The Power of Popular Culture: Community, Fandom, and Sexual Politics

A dissertation presented to

the faculty of

the Scripps College of Communication of Ohio University

In partial fulfillment

of the requirements for the degree

Doctor of Philosophy

Kelly L. Choyke

December 2019

© 2019 Kelly L. Choyke. All Rights Reserved. This dissertation titled

The Power of Popular Romance Culture: Gender, Fandom, and Sexual Politics

by

KELLY L. CHOYKE

has been approved for

the School of Media Arts & Studies

and the Scripps College of Communication by

Eve Ng

Associate Professor of Media Arts and Studies

Scott Titsworth

Dean, Scripps College of Communication

ii Abstract

CHOYKE, KELLY L., Ph.D., August 2019, Media Arts & Studies

The Power of Popular Romance Culture: Gender, Fandom, and Sexual Politics

Director of Dissertation: Eve Ng

The following study uses a feminist ethnographic approach to explore the relationship between the romance , , and fandom, as well as how women are experiencing and sharing romance in their everyday lives. Furthermore, this study tackles the nature of the cultural stigma against the romance genres, and how readers and navigate and respond to said stigma. The goal of this study was to highlight and explore the significance of gynocentric in popular culture, as well as the nature of gynocentric participatory culture. Readers and writers understand the cultural stigma that surrounds romance novels in the context of cultural misogyny and literary elitism in the publishing world. The enduring appeal of romance novels for readers and writers is characterized by romance novels as spaces of hope, optimism and escape; as spaces of feminist resistance within an increasingly neoliberal, or individualistic, patriarchal culture; and as texts that explore and celebrate female subjectivity and sexuality. Furthermore, romance novels, as gynocentric participatory spaces, resist publishing industry standards and literary elitism, blur the producer- consumer binary, and champion a model of feminist ethics and care over a competitive hierarchal value system.

iii Dedication

For Romancelandia, May She Ever Endure.

.

iv Acknowledgments

I would like to thank the many people who assisted me throughout the dissertation process, including Dr. Kay-Anne Darlington, Dr. Kristin Distel, Dr. Kim Little, Dr. Loran

Marsan, Dr. Sarah Parsloe, and Dr. Alex Reed. Many thanks to my committee, Dr. Eve

Ng, Dr. Nicole Reynolds, Dr. Christina Beck, and Dr. Roger Cooper. I would also like to thank the friends and family who provided support these many years, Paula and Tyler

Choyke, Chelsea Dooley, Jacquelyn Phillips, Laura Thomas, Diana Schoonover, Lacey

Rogers, and The Captain. I would particularly like to thank all of the romance writers and readers who participated in this study; there would be no dissertation without you. Thank you to Romance Writers of America for the support you provided, both in helping me gain access to participants, as well as the academic grant that allowed me to complete my research. Finally, I would like to thank superstar romance fans, and my good friends,

Laura Gregory, Meg Reimer, Amy Hankins Hood, and Melody Kraley Pyman for so enthusiastically supporting my research.

v Table of Contents

Page

Abstract ...... iii Dedication ...... iv Acknowledgments ...... v Chapter 1: Introduction ...... 1 Chapter 2: Review ...... 11 The Evolution of Feminine Narratives in Publishing ...... 11 A Review of Romance Scholarship ...... 21 The Patriarchy, Feminism, and Sexual Politics ...... 29 Romance Readers as Fans ...... 33 Chapter 3: Methods ...... 41 Chapter 4: Because Women: Misogyny and the Romance Stigma ...... 54 The Patriarchy, Women’s Writing, and Mass Culture ...... 63 “Happily Ever Afters” and Formulas: Conventions are Suspect ...... 70 Emotions are Irrational: Misogyny, Toxic Masculinity, and the Romance ..... 74 Why are More Realistic than the Female Orgasm?: Romance Novels are Dangerous ...... 78 Conclusion: Romance Novels are Bad for Women ...... 87 Chapter 5: Gynocentric and Desire: The Enduring Appeal of the ...... 90 Hope, Optimism, and the Romance Novel ...... 96 Feminism and the Subversion of Neoliberal Androcentrism ...... 105 Romance Novels as Spaces of Female Sexual Freedom ...... 111 Conclusion: Romance Novels and Feminism ...... 121 Chapter 6: The Romancelandia Collective: Gynocentric Production and Participatory Culture ...... 128 Gender and Fan Studies: Emotions, Attachment, and Femininity ...... 131 Romancelandia: The Profitability of Gynocentric Production ...... 135 Producers are Consumers: Disrupting the Producer-Consumer Binary ...... 146 Fandom in Romancelandia: Gynocentric Participatory Culture ...... 156 Internet forums and podcasts...... 158 Romance conventions...... 159 vi Conclusion: Future Research on Romancelandia ...... 162 Chapter 7: Conclusion ...... 164 References ...... 175 Appendix A ...... 191 Appendix B ...... 193 Appendix C ...... 194 Appendix D ...... 195 Appendix E ...... 197

vii Chapter 1: Introduction

When media scholars refer to “significant global media markets,” romance novels do not immediately come to mind; and yet, popular romance is a billion dollar industry, out-selling every other year after year (RWA, 2019). Despite the general decline in reading and publishing, the romance genres have greatly increased publication rates over the past decade (Ramsdell, 2012; RWA, 2019). With an consisting of at least eighty-two percent women, the romance genres are texts produced largely by women, for women (RWA, 2019). Furthermore, romance is one of the few media platforms where women are creating stories primarily for women, often without consideration of a normative, or androcentric point of view.

Other media targeted towards women, such as and television, typically take into account the more mainstream, or male, point of view as the producers want to reach as large a demographic as possible. Moreover, while men may not outnumber women within a demographic, androcentric narratives are desirable, as patriarchal mass culture equates maleness with humanness. The bulk of mass mediated content typically utilizes an androcentric framework, as the male viewpoint, or logic system, is the norm

(Fetterley, 1978; Regis, 2003; Russ, 1983; Warhol, 2003). In a world that caters to more mainstream androcentric content, the majority of the stories found in the media are not only androcentric, but often negligent of women’s experiences and perspectives. Popular romance is truly one of the few communities and forms of media where both the male

1

point of view is not centralized, and women are responsible for the production and distribution of the media product.

While romance genres have often been considered lowbrow genre both in popular culture and the publishing world in the past, bound by rigid conventions (Regis,

2003), popular romance has expanded throughout the years to include dozens of subgenres and hybrid genres. Romance Writers of America (RWA) defines romance novels as fictional narratives that must contain two elements: a love story and “an emotionally satisfying and optimistic ending” (RWA, 2019). RWA further explains that in romance novels “the lovers who risk and struggle for each other and their relationships are rewarded with emotional justice and unconditional love” (RWA, 2019). Thus, a romance novel must have a love story and a positive ending, but could be a , historical, , paranormal, etc. What was, in the 1980s, a million dollar market with limited genres of romance, is now a billion dollar global industry, complete with hundreds of romance genres, sub-genres, and hybrid genres (Ramsdell, 2012; Regis,

2003).

Romance novels come in two formats, category or “series” romance— numbered sequentially and released at regular intervals by a specific imprint/brand, such as Harlequin Presents, that generally do not exceed 100,000 words—and single-title romance—longer romance novels that are released individually, as opposed to sequentially (RWA, 2019). Category romances are less expensive, shorter novels and writers generate particular types of narratives, published under specific imprints, such as

Harlequin Nocturne (paranormal category romance). Overall, romance novels reach

2 millions of women around the globe every year, and global sales have indicated romance novels have managed to transcend culture (Regis, 2003).

Mainstream literary critics would have us believe that romance is inconsequential, and many literary scholars either ignore the genre or condemn it for perpetuating a patriarchal ideology (Regis, 2003). In her iconic ethnographic study of romance readers,

Radway (1991) gave readers of romance a history, a community, and a sense of power outside of the traditionally derogatory view of romance readers. She found the content of romance novels in the 1980s to be rooted in patriarchal ideology and male privilege.

However, Radway concludes that by reading romance genres, enjoying them, and sharing them with others, women were not simply accepting the patriarchal context of the texts; they were escaping the everyday hardships of women’s existence within patriarchal culture. Essentially, Radway finds that romance readers consume romance genres as an assertion of autonomy, as well as a declaration of independence from domesticity and the position as principal caregiver in the family. Thus, even as romance novels reproduce so many dominant tropes, popular romance is also a space of resistance and escape from gendered expectations for women.

The study of popular romance is significant because romance genres encourage female empowerment, examine and comment on social, political, and economic themes within modern culture, and provide a space for escape, imagination, and reflection

(Frantz & Salinger, 2012; Lee, 2008; Lynch, Sternglantz & Barot, 2012; Modleski, 2008;

Owens, 1997; Phillips, 1992; Radway, 1991). Moreover, romance genres celebrate women’s freedom by focusing on the pain, inspiration, and joy that comprise fragmented

3 female identities (Regis, 2003, p. xiii), a shared female experience, as well as how hierarchies of gender, class, and taste intersect with pleasure (Sender, 2012). More and more women every year turn to popular romance for escape, entertainment, and self- empowerment and self-nurture (Arnold, 1999; Krentz; 1992; Mussell, 1999; Radway,

1991; Regis, 2003; Thurston, 1987).

The first edition of Radway’s (1984; 1991) iconic study of the romance industry was published in 1984 and provided theoretical and practical inspiration for my research.

However, Radway (1991) intended for the results of her study to be hypotheses for future academics to use as stimuli for further, larger scale research. While Radway’s research provided rich data on the psychology of romance reading, her sample size was relatively small and homogeneous. The aim of my study is to expand on Radway’s ethnographic work with significantly more participants, a mixed methodology, and research questions that contextualize the role of romance novels in the everyday lives of women, in interpretive communities, and within larger structures of power. Furthermore, while

Radway’s study included only romance readers within a specific region of the United

States, I spoke to readers, writers, and industry professionals from around the United

States and when I conducted my fieldwork. I have grounded the theoretical framework for this study in feminist theory (Genz and Brabon, 2009; Halberstam, 2012;

McRobbie, 2007; Tasker and Negra, 2007), feminist media studies and critical and cultural theory (Harzewski, 2011; Kruks, 2001; Mankakar, 1999; Modleski, 1991; 2008;

Mohanty, 2003; Radway, 1991; Weisser, 2013), fan studies (Bacon-Smith, 1992; Booth,

2010; Gray, Sandvoss, & Harrington, 2017; Hill, 2002; Jenkins, 2006; Zubernis, &

4 Larsen, 2012) and popular romance studies (Frantz & Salinger, 2012; Fowler 1991;

Hollows, 2000; Jackson, 1995; Kamblé, 2014; Khan, 2015; Krentz, 1992; Lee, 2008;

Linden, 2018; Luther, 2018; Lynch, Sternglantz & Barot, 2012; Lyons & Selinger, 2015;

Modleski, 2008; Owens, 1997; Phillips, 1992; Radway, 1991; Regis, 2003; Vivanco,

2012; 2016). My intent was to use an interdisciplinary lens when analyzing my data, therefore I utilized a variety of critical and cultural disciplines.

The following ethnographic study of popular romance culture explores the fundamental appeal of the romance genres for readers and writers, and its relationship to feminism. My study is both empirical and conceptual in nature and addresses several central research questions: (1) How do readers and writers understand the cultural stigma towards romance novels? (2) What is the modern appeal of romance genres for readers and writers? (3) How may academics understand the relationships between romance writers and readers in the context of fandom? and (4) How do fans of romance understand the relationship between romance novels and feminism?

I quickly found that the most effective means of accessing a large number and variety of participants across the was at the two largest annual romance conferences, RWA 2015 and RT Reviews 2015 and 2016. Both conferences were excellent locations in which to conduct my fieldwork because they provided me with the opportunity to talk to readers, writers, publishers, and industry professionals from various locations throughout . Overall, my chosen locations and ranges of methodologies produced rich data in a time-efficient manner. I utilized a triangulated, or integrated, qualitative research design that features participant observation, ethnographic

5 interviewing, in-depth interviewing, focus groups, and qualitative questionnaires. The integrative approach provided me with a variety of tools with which to collect data that accounted for personal preferences for individual versus group communication, as well as the opportunity to explore participant feedback in in both interpersonal and group settings.

The purpose of my study is not to interrogate the reproduction of conventionally gendered narratives that reinforce structures of power, as many have done before, including Modleski (2008), Radway (1991) and Berlant (2008). Neither is my aim to answer the question of whether romance novels categorically reinforce unhealthy power structures within the pages of the texts. Rather, my aim is to explore the relationships that readers and writers have with the texts, and with “romancelandia.” I use the term

“romancelandia”—a popular catchall phrase within romance participatory culture to refer to all things romance novels—within my dissertation to refer to the collective realm of romance novels. The fact that romance novels have evolved, as the narratives have changed alongside women’s rights and positionality in society over the past 40 plus years, is a clear indicator that romance novels speak to women’s contemporary issues.

Some romance novels are written within fantastical matriarchal or non-gendered futures or alternative realities; the majority, however, speak to the realities of contemporary culture. The United States is a patriarchy; (white) men hold the majority of the wealth and political power in contemporary America, and the Equal Rights

Amendment remains unratified in 2019. Women comprise the majority of those who live in poverty and fear of everyday violence. Women’s bodies are used by the patriarchy to

6 sell everything from food to , and to justify the violence and wars of men.

Narratives and media in modern culture steeped in victim blaming and rape culture are common, as contemporary culture still looks to women to be the gatekeepers of sex, yet at the same time the patriarchy expects women to present themselves as perpetually

“fuckable” (Dines, 2010). Despite many decades since the advent of second-wave feminism in the U.S., the “#MeToo” movements in America and elsewhere, particularly within the media industry, have recently brought into mainstream discussion myriad cases of sexual harassment, abuse, and assault, especially within professional and personal relationships across various media platforms, including film, television, and music (Leah, 2018; Marling, 2017). Despite the loss of career and status for some, such as Harvey Weinstein and Matt Lauer, it remains unclear how such gendered power dynamics will be prevented and addressed going forward as date rape culture, sexual harassment, and gendered violence continue to reflect and comprise gendered inequalities

(Leah, 2018; Marling, 2017).

Women navigate a world built for men every day of their lives, and romance novels, as gynocentric texts, speak to women’s embodied experiences. However, I do not textually analyze romance novels in my study, nor their apparent “compliance” with gender stereotypes. Nor does my study claim that every single romance novel is healthy, empowering, well-written, feminist, or challenges dominant structures of power. Despite the extent to which the genre has been complicit with white heteropatriarchy, my study of the romance genres concludes that romancelandia ultimately advances many feminist goals in an era many would label postfeminist, and thus feminist academics should not

7 easily dismiss such narratives.

The romance genre is heterogeneous, within which one continually sees a wide variety of sub-genres and emerging dedication to racially diverse and non-binary (Alter, 2018; Rosman, 2017). While romance novels have always struggled with racial and ethnic diversity, as well as LGBT and non-binary representation, academic conversations about reading and writing across racial and gender barriers have begun to emerge. As is common with many marginalized female-centric spaces, such as soap operas, romance novels have remained more open to progressiveness (Rapping,

2002), as well as to changes in publication, genre, and the producer-consumer relationship than have traditionally dominant, or predominantly white and male spaces

(Larson, 2017). The romance’s positionality as a lowbrow and trivial genre has allowed more freedom for experimentation and innovation with the rise of digital publishing in particular, as the publishing industry has typically not deemed the genre worthy of scrutiny.

