Everything I Know about Love I Learned from Romance Novels

by Sarah Wendell

  —UNVEILED BY COURTNEY MILAN, 2011

  Romance shows us that you have to look out for yourself first, and place the quest for someone else as a secondary concern to your own happiness. This is one aspect of romance novels that many people who don’t read them don’t quite get: at no time is anyone sitting around waiting for Lord Wonderful and His Majestic Pants to come galloping in on a giant (yet well-behaved) horse to sweep the heroine off her feet and into a blissfully purple and fuchsia happy-ever-after. Hell to the no.

  No matter what you may have heard, romance novel heroines are not unilaterally selfless, spineless wimps who achieve a backbone only after being introduced to the erect specimen of manly achievement and consequence that is the hero. You might encounter a doormat heroine, but she is not the quintessential heroine any more. In fact, one thing you must know about romance readers is that we aren’t that impressed with novels featuring women who do nothing until the hero shows up. The most negative romance reviews on any website or online bookstore are frequently directed at books featuring a heroine with no spine to speak of.

  Romance novels often feature women who are already accomplished and men who are relatively happy in their own lives as well. Romances featuring people who pine for someone, anyone who will do everything to make them happy, well, those aren’t romances. To quote the romantic comedy The Holiday: “You’re supposed to be the leading lady of your own life, for God’s sake!” If a person who is content with his life meets someone who makes everything just a little bit more challenging, who both fits and doesn’t fit into his life and his routine, to quote Guy Fieri, it is On Like Donkey Kong: swing the rope, jump the barrel, and save the princess.

  “Romance has taught me to own myself.”

  —OLIVIA T., A READER

  If you get nothing else from this chapter, or this entire book, let it be that romance novels, to quote Olivia, help readers own themselves and learn to become a heroine worth her own happy ending.

  Romances can also help readers fix some not-so-attractive habits. Caroline writes that romances have helped her identify potentially crappy habits of her own: “There were some books that taught me just how stupid some behaviours are. I recognized my own actions in what the heroine was doing. When I stopped reading, I slapped my forehead and exclaimed ‘Wow, she’s a (insert descriptive of asshattery here).’ I stopped and went ‘but, but, but…I done did that with Mr. X. Oh s***!’ I knew that if I read it and it sounded dumb to do, maybe, just maybe, I shouldn’t [do it] either?”

  “Relationships are about compromise.”

  —EVE SAVAGE

  Amber G. also figured out some basics of interpersonal relationships from really annoying plot devices: “Romance taught me…that passive aggressive behaviour is aggravating. Nobody ends up happy when someone is upset and then waits for the other person to read their mind, getting angry when this obviously never happens.”

  Merriam has had an identical experience: “When the ‘big misunderstanding’ in a story is caused by a failure to communicate, it not only annoys me but it reminds me to try and be more open and to talk more about what the issue is, or what is going on in my real life. I am also much clearer about what I am looking for in the other person because I have tried on for size the heroes in romance stories. I also think you can’t underestimate the role of redemption in romance novels, with their message that we all get things wrong and must consciously work on fixing what is broken.”

  Romances also teach that the heroine can be strong and that sex is not the only method through which to achieve intimacy, nor is it always the advisable or even the safest choice. Erotica author Eve Savage says that romances have helped her define what makes for a strong relationship—and what makes for an adventurous relationship as well: “Romances have definitely had an impact in my life. I didn’t start reading them until later (early to mid ’90s), and by then they’d evolved from the ‘wimpy heroine/raping hero’ style to the ‘confident but flawed heroine/strong yet sensitive hero’ style. This enabled me to realize relationships are about compromise. They helped me understand I was worth something and that most important lesson—sex does not equal love.”

  Savage is not the only person who discovered and explored her own self-worth and relationships through the writing of romances. A writer who wished to remain anonymous and went by the name “anonapotamus,” thereby earning a huge giggle and my respect forever, writes that it wasn’t reading romance but writing romance that helped her slowly realize that her marriage was not ideal and that she deserved better for herself: “The more I learned about crafting stories, the more I told myself, ‘It’s a fantasy—this isn’t how real guys think and act; it’s how we (women) want to believe they think and act.’ And I convinced myself that what I had was as good as it was going to get. More, I think somewhere deep down inside, I kept waiting to get through the bad times to the big payoff on the other side.

  “I am also much clearer about what I am looking for in the other person because I have tried on for size the heroes in romance stories.”—MERRIAM, A READER

  “Twelve years, thirty-plus books, and some therapy later, I’m newly single, happier than I’ve been in a long time, and ready to Not Fucking Settle this time around. In the meantime, I’ve got a career I love and family, writer friends, and wonderful stories to keep me company.”

  Another writer who goes by the name Odette Lovegood used romance to help her overcome her own shyness when she met someone she was tremendously interested in—and who was just as shy. But instead of reading it, she and her boyfriend collaborate on fiction with strong romance plotlines: “Writing romance allowed us to get to know one another and express our feelings in ways we never could have otherwise. It got me in touch with my own sexuality, and made me realize that sex isn’t something to be afraid of.”

