers. Um is that a lot of people
(05:08):
accused him of having very formulaic plots with very rigid
gender roles. Um what what else? Yeah, well, dy've I
think I don't know. I know that I have this
image in my head of romance novels as the big
burly man comes to save the day, you know, the
the woman is having a tough time doing whatever. I
(05:28):
was actually talking about this topic with my roommate last night,
and she said that her grandmother had a bunch of
romance novels and had written little like two three word
reviews in the cover on the one that she wrote,
the best was I think called I don't want to
get this wrong. I think it's called The Australians and
(05:49):
this hoity toity uh city girl moves to the to
the outback to be a teacher and chew up. She
has to get help from some rugged out back cowboy type,
and of course they initially butt head and then come
you know, he thinks of her as a city foolish woman,
(06:09):
and she thinks of him as as bruted as mussily uh.
And eventually they you know, clearly fa which is what happens.
I just I just spoiled every romance novel for you.
I'm sorry, it's it is kind of true. Um, but
that doesn't necessarily mean that we should discredit the appeal
of romance novels. Um. For instance, on the NPR blog
(06:31):
Monkey see Linda Holmes rights that she gets the whole
romance novel thing. She says that women are basically pressured
to be you know, thin, beautiful, successful independent wives, mothers,
basically to have it all and be universally desired and satisfied. Um.
So these are nice escape routes and fantasies away from
(06:54):
all of the pressures of the day to day, perhaps
into the arms of a of a rugged Australian And yeah,
exactly exactly, and I mean, yeah, it can be comforting
to fantasize about a man who can take care of everything.
I mean, we've all seen that Obama meme online that
(07:14):
I got this, and that's sort of the overarching, um
kind of theme that they're portraying in these books. And
you know, tales of successful courtship and dating and love
can can give us hope and make us optimistic and
you know, make us want to wait around for a
real partner. I don't know. I could be reading too
(07:34):
much into it. Um, but you know it's possible, you might.
You might realize I want a man like that who
not necessarily rides a horse and ropes cattle, but who
can get things done. Yeah. But he could rope cattle
if he needed to. Exactly. Yeah, if you wanted it done,
he would do. He would do it for you. But
what kind of I don't want to say values, but
(07:56):
maybe what kind of themes are these romance novels peddling well?
Canadian researchers Anthony Cox and Marianne Fisher looked at fifteen thousand,
was a lot of romance novels published between nine and
two thousand nine, and they looked for different hook words
(08:16):
because a lot of these titles of romance novels are
actually market tested to appeal to very common fantasies that
women might have women. So they're not called ham sandwich
and naked lady. They're geared towards women. Um uh. And
they realized that a lot of common hook words include
(08:37):
love not surprising there, bride, baby, baby baby, marriage, wedding, groom,
and honeymoon, and the kind of values that were repeated
Throughout a lot of these romance novels were commitment, love,
and family. I'm assuming commitment, love and family preceded by
the budding of heads the you know, maybe saucy conversation, yes,
(09:03):
sparks flying, sexual tension building, yes, exactly. I would never
date that man, Oh, but I love you. Yeah. I'm
sure conversations like that happen along with wind blowing through
hair and what not. And this is my favorite finding
from this research that was published in the Journal of Social,
Evolutionary and Cultural Psychology. Caroline, could you please share with
(09:25):
our listeners the top jobs held by men leading men,
I should say, in romance novels. Yes, gentlemen, listeners take note.
The top jobs for heroes in these books are doctor, cowboy, boss, prince,
ranter night, and surgeon. I want to know the different
(09:49):
the doctor on a farm you are so sad if you,
like you said, I mean roping the cattle, that can
maybe take you pretty far, especially if you can rope
a cattle and do bypass surgery, right. And And basically
the thing that ties all this stuff together is that
you can think of all of these jobs as people
who are assertive but caring. So the doctor makes quick
(10:09):
decisions life or death, decision saves people, but he's also caring.
He takes care of people. Right. Um, And I also
thought this was an interesting finding from the study. Two
words that were not commonly used to describe the heroes
handsome and athletic. Even though a lot of romance novels
will go into granular detail to describe the timber of
(10:32):
a man's voice and the look in his eyes and
the feeling of each fiber of hair on his body. Uh, typically,
he's not just generally handsome and athletic. It's more than that.
He said, he's a person, whereas a lot of the
female protagonists in romance novels are kind of shells that
women can insert themselves into. Right. Yeah, I've actually heard
(10:57):
this argument about Twilight. Speaking of Twilight of her people
talk about how and I haven't read the books, I
haven't seen the movies, so look, don't hate me, um,
but I've heard it described that the heroine in Twilight
is described as just your average and an average looking girl,
and there's not a whole lot of description there, whereas
there is a ton of description about her love interest,
(11:19):
and that's sort of what they're saying in Psychology Today
when they pointed out that the same thing that heroines
are often these vague, shadowy figures so that you can
imagine yourself being swept up in Fabio's arms. Well, and
also going back to what UM Linda Holmes was saying
over and in pr about all of the kind of
pressures that are placed upon women and how romance novels
(11:43):
serve as an escape from all of that. By not
establishing this female protagonist who is gorgeous and perfect and
can do absolutely everything, she might be kind of unremarkable.
