You don't really realize how much the romance genre has changed unless you read older, beginner volumes. I don't mean classics like "Emma," or "Wuthering Heights." I am talking about Harlequin, Avon, Silhouette, and similar or related publishers.
Sometime in the last 25 or so years, the genre boomed or bloomed. The word you choose depends on your outlook.
Back in the beginning of the popular romance novel, the girls were all innocent virgins, sometimes with mercenary boyfriends/fiances/fathers. The men were hard appearing but poor misunderstood souls. The girls were secretaries, nurses, or helpless daughters, sisters, orphans; the men were company owners, doctors, womanizers. The girls (not women) were victims; the men (not boys) were rescuing heroes.
It was the beginning of the cliches for the public.
In these older stories, the men often kidnapped the girls. The Rape Fantasy was a really popular plotline, although it wasn't called that. In fact, in those days, it wasn't even recognized as any form of rape. The man, usually 'foreigners' would whisk their innocent victim away -- or finagle her into consent -- and the next thing you know, she's madly in love with him, supposedly for the rest of her life.
They had never heard of the Stockholm Syndrome in those days, either.
I'd like to think there have been changes. There have been changes. The girls are allowed to be women now, and even be sexually experienced. The women are allowed to be the professionals, the bosses. The men are allowed to have emotions. They are allowed to discuss their emotions.
They still resort to kidnapping and blackmail to force submission as an expression of true love, but those stories are becoming less frequent and are usually enriched with/by character development. Thank God for that. Stockholm syndrome and rape fantasies aside, I never had much respect for those so-called heroines, and phony heroes.
Now, most romances are written with a modern approach to factors like jobs, family, past, and future. Even romances set in the past are fuller.
But it's a lesson to the writers -- at least to this writer -- to take a peek at the past. To read how we've changed our expectations as readers. To appreciate the simple baby steps that led us into walking, running, driving, and flying away from the one dimensional to the three dimensional. In fact, some romances these days often venture into the fourth dimension. (How exciting is that!?)
I am sure glad that those stories have faded into the past. I don't like them.
I don't like a lot of things in my own personal past, either.
Liking does not equal learning, and that is what we are supposed to do as we grow.
Love gives us roots to grow and wings to fly.
So can romance.
Sometime in the last 25 or so years, the genre boomed or bloomed. The word you choose depends on your outlook.
Back in the beginning of the popular romance novel, the girls were all innocent virgins, sometimes with mercenary boyfriends/fiances/fathers. The men were hard appearing but poor misunderstood souls. The girls were secretaries, nurses, or helpless daughters, sisters, orphans; the men were company owners, doctors, womanizers. The girls (not women) were victims; the men (not boys) were rescuing heroes.
It was the beginning of the cliches for the public.
In these older stories, the men often kidnapped the girls. The Rape Fantasy was a really popular plotline, although it wasn't called that. In fact, in those days, it wasn't even recognized as any form of rape. The man, usually 'foreigners' would whisk their innocent victim away -- or finagle her into consent -- and the next thing you know, she's madly in love with him, supposedly for the rest of her life.
They had never heard of the Stockholm Syndrome in those days, either.
I'd like to think there have been changes. There have been changes. The girls are allowed to be women now, and even be sexually experienced. The women are allowed to be the professionals, the bosses. The men are allowed to have emotions. They are allowed to discuss their emotions.
They still resort to kidnapping and blackmail to force submission as an expression of true love, but those stories are becoming less frequent and are usually enriched with/by character development. Thank God for that. Stockholm syndrome and rape fantasies aside, I never had much respect for those so-called heroines, and phony heroes.
Now, most romances are written with a modern approach to factors like jobs, family, past, and future. Even romances set in the past are fuller.
But it's a lesson to the writers -- at least to this writer -- to take a peek at the past. To read how we've changed our expectations as readers. To appreciate the simple baby steps that led us into walking, running, driving, and flying away from the one dimensional to the three dimensional. In fact, some romances these days often venture into the fourth dimension. (How exciting is that!?)
I am sure glad that those stories have faded into the past. I don't like them.
I don't like a lot of things in my own personal past, either.
Liking does not equal learning, and that is what we are supposed to do as we grow.
Love gives us roots to grow and wings to fly.
So can romance.