  Reader and writer Sarah W. (no, not me) says that the books she read helped her figure out what kind of person she didn’t want to be with—and figure out the goals for her own parenting: “Oddly enough, the rape-y, obsessive, I-hate-you-because-I-love-you, he-loves-me-so-it’s-okay romances that were popular (or at least crowded the shelves at the library and the used bookstore) when I was growing up showed me how wrong that sort of behavior is. My own characters (female or male) don’t stand for that—or don’t by the end of the story. And I’m raising my kids to know that real love is so much more than…drama and that they’re worth so much more.”

  WHO WERE THESE RAPETASTIC ASSCLOWN HEROES?

  * * *

  Once upon a time, not so far behind us, romance novels were often populated by heroes who would be a half-step from a restraining order today. They were autocratic, they were self-important, and their goal was to break the maidenhead of the heroine, often by force or forced seduction, such as overwhelming her with assertive sexual conduct until the poor, overwrought, confused thing could no longer think for herself. Think of it as the historical equivalent of a roofie, only written in purple prose. If this sounds miserable, well, it often was. These are what we call Old Skool romances. The focus of the Old Skool romance is most often the heroine, because the stories were mostly about her journey to self-discovery and orgasms described in terminology usually reserved for natural phenomena. The heroines of Old Skool romances are often helpless under the influence of the alpha male assholes (whom we call alpholes), and while these books reflected the sexual ambivalence of the time in which they were published, they are not always popular with romance readers today.

  Caroline, another eager romance reader, agrees that identifying behavior that repulses you in fictional portrayals makes it a lot damn easier to spot it in real life: “Romance novels taught me it is never OK to let a man take advantage of you. I was so turned off in my early reading years with the ‘force my mighty sword-o-lovin’ on you and you will love and loathe me for it’ storyline. Ick. I remember never allowing a guy to just slobber and grope his way about without my explicit permission, remembering how awful it sounded when I read sc
enes such as that. The ‘I can’t stop, I’m so in lust and out of control for you’ line never worked on me. A knee to your groin will help then, right? Romance novels [also] taught me it is OK to fantasize, and dream, and take pleasure in someone else’s happy ending without needing to compare my own happy ending, or dejectedly pine that my romantic life sucks. It’s fiction, it’s fantasy, and it’s healthy, but it’s not real.”

  “Romance novels taught me it is never OK to let a man take advantage of you.”—CAROLINE, A READER

  Emotions are tricky, and, as Smart Bitches cofounder Candy Tan wrote in our book Beyond Heaving Bosoms: The Smart Bitches’ Guide to Romance Novels, we are, especially in the United States, taught early that emotions are squicky, uncomfortable things that should not be talked about and certainly not displayed too much. Some people are very skilled at dampening their own emotions, and the safe harbor of reading romance and knowing that the emotional response you might feel for the characters or the story will end happily and without loss or grief is an equally safe space to explore emotions one might not otherwise want to feel at all. One reader, Em, writes, “I’m a fairly emotionally dead person when it comes to real life, so fiction gives me people I can care about without the pain that caused my apathy in the first place. Romance novels—being so emotionally charged—are the best for that.”

  Amber G. is a shy person who figured out with the help of romance novels how she might interact with people she doesn’t know: “The first thing romance as a genre did for me was teach me about flirting. It was romance that taught me how to smile, how to meet someone’s eyes, that relaxing was good and so was dressing nicely and looking as though I cared.”

  “The first thing romance did for me was teach me about flirting. It was romance that taught me how to smile.”—AMBER G., A READER

  Jill Q. says, “I think what romances taught me was that it was OK to feel and have positive emotions, to be an optimist not just about love, but about anything. I think romance, like all genre fiction, generally has a positive message. You can stop the evil overlord, catch the murderer, fall in love. Be proactive about your life and good things will happen.”

  Amanda M. says that when she was reading romances as a teen, “it was quite reassuring to read the ‘plain girl gets the guy’ stories. I was just entering that very awful awkward stage with gaining weight in the wrong places, gaining in the right place but not being ready for it, pimples, and all that other stuff. I was not only an ugly duckling, but a shy, lonely duckling. But I read books where the heroine was sometimes plump and plain, yet her intelligence and sweetness earned her love from a good man. It helped me to keep believing that even if I wasn’t the beautiful, vivacious prom queen, I still deserved and could find someone who loved me without a miraculous makeover.”

  “You look good,” Cal said, with enough tension in his voice to make it an understatement.

  “It’s not a fat dress,” Min said, turning back to the mirror. “It doesn’t hide anything.”

  “Haven’t we talked about this?” Cal said, coming to stand behind her.

  “Yes, but my mother has talked since then,” Min said. “Also, there’s this mirror which tells me I don’t have much of a waistline.”

  “You have a waistline.” Cal put his hands on her hips. “It’s right here.” He slid his hands across her stomach and she shivered, watching him touch her in the mirror. With Cal’s hands on her, she looked different, good, and when he pulled her back against his chest, she relaxed into him and let her head fall back on his shoulder. “Very sexy dress,” he whispered into her ear, and then kissed her neck. She drew in her breath and he whispered, “Very sexy woman,” and moved his hand up to her neckline, drawing his finger down the edge of the silky fabric, making her shudder as the heat spread and she began to feel liquid everywhere.