Maybe it takes again like sir as a as a
conduit to escape from that that pressure and just allow
(12:05):
yourself to be loved and completely accepted for who you
are by a rugged rancher. Right and Um Julia Quinn
that's the pen name for it, Julie Potting Pottinger UM,
who's a romance novelist. She a lot of her lead
female characters. She makes sure to point out that they
(12:25):
are normal looking, they're rounder, they're not you know, they're
not like Kate Moss running around in the outback. There's
a normal woman that you can identify, women that you
can identify with. UM, and one of the questions that
this brought up in my mind with the popularity of
romance novels. Obviously this is something that you read erotic
stimulation via reading, as compared to say, watching pornography, which
(12:51):
is a lot more popular among males. This is a
statistical fact. Um and ogie Ogus and I gad Dam
wrote this book recently called A Billion Wicked Thoughts, in
which they analyze a billion uh web erotic searches to
basically unravel what turns us on. And they talk about
(13:14):
the appeal of romance novels specifically to women a lot
in the book as compared to um the appeal of say,
web porn watching web porn for men, and he points out,
I should say they point out that women, first of all,
account for one out of fifty porn site subscribers, So
(13:35):
right there out of the gate, we are not watching
as much as men are. But in two thousand and eight,
seventy four point eight million people read an English language
romance novel, close to the number of men who visited
online pornography sites that year. So the point that A
Billion Wicked Thoughts is kind of making is that while
(13:57):
there might be different mediums. Women are still seeking out
ironic pleasure in the same to the same degree that
men might. We're all looking for escapism and stimulation of
some kind, but women are more likely to spend a
couple of hours reading about it, really internalizing and thinking
about it and having a kind of having an emotional
(14:18):
epiphany right alongside the heroine of the story about this
big burly man, whereas the guys are just getting instant
gratification looking at videos. Right, and uh. Ogus and good
Dam attribute this to how the female cortex is constructed,
and um point out that that women tend to enjoy
(14:40):
I don't know, the context that comes with kind of
filling out a more complete fantasy rather than just seeing
something on screen and having everything laid out for them.
They like to have the, uh, you know, a little
more information about who this love interest might be, rather
than what that love interest looks like naked. Right, And
(15:03):
that sort of ties into the Wall Street Journal article
that we read talking about how basically these books are
giving feminine intuition to workout. Um, we're sort of we're
reading the whole story and processing all these things about
this character the same way that we are processing thoughts
and feelings about guys when we meet them. Although Caroline,
I am hesitant to you settle, Feminine talked about it
(15:26):
hunt the whole notion it quotes in my notes, we're
air quotes saying right now because I think in a
I mean, I think that this is when you have
to separate though fantasy from reality in that I'm sure
that men and women are both try to kind of
suss out what another potential love interesting meet might be
(15:49):
like beyond their their face and their measurements, um, but
in fantasy might be a little bit of a different
yes situation. I think one thing we have to ask
in this episode that has been asked many times about
romance novels and their appeal to women in particular, is
(16:11):
are they that good for us? Should we be indulging
in these in these fantasies about men coming to their rescue?
Is that really good? Especially from a feminist perspective? Yeah?
Are they giving us false hopes? Shouldn't we just be
trudging through the dull drums of daily life? Or are
they possibly even endorsing unhealthy sexual behavior? As Sarah William
(16:34):
who's an advice calumnist in the UK, wrote, in the
Journal of Family Planning and Reproductive Care earlier this year.
She says that a huge number of issues we see
in our clinics and therapy rooms are influenced by romance
fiction day. So this is where all the problems of
society come from. Yeah, I had no idea. Um. Yeah.
(16:55):
She points out that some characters are forced to have
sex and yet they think it's wonderful, and women are
portrayed as the weaker sex. She calls it demeaning that
female characters are sexually unsatisfied until a man comes along
and awakens her right and she um. She also, you know,
is concerned that there isn't at least in the romance
novel that she analyzes. I believe it was seventy eight
(17:18):
randomly selected novels published between n Quilliam says, Hey, you
know what is also missing from a lot of these
sex scenes in romance novels, Hey, condoms? Where condoms? Exactly?
And she also says that romance readers tend to respond
negatively to contraception in one survey. But but going back
(17:42):
to that Monkey Sea blog over at NPR and Linda Holmes,
she calls out Quilliam and this essay, which was reported
on Wiley. I first read about this, uh the Quilliams
essay in Time magazine. UM and Holmes faults her for
using the statistic that only eleven point five percent of
(18:03):
romance novels mentioned condom use because only seventy eight books
are mentioned, and what was the time period six, which
is such a tiny, tiny sliver first of all the
entire romance library. And also homes says, if you look
at contemporary romance novels that were published even in the
(18:25):
last like ten years, there is a lot of condom use.