Romance novels provide a safe space to escape where women control the narratives, the value systems, the treatment of their bodies, and the outcomes. Romance authors do not render women’s thoughts, ideas, dreams, and desires as inherently trivial within the pages of a romance novel, and there is real power in female-centric communities that provide escape and kinship for readers and writers. I used a feminist ethnographic approach to explore the relationship between the romance genres and feminism, as well as how women experience and share romance novels in their everyday lives.

8 Additionally, I investigate the nature of the cultural stigma that surrounds the romance genres, and how readers and writers navigate and respond to said stigma. I explored participatory culture in romancelandia as an insider, for I enjoyed reading romance novels prior to my academic interest in such gendered technologies and spaces.

Due to the years I had already invested in reading and enjoying romance novels, I was able to throughout the romance community without suspicion. I had the privilege of authors and readers not viewing me as an outsider with an unknown “academic agenda,” as I could easily (and joyfully) display my sincere interest in the genre by revealing my subcultural capital (Thornton, 1999)—my ability to engage in conversations about popular authors and novels as a genuine fan. My personal interest in gendered spaces stems from my everyday experiences as a female-identified person who does enjoy gendered technologies—female-centric media—and my intentions have always been to explore said spaces within the context of my female subjectivity as an academic.

The following chapters explore how readers and writers understand the reputation of romance novels in mass culture, the appeal of the modern romance novel, and the participatory nature of the romance community. Chapter 2 presents a literature review, while Chapter 3 is an overview of the methodology. Chapters 4, 5, and 6 provide an analysis of the data collected for my study. Each chapter addresses a primary research question, with Chapter 4 navigating the nature of the stigma that haunts the romance genres, Chapter 5 exploring how readers and writers characterize the contemporary appeal of romance novels, and Chapter 6 examines romance novels as spaces of gynocentric production and participatory culture. Chapter 7 provides a conclusion of the

9 study’s findings and discusses the larger cultural implications of my research.

10 Chapter 2: Literature Review

The following is a literature review of previous research and academic discourse that helped guide my study. I begin with a brief overview of the history of narratives produced for women in American mass culture to display the evolution of the romance genre, followed by an exploration of romance scholarship. Romance scholarship as a discipline has grown in the decades since Modleski (1982) and Radway (1984) first published in the early 1980s, but audience (reader/) research has been lacking since

Radway’s ethnographic study of romance readers. A brief discussion of patriarchal power, neoliberalism, postfeminism, and sexual politics follows, in order to contextualize the analysis of my data. My literature review ends with an exploration of fan studies and helps to contextualize the methodology section, as previous fan studies, romance scholarship, audience analysis, and feminist ethnography all informed my methodological approach.

The Evolution of Feminine Narratives in Publishing

Love stories have existed since the earliest times, first as a part of oral tradition, and then as recorded literature (Percec, 2012). Though dismissed by Plato as an inferior genre, Percec (2012) argues that “romance is a genre, which, after ups and downs over the course of its thousand year history, now holds a leading position in the international publishing market,” (pp. viii-ix). The romance genre’s fall from its elitist literary status is a rather recent phenomenon. romance tales were popular during the middle ages, and English romance was fashionable throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries

(Percec, 2012; Ramsdell, 2012). Unfortunately the Enlightenment period, with its focus

11 on the natural sciences and empirical thought, led to the disappearance of romance genres from popular culture for a time (Percec, 2012). The romance boom in the later eighteenth century set the stage for modern romance genres: authors such as Anne Radcliffe and

Jane Austen continue to be read and celebrated to this day (Percec, 2012; Ramsdell,

2012). Romance genres remained elitist until the end of the nineteenth century, when higher literacy rates and the technological advancements of the industrial revolution led to large middle-class readership of , romance being a favorite (Percec, 2012).

Mass-produced texts for women became possible in the eighteenth century with the rise of printing technologies and an expanding readership among the middle and lower classes (Harzewski, 2011). A rise in literacy in the middle and lower classes, alongside the increasing education of women, provided the catalyst for the mass production of gendered genre fiction (Percec, 2012). As reading became more popular with the lower classes, the romance genre’s disreputable reputation in popular culture began to rise (Percec, 2012).

The Victorian industrial revolution provided the technology needed to produce inexpensive fiction for the masses (LeBlanc, 1996; Masteller, 1996; Sanchez-Saavedra,

1996). Cheaper literature contained stories beyond the notice of producers and critics of legitimate or highbrow literature (Taylor, 2003). Cheap entertainment produced for a lowbrow mass audience included, as Sanchez-Saavedra (1996) points out, “…sensational tales of crime, lust and the supernatural competed for scarce pocket change” (p. 104).

Such narratives were ‘escapist’ texts, meant to provide a cheap and easy thrill that would

12 let men and women forget the reality of their day-to-day lives for a time (LeBlanc, 1996;

Masteller, 1996; Sanchez-Saavedra, 1996).

A succession of papers, dime novels, and pulp magazines eventually gave way to the pulp novel in the mid-twentieth century in North America (LeBlanc, 1996; Sanchez-

Saavedra, 1996; Scott, 1996). Pulp novels were cheap escapist texts for the masses, easily purchased and hidden in a pocket or purse, a precursor to contemporary Harlequin texts

(Wood, 2007). As Foote (2005) notes, “Pulps changed the accessibility and affordability of fiction…paperbacking broadened the number as well as the kinds of readers who might buy fiction” (Foote, 2005, p. 170). Pulp novels were inexpensive pocket-sized books made from inexpensive wood pulp paper with unfinished edges, and readers could purchase the texts in such places as newsstands, drug stores, or bus terminals (Sanchez-

Saavedra, 1996; Scott, 1996). The popularity of pulps surpassed other serial in

North America, such as Harlequin, but by the 1970s they were out of circulation.

The contemporary romance genre began to form in the 1970s with the boom in sensual , better known as “bodice rippers” (Ramsdell, 2012). The market for these texts exploded, and suddenly passionate and sensual stories for women became trendy (Ramsdell, 2012). The 1980s marked another boom in the romance industry with the rising popularity of serial novels and contemporary romance.

Harlequin-Mills and Boon and Silhouette grew to be household names, and a variety of romance genres became available. The romance genres further expanded in the 1990s, and more sexually explicit genres, such as BDSM, emerged (Ramsdell, 2012; Ungar-

Sargon, 2018). Popular romance novels became diverse, a genre essentially comprised of

13 dozens of subgenres (Ramsdell, 2012). Blending across genres also became trendy, and many hybrid genres were born, such as and romantic suspense

(Ramsdell, 2012).

While every multinational publishing corporation today takes advantage of the popularity of the romance genres, Harlequin, Mills and Boon, and Silhouette are three publishing firms that are directly responsible for the global popularity of the romance genres (Dixon, 1999; Regis, 2003). Dixon (1999), Percec (2012), and Regis (2003) collectively provide an informative history of these three publishers. Gerald Musgrove

Mills and Charles Boon founded Mills and Boon in 1908 in London, England. The firm published educational materials, nonfiction, and fiction, such as comic novels, crime, romance, historical, and crime novels. By the 1930s, Mills and Boon was focusing exclusively on escapist texts for women: the romance novel. During the 1910s, Mills and

Boon romance novels focused on the upper classes. The was aristocratic and wealthy, and the heroine was typically younger and from an upper-class family, if not the aristocracy. By the 1920s, the romance novels switched focus to middle-class women.

The stories were typically set abroad and referred to as traveling stories. The hero was more likely to be foreign than English, and the heroine meets him while traveling abroad and earning a living. The Mills and Boon romance novels of the 1920s were more passionate and sexual in nature than previous Mills and Boon romances.

Escapist texts, such as romantic fiction for women, do well during times of political and economic hardship. According to Dixon (1999), despite, or perhaps because of, the Great Depression, Mills and Boon prospered during the 1930s. Travelling stories

14 endured in the 1930s, but domestics became the most popular type of romance.

Domestics are stories that take place in England and revolve around the home and

English womanhood. These novels were less explicitly sexual than the romances from the

1920s, and the housekeeper/homemaker typically triumphed over the glamorous working girl type. Domestics remained popular throughout the 1950s and were particularly popular during WWII, though the heroines themselves were often written as working girl heroines during WWII, as opposed to housewives, a point which will be discussed later on. Though paper rationing was enforced during the war and production decreased, every single romance that Mills and Boon printed during the war sold.

By the 1960s, domestics were out, and romance novels set abroad were back in

(Dixon, 1999). Independent working girl heroines and sheik-heroes became very popular

(Dixon, 1999). The 1960s also brought a shift in production, for Mills and Boon began to print for the first time; with increased circulation in North America via

Harlequin purchasing titles from their catalogues, Mills and Boon was infused with enough capital to switch from hardcover to (Dixon, 1999). In the 1970s, more sexually explicit romance novels became popular, and Mills and Boon began to produce two types of romance novels: a more sexual line, and a less sexual line of books (Dixon,

1999). In 1971, purchased Mills and Boon, and the history of Mills and Boon becomes the history of Harlequin (Dixon, 1999; Regis, 2003).

Harlequin was founded in 1949 in the Canadian city of Winnipeg, by

Richard Bonnycastle, though the company eventually relocated to (Dixon, 1999;

Regis, 2003). Richard Bonnycastle had an informal deal with Charles Boon for reprinting

15 popular Mills and Boon romances (Dixon, 1999; Regis, 2003). Like Mills and Boon,

Harlequin initially printed a variety of fiction at first, but within ten years noticed romance novels, particularly the Mills and Boon reprints, brought in the most sales.

During World War II, romance novels for women were framed around the working girl heroine and portrayed women finding heterosexual love and career success, even if only for a short time. Furthermore, women having jobs was typically not vilified nor blamed for a lack of love life. Independence, though it may be short-lived, was a typical quality of the working girl heroine. As Friedan (2001) explains in The Feminine

Mystique, the end of the war and the subsequent removal of women from the workforce into the domestic sphere also brought about the end of the working girl heroine.

Femininity became synonymous with housewife and mother, and the patriarchy encouraged women to not pursue an education, let alone a career. The patriarchy deemed a career the ruin of femininity and happiness, for women could only be whole by fulfilling their role within the domestic sphere. To do otherwise in the patriarchal culture of the time was abnormal and unfeminine. Popular media reflects the social changes within society; thus, the romance stories for women became puritan fictions rooted in the domestic sphere. Harlequin popularized sexually conservative domestic romance novels, primarily reprinted from Mills and Boon. In fact, Bonnycastle’s wife, Mary Bonnycastle, worked with him to enforce a decency code, and Mary personally examined all of the stories Mills and Boon sent to make sure they were sufficiently sexually conservative

(Dixon, 1999; Regis, 2003).

16 Harlequin, later Harlequin-Mills and Boon, was the primary distributer of popular romance for women in North America from the 1950s into the late 1980s (Dixon, 1999;

Grescoe, 1996). Hubbard (1984) performed a content analysis of thirty Harlequin novels from the 1950s and characterizes them as “Cinderella as virgin earth mother and the prince as benign dictator” (p. 116) novels. The authors of such texts emphasized sexual conservatism in these stories of powerful and masterful men who select heroines with little education, independence, or self-esteem (Hubbard, 1984). More often than not, the heroines in such narratives are grateful to the male hero for taking over their lives and telling them what to do (Hubbard, 1984). At no point in these stories are gender roles or sexuality challenged; they reinforce the role of women as servant class with no resistance

(Friedan, 2001; Hubbard, 1984). There is little to no independence or identity development for the female characters beyond the male hero (Hubbard, 1984).

Hubbard (1984) also performed a content analysis on ten Harlequin novels from the 1960s, characterizing them as featuring “Cinderella as feisty female and the prince as subduer” (pp. 117). Hubbard finds that eight of the ten novels introduced female rebellion before the ultimate submission to the male hero. The heroine attempts to find independence from her male counterpart prior to submitting to the hero’s demands to fulfill her role in the domestic sphere (Hubbard, 1984). While there is some identity development away from the male hero, the struggle for independence ultimately fails before the heroine returns to the male hero (Hubbard, 1984). The reader enjoys a feistier heroine with more character development than the Harlequin heroines of the 1950s; however, the stories remain conservative in nature, with only occasional physical contact

17 between the heroine and male hero, often only a chaste kiss or embrace (Dixon, 1999;

Grescoe, 1996; Hubbard, 1984).

Regis (2003) identifies eight components of a typical romance novel, including the development of the romantic relationship, a barrier (ranging from physical barriers to emotional ones) that characters must overcome, and of course, a betrothal at the end of the story. In later work, Regis (2011) further outlines the archetypes of the romance industry and discusses how explicit guidelines generally govern romance writers.

Similarly, she argues that the book covers have become dependent upon particular visual structures, governed by a handful of visual tropes that include the image of an embracing couple, period costumes, and the ever-popular visage of a physically fit and appealing shirtless man (Regis, 2011).

The romances of the 1960s began to reflect the struggle for gender equality that characterized second-wave feminism, yet they ultimately rejected this struggle in favor of traditional gender roles. As the heroine struggles for equality, she sees that her every effort will meet with resistance, eventually understanding that if she wants to be happy, she must relinquish control to the male hero (Hubbard, 1984). The Harlequin romance novels of the 1950s and 1960s reinforce the idea that women can only find happiness in submission to men and acceptance of the domestic sphere.

The influence of second wave feminism caught up to romance novels in the 1970s by allowing the heroines to express their sexuality, resulting in more sensuous stories containing passionate sex scenes (Ramsdell, 2012; Thurston, 1987). As authors began to recognize women as autonomous sexual beings, feminine narratives began to reflect the

18 sexual desires and of women. More often than not, the popular romance novels of the 1970s were historical romance (Ramsdell, 2012) and brought throbbing members and tumescence, garnering their reputation as ‘bodice rippers.’ Such romance novels presented sexual freedom from a historical distance, which perhaps felt safer or somehow easier to digest for readers. According to Hubbard (1984), while romance genres recognized a woman’s right to sex, these stories, much like the novels of the 1960s, often ended with the heroine realizing that a woman’s fight for equality and independence would ruin her chances at happiness and love. Thurston (1987) positions the narratives of

‘bodice rippers’ and erotic romance as a reflection of the women’s movement. As women’s roles in society change, romance novels reflect these changes, and Thurston champions the normalization of female sexuality, regardless of the patriarchal nature of the texts, that became so readily available to women in the 1970s. However, it is important to note that Thurston was discussing ‘bodice rippers’ initially published by

Avon, such as The Flame and the Flower, which were typically more sexually explicit than Harlequin novels at the time.

In the 1980s, contemporary and historical romance became even more popular, and ‘bodice rippers’ continued to entertain women in North America. For example,

Harlequin’s contemporary romance novels featured heroines with glamorous careers, the strength to demand respect from men, and the ability to overcome hardships on their own

(Hubbard, 1984). The heroine was no longer the isolated, helpless girl of the 1950s but a confident and capable woman.

19 While Harlequin’s basic formula may not have changed since the 1980s, dozens of subgenres and hybrid genres emerged within popular romance in the next decade.

Alongside the more classic romance subgenres of contemporary, contemporary series

(Harlequin-Mills and Boon-Silhouette), inspirational (religious), and historical, there emerged alternative reality genres, paranormal romance (a hybrid genre of romance and /horror), as well as romantic suspense (a hybrid of mystery/ and romance), and ethnic and multicultural texts (Ramsdell, 2012). Otherworldly fictions, particularly paranormal romance, have become increasingly popular in both adult romance and young adult genres. Supernatural, packed, suspenseful thrillers are still one of the most popular subgenres of romance in the contemporary markets (RWA,

2019). Many of these newer subgenres have little to no sexual content but focus more in the lives of women, love, and family values, thus complicating the common tropes and conventions of popular romance.