  “I have to stop drinking wine when I’m with you,” she whispered to him in the mirror. “I start believing all this garbage you tell me.”

  —BET ME BY JENNIFER CRUSIE, 2008

  In addition to owning ourselves, romance novels teach women to be confident in our strengths. Reading about heroines who have a continual need to please gets old, unless that heroine learns to please herself first. Selflessness is not an admirable trait when it means you give away everything about yourself, and that includes both men and women. I’m not saying selfishness is the key to being heroic—it surely is not. But molding yourself to the expectations of others is not heroic either, and misleads everyone, including you, and makes for a heroine about as exciting and passionate as plain yogurt at room temperature.

  The trick to being the heroine of your own story is being happy with who you are. Confidence and accomplishment are hot damn sexy.

  Certainly women are bombarded with messages that they should achieve perfection in the eyes of everyone around them, but the same messages are sent to men as well. The trick to being the heroine of your own story is being happy with who you are. Confidence and accomplishment are hot damn sexy.

  Just as there is no one single type of romance novel, there is no one way to read romance, and there’s no one way that readers use their romance-reading. Women read romance and bring it into their lives in many, many different ways. Identifying their own likes, desires, and senses of worth—and of being worth the effort so they don’t feel the need to settle for less than what they want—is only part of the value of romance for the reader. In addition to knowing ourselves, we also know happiness, and romance makes readers happy in a myriad of ways.

  Happiness, much like something spilling in the fridge, has a trickle-down effect, only much less sticky.

  Now, this is not to say that romance readers are unhappy. They are not miserable and seeking panacea and palliative emotional fluffing in their reading. Most romance readers are happy already—and their reading material increases their joy and allows them to bring it to others. Would you rather have your dinner with your happy mom or your unhappy mom, your happy wife or your unhappy wife? Happiness, much like something spilling in the fridge, has a trickle-down effect, only much less sticky.

  Romance readers bring their romance to life as they read it and find happiness, and they bring that happiness to their lives after they’re done reading. As Harlequin’s research has revealed, romance readers give themselves the gifts of time, quiet, peace, and hopeful optimism as they read—and they bring those gifts to others. In doing so, they recognize themselves and find validation and affirmation for their own desire for happiness.

  And, equally important, after they learn to identify what they want in a relationship, they learn they can and will find it.

  We Know More Than a Few Good Men

  Ah, romance heroes. If you judge the books by their covers (and really, I can’t tell you enough that you shouldn’t be doing that), then you have a pretty powerful, well-muscled idea of what a romance hero should look like. In fact, copying the appearance of a romance novel cover model is not that difficult, provided you can work out for many, many hours, eat lean protein, and flex your biceps and abdominal wall for hours on end.

  Once you’ve acquired the musculature, which only takes a few unending months of nonstop bodybuilding, the payoff is that the rest is easy.

  SIX SIMPLE STEPS TO LOOKING LIKE THE QUINTESSENTIAL ROMANCE HERO

  STEP 1

  Acquire a mullet.

  STEP 2

  Spend an uncommonly long time working on the style, shine, and bounceability of that mullet.

  STEP 3

  Don’t let anyone but the heroine touch your mullet. (That is not a euphemism. No, wait, it could be.)

  STEP 4

  Maintain a state of partial undress wherein your shirt is unbuttoned but still tucked in.

  STEP 5

  Ensure that the wind is buffeting your manly chestular landscape in as flattering a manner as possible.

  STEP 6

  Be careful of your strategically placed weapon. Sometimes, ok, a lot of the time, there is a gun pointed busi
ness-end-down in the waistband of your pants. Or, perhaps there’s a sword, unsheathed, of course, along side your femoral artery. All I’m saying is, be careful. You’ll put your eye out.

  In reality, the most common image of romance manhood as depicted on the covers is as ridiculous as the idea that mullets were ever a solid fashion choice for one’s hair. And because of the over-the-top, top-heavy images of males in romance, one of the most common accusations tossed in the direction of readers is that all that romance reading gives women unrealistic expectations of love, of sex, and of men in general. Too much romance and we readers will expect our men to be as muscled as the men on the covers, as well-coiffed and overdeveloped and as clueless about normal shirt wearing as the average model. That visual perfection of the cover has, unfortunately, intimidated more than one mortal male, who thought that the men inside were as outsized and overly perfect as the depiction on the cover.

  Once again: deep-fried bullpucky.

  Let me get the obvious hero business out of the way first:

  Romance readers do not expect real men to closely echo and emulate the heroes of our nearest romance novel. No, not even that one, with the buns so tight you could bounce a yak off his left buttock.

  Really.

  It is true that sometimes the male characters are idealized, and the sex is sometimes—okay, frequently—idealized. More importantly, the male depicted on the cover more often than not bears no resemblance to the hero of the story itself. But readers can tell the difference between fantasy and reality when it comes to actual human males—and they’re smart enough to know how the fantasy can educate and inform their own reality. Nowhere is this more obvious than with men.