And there you know, it isn't just about um sexual
violence and and rape and demonizing an entire genre that
is so large and so broad like romance novels isn't
necessarily good math, right, And I don't think and I
we read a couple of things debating whether feminism and
(18:49):
romance novels are mutually exclusive. And I don't think they
have to be, right. I don't think that just because
you read a romance novel where two people fall in love,
I don't think it necessarily has to be hokey and
it doesn't have to be demeaning to women. It just
depends on what book you read. I mean, okay, when
I hear screwing up. My mother had a ton of
(19:11):
I don't know why, a ton of romance novels lying around.
I read a ton of romance novels and I was
like a preteen. I don't know if this made me
the person I am today. I'm hoping I had some
other significant factors. I know, I'm always looking for burly
men to hang off of. Um, but yeah, I mean yes,
(19:31):
And a lot of those were junk, absolute junk. But
a lot of those also were from the late eighties
early nineties, which is the same period that Quillan's talking about.
Ninety six. Um, you know, it's a it's a small
chunk of time. And maybe books written in the late
seventies early eighties weren't as focused on contraception and safe
(19:52):
sex because they weren't dealing they weren't kind of handling
the AIDS epidemic. They weren't you know, they weren't having
their characters deal with on one and pregnancies and stuff
like that. So well, and and K Muscle at American University,
who has studied romance novel and and the tropes in them,
came to the conclusion that no feminism and romance novels
(20:14):
are not mutually exclusive, especially when you look at more
contemporary titles. UM. She wrote that heroes and heroines meet
each other at much more equal playing fields these days.
Heroes don't always dominate the heroins UM, and a lot
of times the heroines are frequently right, and they have
certain expertise and aren't afraid to show it. And when
(20:35):
it comes to the sexual content of romance novels, I'm
talking romance novels with a capital RS and the entire
genre UM. According to a study published in September two
thousand eleven in a journal Sexuality and Culture, there really
isn't all that much hanky panky happening in romance novels.
(20:56):
And this is I mean, I think we should also,
Claire Fi. We're talking about romance novels as compared to
stuff like just specific erotic fiction and fan fiction, fan
fiction slash fiction that is a little more X rated.
But in this sample, they sample books that had won
the Romance Writers of America Award for Best Contemporary Single
(21:17):
Title Romance that's along its long title from to two
thousand nine, and they found UM not yeah, not all
that much sex actually happening in the books, a lot
of staring into each other's eyes. Well, and they were
also looking at the sexual scripts within those um within
(21:39):
the plots, and they said that their sample was a heterosexual,
which is something that listeners might have noticed. We keep
using he and she and all of our examples. Uh
uh nondescripant i e um, no interracial couples and no
deviant sexual behaviors as well, right, I feel like some
of uh, the interracial couples often fall in those westerns
(22:05):
where the prairie heroine falls in love with a Native
American and then just the horrible stereotypes poor fourth in
the book I love that you have. I did not
know about your well, no lot of other people I
know I do. I want to know more. But at
(22:26):
the same time, one of the blogs reported on that
September two thousand eleven study suggested that perhaps they should,
you know, open up if we're going to analyze romance novels,
because there are, you know, lesbian themes. There are male
on male romance novels, there are interracial novels, and um
romance novels that explore a broader array of sexual fetishes
(22:50):
and behaviors that maybe even even this study isn't. Um
you can't summarize the entire genre just by looking at
a small subset, right, But I don't think there have
actually been a ton of romance novel studies. I mean,
as popular as these things are, there's not like a
huge amount of research out there. For as many women
who purchase these books and as many bad assumptions as
(23:14):
there are about the whole genre, you would think that
that more research would be done. So maybe people, actually, hey,
people who have a lot of time in your hands,
maybe you can look into other types of romance novels
other topics. Yeah, and I and I should point out
um as additional resources if you are interested in learning
more about the romance novel genre. I do recommend checking
(23:35):
out Beyond Heaving Bosoms, which is by Sarah Wendell and
Candy Tan who have a blog about romance novels from
a more academic perspective. Um. And there's also the book
Dangerous Men and Adventurous Women by Jane and Crentz that
also kind of dissects what's going on. Well. I for one,
(23:56):
now that I have shared with all of you that
I have read a lot of romance. Well, I don't
you know. It's I don't think i've read one since
last week. Yeah, about three hours, since early high school.