Furthermore, the popularity of series romance, following one character or group of characters through many volumes, negates the betrothal requirement at the conclusion of any particular volume. Thus, today, the romance genres encompass all texts written for women that involve a gynocentric viewpoint and a romantic relationship, although the scope of the romance does need not to be the sole purpose of the text. The times of the male hero who swoops in and saves the day are coming to an end in many romance subgenres, for the female heroines are fully capable of saving themselves (Phillips,

1992). Essentially, romance novels no longer need to follow the “happily ever after” plotline, for the “happy for now” has become increasingly popular, particularly

20 within series romance, paranormal, and romantic suspense. Overall, romance novels are gendered technologies—narratives produced by and for women—that emerged out of industrialization and the rise of education and literacy in the middle and lower classes, particularly for women. The following section explores romance scholarship that approaches romance novels as gendered technologies.

A Review of Romance Scholarship

Approaches to the study of feminized texts for women have evolved over the decades with changes in modes of thought and the inevitable theoretical shifts that accompany new generations of academics. As shifts in theory and methodology have occurred, so too has the study of popular texts changed. The history of romance scholarship, which primarily began in the 1980s, is an example of these changes.

Androcentric value systems in academia, popular feminist thought, and cultural hierarchies—or legitimacy—were all relevant. The scholarship in the early 1980s featured androcentric dominance in the study of literature and a second-wave and early third-wave feminism that often condemned women-centered narratives. Modleski (2008) and Radway (1991) emerged out of an androcentric academic disdain for female-centric popular culture and second-wave feminist politics of the early 1980s.

Modleski (2008) produced the first notable feminist analysis of the popularity of romance novels in the late 1970s and early 1980s. She uses a critical feminist analysis typical of the interrogation of androcentric texts (Fetterley, 1978), as well as psychoanalytic theory similar to that discussed by Chodorow (1978). Modleski (2008) textually analyzes a selection of Harlequin romance novels in her exploration of popular

21 romance. She points out the lack of criticism of romance novels, as well as the dismissive, mocking, and hostile nature of the criticism that did exist. While Modleski does condemn the existing criticism, her own view of romance novels was problematic, as she refers to the reading of romance novels, and especially her relationship with them, as “unfortunate.” Applying psychoanalytic theory, Modleski finds romance novels to be feminine masochism, a rejection of feminism, a champion of male patriarchal ideology, and not liberating in the least. She asserts that the Harlequin texts she analyzed were formulaic, simplistic, patriarchal texts containing extremely passive heroines. Although

Modleski’s analysis is highly critical, she does state that her intention was not to denounce the romance genre itself but the conditions that make such texts necessary. That is, while romance novels ultimately reinforce dangerous patriarchal ideology in

Modleski’s opinion, the texts do speak to women’s dissatisfaction with the oppression in their day-to-day lives.

Modleski (2008) discusses romance novels as novels of illusion that reinforce the heterosexual fantasy of the perfect man, perfect sex, and lives lived happily ever after.

She expands to discuss romance novels as texts that inoculate against major evils of sexist society, ultimately serving to keep women in their place. Modleski’s analysis is an illustrative example of how scholars approached romance novels in the field of popular romance scholarship and feminist discourse at the time; the work is also firmly within a tradition in academia that assumed total authority over critical analysis of popular culture or culture in general. Similarly, the nature of critical feminist thought at the time was difficult to reconcile with women-centered phenomena (Fetterley, 1978; Russ, 1983).

22 Modleski (2008) conceives of romance novels as a genre of heterogeneous novels that display no author voice or creativity and that always use the same formula and character types. Essentially, she implied that all romance novels are the same, so the identities of the texts she chose were superfluous. Modleski also points to the emasculation, or feminization, of the alpha male hero within the romance novel.

Romance novels rethink traditional masculinity and ascribe an appreciation of the female value system to the male heroes by the end of the novel, and Modleski characterizes this trend as revenge against dominant male ideology. In her use of a psychoanalytic framework to refer to romance novels as texts of revenge, Modleski essentially argues that these novels speak to women’s phallic envy and their need to destroy what they are unable to achieve. This led her to understand the romance novel as a dangerously patriarchal text of revenge that also illuminates women’s dissatisfaction with their daily oppression, and perhaps, lack of phallus.

Radway (1991) also uses psychoanalysis and approached romance novels from a similar of feminist thought; however, her theoretical framework is divergent due to differing methodology. Radway’s theoretical and methodological framework shifted romance scholarship in the 1980s from perceiving romance novels solely as technologies of dominant male ideology to understanding them as spaces of opposition. Radway originally published her study of popular romance culture in 1984, two years after

Modleski (1982; 2008). Although Radway also believed the popularity of romance novels to be a tool of the patriarchy, she endeavored to gain a better understanding of the appeal of the texts by spending time with readers of romance novels. Thus, while Radway’s

23 approach may seem theoretically similar to Modleski’s (2008), her use of ethnography provided data that repudiated Modleski’s analysis of romance novels as not liberating or oppositional. Radway enlists the help of a bookseller who had become a voice of authority in recommending romance novels to her customers, Dot, in what she called the town of Smithton. She conducts two four-hour discussion groups with a total of sixteen romance readers, two rounds of in-depth interviews with five readers (and Dot), two rounds of qualitative surveys (42 participants), as well as participant observation.

Radway’s (1991) use of feminist critical analysis and psychoanalytic theory finds romance novels to be reaffirmations of heterosexuality; however, her use of ethnography helps her discover that the texts are also oppositional because they characterize the inability of heterosexuality to satisfy or fully create female subjectivity. Radway finds that for her subjects, romance novels were a form of compensatory literature, or a boon for accepting their oppression within the patriarchy. As homemakers and mothers, her subjects spent the bulk of their time as caregivers, physically and psychologically taking care of their families. On a day-to-day basis, women provide emotional support for men and children, what Radway refers to as psychological “reproduction” (p. 94). However, it also falls to women to psychologically reproduce and nurture themselves, and Radway argues that the reading of romance novels was a way for women to do so. Readers went on an emotional journey with the romance heroine, and the text always guaranteed a . Romance novels served as compensatory texts because they allowed women to reject, even if momentarily, their self-abnegating social roles. Moreover, while romance novels do champion heterosexual love, they are also the only genre that

24 consistently provides women with strong heroic female characters. Romance novels generally balance the power between the heroine and the hero (see also Thurston, 1987) by requiring the hero to provide the heroine with love and emotional support, creating a mutually nurturing relationship.

Where Modleski (2008) finds romance novels to be dangerously patriarchal,

Radway (1991) finds the texts to be both oppositional to and complicit with heteropatriarchy. Furthermore, Radway characterizes romance novels as a reimagining of dominant masculinity within the context of female values in order to create heroes that were more nurturing, which is in to Modleski’s view of the novels as texts of revenge. Radway’s ethnographic approach helped make clear that instead of simply reaffirming and rendering women complicit with dangerous patriarchal ideology, romance novels exhibit the fundamental inability of heterosexuality to fulfill the desires in which it engenders in women.

Much like her theoretical framework and feminist critical analysis, Radway’s

(1991) methodological approach was also a product of modes of thought within academia in the 1980s, which called for manipulated detachment on the part of researcher

(McCracken, 1988). Thus, Radway kept herself detached from her subjects, acting more as an observer-as-participant, rather than a participant-as-observer (which is a more popular method today). Therefore, more contemporary romance scholars perceive

Radway’s work as somewhat devaluing romance writers and readers. Thurston (1987),

Krentz (1992), Mussell (1999), and Regis (2003) propose new approaches to the study of popular romance culture that privilege a more positive feminist perspective on women-

25 centered texts that called for women to start understanding romance novels as feminist narratives and spaces of resistance.

Thurston (1987) takes a stance against the use of psychoanalytic theory in the study of romance novels for being fundamentally misogynistic. Using content analysis,

Thurston finds erotic romance novels to be empowering for women because they (1) legitimated female sexuality and (2) presented heroines who were older and sexually active, whereas previous romance genres generally featured young, sexually innocent heroines versus sexually active male characters. Beyond Thurston’s work, and throughout the 1990s and into today, romance scholarship has become an increasingly popular field in academia. Today, a number of romance scholars approach romance novels as texts that express the joy, pain, and uplift that women’s increasing freedom in culture has brought (Regis, 2003; Frantz and Selinger, 2012).

Krentz (1992) and Mussell (1999) make clear the significance of having academic discussions with the authors of romance novels. Before the publication of Dangerous

Men and Adventurous Women (Krentz, 1992), academics had largely ignored the voices of romance writers. Both Krentz and Mussell are compilations of essays written by romance writers about various aspects of popular romance culture, including feminism and female empowerment. These essays point to the inability of heterosexuality, and liberal and free market feminism, to satisfy women emotionally and professionally. The romance writers in these two texts discuss the empowerment associated with romance novels as the only genre that consistently contains heroic women, how romance novels

26 balance the power between the heroine and hero, and how they legitimize female desire and fantasy.

Much contemporary romance scholarship engages with textual analysis of individual texts, series, sub-genres, and authors as a means of making larger arguments about culture, politics, history, etc. (Frantz & Selinger, 2012; Fowler 1991; 1995;

Hollows, 2000; Jackson, 1995; Kamblé, 2014; Khan, 2015; Krentz, 1992; Linden, 2018;

Luther, 2018; Lyons & Selinger, 2015; Maclean, 2016; Regis, 2003; Rodale, 2015;

Vivanco, 2012; 2016; Weisser, 2013). While the popularity of romance scholarship has grown over the past two decades, the majority of romance scholarship primarily engages with the context of texts and does not interrogate reader and writer reception and understanding of the romance novels, either as texts or as gendered technologies. For example, Regis (2003) deconstructs the historical context and cultural significance of the romance genres and analyzed their major elements. She argues vehemently against the view of romance novels as narratives of female bondage, but as texts of freedom expressing the pain, uplift, and joy of women’s rights and female subjectivity. In

Regis’s view, to discredit and discount romance novels is to devalue the dreams, desires, and fantasies of women around the globe, as she situates romance novels as transcendent of culture due to their global reach and popularity. What Regis accomplishes is a view of romance novels as historically situated and as evidence of the evolution of women’s rights.

Together, Thurston (1987), Krentz (1992), Mussell (1999), and Regis (2003) advocate for new theoretical approaches to the study of romance novels that situate the

27 texts within the women’s rights movement as feminist texts. Thurston, Krentz, and Regis also point to the need for a more holistic methodological approach if scholars wish to better understand the power and appeal of romance novels. The study of romance novels is important because they are texts of opposition and female empowerment, as well as a source of connection for women.

In a more recent exploration of the romance genres, Kamblé (2014) examines the reputation of romance novels in the cultural imaginary, as well as the content of the texts themselves. Kamblé refers to the genre’s stigma as Media Romance, as mass culture defines and critiques romance novels in relation to the public imaginary of what romance novels are, as opposed to the category of heterogeneous genre fiction it actually is

(Fowler, 1991; 1995; Krentz, 1992; Weisser, 2013). Much like scholarship on soap operas has shown (Brown, 1994; Brown, 1990; Fiske, 1987; Rapping, 2002; Spence,

1995), romance novels represent a space where both the public and private realms value female subjectivity. Romance novels centralize and legitimize women’s voices and desires, and analysis of romance novels as gendered technologies has become increasingly popular with the rise of intersectional feminism in the 1990s.

Due to the lack of ethnography and audience analysis used in romance scholarship, I reviewed various methodologies and feminist ethnographic principles while planning my fieldwork. For example, Fenton (2001) positions feminist media studies as encompassing a range of methods and frameworks for studying popular culture. She posits that feminist media studies need not approach popular culture from a position of shared oppression but from the concept of a shared female experience. My fieldwork

28 explored how reading romance novels helps women cope with or overcome the everyday hardships, or restraints, of being a woman in contemporary culture. Furthermore,

Mankekar (1999) points to the importance of positionality in ethnography, particularly feminist ethnography, as the personal experiences and motivations of the researcher are critical to the outcome of the study. The following section provides an overview of the women’s, gender, and sexuality studies literature that informed this study.

The Patriarchy, Feminism, and Sexual Politics

There have been many methods throughout history for excluding women from the publishing world, and as the presence of women’s writing has risen over the years, men have categorized female-centered texts as middle- or lowbrow media. Hollows (2000),

Fetterley (1978), Jackson (1995), Modleski (1991; 2008), Russ (1983), Radway (1991;

1997), Thurston (1987), Warhol (2003), and Regis (2003) discuss how men have devalued women-centered texts by placing them firmly within the realm of literature for the mass culture and beneath the notice of . As men have traditionally controlled publishing, they control the texts discussed and reviewed. Labeled

“illegitimate” forms of literature in the male battle for control over legitimate forms of culture, women-centered texts struggle to receive critical review. As Woolf (1929) notes, the patriarchy trivializes women’s desires and values in the hopes of maintaining an androcentric value system as it pertains to high culture and “legitimate” literature.

Academia has not been immune from these power structures over the decades, nor has the treatment of literary texts by feminist scholars or critics been exempt.

29 Gender ranking leads to sexism and misogyny, the disdain for, dislike of, contempt for, hatred of, or ingrained prejudice against girls/women and the realm of the feminine, with cultural misogyny forming a significant ideological thread in the “fabric of society” (Valenti, 2007; 2009). Thus, even as social activists have pushed back against patriarchal rule and gained political, economic, and cultural rights, white heterosexual patriarchal power and the value systems that accompany it persist. Feminist theory is counter-hegemonic and explores systems of inequity that impact opportunities and quality of life, chiefly in the context of gender (Collins, 2005; Crenshaw, 1991; Mohanty,

2008; Seely, 2007; Tong, 2014; Valenti, 2007; 2009).

The study of sexual politics emerges during second-wave feminism alongside the study of women as a subaltern group (Firestone, 1970; MacKinnon, 1989; Millet, 1970).

Firestone (1970) and Millett (1970) argue that romance in general is a tool of the patriarchy to keep women oppressed, as gender and sexual scripts function to reproduce male dominance, legitimizing the emotional, sexual, and physical exploitation of women.

More recent feminist scholarship on sexual politics explores sexuality and gender via an intersectional lens, addressing the various ways that cultural discourse surrounding sexual and gender identity may both reproduce and resist oppressive hegemonic ideologies

(Bell, 2013; Collins, 2005; Dines,2011; Valenti, 2007; 2009). For example, in Bell’s

(2013) study of what she terms the “paradox of female sexual freedom” (p. 4) in contemporary culture, she notes that, culturally and socially speaking, society has yet to acknowledge a wide range of sexual subjectivity, particularly female sexuality and desire.

30 Bell (2013) uses “paradox of sexual freedom” (P. 4) to refer to the fact that while women have more sexual and economic freedom than previous generations did, they feel generally confused, conflicted, and uncertain about the goals of sex and love overall.

Specifically, women do not know how to achieve sexual intimacy because they live in an androcentric culture that detaches sex from emotions. Because masculinity encourages sexual aggression and stoicism, emotions and the cultivation of relationships are a sign of weakness and subordination; thus, hegemonic sexuality is emotionally detached. Bell notes that despite the rise of female agency and sexual freedom in contemporary culture, her twenty-something female participants reported feeling a sense of detachment between their sexual and emotional desires, and often deeply ashamed about their sexual urges and desire overall.

