KRISTIEN POTGIETER
“When he wasn’t maddening her with desire, he was infuriating her with his words. She feared his touch because she longed for it, and she knew that she wouldn’t be able to resist him again if he kissed her …”
Sound familiar? No, that wasn’t a scene from a school girl’s secret fantasy; it’s a direct quote from an actual book: Ransom my Heart, a Mills & Boon-style romance by Meg Cabot.
In school and in language courses at university you study the works of John Steinbeck. Or perhaps Joseph Conrad or Charles Dickens. You are told that a guy named Shakespeare is (arguably) the greatest writer in the history of the English language. But you fall asleep after only one glance at Macbeth. And no one you know actually reads dear ol’ Will Shakespeare for a bit of “light reading”. In fact, many people rather pick up Mills & Boon romance novels for leisure reading.
The popularity of romance novels first grew dramatically in the 1930s during the Depression years. Publishers noticed that people had an increasing interest in the type of escapism that these romance novels offered.
Even putting Twilight completelyaside, today the romance genre is still the most widely read of all genres in the United States alone. Because romance can easily be combined with drama, comedy, science-fiction and other genres, it makes for the most easily produced genre by large publishers (such as Mills & Boon or Harlequin – the American counterpart to Mills & Boon) and they are sold at immensely low prices.
Any doubt about whether a book is a Mills & Boon-type romance? They are virtually unmistakable – the glossy covers, swirled letters and pictures of bronzed, bare-chested men with scantily-clad girls in their arms should tip you off immediately.
All of these novels follow the same recipe, 150 to 200 pages of so-called “witty” banter or half-hearted bickering in a blooming heterosexual relationship between two exceptionally attractive people with a happy ending (there is always, always, always a happy ending). All of this is interspersed with some saucy fondling and love-making. So people know what they are getting when they buy these books.
And for some, this is exactly why they love them. Alison Cronjé, for instance, a first year studying BA Psychology, says it’s precisely the reason why she occasionally reads a romance novel. “They’re not particularly challenging, so when I feel I need a good story, they never disappoint.”
And when asked whether or not the unrealistic nature of the stories bothers her (for example the fact that the main characters are always so attractive) she says, “No, it doesn’t bother me. Who wants to imagine ugly people falling in love and –kissing and stuff?”
However, Anne Wincott, a first-year BA Journalism student, finds reading romance novels “nauseating and dull”.
“The amount of clichés and gratuitous sex is just ridiculous. Rather give me something well-written and thought-provoking,” she says.
Obviously, reading this sort of novel is a classic escapism technique. Elmari deWaal, a second-year student in actuarial science, associates Mills & Boon with her grandmother. “She is always reading them … I guess I can understand that unrealistic stories with a ‘happily ever after’ would appeal to an older lady. Why would you read something depressing if you don’t have to?”
Many scholars, however, would disagree with her. Notwithstanding the structural predictabilities of romance novels, it has been noted that they always promote a patriarchal relationship – where the woman is noticeably weaker than the man. Plot points often revolve around this premise: The woman needs to be protected and saved by the man in order to be fulfilled.
Violet Winspear, a romance writer, once famously remarked that all her heroes had to be “capable of rape”. The genre is often criticised for endorsing the sexual submission of women to men, an idea thoroughly incompatible with modern ideas. It could be asked whether this is the kind of message to send out to young women reading and fantasising about the men in these novels.
But Martin Webber, a first-year engineering student, tells how he discovered a “secret stash” of Mills & Boon in his older sister’s closet a few years ago. “On the surface she’s very tough, a real tomboy. I don’t think she’d ever even had a boyfriend at that stage. I teased her no end when I found them, but now I realise that those books were probably her way of feeling more like a girl.”
Oh yes, it can be a secret indulgence, a guilty pleasure akin to secretly munching on chocolates while everyone else is asleep – which might be why people are closet romance readers. It’s really obvious that it won’t be any good for you, but oh, does it feel good. Go on, admit it. Or don’t. You are absolutely free to get frisky in your imagination every now and again if you want. And if Mills & Boon can help you to do so, then what’s the harm in a little fantasy?