I think the last romance novel I read was in
(24:17):
the Outlander series, which is that's one of the favorites
from Good Read. Yeah. Well she wrote Outlander, Diana Gobald
and she read Outlander and it was so fantastic. I
don't know if I would like it now, I mean,
I have no idea, but I loved it. It's about
this woman who goes back in time through some stone
in Scotland and is like hanging out the highlands and guilt,
(24:39):
big giant Gingerman and uh yeah, Kilts are involved. And
then in another book she comes back again and brings
back penicillin. You just can't do that. You can't mess
with the space time Continueum like it? Then anyway, anyway,
I'm getting carried away. Um And I didn't. She she
wrote several books after I stopped reading. I think I
read three. Um. I've gone on too long about this,
(25:01):
but I would like to know our listeners favorite romance novel. Right,
I have to admit I'm not I'm not all that
personally familiar. I don't have the insight first insight that
you do Caroline into um the romance novel genre, but
reading about it for this episode, my interest is very
much piqued. And I think that it is time for
us to to ease off the the stigma against Rrian's
(25:25):
novels because if anything, hey one point three billion dollars
in sales, at least, it's keeping the publishing industry alive
during these difficult times, I know. So let's let's give
some respect where respect is due. And yes, please send
us your favorite romance title and your favorite types of heroes.
Are you a cowboy lady? Do you prefer doctors and surgeons?
(25:46):
What do you like? What do you like? Let us know?
Mom Stuff at how stuffworks dot com is the email
address to send to christ and we have an email
from Emily. This is HARKing back to our single podcast
or are Single down Singleness podcast? She said that she
(26:06):
thought it was good, but I felt like you really
made being married sound bad. In my opinion, when you're married,
the main focus of your life should be your family.
You made that seem like a bad thing. Now I'm
not married, but from what I've been what I've seen
and been told. If your family is your priority, then
your family is stronger down the road, your best friend
should be your spouse. In my opinion, I don't think
(26:28):
that's weird. That does not mean you can't have friends
or hobbies. You just have to decide for yourself what
is top priority in your life. Thank you, Emily, Thank
you Emily for that perspective. All right, well, I have
an email here from Carlina and this is in response
to our episode on nipples. She said, I recently listened
(26:50):
to your podcasts about nipples and was reminded of my
younger brother who was a mole on his chest near
one of his nipples. We can see how many times
I can see nipples. My other brother and I tease
him growing up and called the moll his triple nipple.
After hearing your podcasts, I realized there might have been
more to the more truth to that joke than we thought,
although it isn't correctly lined up along his milk linb.
(27:12):
I do really enjoy your podcast in some way. Gender
equality is a little bit behind in Korea, where she lives,
and it's nice to be able to listen to more
progressive attitudes. I'm going to email my brother about the
nipple podcast right now. Well, thank you for that triple
nipple story, Carlina, and if you have stories to share
with us, our friends and listeners, please email us at
(27:34):
Mom's Stuff at how stuff works dot com or share
it on Facebook or hit us up on Twitter at
mom Stuff Podcast. And of course, during the week, you
can find us on the blog stuff Mom Never Told
You at how stuff works dot com. Be sure to
check out our new video podcast, Stuff from the Future.
(27:57):
Join how Stuff Work staff as we explore the most
promising and perplexing possibilities of tomorrow. The Houstufforks iPhone app
has arrived. Download it today on iTunes, brought to you
by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera. It's ready, are
you
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
It's ready. Are you welcome to stuff mom never told you?
From House top works dot Com. Hello, and welcome to
the podcast. I'm Caroline and I'm Kristin. Kristin, I want
(00:20):
you to picture a large man, a burly, burly man,
with his hair blowing in the breeze, and he he
has a lady on his arm, and she's wearing petticoats.
Would that would that lady be me? Am I in
the It sure could be Okay, it could be cool. Yes,
it is you wearing petticoats and you are on the
(00:42):
cover of a romance novel, and your romance novel happens
to have sold a billions of copies. Actually, romance novels
in general, not just not just not just the Christen
Conger edition, my best selling uh podcast romance right exactly
something like that. Um. Yes, today we are talking about
(01:06):
romance novels and why they are so popular. They still
get a pretty bad rap I think in general, but um,
enough people are buying them. Yeah. Here's the thing, Hi,
high minded literary folk out there, don't laugh too much
at the romance genre. Because it is huge, and it
is far outpacing all of the books that that you
(01:30):
might be buying. For instance, the Romance Writers of America
reports that in two thousand and ten, romance novels sold
one point three eight billion in sales. Right, that is crazy,
And that's down just a little from two thousand five
when sales hit the one point four billion mark, and
(01:50):
down just slightly from two thousand nines figure of one
point three six billion. And actually good news for the
romance novels sales are projected to up to one point
three six eight billion this year. And if you're if
you're thinking billions million, that's not much of anything, Yes,
it is, it actually is, because the closest category in
(02:12):
the running is religion and inspirational books and those just
brought in seven and fifty nine million last year and
not even touching, not even touching romance novels. So what
we're getting at here is that romance fiction is the
best selling fiction genre in the publishing industry, and the
(02:34):
top imprints are Mira Grand, Central Publishing, h hu In
which I think used to be known as Harlequin, Jove Berkeley,
and even within this genre because it is so large.