The term postfeminism begins appearing in the late 1980s but becomes increasingly popular throughout the 1990s. Modleski (1991) characterizes postfeminism as a that rejected feminism. She posits that the post-structuralist and anti-essentialist movements within feminism (Butler, 1990) scared women away from women-centered behavior and texts, as well as any desire to discuss womanhood or the gendered body. Popular culture and capitalism, in response, began to reject feminism in favor of neofeminism, or “girl power,” in the 1990s. By re-adopting an essentialist perspective of gender, in Modleski’s opinion, postfeminism actually pushes women backwards into a pre-feminist era.

Years later, Tasker and Negra (2007) and McRobbie (2007) take a similar approach to postfeminism, defining it as a neoliberal undoing of feminism. Neoliberalism

31 celebrates the accomplishments of the individual, often at the cost of collectivist or community-driven accomplishments and endeavors (Williams, 2018). Neoliberalism’s focus on monetary capital as the primary marker of value in society problematizes social justice movements (Williams, 2018). Tasker and Negra perceive postfeminism as a cultural phenomenon that champions individualism and consumer choice over the social and political advancement of women. Essentially, they view postfeminism as an apolitical ill of popular culture that reinforces neoliberal capitalism and women as beauty queens and pinups, not a shift in feminism itself. Genz and Brabon (2009) take a very different approach to postfeminism, suggesting that postfeminism is a result of generational, cultural, economic, and political shifts in Western culture. More specifically, they posit that postfeminism was a result of postmodernism, multiculturalism, and anti-essentialism, as well as the increasing shift to a neoliberal capitalism in the United States. Genz and Brabon indicate that postfeminism is an inevitable result of the turmoil within feminism as a politics and an academy, not the end of feminism itself. Neoliberal capitalism and ideology have succeeded in championing individual liberty over social responsibility in the U.S., and Genz and Brabon and

Halberstam (2012) suggest that we should stop demonizing popular culture and instead look to popular culture as space for inciting political action and ideological reform.

Halberstam (2012) and Grenz and Brabon (2009) argue that popular culture is the space where political and feminist advancements can and will be made by progressives and feminists (in large scale), and such theory is essential to my study of popular romance and postfeminism. Popular culture is neither a site for absolute free

32 choice and creativity nor cultural hegemony, but rather a negotiation between dominant ideology and subaltern cultures, movements, and ideas (Genz, 2009; 2010; Genz and

Brabon, 2009; Halberstam, 2012; McRobbie, 1991; Regis, 2003). While some feminists describe postfeminism as an extreme form of liberal feminism, or free-market feminism, in part, postfeminism is a response to increasingly neoliberal political economics and the failure of second-wave, third-wave, and liberal feminists to deliver the equality that women were assured by second-wave and liberal feminists could be attained.

As culture becomes increasingly dependent on media platforms in the navigation of people’s daily lives and personal and professional relationships, understandings of the connections an audience has to a media product has become integral within a wide range of discourses, but particularly so in media studies. How people interact with media in the everyday context of their political, social, and cultural realities and identities can shed light on not only popular culture but also the relationships and connections people form with media objects, with other people, the community, and with institutions (Gray,

Sandvoss & Harrington, 2007). Understanding how media objects affect the daily lives of audience members, or fans, is essential to this research on female readers of romance genres. The following section provides an overview of fan studies as discipline.

Romance Readers as Fans

In order to work within a field of study, one must have an understanding of the history of that field and the context in which it emerged. Romance scholarship emerged in the 1980s, and significant academic publications classified as “fan studies” began to appear in the early 1990s. Fan or audience studies, however, emerged earlier than the

33 1990s, with 1980s works such as Brunsdon and Morley’s (1978) study of British news and socioeconomic class in Britain, Ang’s (1985) study of Dutch fans of the popular prime time American Dallas, and, of course, Radway’s (1991) ethnographic study of readers of romance novels in 1984. Before fan studies emerged as a canon, there was a relationship between romance scholarship and fan studies.

Furthermore, the evolution of fan studies and romance scholarship are similar in many ways.

Jenkins (2006) describes three stages of fan studies, the first stage characterized by the necessity of the researcher to distance themselves from the community they are studying. The second stage of fan studies celebrates fan studies from an insider perspective; this stage was extremely defensive of fans (Jenkins, 2006). Jenkins notes in the third stage of fan studies the identities of academic and fan become less problematic, allowing researchers to explore a wider range of topics involving fandom. Romance scholarship has gone through similar stages, first taking the outsider stance in the study of romance reading, followed by the insider, or liberating and positive view of romance reading, and finally, romance scholarship today allows academics to explore a wider range of topics as the field is viewed with considerably less scorn. Gray, Sandvoss, and

Harrington (2017) describe the evolution of fan studies in the context of waves, much like current theoretical and historical understandings of feminism. The first wave of fan studies was primarily concerned with structures of power and representation (Gray,

Sandvoss, & Harrington, 2017). First-wave scholarship explored fandom within a rigid producer-consumer binary that situated fans as a league of disempowered consumers

34 resisting the top-down structure of media production through subversive techniques to extend the relationship with the object of fandom (Gray, Sandvoss, & Harrington, 2017).

First-(and second-) wave scholarship is often referred to as the activist phase of fan studies, where academics themselves began to “come out” as fans and argue for the construction of a legitimate discourse in order to properly engage with the rise of participatory culture in a technologically mediated society (Gray, Sandvoss, &

Harrington, 2017; Zubernis, & Larsen, 2012). The second wave of fan studies focused on cultural production and hierarchies within fan communities, extending the analysis of social hierarchies and fan objects beyond the producer-consumer binary to explore relationships and hierarchies within fan communities themselves (Gray, Sandvoss, &

Harrington, 2017; Zubernis, & Larsen, 2012). The third wave of fan studies is meant to broaden contemporary and historical understandings of what constitutes participatory culture and fan identity by exploring larger social, cultural, historical, and economic movements alongside participatory culture and objects of fandom (Gray, Sandvoss, &

Harrington, 2017; Zubernis, & Larsen, 2012).

Hill (2002) questions the scholar preoccupation with discussing fans within the context of complicit and resistant behavior and not investigating the cultural impact that fandom may be having. While fan studies currently considers the cultural impact of fandom as critical to the understanding of fans, Hill makes an excellent point about the nature of fan studies being too narrow. Hill criticizes academics for being more concerned with their discipline than their subject of research, being too detached in their , and imagining themselves as the only authority on fandom, which results in

35 ‘Othering’ the fans under examination. Hill suggests that academics write with more passion and personality and make an effort to respect and properly consider the viewpoints of fans.

Hill (2002; 2007) tends to explore the theoretical boundaries of fan studies, as opposed to working with fans, whereas Jenkins (2006; 2007) prefers to work directly with fans in his study of fandom. Previous academic studies that explore romance novel fandom reflect a rather distanced relationship between the researcher and the fan.

Radway (1991) puts forth clear boundaries between her and her subjects in her ethnography of romance readers, as was common in academia at the time; however, years later she questions the ways in which ethnographers distance themselves in her ethnographic research in The Book-of-the-Month Club (Radway, 1997).

Early on, Jenkins (1992) characterizes fandom as reluctant poaching, but over a decade later Jenkins (2006) describes fandom within the context of participatory culture.

Technological innovation, the blurring lines between producers and consumers, and economic trends favoring horizontally integrated, or synergistic, media products fosters participatory fandom. Jenkins (2006; 2007) and Booth (2010) discuss how the relationship between producers and fans has evolved in the past two decades. In order to understand any popular media product, one should understand the political economy and power relationships between producers and consumers. Media producers and mass culture no longer scorn fans but celebrate them. Fandom has become a common aspect of modern culture, and media producers and marketers now target fans for their brand loyalty. Media producers and mass culture’s previous perception of the consumer was a

36 couch potato, but today’s ideal consumer is an active fan (Jenkins, 2007). For example,

Booth provides new frameworks for studying fandom that are useful, for he situates fan studies as the study of identity, texts, and community.

Booth (2010) suggests we assume media is integral to everyday life instead of creating strict boundaries. With increasing technological innovation, the boundaries between the physical and the virtual become less important, as media users have multiple identities. Furthermore, postmodernism and anti-essentialism have done away with the universal subject; thus, as scholars we should look at connections that span multiple subject positions, as opposed to looking for sameness.

In this vein, fan studies often interrogates gender, as a goal of second-wave fan studies was to explore hierarchies within fandoms. Thus, race, sexuality, ethnicity, class, gender, ableism, and other markers have become common categories of inquiry in fan studies. Utilizing an intersectional lens has proven problematic in previous works on fandom. For example, there is a common use of terms such as “excessive” and” inappropriate” when referring to female fans, displays of emotion, female sexual desire, and the “passion”--another term for an emotional attachment--that fans may exhibit

(Bacon-Smith, 1992; Booth, 2010; Hill, 2002; 2007; Jenkins 1992; 2006; 2007; Zubernis and Larsen, 2012; Williams, 2018). Hegemonic participatory culture perceives the female gaze--sexualized gaze of female-identified fans--as inappropriate (Zubernis, & Larsen,

2012; Williams, 2018). Zubernis and Larsen (2012) explore the guilt, pleasure, or the excessive emotional attachment associated with lesser (or less “appropriate”) fan behaviors, practices, and identity in their study of female-driven fandom of the popular

37 CW television series Supernatural (Kripke, 2005). Zubernis and Larsen (2012) point out the reality of female subjectivity within the gender binary, as the patriarchy socializes women to focus on their positionality as subjects of desire, not subjects that desire, thus reinforcing the idea that men desire and on said desire, and women are passive and must be receptive to male sexual interest.

Hill (2002) characterizes fandom as nurturing, and this classification directly relates to this study of popular romance. Women often read romance novels as a means of psychological reproduction or self-nurture, much like women have traditionally watched daytime soap operas (Rapping, 2002). The nurturing aspect of fandom is one of the most significant connections between fandom and romance reading, alongside the role that women have had in participatory fan culture. Jenkins (1992; 2006) discusses the history of fandom within the context of women’s readership. Writers of fanfic were traditionally women, as there were so few gynocentric and urban fantasy texts, and so women had to work to create intimate connections to their objects of fandom.

Furthermore, Jenkins (2006) describes women writing slash as a means of rethinking traditional masculinity by forcing male characters to take emotional responsibility for their romantic and platonic relationships with males and females. Romance novels are notorious for this practice, as the nature of the romance novel is to balance the relationship between the hero and the heroine within the context of emotional responsibility, or the psychological reproduction of one’s intimate partner (Krentz, 1992;

Modleski, 1991; 2008; Mussel; 1999; Radway, 1991; Regis, 2003; Frantz and Selinger,

2012).

38 As previously stated, the study of fans of daytime soap operas has much in common with the study of readers of romance novels. Romance novels, like soap operas, create worlds that make it their goal to live up to women’s impassioned expectations: feminized worlds (Brown, 1994; Rapping, 2002). Soap operas and romance novels both allow to glimpse the mutable nature of identity, particularly the multiple subject positions that comprise womanhood (Bown, 1994; Rapping, 2002). In her study soap opera fans, Rapping (2002) characterizes both soap opera fans and romance readers in the same category, as mass culture dismisses romance novels for their genre conventions and use of :

The (gender- and class-based) shame that fans feel in watching soaps is therefore

understandable. But it is based on a faulty psychological assumption that fans too

often internalize: that pleasure in soaps amounts to taking them at face value. This

is hardly the case. In fact, laughter and ridicule are very much a part of the viewing

experience of fans….This indeed is among the more sophisticated pleasures of

viewing. Fans happily suspend disbelief for the pleasure of escaping into a

tale realm in which dreams and desires and fantasies, despite what we know is

plausible, seem magically to be fulfilled. (p. 63)

If fandom is about a community of media consumers who take pleasure in sharing their fandom with others, extending the relationship they have with the media object, and creating connections based on the pleasure of consuming a media object, then romance readers can most definitely be considered “fans.” Romance readers may not fit the most image of fans, as ComicCon conferences inspire representations of fans more so

39 than the RT Book Review Annual convention for readers, writers, and industry professionals. While cosplay and the more performative aspects of fandom may not be central to fans of romance novels, they are evident at national and regional romance conventions.

Furthermore, romance readers have traditionally had a significant impact on the romance industry. For example, in the 1970s, writers and publishing companies responded to mail from readers asking for more subgenres, better plots, a wider range of heroines, and more sexual content, and publishers and writers responded to those requests

(Thurston, 1987). Today, writers and publishers regularly review reader commentary and conduct focus groups so they may better respond to the desires of readers. One must remember that the romance genres are all about the desires of the readers, and the hundreds of popular subgenres and hybrid genres in the romance genres can attest to the variety of female fantasy that now exists for mass consumption. Romance reading is participatory, whether it be via a personal blog, participation in fan and writer blogs and websites, book clubs (virtual and physical), convention and conference attendance, or deciding to write one’s own romance novels.

Fan studies has grown in legitimacy and variety in scholarship, for fandom is now integral to popular culture. Romance novels and romance readers, however, still carry a significant stigma. At present, romance fans are where the fans in fan studies were in the

1990s, still defending themselves. The following study of romance scholarship will help legitimize popular romance culture, just as the work of Bacon-Smith (1992), Hill (2002;

2007), and Jenkins (1992; 2006; 2007) celebrated and legitimized the study of fandom.

40 Chapter 3: Methods

The nature of my study is critical and cultural, as the intent is to explore gender, popular romance culture, and reader and writer engagement, particularly in the context of fandom. My primary research goals, or questions, are as follows: (1) How do readers and writers understand the cultural stigma towards romance novels? (2) What is the modern appeal of the romance genres for readers and writers? (3) How may academics understand the relationships between romance writers and readers in the context of fandom? and (4) How do fans of romance understand the relationship between romance novels and feminism? Ultimately, the aim of my study is to investigate the contemporary appeal of romance novels, which is why interviews, focus groups, qualitative questionnaires, and participant observation comprised the methodological framework.

While there was not a specific goal in the number of participants, the intent was to obtain as much data as possible. My goal was to gather dozens of interviews, and several focus groups in the least. Going into the fieldwork for this study, my hope was to gather tens of dozens of interviews with readers and writers, as well as several focus groups each for writers and readers. The best means of accessing a large number and variety of readers and writers of romance novels, as well as industry professionals, was at the two largest annual romance conferences, RWA 2015 and RT Book Lovers 2015 and 2016.

Both conferences were excellent locations in which to conduct fieldwork because they provided the greatest opportunity to talk to readers, writers, publishers, and industry professionals from various locations throughout North America. The smaller, regional romance convention, RomCom 2015, was included to provide data that would reflect

41 both regional and national romance conferences and conventions. Thousands of readers and writers attend conferences like RT and RWA, but only a few hundred typically attend regional conferences. I used an integrated qualitative research design that features participant observation, ethnographic interviewing, in-depth interviewing, focus groups, and qualitative questionnaires in this study. Refer to appendices A-E for my topical protocols and questionnaire.

A qualitative methodology was most appropriate since the aim of my study was to contextually explore the motivation and engagement of readers, writers, and industry professionals in the romance industry (Webster, et al., 2014). To that end, I used triangulated, or integrated qualitative research design, including participant observation, ethnographic interviewing, in-depth interviewing in the field and online, focus groups, and questionnaires. Participant observation provided insider knowledge of the experiences and interactions of the participants, focus groups provided rich data resulting from a group mentality, and questionnaires and interviews offered individual narratives.

Such an ethnographic approach facilitates the and interpretation of the relationship between social practices and systems of meaning within a culture (Lindlof and Taylor, 2011; Radway, 1997).