There are sub genres such as history, suspense, fantasy, sci fi, um,
Christmas romance novels especially popular to keep you warm on
(02:56):
those cold winter nights. Yeah, I suppose uh are normal
romance fiction all sorts. Yeah. Actually, And the number of
US romance readers has increased eighteen percent since so it's
not as if this is dying off anytime soon. I
mean a lot of people are picking these up, and
a lot of people are picking them up in the
(03:18):
mass market paperback form um. Although e books are starting
to kind of siphon off some of those sales, but
it's it's mostly the romance reader out there. It's mostly
a woman picking up a mass market paperback. Right. Nine
out of ten romance novel buyers are women. And the
question that we post from the podcast title today is
(03:39):
why are romance novels so popular? And the fact that
they do appeal to women so much really explains those
huge numbers, because, as we've said before in the podcast,
women make up a majority of book buyers, and you
can even see this among e book readers UM with
the Kindle, for instance, if you look at the best
(04:01):
seller list on UM the Amazon Kindle, a lot of
them again, are romance novels, right, I know, yeah, it
just it just appeals to to a lot of women
and not all women. I know, I know, don't be sensitive.
I know a lot of people aren't running out there
buying romance novels. But a good thing to think of.
Also if you're if you're getting touchy, like, well, I
don't read that stuff. Is that? Not all romance novels
(04:25):
are like the the fabio painting on the cover where
he's you know, holding Kristen in her petticoats. Um, you
can also think of romance novels as Jane Austen. Yeah, yeah,
like pride and prejudice and sense and sensibility. So there's
there's more highbrow that's right. Because if you go to
good reads dot com, which is um a great site
(04:45):
for books and reading if you've never been to it before,
they have a list of their all time favorite romance novels,
and Jane Austen is at the top, followed by Stephanie
Myers and the Twilight series. But let's get into romance
novels because I think one of the reasons why they
get a bad rap, aside from perhaps the cheesecake artwork
on the covers. Um is that a lot of people
(05:08):
accused him of having very formulaic plots with very rigid
gender roles. Um what what else? Yeah, well, dy've I
think I don't know. I know that I have this
image in my head of romance novels as the big
burly man comes to save the day, you know, the
the woman is having a tough time doing whatever. I
(05:28):
was actually talking about this topic with my roommate last night,
and she said that her grandmother had a bunch of
romance novels and had written little like two three word
reviews in the cover on the one that she wrote,
the best was I think called I don't want to
get this wrong. I think it's called The Australians and
(05:49):
this hoity toity uh city girl moves to the to
the outback to be a teacher and chew up. She
has to get help from some rugged out back cowboy type,
and of course they initially butt head and then come
you know, he thinks of her as a city foolish woman,
(06:09):
and she thinks of him as as bruted as mussily uh.
And eventually they you know, clearly fa which is what happens.
I just I just spoiled every romance novel for you.
I'm sorry, it's it is kind of true. Um, but
that doesn't necessarily mean that we should discredit the appeal
of romance novels. Um. For instance, on the NPR blog
(06:31):
Monkey see Linda Holmes rights that she gets the whole
romance novel thing. She says that women are basically pressured
to be you know, thin, beautiful, successful independent wives, mothers,
basically to have it all and be universally desired and satisfied. Um.
So these are nice escape routes and fantasies away from
(06:54):
all of the pressures of the day to day, perhaps
into the arms of a of a rugged Australian And yeah,
exactly exactly, and I mean, yeah, it can be comforting
to fantasize about a man who can take care of everything.
I mean, we've all seen that Obama meme online that
(07:14):
I got this, and that's sort of the overarching, um
kind of theme that they're portraying in these books. And
you know, tales of successful courtship and dating and love
can can give us hope and make us optimistic and
you know, make us want to wait around for a
real partner. I don't know. I could be reading too
(07:34):
much into it. Um, but you know it's possible, you might.
You might realize I want a man like that who
not necessarily rides a horse and ropes cattle, but who
can get things done. Yeah. But he could rope cattle
if he needed to. Exactly. Yeah, if you wanted it done,
he would do. He would do it for you. But
what kind of I don't want to say values, but
(07:56):
maybe what kind of themes are these romance novels peddling well?
Canadian researchers Anthony Cox and Marianne Fisher looked at fifteen thousand,
was a lot of romance novels published between nine and
two thousand nine, and they looked for different hook words
(08:16):
because a lot of these titles of romance novels are
actually market tested to appeal to very common fantasies that
women might have women. So they're not called ham sandwich
and naked lady. They're geared towards women. Um uh. And
they realized that a lot of common hook words include
(08:37):
love not surprising there, bride, baby, baby baby, marriage, wedding, groom,
and honeymoon, and the kind of values that were repeated
Throughout a lot of these romance novels were commitment, love,
and family. I'm assuming commitment, love and family preceded by
the budding of heads the you know, maybe saucy conversation, yes,
(09:03):
sparks flying, sexual tension building, yes, exactly. I would never
date that man, Oh, but I love you. Yeah. I'm
sure conversations like that happen along with wind blowing through
hair and what not. And this is my favorite finding
from this research that was published in the Journal of Social,
Evolutionary and Cultural Psychology. Caroline, could you please share with
(09:25):
our listeners the top jobs held by men leading men,
I should say, in romance novels. Yes, gentlemen, listeners take note.
The top jobs for heroes in these books are doctor, cowboy, boss, prince,
ranter night, and surgeon. I want to know the different
(09:49):
the doctor on a farm you are so sad if you,
like you said, I mean roping the cattle, that can
maybe take you pretty far, especially if you can rope
a cattle and do bypass surgery, right. And And basically
the thing that ties all this stuff together is that
you can think of all of these jobs as people
who are assertive but caring. So the doctor makes quick
(10:09):
decisions life or death, decision saves people, but he's also caring.
He takes care of people. Right. Um, And I also
thought this was an interesting finding from the study. Two
words that were not commonly used to describe the heroes
handsome and athletic. Even though a lot of romance novels
will go into granular detail to describe the timber of
(10:32):
a man's voice and the look in his eyes and
the feeling of each fiber of hair on his body. Uh, typically,
he's not just generally handsome and athletic. It's more than that.
He said, he's a person, whereas a lot of the
female protagonists in romance novels are kind of shells that
women can insert themselves into. Right. Yeah, I've actually heard
(10:57):
this argument about Twilight. Speaking of Twilight of her people
talk about how and I haven't read the books, I
haven't seen the movies, so look, don't hate me, um,
but I've heard it described that the heroine in Twilight
is described as just your average and an average looking girl,
and there's not a whole lot of description there, whereas
there is a ton of description about her love interest,
(11:19):
and that's sort of what they're saying in Psychology Today
when they pointed out that the same thing that heroines
are often these vague, shadowy figures so that you can
imagine yourself being swept up in Fabio's arms. Well, and
also going back to what UM Linda Holmes was saying
over and in pr about all of the kind of
pressures that are placed upon women and how romance novels
(11:43):
serve as an escape from all of that. By not
establishing this female protagonist who is gorgeous and perfect and
can do absolutely everything, she might be kind of unremarkable.
Maybe it takes again like sir as a as a
conduit to escape from that that pressure and just allow
(12:05):
yourself to be loved and completely accepted for who you
are by a rugged rancher. Right and Um Julia Quinn
that's the pen name for it, Julie Potting Pottinger UM,
who's a romance novelist. She a lot of her lead
female characters. She makes sure to point out that they
(12:25):
are normal looking, they're rounder, they're not you know, they're
not like Kate Moss running around in the outback. There's
a normal woman that you can identify, women that you
can identify with. UM, and one of the questions that
this brought up in my mind with the popularity of
romance novels. Obviously this is something that you read erotic
stimulation via reading, as compared to say, watching pornography, which
(12:51):
is a lot more popular among males. This is a
statistical fact. Um and ogie Ogus and I gad Dam
wrote this book recently called A Billion Wicked Thoughts, in
which they analyze a billion uh web erotic searches to
basically unravel what turns us on. And they talk about
(13:14):
the appeal of romance novels specifically to women a lot
in the book as compared to um the appeal of say,
web porn watching web porn for men, and he points out,
I should say they point out that women, first of all,
account for one out of fifty porn site subscribers, So
(13:35):
right there out of the gate, we are not watching
as much as men are. But in two thousand and eight,
seventy four point eight million people read an English language
romance novel, close to the number of men who visited
online pornography sites that year. So the point that A
Billion Wicked Thoughts is kind of making is that while
(13:57):
there might be different mediums. Women are still seeking out
ironic pleasure in the same to the same degree that
men might. We're all looking for escapism and stimulation of
some kind, but women are more likely to spend a
couple of hours reading about it, really internalizing and thinking
about it and having a kind of having an emotional
(14:18):
epiphany right alongside the heroine of the story about this
big burly man, whereas the guys are just getting instant
gratification looking at videos. Right, and uh. Ogus and good
Dam attribute this to how the female cortex is constructed,
and um point out that that women tend to enjoy
(14:40):
I don't know, the context that comes with kind of
filling out a more complete fantasy rather than just seeing
something on screen and having everything laid out for them.
They like to have the, uh, you know, a little
more information about who this love interest might be, rather
than what that love interest looks like naked. Right, And
(15:03):
that sort of ties into the Wall Street Journal article
that we read talking about how basically these books are
giving feminine intuition to workout. Um, we're sort of we're
reading the whole story and processing all these things about
this character the same way that we are processing thoughts
and feelings about guys when we meet them. Although Caroline,
I am hesitant to you settle, Feminine talked about it
(15:26):
hunt the whole notion it quotes in my notes, we're
air quotes saying right now because I think in a
I mean, I think that this is when you have
to separate though fantasy from reality in that I'm sure
that men and women are both try to kind of
suss out what another potential love interesting meet might be
(15:49):
like beyond their their face and their measurements, um, but
in fantasy might be a little bit of a different
yes situation. I think one thing we have to ask
in this episode that has been asked many times about
romance novels and their appeal to women in particular, is
(16:11):
are they that good for us? Should we be indulging
in these in these fantasies about men coming to their rescue?