The use of focus groups fostered a group cohesiveness where participants responded to each other’s comments, providing feedback they may not have verbalized during a one-on-one interview or on a digital questionnaire (Lindlof and Taylor, 2011;

Stewart, Shamdasani, and Rook, 2007). I conducted ethnographic interviews throughout each conference; however, the immense size, limited time, and harried nature of both

42 conferences severely constrained the ability to conduct in-depth interviews. Therefore, I gathered contact information at the conferences, and follow-up interviews took place online using Skype or Google Chat throughout the summer. I also distributed questionnaires digitally via email to those who indicated they were not interested in one- on-one interviews. Focus groups, interviews, and questionnaires were used so as much data as possible could be gathered within a limited time frame. The integrated methodology produced higher quality results, as they provided a variety of rich data for analysis (Lindlof and Taylor, 2011).

Ultimately, the mixed qualitative methodology resulted in fifty-three completed questionnaires (sixteen by writers, thirty-seven by readers), twenty reader interviews, forty-six writer interviews, eight reader focus groups with forty-five participants, and ten writer focus groups with fifty participants. All questionnaires are anonymous, which appealed to readers and writers not interested in one-on-one communication. For writers, questionnaires allowed them to participate within the study without name/brand recognition. I conducted and collected all interviews, focus groups, and questionnaires from May 2015 to December 2016. Reader interviews ranged in length from ten to ninety minutes and I reference them as reader 1, reader 2, and so on. Author interviews ranged in length from fifteen to one hundred and twenty minutes and I reference them by the author’s publishing name, which authors agreed to when they signed the consent form.

Additionally, I reference reader focus groups as reader FG 1, reader FG 2, and writer focus groups as writer FG 1, writer FG 2. I audio recorded all focus groups and differentiating specific authors proved problematic during transcription. While it was

43 difficult to constantly record in field notes the quantity of readers and writers spoken to throughout the conferences, I marked down at least three hundred individuals and groups

I spoke to more casually about romance culture.

Triangulation is a technique used by researchers to produce results with higher rates of validity because the researcher is able to compare and contrast the results of multiple methods (Lindlof and Taylor, 2011). Ultimately, my focus groups and individual interviews were far more useful and insightful than questionnaires, as the ability to inquire further into each participant’s answers provided me with rich data. I interviewed primarily readers and writers; however, five industry professionals also participated in interviews. Industry professionals include agents, publishers, editors, public relations and marketing professionals in the romance industry. The topical protocols used for readers and writers were similar in that they interrogated popular romance culture but asked industry professionals additional questions about the industry itself [see Appendix A].

The sample for my study is a criterion sample, as there were specific requirements for the participants, which were that they be over the age of eighteen, an avid reader/writer, industry professional, or otherwise attending RWA, RT Book Lovers, or

RomCon conferences. The population size for my study was difficult to define prior to the fieldwork. Not knowing how many ethnographic interviews I would be able to conduct nor how many focus groups or online interviews and follow-ups would be possible made it difficult to pre-determine a sample size. However, my estimate was thirty to fifty short ethnographic interviews throughout each conference. A busy, noisy, nonstop conference is not a suitable location, space, or time for an in-depth interview,

44 however. Thus, I gathered contact information to set-up online interviews to be conducted at a later date. I collected over five hundred emails, and conducted sixty-six in- depth interviews by the conclusion of the fieldwork phase.

Ethnographic interviews in the field involved casually speaking to people attending the conferences. I recorded notes on these conversations after they took place, often at the end of the day [see Appendix B]. In order to maintain a more organic participant-as-observer position, I did not collect audio recordings during casual conference interactions; therefore, maintaining a field journal was vital. My goal was to conduct 10-20 ethnographic interviews during each conference. As the conferences were quite busy, and there is not much downtime, my focus became collecting contact information to set up in-depth interviews at a later date.

I distributed digital questionnaires at both conferences via email [see Appendix

D-E] and throughout the next year (May 2015 through December 2016). I sent questionnaires to over five hundred email addresses: fifty-three participated, while others preferred interviews. I included questionnaires because participation in previous romance conferences has made clear that many readers and writers of romance novels can be quite introverted (despite attending a large conference) and would prefer a questionnaire they may complete on their own.

In addition to interviews and surveys, I conducted focus groups. My plan was to conduct at least two focus groups at each conference, more if time and availability of attendees and conference rooms become available. I scheduled four focus groups at RT

Book Lovers 2015 with the help of the convention planners. Readers and writers of

45 romance love to chat about their love of romance, and I was able to conduct six focus groups at RT 2015. I scheduled eight writer focus groups for RWA 2015 by emailing writers, and much like RT 2015, RWA 2015 produced ten writer focus groups and one reader focus group, more than I expected. I did not pre-plan focus groups for RomCon

2015, and I conducted two while in attendance. Overall, data collected includes eighteen focus groups with ninety-five participants, fifty-three questionnaires, and sixty-six in- depth interviews.

According to Babbie (2012), Geertz (1973), Lindlof and Taylor (2011), and

McCracken (1988), in-depth interviews are an excellent tool to use in qualitative research because they allow the researcher to gather deep insights into a fan’s experiences and relationship with a media object. My goal with in-depth interviews was to find connections between various participants’ personal experiences, connections to, and interactions with the romance genres. Focus groups do not generally accomplish this as there is not enough time in a focus group to collect a variety of individual and personal narratives from the fans, as the purpose of a focus group is to collect data that results from a group mentality (Babbie, 2012; Krueger and Casey, 2009; Lindolf & Taylor,

2011; Stewart, Shamdasani & Rook, 2007).

Inspired by Lindlof and Taylor (2011), I used ethnographic interviews, informant interviews, and respondent interviews. An ethnographic-style interview typically occurs in a cultural scene, occurring in the midst of some other action, and is unlikely to be preplanned or very long. The respondent style is a preplanned interview where a participant shares their personal beliefs and opinions on a subject, often in a private

46 space. Informant interviews refer to interviews with people who provide information about a scene or culture, which were the writers and industry professionals. All interviews were audio recorded with the interviewees’ consent. Participation in a focus group was not a requirement for the in-depth interviewees or vice versa.

I used a topical protocol, or interview guide, as opposed to an interview schedule or questionnaire because the goal was to maintain an informal, nondirective atmosphere

(Lindlof & Taylor, 2011; McCracken, 1988). For the purpose of my study, interviews that flow like a conversation would yield the best results. While finding connections and themes within in-depth interviews would be a reliable method on its own, fans are often unable to explain their consumption and relationship to media, or ‘fallacy of internality’

(Hills, 2002). Therefore, focus groups created an atmosphere where fans responded to each other’s comments, providing feedback they may not have verbalized during a one- on-one interview. Group cohesiveness, or the data that can result from a group mentality, was the goal of the focus groups (Lindlof & Taylor, 2011; Stewart, Shamdasani, & Rook,

2007). Stewart, Shamdasani, and Rook (2007) recommend six to twelve participants per focus group running thirty to one hundred and twenty minutes each. Lindlof and Taylor

(2011) recommend eight to twelve participants per focus group running sixty to one hundred and twenty minutes, and Kruegar and Casey (2009) recommend seven to fourteen participants per focus groups running sixty to one hundred and twenty minutes.

Stewart, Shamdasani, and Rook (2007), Lindlof and Taylor (2011), and Kruegar and

Casey (2009) all recommend inviting extra participants to each focus group, as there are always volunteers who do not show. Kruegar and Casey (2009) recommend at least four

47 focus groups to ensure validity; therefore, my aim was to conduct at least four focus groups with seven to fourteen participants each (Kruegar & Casey, 2009).

My best option turned out to be seven to fourteen participants in a sixty-minute to one hundred and twenty-minute focus groups. My initial aim was to sign up sixteen participants for each focus group and hope that a minimum of seven attended. Previous fieldwork has shown that subjects often need incentives, beyond their motivations as fans, to participate in academic research. I offered goody bags to each focus group participant at RT Booklovers 2015 and RWA 2015; Harlequin Enterprises supplied the content of the bags, which included retro notebooks and pens. I secured these items by contacting the PR team at Harlequin and asking for the donation of promotional goods for my research, and Harlequin was kind enough to send the materials directly to the conference, free of charge, to the conference hotels.

According to Lindlof and Taylor (2011), Krueger and Casey (2009), Stewart,

Shamdasani, and Rook (2007), the key to successful focus group moderating is to have a positive and approachable demeanor, excellent listening skills, excellent interpersonal and group communication skills, and be well-versed on the study and prepared for the focus group. A good moderator will have an icebreaker prepared to introduce the focus group members to each other and encourage all participants to speak on the subject. For example, interview and focus groups prompts included such question as: “What has been the most exciting element of attending the conference?” The moderator must also be skilled at keeping the conversation on track while still letting it flow conversationally, and not lead the group to certain answers. Like my interviews, I used a topical protocol

48 with a nondirective approach [see Appendix C]. Each focus group involved one moderator—myself—and I recorded each group for later transcription. I received verbal and written consent (each participant signed a consent form) prior to the start of each focus group.

The participant-observation portion of my study involved researcher participation as a conference attendee. Participant observation refers to experiencing and recording events in social settings and distinguishing how a social world appears to its participants via interaction with the participants and their environment (Lindlof and Taylor, 2011). I fully participated as much as I was able to during the conferences, as I did not wish to observe from the periphery. For example, if I was not conducting a focus group, I was attending an event or panel. Reader and writer conferences are three to five days and generally have events and panels scheduled from 8 AM to midnight. I attended themed reader events, with games like sexy bingo and scavenger hunts, as well as introspective events with a panel of experts/writers who focused on a . For example, I attended panels with themes such as diversity in romance, LGBTQ-themed romance, alpha males, strong heroines, paranormal romance, historical romance, and small-town romance, amongst others.

I also attended nighttime events, which included award ceremonies and themed parties with food and beverages available. Evening events included games, contests, live shows, and dancing. For example, I attended romance novel cover shoot events, a vintage

Vegas romance casino, bad boys of romance, The R.I.T.A. awards, cirque du punk and paranormal-themed romance parties, Western-themed romance, and others. Attending the

49 conferences was exhausting, but also allowed me to participate in the camaraderie and joy that readers and writers experience during these conferences and provided me with a better understanding of the nature and appeal of such events. Moreover, the conferences helped me understand how my participants engage with romance novels, and how romance novels provide pleasure and entertainment.

It is important to note that I myself am a reader of romance novels and have a long history with gynocentric fiction for women, particularly since reflexivity and positionality are central to ethnographic analysis (Babbie, 2012; Lindlof and Taylor,

2011; Mankekar, 1999). In addition, I attended RWA 2014 so that I could build a better understanding of how these conferences function and how I could orchestrate my fieldwork in order to provide quality data. Therefore, my previous relationship with conference attendees and my position as a fan and a woman provided me with a preexisting relationship with popular romance culture that enabled me to interact with participants as an insider, or participant-as-observer, rather than observer-as-participant

(Babbie, 2012; Lindlof and Taylor, 2011). Because of this relationship, I clearly delineate my positionality as part of my discussion by defining what my pre-existing interests in the topic were, my authority as a scholar, and the academic and more personal stakes for me of this research. As a feminist academic and a fan, I am invested in legitimizing gynocentric narrative perspectives that center female subjectivity in popular culture, for reasons of both scholarly argument and as someone who has long appreciated the complexities of gendered technologies, particularly romance novels.

50 As an avid reader of genre fiction in general, I have read many romance novels over my lifetime, which enabled me to more easily access and participate in romance reader conventions, as I possessed the desired cultural capital. The misogynistic nature of the stigma surrounding the romance genres, along with my personal enjoyment of the romance genres, influenced the motivations for my study. In the context of positionality, fandom, and academic research, Hill (2002) advocates for impassioned and respectful academic writing and conduct, but he makes it clear in his work on fan studies (2002;

2007) that he ultimately holds himself accountable to academia, not fans. Jenkins (2006;

2007), on the other hand, differs in that he holds himself accountable to his subjects first and academia second. While the goal of my study was certainly to expand academic research on the romance genres, my objective was also to write a book about romancelandia for the romance community. Thus, the following study is as much for academia as it is for romancelandia.

Prior to the implementation of the study described in this essay, I obtained IRB approval for all fieldwork and research tools. I made it clear to the participants that all participation is voluntary and should they feel uncomfortable they may leave at any time.

I distributed consent forms for interviewees and focus group participants to sign, and I made sure all participants were aware all focus groups and in-depth interviews were audio recorded. All online interviewees received a consent form via email that they did not need to sign; continued participation after I asked if they received and viewed the form was their consent. All reader participation is anonymous; however, I did interview

51 well-known romance authors and industry professionals, and I asked for consent to record reference their interviews with identifying information.

I used thematic analysis to interpret the data collected during fieldwork. I uploaded all transcription and questionnaires into NVIVO, a qualitative data analysis program, which helped isolate and organize themes that emerged in the data. I then identified common themes, concepts, and terminology. As a researcher, I was able to make stronger connections and conclusions in my study by comparing individual narratives with data that reflects the group mentality of focus groups, as well as field notes resulting from participant observation.

As I was unable to secure enough grant money to pay for an assistant during my fieldwork, I was limited in the types of data I was able to collect. For example, I was not able to collect demographic data on my participants. I received a research grant from

Romance Writers of America (RWA) after I had completed most of my fieldwork, totaling $4,000, which covered the costs for my hotel rooms, travel costs, and transcription fees only. Both RT Booklovers 2015 and RWA 2015 conference organizers provided me with free conference registration, a value of $500 for each conference as their contribution to the study of popular romance.

The following three chapters provide analysis of the data collected, each addressing a primary research question. Chapter 4 explores the nature of the stigma surrounding romance novels, Chapter 5 examines the contemporary appeal of romance novels, Chapter 6 interrogates romance novels as spaces of gynocentric participatory

52 culture, and Chapter 7 presents an overall conclusion of the study’s data and analyses.

53 Chapter 4: Because Women: Misogyny and the Romance Stigma

“…it’s so engrained that these silly women are writing trashy books for no reason” (Damon Suede).

When consulting the cultural imaginary, the collective perception of romance novels is usually negative and disdainful. For example, common perceptions of the romance genre include, but are not limited to: (1) romance novels are derivative, banal stories that prevent authors from writing real literature, (2) reading romance novels will ruin a marriage because women will have unrealistic expectations, (3) single women read romance novels because they cannot find a man, (4) romance novels are all the same, all one must do is read random parts of one romance novel and they understand the entire genre, (5) and romance novels reinforce the patriarchy and praise outdated hegemonic masculinity (Allan, 2016; Modleski, 1980; 2008). The romance novel is “known more for what it allegedly is, rather than for itself…it actually exists as a kind of metafiction in the public imagination” (Kamblé, 2014, p. 21).

Kamblé (2014) refers to the stigma surrounding the romance genre, or reputation of romance novels, as Media Romance, because within mass culture, romance novels are defined and critiqued in relation to the public imaginary of romance novels as a gendered technology. Adorno and Bernstein (2001) characterize mass culture as a product of beliefs and ideology – ideas and values – becoming commonplace in large bodies of people via state institutions and propaganda, media and news sources, music, arts, religious institutions, and various other institutional and symbolic realms and discourses

(Collins, 1993; Harding, 1986). Mass culture continues to associate the modern romance market with a homogeneous collection of white-washed early category romances

54 glorifying toxic gender roles, and sexually violent bodice rippers of the 1970s and 1980s

(Fowler, 1991; 1995; Krentz, 1992; Weisser, 2013). However, the modern romance market is a genre of heterogeneous fiction that places value on consent and sexual agency, has an increasing range of subject identities (in the context of race, ethnicity, age, sexuality, gender identity, physical ability, etc.), and an ever-evolving variety of hybrid and sub-genres.