Is that really good? Especially from a feminist perspective? Yeah?
Are they giving us false hopes? Shouldn't we just be
trudging through the dull drums of daily life? Or are
they possibly even endorsing unhealthy sexual behavior? As Sarah William
(16:34):
who's an advice calumnist in the UK, wrote, in the
Journal of Family Planning and Reproductive Care earlier this year.
She says that a huge number of issues we see
in our clinics and therapy rooms are influenced by romance
fiction day. So this is where all the problems of
society come from. Yeah, I had no idea. Um. Yeah.
(16:55):
She points out that some characters are forced to have
sex and yet they think it's wonderful, and women are
portrayed as the weaker sex. She calls it demeaning that
female characters are sexually unsatisfied until a man comes along
and awakens her right and she um. She also, you know,
is concerned that there isn't at least in the romance
novel that she analyzes. I believe it was seventy eight
(17:18):
randomly selected novels published between n Quilliam says, Hey, you
know what is also missing from a lot of these
sex scenes in romance novels, Hey, condoms? Where condoms? Exactly?
And she also says that romance readers tend to respond
negatively to contraception in one survey. But but going back
(17:42):
to that Monkey Sea blog over at NPR and Linda Holmes,
she calls out Quilliam and this essay, which was reported
on Wiley. I first read about this, uh the Quilliams
essay in Time magazine. UM and Holmes faults her for
using the statistic that only eleven point five percent of
(18:03):
romance novels mentioned condom use because only seventy eight books
are mentioned, and what was the time period six, which
is such a tiny, tiny sliver first of all the
entire romance library. And also homes says, if you look
at contemporary romance novels that were published even in the
(18:25):
last like ten years, there is a lot of condom use.
And there you know, it isn't just about um sexual
violence and and rape and demonizing an entire genre that
is so large and so broad like romance novels isn't
necessarily good math, right, And I don't think and I
we read a couple of things debating whether feminism and
(18:49):
romance novels are mutually exclusive. And I don't think they
have to be, right. I don't think that just because
you read a romance novel where two people fall in love,
I don't think it necessarily has to be hokey and
it doesn't have to be demeaning to women. It just
depends on what book you read. I mean, okay, when
I hear screwing up. My mother had a ton of
(19:11):
I don't know why, a ton of romance novels lying around.
I read a ton of romance novels and I was
like a preteen. I don't know if this made me
the person I am today. I'm hoping I had some
other significant factors. I know, I'm always looking for burly
men to hang off of. Um, but yeah, I mean yes,
(19:31):
And a lot of those were junk, absolute junk. But
a lot of those also were from the late eighties
early nineties, which is the same period that Quillan's talking about.
Ninety six. Um, you know, it's a it's a small
chunk of time. And maybe books written in the late
seventies early eighties weren't as focused on contraception and safe
(19:52):
sex because they weren't dealing they weren't kind of handling
the AIDS epidemic. They weren't you know, they weren't having
their characters deal with on one and pregnancies and stuff
like that. So well, and and K Muscle at American University,
who has studied romance novel and and the tropes in them,
came to the conclusion that no feminism and romance novels
(20:14):
are not mutually exclusive, especially when you look at more
contemporary titles. UM. She wrote that heroes and heroines meet
each other at much more equal playing fields these days.
Heroes don't always dominate the heroins UM, and a lot
of times the heroines are frequently right, and they have
certain expertise and aren't afraid to show it. And when
(20:35):
it comes to the sexual content of romance novels, I'm
talking romance novels with a capital RS and the entire
genre UM. According to a study published in September two
thousand eleven in a journal Sexuality and Culture, there really
isn't all that much hanky panky happening in romance novels.
(20:56):
And this is I mean, I think we should also,
Claire Fi. We're talking about romance novels as compared to
stuff like just specific erotic fiction and fan fiction, fan
fiction slash fiction that is a little more X rated.
But in this sample, they sample books that had won
the Romance Writers of America Award for Best Contemporary Single
(21:17):
Title Romance that's along its long title from to two
thousand nine, and they found UM not yeah, not all
that much sex actually happening in the books, a lot
of staring into each other's eyes. Well, and they were
also looking at the sexual scripts within those um within
(21:39):
the plots, and they said that their sample was a heterosexual,
which is something that listeners might have noticed. We keep
using he and she and all of our examples. Uh
uh nondescripant i e um, no interracial couples and no
deviant sexual behaviors as well, right, I feel like some
of uh, the interracial couples often fall in those westerns
(22:05):
where the prairie heroine falls in love with a Native
American and then just the horrible stereotypes poor fourth in
the book I love that you have. I did not
know about your well, no lot of other people I
know I do. I want to know more. But at
(22:26):
the same time, one of the blogs reported on that
September two thousand eleven study suggested that perhaps they should,
you know, open up if we're going to analyze romance novels,
because there are, you know, lesbian themes. There are male
on male romance novels, there are interracial novels, and um
romance novels that explore a broader array of sexual fetishes
(22:50):
and behaviors that maybe even even this study isn't. Um
you can't summarize the entire genre just by looking at
a small subset, right, But I don't think there have
actually been a ton of romance novel studies. I mean,
as popular as these things are, there's not like a
huge amount of research out there. For as many women
who purchase these books and as many bad assumptions as
(23:14):
there are about the whole genre, you would think that
that more research would be done. So maybe people, actually, hey,
people who have a lot of time in your hands,
maybe you can look into other types of romance novels
other topics. Yeah, and I and I should point out
um as additional resources if you are interested in learning
more about the romance novel genre. I do recommend checking
(23:35):
out Beyond Heaving Bosoms, which is by Sarah Wendell and
Candy Tan who have a blog about romance novels from
a more academic perspective. Um. And there's also the book
Dangerous Men and Adventurous Women by Jane and Crentz that
also kind of dissects what's going on. Well. I for one,
(23:56):
now that I have shared with all of you that
I have read a lot of romance. Well, I don't
you know. It's I don't think i've read one since
last week. Yeah, about three hours, since early high school.
I think the last romance novel I read was in
(24:17):
the Outlander series, which is that's one of the favorites
from Good Read. Yeah. Well she wrote Outlander, Diana Gobald
and she read Outlander and it was so fantastic. I
don't know if I would like it now, I mean,
I have no idea, but I loved it. It's about
this woman who goes back in time through some stone
in Scotland and is like hanging out the highlands and guilt,
(24:39):
big giant Gingerman and uh yeah, Kilts are involved. And
then in another book she comes back again and brings
back penicillin. You just can't do that. You can't mess
with the space time Continueum like it? Then anyway, anyway,
I'm getting carried away. Um And I didn't. She she
wrote several books after I stopped reading. I think I
read three. Um. I've gone on too long about this,
(25:01):
but I would like to know our listeners favorite romance novel. Right,
I have to admit I'm not I'm not all that
personally familiar. I don't have the insight first insight that
you do Caroline into um the romance novel genre, but
reading about it for this episode, my interest is very
much piqued. And I think that it is time for
us to to ease off the the stigma against Rrian's
(25:25):
novels because if anything, hey one point three billion dollars
in sales, at least, it's keeping the publishing industry alive
during these difficult times, I know. So let's let's give
some respect where respect is due. And yes, please send
us your favorite romance title and your favorite types of heroes.
Are you a cowboy lady? Do you prefer doctors and surgeons?
(25:46):
What do you like? What do you like? Let us know?
Mom Stuff at how stuffworks dot com is the email
address to send to christ and we have an email
from Emily. This is HARKing back to our single podcast
or are Single down Singleness podcast? She said that she
(26:06):
thought it was good, but I felt like you really
made being married sound bad. In my opinion, when you're married,
the main focus of your life should be your family.
You made that seem like a bad thing. Now I'm
not married, but from what I've been what I've seen
and been told. If your family is your priority, then
your family is stronger down the road, your best friend
should be your spouse. In my opinion, I don't think
(26:28):
that's weird. That does not mean you can't have friends
or hobbies. You just have to decide for yourself what
is top priority in your life. Thank you, Emily, Thank
you Emily for that perspective. All right, well, I have
an email here from Carlina and this is in response
to our episode on nipples. She said, I recently listened
(26:50):
to your podcasts about nipples and was reminded of my
younger brother who was a mole on his chest near
one of his nipples. We can see how many times
I can see nipples. My other brother and I tease
him growing up and called the moll his triple nipple.
After hearing your podcasts, I realized there might have been
more to the more truth to that joke than we thought,
although it isn't correctly lined up along his milk linb.
(27:12):
I do really enjoy your podcast in some way. Gender
equality is a little bit behind in Korea, where she lives,
and it's nice to be able to listen to more
progressive attitudes. I'm going to email my brother about the
nipple podcast right now. Well, thank you for that triple
nipple story, Carlina, and if you have stories to share
with us, our friends and listeners, please email us at
(27:34):
Mom's Stuff at how stuff works dot com or share
it on Facebook or hit us up on Twitter at
mom Stuff Podcast. And of course, during the week, you
can find us on the blog stuff Mom Never Told
You at how stuff works dot com. Be sure to
check out our new video podcast, Stuff from the Future.
(27:57):
Join how Stuff Work staff as we explore the most
promising and perplexing possibilities of tomorrow. The Houstufforks iPhone app
has arrived. Download it today on iTunes, brought to you
by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera. It's ready, are
you
Stuff Mom Never Told You News
Hosts And Creators
Anney Reese
Samantha McVey
Popular Podcasts
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Therapy Gecko
An unlicensed lizard psychologist travels the universe talking to strangers about absolutely nothing. TO CALL THE GECKO: follow me on https://www.twitch.tv/lyleforever to get a notification for when I am taking calls. I am usually live Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays but lately a lot of other times too. I am a gecko.