As for formulas, all genre fictions contain similar tropes and devices, as

“genre” fiction categories exist to group bodies of work based on common plotlines and characteristics. To assume that romance is somehow more “formulaic” than mysteries/suspense or science fiction, for example, is problematic. In this chapter, I address how readers and writers understand and feel about the stigma surrounding romance novels and explore why critics believe they can speak for an entire genre with little to no knowledge of the subject. Ultimately, the overwhelming response from participants was “because women,” gynocentric sexual material, and the “happily ever after.” The positionality of romance novels as low- or middlebrow sentimental stories for women makes it easy for the entire genre to be dismissed in mass culture as an overly sentimental, sexualized, and unhealthy women’s genre that says nothing meaningful about the human condition (Hollows, 2000; Radway, 1991, 1997; Weisser, 2013).

Moreover, within the world of literary criticism, “happily ever after/happy for now” endings, while not suspect within a large range of genre and , is suspect within the romance genre (Hollows, 2000; Radway, 1991, 1997; Weisser, 2013). While romance writers and readers do not expect romance genres to be taken as seriously and

55 respectfully as other literary genres, the positionality of the romance genre as the embarrassing but profitable joke of the publishing industry has persisted for decades, despite changes in the producers, consumers, content, and scope of the genre.

Popular culture, a term often used interchangeably with mass culture, refers more specifically to what mainstream audiences consume and enjoy within the symbolic realm

– media and entertainment – such as music, art, film, television, books, and others, which has the ability to both reinforce and resist hegemonic ideology (Adorno, 1963; Foucault

1978; Modleski, 1991). American popular culture features various narratives and media platforms that focus on relationships, whether romantic or platonic, and happy, or positive endings. Romance novels are massively popular and consumed more than any other literary genre globally (RWA, 2019), and feature narratives about love, community, and families (be it those we are born into or the ones we create). Contemporary popular and mass culture is replete with examples of people cultivating meaningful relationships—an idea that resonates with a vast majority of people. For example, politicians capitalize on community and family, and episodic television shows like NCIS

(Bellisario & McGill, 2003), as well as global blockbuster comic book movies, emphasize the importance of family, teamwork, community, and love in order to appeal to the widest demographic.

When I asked participants why they believe romance novels carry so much stigma, despite evidence of the value mass culture places on family, relationships, and community, the immediate response was almost always: because romance novels are by, for, and about women. Thus, regardless of any knowledge or identification with

56 feminism, spending time consuming and producing romance novels shows romance readers and writers that sexism and gender inequity are alive and well in the United

States of America. Participants’ responses were not a revelation, as readers, writers, academics, journalists, and documentary filmmakers have been vocal about this point for years (Fowler, 1991; 1995; Hollows, 2000; Jackson, 1995; Kamblé, 2014; Khan, 2015;

Krentz, 1992; Linden, 2018; Luther, 2018; Maclean, 2016; Regis, 2003; Rodale, 2015;

Weisser, 2013). Still, the stigma was a popular topic during data collection. Many of the prompts and questions within my study address the cultural stigma romance is immersed in, and I urged participants to unpack the easy response of “because women.” Mass culture does not disdain all books written by women that have positive endings and sex, so what is it about romance novels as a gendered category of genre fiction that attracts such negative and misguided cultural critique? The romance genre, unlike other literary genres and categories, emerged as a field of romantic, fictional narratives primarily produced and consumed by female-identified consumers. Every one of my participants was vocal about their beliefs that (1) mass culture does not take romance novels seriously because they are primarily by and for women, (2) mass culture has no interest in understanding contemporary romance genres, and (3) the patriarchy trivializes women’s pleasures, desires, hobbies, and achievements in an androcentric culture.

Regardless of whether my participants used terms such as “patriarchy,” “toxic masculinity,” “misogyny,” or had any knowledge of gender inequities and feminism, in every focus group, individual interview, and questionnaire the participants expressed a general understanding that anything that women like or create has inherently less value.

57 Participants from a wide variety of backgrounds, particularly politically, participated in this study during the data collection phase, including women from a wide political spectrum, ranging from the furthest left, the furthest right, and a variety of positions in between. Many had never even said the word feminism aloud, nor could they define the term. Others were openly suspicious of feminism and made sure to distance themselves from the topic. Still others celebrated feminism and had vast knowledge of feminist politics. However, all participants understood that the stigma surrounding romance novels is due to the continued devaluation of female-centered spaces in contemporary culture: because women. Hence, the automatic response to the prompt on romance novels and stigma resulted in the response “because women.”

The media reputation of romance novels (Kamblé, 2014), while inaccurate and problematic, functions to educate readers and writers, particularly mainstream “non- feminists,” about modern day sexism and misogyny in America. One of the most common responses to inquiries about the stigma surrounding romance novels was “the patriarchy.” Readers and writers of romance are aware that mass culture denigrates and easily dismisses romance novels, readers, and writers because these are books written by, about, and for women and other marginalized communities, and therefore the content of such texts is automatically suspect, regardless of the popularity of other genres, narratives, and media platforms that contain similar tropes and themes.

Within a patriarchal culture, society values men more; therefore, society gives masculine traits more value (Dea, 2016; Lorber, 1994). To be a man is to perform masculinity adequately, and in a binary system comprised of opposites, feminine traits

58 and spaces detract from masculine value (Dea, 2016). In the patriarchy, masculine traits have the highest value, while feminine traits are often the very definition of weak and bad. Romance novels do not devalue female subjectivities as the narratives celebrate the trials and tribulations of gender and intimate relationships. Thus, romance novels inherently resist the patriarchy by positioning female subjectivities as human subjectivities, rather than as an “other” inferior category of identification.

A contradiction in patriarchal systems is that women are not only supposed to accept femininity but also find value in femininity. Yet, mass culture regularly disdains romance novels, a space that values feminine subjectivity. Moreover, female-identified individuals and groups often denigrate romance novels. Women in positions of privilege, or those who believe power comes through access to male power, might look down upon female spaces; even if those same women enjoy romance novels, they may agree they are of little value (Russ, 1983). Romance blogs, social media groups, reading groups, conventions, and conferences are such desirable spaces for readers and writers of romance novels because seeking these out is an act that rejects the notion that romance novels—narratives about gender, intimacy and sex written by and for women—are lesser or unhealthy. Furthermore, despite the economic power of the romance genre, the publishing industry positions romance as a marginalized literary genre, and dominant groups discourage marginalized groups from gaining acceptance and empowerment, as a means of maintaining their dominance (Fetterley, 1978). Readers and writers reject such marginalization and dehumanization, instead embracing the empowering aspects of a large body of women learning, working, and finding pleasure in reading, all the while

59 mocking the persistent yet outdated stigma that plagues romancelandia—the popular term for everything romance novels. Such resistant practices by readers and writers has allowed the romance genres to flourish in a time where publishing sales have gone down.

The romance genre is a billion-dollar market (RWA, 2019) and is the most profitable literary genre around the globe (RWA, 2019). For writers, editors, and industry professionals, romance novels pay for mortgages, leaky roofs, cars, healthcare, better lives for children, vacations, and in the case of , a couple of mountains

(Khan, 2015). In a neoliberal capitalist system, the only value that any person, entity, or group has lies within its economic value (Mohanty, 2003; Wilson, 2018), and the ability to generate profit/accrue capital. Within this model, romance novels should be the most respected and most revered literary genre; and yet, romance novels carry more stigma than other genre-fictions. Moreover, romance novels face stigma and de-legitimization as both a feminine space as well as a product of mass culture.

“Because women” may seem like a simple and inadequate answer; however, an exploration of the elements that feed the stigma highlight the relationship between gender, power, and taste/class (high art vs. low art) in contemporary American culture.

Power is not a top-down system of domination, for hegemonic and subaltern groups are constantly challenging and reinforcing structures of power in a multitude of ways (Allen,

1998; Foucault, 1978). The stigma surrounding romance novels is about the way misogyny in mass culture continues to devalue women’s bodies, identities, desires, labor, emotional health, and capabilities. A patriarchy is a system, or social order, within which men control and pass on wealth and power primarily to other men (Collins, 2005;

60 Crenshaw, 1991; Lorber, 1994; Millett, 1970). Misogyny, or what I often refer to as cultural misogyny in reference to the misogynistic nature of mass culture, is the disdain for, dislike of, contempt for, hatred of, or ingrained prejudice against girls/women and the realm of the feminine (Valenti, 2007; 2009). Gender is not the only, or even primary, source of oppression women may face individually or collectively in the United States, but gender does function as a principle stratification system used to assign value, rights, and tasks in life (Lorber, 1994). Thus, in America, a racist hetero-patriarchy, power is primarily held and passed on between white, Anglo-European, heterosexual, wealthy men.

Contemporary third-wave feminism acknowledges the various ways in which individuals and groups can be both privileged and oppressed due to systemic inequities in the distribution of value and power in the context of gender, sexuality, race, ethnicity, age, ableism, nationalism, religion, and other markers of hierarchy (Collins & Bilge

2016; Crenshaw, 1991; 2019). Still, within a patriarchy, maleness is equated with humanness; thus, maleness is superior (Collins, 2005; Collins & Bilge 2016; Lorber,

1994; Millett, 1970; Solnit, 2014; 2018). The gender binary, which reinforces the patriarchy, is set of two opposing categories defined in opposition to each other (Collins

& Bilge 2016; Dea, 2016; Lorber, 1994; Millett, 1970; Solnit, 2014; 2018). The two categories are then ranked: male is dominant and female is subordinate; femaleness is what maleness is not (Collins & Bilge 2016; Dea, 2016; Lorber, 1994; Millett, 1970;

Solnit, 2014; 2018). As social activists have pushed back against patriarchal rule throughout history and gained political, economic, and cultural rights, activists have yet,

61 as a collective, to eradicate white heterosexual patriarchal rule or the value systems that accompany it. While the gender binary implies a top-down structure of male dominance and female subjugation, patriarchal rule in the United States does not mean men oppress women and women have no agency to resist. People of color, women, and other non- binary individuals and groups find ways to resist the racist heteropatriarchy in a variety of ways, including activism and social justice initiatives, as well as media and popular culture.

Romancelandia, much like popular culture in general, reinforces and resists the patriarchy. Narratives by women, and romantic and sexual content with positive endings, are not suspect in all realms of publishing, and mass and popular culture. However, the romance genres produce narratives by and for women about intimacy and emotions, sexual intimacy, female agency, and sexual agency (for the express and direct benefit and entertainment of women). The patriarchy, and thus the gender binary, positions femininity and womanhood as subjectivities that should directly benefit men, be it sexually, economically, emotionally, or otherwise. Romance novels subvert the patriarchy and provide women with narratives of female agency and pleasure without an obvious, or direct, benefit to men; thus, romance novels are deemed trivial, trashy, unhealthy, and clearly not “real” books. What follows is an exploration of the themes that emerged from the data, organized into four sections: the patriarchy, women’s writing, and mass culture; “happy endings” and genre formulas; disdain for the feminine and emotion; and romances as dangerous. Overall, what becomes clear is that within a system that ranks men’s bodies and lives above women, the patriarchy easily dismisses gynocentric

62 spaces, particularly when those spaces focus on emotions, female sexual agency, and the cultivation of relationships. While the stigma persists in 2019, romancelandia continues to reject such devaluation and instead flourishes, economically, and as a participatory realm for pleasure.

The Patriarchy, Women’s Writing, and Mass Culture

“Is there some sort of hierarchy in the culture that I’m unaware of that I’m lower on the totem pole because I’m in romance or something? I don’t understand.” (Christina Brashear, Samhain Publishing).

Historically, the patriarchy has suppressed women’s writing in many ways, be it by prohibitions, denial of agency, or pollution of agency—decent women do not write

(Russ, 1982). The double-standard of content and experience, or labeling one set of experiences as more valuable, is common historically (Russ, 1982). In addition, false categorizing—categorizing women’s writing as only for women or as only belonging within one category—function to dismiss the creative and intellectual efforts of women

(Russ, 1982). Moreover, isolation and anomalousness, or the notion that one noteworthy work by a woman is an exception to the rule that women are unable to write, further devalues and dismisses women’s writing (Russ, 1982). Methods for ignoring, condemning, and belittling women’s creative endeavors have arisen as prohibitions or legalities preventing women from creating and publishing were relaxed, resulting in the overall assumption that women’s creative endeavors, in this case writing genre fiction, must be inferior to men’s (Fetterley, 1978; Russ, 1983). Furthermore, the patriarchy has encouraged women to be ashamed of writing specific types of narratives, especially, those featuring female-centric storylines that dwell upon emotions and the cultivation of

63 relationships (Fetterley, 1978; Radway, 1991, 1997; Russ, 1983; Thurston, 1982; Woolf,

1929). Even if female writers are not themselves inferior, the patriarchy positions certain types of female-centric writing as certainly lesser. Within American literature, the universal perspective, or the norm, is male (Fetterley, 1978; Radway 1991; 1997; Russ,

1983).

The rise of literacy rates and the affordability of mass-produced texts and mass culture threatened the androcentric bourgeoisie perception of the superiority of (white) male selfhood that had previously controlled literature and culture (Hollows, 2000;

Radway, 1997). Hollows (2000) argues that high art is associated with heroic masculinity; thus, characteristics associated with femininity, such as emotion, sentiment, and romance, are signifiers of worthlessness. Feminizing, (and therefore devaluing) new modes of the mass production of mass culture allowed bourgeois (economically privileged) men (and women) to maintain the cultural (class and gender) superiority of traditional, androcentric texts (Hollows, 2000; Radway, 1997). The bourgeoisie’s fear of the rise in popularity of female-centric novels that focused on domestic issues and emotional labor resulted in further distancing of the work of men from that of women, as well as the bourgeoisie class from working class citizens (Hollows, 2000; Radway,

1997). Radway (1997) contextualizes bourgeois fears of both an ascendant—in power, education, and quality of life—working/lower class and female body politic, with the top- down mainstreaming of an artistic/creative cultural hierarchy—high and low art/low and middlebrow culture. The elite patriarchy acknowledged mass culture (especially mass culture for women) as products consumed passively by consumers perceived as infantile

64 and unable to distinguish reality from fantasy (Hollows, 2000; Marx, Engels, & Tucker,

1972; Regis, 2004; Radway, 1997). Thus, bourgeois patriarchal mass culture situated romance novels within the realm of lowbrow mass culture, devalued as both feminine products and the creative efforts of the proletariat, or working class (Hollows, 2000;

Engels & Marx, 1848; Regis, 2004; Radway, 1997).

Bourgeois elites actively spreading the idea, or belief, that mass culture posed as little threat as the emergence of women in predominantly male spaces, has worked well to devalue women’s writing historically, especially romance novels, as distinctly middlebrow, or lowbrow in nature (Radway, 1997). Mass-produced products became known as passively consumed narratives crippled with a focus on emotion and sentiment, and therefore commonly assessed as worthless (Hollows, 2000; Kamblé, 2014).

Moreover, optimistic endings, or “happily ever afters,” became increasingly associated with mass culture, while award-worthy literary narratives reflected satire and skepticism about happiness, love, and marriage (Weisser, 2013). Such methods of the suppression of women’s writing and consumption of mass/popular narratives have lessened significantly in modern American culture. Bookshelves are rife with novels written by women that may or may not contain “happy endings,” female-centric content, and sex. Moreover, while many media platforms, narratives, and fandoms within popular culture fight high art/low art stigmas (for instance, gaming culture) the hegemonic culture, no longer automatically associates popular and massively consumed media narratives as lesser due to bourgeois elitism. “Because women” does not mean that the stigma that plagues the romance genre only exists because of a sexist publishing industry. The increasing

65 accomplishments of women authors over the past several decades directly contradicts such a statement. Nevertheless, romance novels, as a gendered genre fiction, still contend with such sexism and misogyny in contemporary culture. While literary sexism persists in 2019, and is explicitly evident in critiquing and literary awards practices (Kon-yu,

2016; Rivecca, 2013), archaic and misogynistic practices of shunning, denying, and devaluing women’s writing continues more overtly in the stigma, or media reputation

(Kamblé, 2014), of romance novels.

While contemporary American culture is rife with the successes of narratives with positive endings, female authors, and female-centric content, suspicion of female authors and female-centric content persists with the romance genres specifically. Romance novels, unsurprisingly, must simultaneously battle assumptions about the worthlessness of mass cultural products (Kamblé, 2014) already rife with emotion and sentiment, as well as products about emotion and sentiment primarily made by women for women. In other words, romance novels are mass produced products, primarily for women and by women, containing extra doses of emotion and sentiment; they are therefore often beneath the notice of even the serious critic of popular culture. Such a sentiment boils down to the perception that literature and various genre fictions are for everyone—men— but romance novels are simply for women, and thus must not be real, well written books, or books that could provide insight into the human (male) condition. Romance writer

Kimberly Lang comments below on the stigma, contextualizing it within the context of the larger issue of devaluation of women in mass culture:

66 . . . you can take it down to the very basic idea that somehow lady stuff isn’t as

important as dude stuff, if girls like it, it can’t be that important . . . I think as a

society, we still don’t value women’s experiences and women’s thoughts . . .

sadly I don’t think we’re quite there yet, and so things that are considered girly

are automatically discounted as being somehow less important . . .

(Kimberly Lang)

Romance writer Damon Suede pointed out that “it’s so engrained that these silly women are writing trashy books for no reason.” Suede was discussing a common thread within the cultural imaginary, or Media Reputation (Kamblé, 2014): the idea that everyone knows that romance novels are just trashy stories that silly women tell each other for no reason. Damon Suede, as well as romance author Heidi Cullinan, went on to explain “romance is for women, and women are weak and bad,” during a focus group when asked about the stigma surrounding romance novels, and such a response was common in interviews and focus groups with romance writers. It is primarily women producing stories about emotions, intimacy, and sexual pleasure for a primarily female audience.

However, patriarchal mass culture does not trivialize and demean romance novels simply because predominantly women write and consume the texts. Romance novels resist androcentrism and challenge male logic and value systems by placing value on female subjectivities, thus making romance readers and writers resistant to the patriarchy in significant and usually unrecognized ways (Fetterley, 1978; Radway, 1991). While drawing connections between feminist thought and political action and romance texts

67 highlights the evolution of women’s rights in contemporary culture, feminism is a counterhegemonic movement and does not lift romance genres into a realm of legitimacy and respectability (Loudermilk, 2004). Feminism itself battles a stigma that rivals the romance genres; thus, romance novels becoming designated as overtly feminist is unlikely to increase the mass cultural esteem of the romance genres. Therefore, my primary research questions did not focus on ‘are specific romance novels and authors feminist?’ Proving a connection to political feminist action will not magically release romance novels from the stigma, as evidenced by a growing body of academic research on popular romance that emerged in the 1980s (Hollows, 2000; Frantz & Selinger, 2012;

Kamblé, 2014; Radway, 1991; Regis, 2003; Weisser, 2013; Vivanco, 2004). Instead, my study explores reader and writer responses to “why does mass culture so openly disdain romance novels, and what does this tell us about how society values women?”

Furthermore, I explored what the production and consumption of romance novels indicate about the ways in which everyday women are creating counter-narratives and resisting cultural misogyny.

Author Maya Rodale speaks to how problematic it is to have a serious, or even positive, discussion of the romance genres outside of romance novel clubs, events, and spaces:

When we talk about how commercially successful and viable it is, we’re saying it

is only valuable for its monetary value, not its craft, or the way it empowers

people, or just the fact that a lot of them are really well-written books. So, it’s a

hard thing, because you want to be like, take it seriously; we are huge; we are

68 liked; we have social proof. But at the same time, I think we need to start shifting

the conversation to be like, these are really smart books; they are well-written

books; they are really commenting on issues women are facing, men are facing,

just the human condition. (Maya Rodale)

Rodale is addressing the tendency of many industry professionals to justify the existence of romance novels simply because the genre is profitable, which is important, yet ignores the significance of the production and consumption of romance novels as a gendered technology. Romance is constantly and simultaneously battling assumptions that stories written by women about relationships can tell or teach us nothing (Bacon-Smith, 1992;

Fetterley, 1978; Radway 1997; Russ, 1983; Thurston, 1987), and that “lowbrow,” mass- consumed genre fiction tells us little about the human condition (Fiske, 1987; Jenkins,

2006; Radway, 1997). Romance novels present a space in mass culture where cultural misogyny can safely demean and devalue women—because not all novels written and read by women are considered trivial and unhealthy, only romance novels. The romance genre presents the bottom tier of a gendered literary hierarchy that offers the message that whatever one is reading or writing must be of some value, as long as it is not a romance novel.

As the rise of the study of popular culture and fandom has legitimated the academic study of mass culture over the previous several decades (Bacon-Smith, 1992;

Booth, 2010; Hills, 2002; Jenkins, 2006), romance novels have been largely ignored within spaces dedicated to the study of mass culture. Writers and readers alike share the belief that mass culture does not critique nor acknowledge romance novels as legitimate

69 genre fiction because they are by and for women; as romance author Amanda Weaver stated, “I believe it's because it's written by women for women, and things made for female consumption are deemed less worthy.” Romance novels are not simply devalued because they are love stories written by and for women, but because such narratives consistently resist the misogynistic notion that gynocentric narratives, and female subjectivity, are of no or lesser value in a patriarchy. Moreover, they encourage female emotional and sexual agency, regardless of the direct benefit to the patriarchy, a point addressed later in the chapter.

The following sections explores the ways in which mass culture unfairly perceives the genre conventions of romance novels with suspicion, particularly in comparison to other popular literary genres. After an exploration of genre conventions and critical reception of romance novels, I will examine the stigma surrounding romance novels in the context of a perceived excess of female emotion and sexual content. The chapter concludes with a discussion of romance novels in relation to larger structures of power within a patriarchal system that devalue or label female sexuality, the cultivation of relationships, and emotions and nurturing as lesser, or even dangerous.

“Happily Ever Afters” and Formulas: Genre Conventions are Suspect

Unfortunately, I think society still perceives the romance genre at the bottom of the barrel of genre fiction, and they are very much below literary fiction. I think a lot of this criticism comes from people who actually have never read a romance novel, and I think people don’t understand that what we are writing now, what is selling now, are not the bodice rippers of the 1960s and 1970s. (Eden Bradley)

Supposed fact: romance novels seem to be the one literary genre that does not require actual critical study in order to assess content or value, as they are all the same

70 and they never change. Actual fact: romance narratives have changed drastically over the decades as women’s sociopolitical roles have changed (Asaro, 1997; Kamblé, 2014;

Krentz, 1992; Regis, 2004; Weisser, 2013). Contemporary romance genres feature heroines with agency and strength and provide gynocentric narratives on consent and partnership, as numerous studies have demonstrated (Asaro, 1997; Dixon, 1999; Frantz &

Selinger, 2012; Hubbard, 1984; Kamblé, 2014; Krentz, 1992; Phillips, 1992; Regis, 2003;

Thurston, 1987; Vivanco, 2012). The following chapter explores the contemporary appeal of the romance genres, especially as gynocentric texts that have evolved as women’s roles in society have progressed.

Focusing on bodice rippers from the 1970s and Fabio romance covers from the

1980s and 1990s makes it easier to dismiss romance genres as static and dangerously patriarchal. A theme that emerged from interviews and focus groups is that large portions of the criticisms against romance novels will come from individuals or entities that have not read romance novels, or in the least, no modern romance novels. If they have read romance novels, they have admittedly only read very few or read only unrepresentative romance novels, and yet they feel confident in speaking for an entire genre. Kamblé’s

(2014) Media Reputation theory contextualizes such a phenomenon, as mass culture critiques romance novels for what it perceives the texts to be within the cultural imaginary. The homogeneous reputation that romance novels have within the cultural imaginary seems to stem from the assumption that all romance novels are the same and incapable of evolving. This is an issue that many readers and writers discussed, and as a reader pointed out: “I never heard of it applied to sci-fi or fantasy or mystery, but people

71 are like romances are so formulaic, and I’m like mystery isn’t? You walk in, there is a dead body, at the end you find out who killed the person…how is that not formulaic?”

(Reader 2). Yet, romance novels are products written within and reflective of contemporary mass culture (Kamblé, 2014), and as culture and trends change and evolve, authors change the stories that are written within it.

Regardless of any genre formulas that may exist, products within mass culture ultimately evolve. The bulk of participants considered themselves readers in general; they discussed reading a wide variety of genres, not simply romance novels and not only literary fiction. The majority of romance readers within this study reported that they read across genre fictions, and many read across genres in general. In order to qualify as genre fiction, certain expectations or criteria must be present; this is true of all genre fiction

(Regis, 2004). If there is no mystery, then it is not a mystery book. If there is no romance, and the novel does not end well, then one is not reading a romance novel. Genre is a taxonomy, a means of categorizing common narratives, tropes, and settings. Readers do not pick up a romance novel because they want to read a depressing story that ends unhappily, just as one would feel unsurprised to pick up a mystery book and find the primary plot focuses on solving a murder.

When I asked participants why they feel people assume romance novels are more formulaic than other categories of genre fiction, the answers all seemed to come back to the general statement of “because women,” but also because of the HEA, i.e. the “happily ever after” (or happy for now). However, romantic narratives and happy, satisfying

72 endings where the “good guys” win are typical of a variety of media platforms, including literature, TV, and film, as romance author Kimberly Lang notes:

Yeah and I don’t understand, and it’s infuriating to me every book basically, I

mean the happy ending is what makes a romance novel a romance novel, that

happy ending. But all books, you know, Voldemort gets killed. The Hobbits find

their ring. Whatever was going to get blown up does not blow up. Bad guys go to

jail, murderers get got. Those are all versions of happy ending. (Kimberly Lang).

Box office numbers, television ratings, and statistics on book sales show that Americans appreciate narratives steeped in positive endings (Box Office Mojo, 2019; Publishers

Weekly, 2019; Rotten Tomatoes, 2019). As Weisser (2013) notes, history is rife with widely accepted works of literature that have happy, optimistic endings; however, in contemporary culture the HEA has primarily been left to popular culture, while the more discerning, or intellectual reader, will encounter literary narratives that are skeptical of love and the HEA. The result is a ranked dichotomy, an us vs. them, high art vs. low art theme that has often been used as a weapon by literary elites in order to distinguish literature from mass culture. Not all works of classic literature are void of “happy endings:” (1813), (1847), and A Tale of Two Cities (1859) are only a few examples. That is, the presence of a “happy ending” does not in fact automatically denote a narrative devoid of value and critical inspection.

A common issue that participants brought up concerning the stigma against romance novels was reinforcing the perception that romance novels are unrealistic trash also implies that loving and relationships are unrealistic. As many of the participants

73 pointed out, life is difficult, and few people experience happiness in everyday life. HEAs and genre conventions, or “formulas,” are insufficient answers to “why does mass culture so disdain romance novels.” Several themes emerged as I urged participants to think critically about the romance stigma: sentiment, empathy, and female sexuality are suspect. Genre convention, formulas, tropes, “happy ever afters,” are not suspect in general, but become suspect within the romance genre. Thus, such conventions and formulas are suspect when women are writing stories about gender, intimacy, and sex for other women. The following sections explore the relationship between discourses of toxic masculinity and misogyny and the enduring stigma attached to the romance genres.

Emotions are Irrational: Misogyny, Toxic Masculinity, and the Romance Novel

What all romance novels do is talk about people who are hungering to be connected in a really powerful and authentic way; they want to go from being isolated individuals to being part of a family that works, and somehow…. Somehow it becomes embarrassing; it becomes the problems only of women. It somehow becomes a second-class thing. (Writer FG 1)

Second-class, shameful, somehow less valuable…just women’s issues. “Why is there no value in what women value, and why do people pretend that what women value is not as valuable as what people [men] value?” (Writer FG 1). The above quote is a comment a group of writers made in a writer focus group. Participants expressed the knowledge that for some reason, emotion and relationships being primarily associated with women is at the root of the stigma romance novels battle. Emotions and the cultivation of relationships are associated with the realm of the feminine, and gender ranking positions women as subordinate to men; thus, the patriarchy deems such aspects of life as having less value, or as “women’s issues.” The gender binary and the

74 public/private split have been paradigms grounded in second- and third-wave feminist discourse for decades (Collins, 2005; Collins & Blige, 2016; Dea, 2016; Lorber, 1994).

Masculinity is associated with intellectualism, rationality, independence, strength, and leadership; femininity is associated with submissiveness, subordination, emotions, and nurturing (Collins, 2005; Dea, 2016; Lorber, 1994; Mainardi, 1970; Millett, 1970;

Valenti, 2007; 2009). Women belong within the private sphere, for that is their domain, home and hearth (Collins, 2005; Collins & Bilge, 2016; Dea, 2016; Lorber, 1994; Millett,

1970; Solnit, 2014; 2018; Valenti, 2007; 2009). Men, meanwhile, have traditionally been associated with the public sphere, a space associated with intellectualism, independence, and strength (Collins, 2005; Collins & Bilge, 2016; Dea, 2016; Lorber, 1994; Mainardi,

1970; Millett, 1970; Solnit, 2014; 2018; Valenti, 2007; 2009). Thus, emotions are not rational; a rational [male] actor would distance themselves from sentimentality to be taken seriously and professionally. Despite both the women’s movement and the sexual revolutions, both of which challenged women as sexually passive domestic dependents, the discourse persists in contemporary culture.

While gender bias is clearly an issue, participants acknowledged that the patriarchy devalues emotion in general. Romance writer Chudney Thomas explained,

“society as a whole is dismissive of females in general. It’s not to say that it’s an entirely female problem, being a romance reader or romance ; it’s just that anything to do with emotion is dismissed.” Romance novels are primarily stories written by women that focus on emotions and the cultivation of relationships, qualities associated with femininity, weakness, subordination—all qualities the rational [male] actor rejects.

75 Evolutionary biologist Sarah Blaffer Hrdy (2009) points out that to be a rational actor is to be selfish in a neoliberal society; romance novels are about emotion, empathy, and community (Krentz, 1992; Regis, 2004). Maleness, and thus the rational actor, is associated with inter-group competition, power over others, and emotional detachment

(Hrdy, 2009). Romance novels resist the neoliberal rational subject as they reject the masculine focus on inter-group competition and power over others as the only means of successful survival, or the meaning of life in general (Hrdy, 2009). Women are emotional, irrational, and not to be trusted in serious matters; thus, patriarchal mass culture easily and quickly dismisses romance novels as an embarrassment to other genres and the rational male actor, as romances are products of female sentimentality and irrational thought. Not only do romance novels have no value, but women who want patriarchal mass culture to take them seriously should also distance themselves from the genre. As industry professional Christine Brashear (Samhain Publishing) pointed out,

“you almost want to cover up the cover so you don’t have to deal with it. Oh, you’re reading. What are you reading? Oh, you’re reading one of those.” Notice Brashear says

“almost,” as the growing readership and participatory realm in Romancelandia encourages women to resist such misogynistic inclinations, thus the production and consumption of romance is far more visible in contemporary culture, a subject explored in more depth in Chapter 6.

Neoliberalism celebrates the accomplishments of the individual, often at the cost of collectivist or community-driven accomplishments and endeavors (Williams, 2018).

Yet community, as for many other species, is one of the characteristics of humans (Hrdy,

76 2009), and the power of the relationships human beings have with one another is an essential component of romance novels as narratives about gender, intimacy, and sex.

“What all romance novels do is talk about people who are hungering to be connected in a really powerful and authentic way; they want to go from being isolated individuals to being part of a family that works” (Writer FG 1). The above quote from a writer touches on the significance of emotional attachment and the desire to cultivate relationships.

While the romance novel genre is the topic under discussion, the above statement could be a response to the question “what do people want in life?” Love, community, family, being a part of something—none of the concepts are foreign or at odds with what most people will associate with human survival and happiness in life, yet the same concepts become suspect when associated with the romance novel. The “it is not what you said, but how you said it” approach is a popular method for dismissing the voices and concerns of marginalized communities (Crenshaw, 2019). Emotions, the cultivation of relationships, community, and intimacy are not universally devalued. However, as defined by the gender binary, women suffer from an excessive amount and/or inappropriate relationship with said concepts; thus, spaces where women explore emotions, the cultivation of relationships, community, and intimacy are excessive and represent the inferior “other” to the rational male subject.

Despite the romance novel’s placement firmly within lowbrow mass culture, the number of romance novels published each year has been on the rise, and the economic power of the industry has not waned as it has with other literary genres (RWA, 2019). If mass culture cannot universally dismiss romance novels as having little-to-no-value, then

77 perhaps romance novels are dangerous to the patriarchy; thus, patriarchal mass culture designates romance novels as dangerous for women/society. One of the most insidious romance in contemporary culture characterizes women’s perceptions of love, family, and intimate relationships as dangerously unrealistic. The following section explores the idea that romance novels are dangerous for women, as women clearly are not rational actors capable of distinguishing reality from fantasy.

Why are Dragons More Realistic than the Female Orgasm?: Romance Novels are

Dangerous

“By now they should have been able to make it go away, if it was really that bad for us…it survives because that’s where we go; that’s what encapsulates our culture’s core values” (Jayne Anne Krentz).

“Why are dragons more realistic than the female orgasm?” (Writer FG 2) was a passionate comment by a romance writer during a focus group. Popular culture is rife with trends and fandoms that feature unreal or unrealistic elements: Game of Thrones

(Benioff & Weiss, 2011) and other similar fantasy , superheroes and comic book franchises, prolific spy novels and , along with countless others. And yet, mass culture does not question the cognitive ability of consumers of said content to separate fantasy from reality to the same extent that romance readers are, as a reader notes below:

And also, nobody is sitting around constantly telling these guys that their fantasies

are unrealistic. I think it’s also insulting because we know it’s fiction, I don’t like

rag on someone well, you know the Fast and Furious can’t actually happen.

You’ve loved Superman your whole life and have obsessively collected those;

like heroes aren’t real, super-heroes aren’t real. That’s never a first reaction to

78 another genre, or to like what a dude is reading; it’s not like I was like, you know

Dad, there are no hobbits. (Reader FG 5)

The idea that romance novels are bad for women and give them unrealistic or unhealthy expectations of intimate partnerships and of men in general is a pervasive and insidious ideological trend that haunts the romance genres consistently. Such misogynistic devalues and discounts romance novels. “Mommy porn,” “lady porn,” and “trashy smut” are just a few of the labels given to the romance genres, and stereotypes of mentally unbalanced, unmarried women and sad or sexually starved housewives permeate cultural narratives about romance readers and writers. Romance novels are not the first or only mass-produced female-centric media product labeled as trashy. There is a long history of hegemonic culture using terms such as “trashy” to dismiss the relevance of female-centric products and spaces. In her study of soap operas, Brown (1994) discusses the term

“trash” as a rhetorical weapon used against female-centric media to reinforce male dominance within a patriarchal society, noting that it “is so rich because it contains within it the social struggle for power articulated in terms of cultural taste and preference” (p. 16).

Brown (1994) further points out consumers of female-centric media often re- appropriate the term “trashy” and embrace their enjoyment of “trashy” women’s media as a liberating practice that resists androcentric culture. Almost thirty years later, the term

“trash” is an ever-popular rhetorical weapon used to dismiss the legitimacy of female- centric media, particularly in the context of how “dangerous” romance novels are for women. Many romance readers and writers are able to verbalize how the assumption they

79 are unable to differentiate reality from fantasy has been used as a weapon by patriarchal mass culture against their reading choices, yet readers and writers continue to produce and consume the novels in acts of resistance to such notions. As romance writer Molly

Harper points out, “you know they can’t possibly all be bad. They can’t possibly all be bad for women. That is like saying the historical, the westerns, are bad for men, that reading spy novels will make them think that they are all alpha male…”

Women who read romance novels are not under the mistaken impression that they are picking up self-help literature or other non-fictional materials. The romance genre is fiction. As with any other genre of fiction, readers who seek out such fictional narratives are well aware that their chosen novels are, in fact, fiction. Furthermore, the hypodermic- syringe media model is no longer used (Lasswell, 1927), as media scholars know the magic bullet theory of mass communication is not legitimate, nor has Gerbner’s theory of enculturation been effectively proven (Gerbner, 2002). Yet society persists in applying such a model to women and romance novels because patriarchal mass culture still thinks of women as cognitively dependent and infantile, or overly emotional and irrational actors incapable of rational and critical consumption (Hollows, 2000). My research is evidence of the absurd and misogynistic origin of such a claim, as my participants presented a clear and mature cognitive ability to separate fantasy and reality while regularly producing and consuming romance novels.

Modleski (2008) argued that romance novels were dangerously patriarchal in the early 1980s when she analyzed the narratives in a selection of Harlequin category romances. One of her key arguments was that romance novels function to inoculate

80 women against the everyday evils/realities of the patriarchy, as if women are receiving a treat for their suffering, much like a child is rewarded with a candy after receiving an inoculation. The idea that heterosexual romance/romance novels soothe women’s dissatisfaction with their subjugation under the patriarchy was popular mode of thought in second-wave feminism (Firestone, 1970). Such modes of thought assume readers are passive and infantile; fortunately, modern modes of thought categorize romance reading as far more of an active process involving adults choosing to engage with specific narratives (Duncombe & Marsden, 1995; Moody, 2015; Radway, 1991).

My argument is not that romance novels, particularly heterosexual romance novels, never reinforce patriarchal ideology. In fact, I agree with Modleski (1991), for romance novels do speak to the dissatisfaction women have with the inequitable distributions of power under the gender and sexual binary; however, romance novels function as a space for women to explore gender, sexuality, and power in ways that both resist and reinforce the patriarchy. Thus, romance novels are not women’s boon for upholding their own oppression, but gendered technologies produced for pleasure that continually grapple with the realities of structures of power in everyday life. Romance novels, much like many products of popular culture, resist dominant ideologies at the same time they function within them (Hollows, 2000; Kamblé, 2014; Modleski, 1991;

Weisser, 2013). Readers seek out romance novels to read a fictional story where love prevails and the always wins because they choose to do so, be it for pleasure, for resistance to the patriarchy, or for a familiar escape at the end of the day. As a reader commented, “Oh yeah, of course, it’s incredibly unrealistic for a woman to like, be

81 happy, be in love, and also have an orgasm. Wow, mind blowing, so unrealistic” (Reader

FG 5). Labeling romance novels as dangerous and unhealthy renders the emotional and sexual desires of women as unhealthy, or at least inconsequential. Readers and writers resist such insidious labeling of their reading and writing practices by continuing to produce, consume, share, and celebrate romance novels.

Contemporary gender roles not only continue to urge women to find fulfillment in caring for others but also reinforce the idea women who want individual lives and identities are selfish, as if women comprise the largest group of genetically predisposed philanthropists (Crittenden, 2010). Friedan (2001) was writing about such a social phenomenon in the 1960s, regarding how dissatisfaction with the private/public split was a catalyst for the women’s movement in the United States of America. The Feminine

Mystique (2001) ignored racial and class privilege and is not as relevant in 2019 as it was in 1963; however, prescriptive gender roles continue to be relevant to women’s lives.

Women still battle slut shaming and bad mother myths if they ask for, or expect, too much in life (Crittenden, 2010; Valenti, 2009), as patriarchal notions that women are built to be selfless persists in modern American culture. Moreover, unless women’s sexuality directly benefits the male gaze patriarchal values deem female sexuality unhealthy or trivial (Collins, 2005; Dines, 2011; Firestone, 1970; Millett, 1970; Valenti, 2007; 2009).

Hegemonic culture unreservedly bashes romance novels, readers, and writers for desiring and then asking for human connection and satisfying sex; and readers and writers of romance novels understand such discourse as a rebuke of women, the feminine realm,

82 and female sexuality. Readers and writers respond by not allowing such ideas to prevent them from producing, consuming, and enjoying romance novels.

For decades, readers and writers have been addressing the issue of fantasy versus reality, and that romance is not dangerous for women. A group of romance writers, led by

Jayne Anne Krentz, published a book about such issues in 1992, Dangerous Men and

Adventurous Women: Romance Writers on the Appeal of the Romance, and in 2015, romance writer Maya Rodale published Dangerous Books for Girls, a non-fictional book addressing such popular discourse. In an interview conducted with Jayne Krentz, she commented:

The point I try to make in Dangerous Men and Adventurous Women is that

women do know the difference between fiction and reality; it’s not like they blur

the borders there or something. If you go to fictions, they are very specific kinds

of experiences and you know damn well it’s not real. Otherwise, it wouldn’t be

fiction…That they imply that you can’t tell the difference is, well, it’s like saying

you don’t want children reading fairytales because they might believe in magic. I

mean, that’s just ridiculous. (Jayne Anne Krentz)

Yet, in 2019, the stereotypes persist. Krentz is quoted at the opening of this section, “by now they should have been able to make it go away, if it was really that bad for us…” and as she pointed out, if romance novels were detrimental for society, why is there not a large body of research on the subject? The reality is, research focused on romance readers and writers is scarce. Moreover, cultivation theory (Gerbner, 2002), the idea that one can prove media has a direct and negative impact on humans, is notoriously ineffective as a

83 theoretical approach to studying media. Contemporary scholars in media and critical and cultural studies acknowledge the ways in which various aspects within the institutional, symbolic, and individual realms shape individuals and groups lives, and that media alone does not account for behaviors and belief systems, but as a part of larger institutional and symbolic ideologies.

Perhaps society can accept that narratives about healthy intimate partnerships and sexual gratification are not dangerous or too unrealistic in contemporary culture, but the cultural preoccupation with sexy, hyper-masculine men in romance novels adds fuel to the argument that romance novels are dangerously unrealistic—implying that women will expect too much of men. However, women are aware they are reading a fantasy when they pick up a romance novel: that is why they read it. More often than not, male love interests in romance novels are not short, balding, or overweight. Romance novels often contain alpha males: tall and muscular, with deep, gravely voices, and aesthetically intimidating and/or impressive forms. The patriarchy’s assumption that romance novels are unhealthy or dangerously unrealistic because they are not representative of the average male citizen reinforces the power of the male gaze and denies the legitimacy of the female gaze (Mulvey, 1999). Patriarchal mass culture still perceives the female gaze

(the sexualized gaze of female-identified individuals and groups) as inappropriate, yet the male gaze (the sexual objectification of women’s bodies for male pleasure) as legitimate and healthy.

The participants in my study fully understood that the majority of men do not actually look and act like men in romance novels. In fact, most participants reacted very

84 strongly to the idea that romance novels are unhealthy for this reason. Below, a reader responds to a question about romance novels being dangerous and objectifying men:

…the complaint that romance heroes are often held to physical and emotional

standards that are frequently unattainable by the average male is a valid one.

However, women deal with these same objectifying, unattainable standards in

every form of media ever invented, with almost all advertising and marketing

campaigns thrown in as well…So, yes, at times, the romance genre features some

reverse objectification and some unrealistic male standards. If that justifies the

derision of the entire genre, then Hollywood, most advertising and marketing

campaigns, and quite a few other genres would be similarly derided for their

(usually more frequent) unrealistic and objectifying portrayal of women, yet you

don’t see that happening with near the same regularity that the romance genre is

derided. (Writer Questionnaire 7)

My argument is not that academics should ignore representations of masculinity in romance novels, or that objectifying images of men are harmless because women’s bodies are more frequently and obviously objectified for the male gaze (Dines, 2011). In fact, there is much that academics can learn about masculinity, especially toxic masculinity, and contemporary gender roles more generally from studying romance novels. However, since readers understand that romance novels are fantasies, to assume they are hapless children who lack the basic ability to differentiate reality from fantasy is problematic. Furthermore, labeling romance novels as dangerous and unhealthy denies a

85 female gaze, as the female gaze does not directly benefit the dominant group: men, and the male gaze.

What readers and writers wanted to talk about was the fact that romance novels are about love, working together, human connection, and great sex, yet, patriarchal mass culture tells women that reading and fantasizing about said topics is dangerous, unhealthy, and pathetic. My participants had no interest in justifying the female gaze, as they did not question the legitimacy of female sexual agency, desire, and fantasy. Readers and writers were tired of having to explain that female desire, fantasy, and sexuality is not unhealthy or dangerous for women, but that the real issue is romance novels reject male sexual aggression and female passivity and encourage women to be active sexual agents. The overwhelming response to inquiries about what types of dangers the romance novel represents was met with responses like the following comment from romance writer Lorelie Brown: “It’s unrealistic because maybe some women in Iowa will expect their husband to make her feel nice that night; why is that bad? You might have to work a little harder.” Romance novels celebrate female sexual agency, and when patriarchal mass culture labels the novels dangerous, unhealthy, and unrealistic, the message is that female sexual agency and female orgasms are dangerous, unhealthy, unrealistic, or in the least, inconsequential.

In an interview, romance author Heidi Cullinan described criticism she has received over her chosen profession: “Someone said to me once, “Don’t you feel bad teaching women to ask for too much?” I say, “They are not asking for too much. They’re learning to ask for what they want. That is a different thing.” Women fantasizing or

86 desiring intimacy and sex in life is not dangerous, but when romance novels encourage women to ask for it, they become dangerous to the patriarchy; they resist gendered scripts that urge women to simultaneously be selfless caregivers and sexual objects for men’s pleasure. As Cullinan points out, women are not suddenly asking for too much, but are learning how to ask for what they want, and romance novels highlight the cultural and economic power of female desire and agency. During an interview with romance author

KA Mitchell, she said “I think all women should be treated with love and respect. I don’t think that’s an unrealistic expectation.” Categorizing romance novels as too “unrealistic” and dangerous shows readers and writers the patriarchy devalues and delegitimizes female fantasies and desires, and readers and writers reject such a notion, rendering romancelandia a space of resistance within a patriarchal culture.

Conclusion: Romance Novels are Bad for Women

The romance genres present a space in contemporary popular culture where misogyny and outdated oppressive practices to subdue women’s writing safely persists in mass culture. Everyone, regardless of gender identity, “knows” romance novels are unhealthy and poorly written, and not actually “real” books. In fact, romance novels speak to women’s everyday realities, sexual agency, and pleasure in ways that subvert the patriarchy. Thus, romance novels are not trivial, “trashy,” dangerous, or unhealthy because they are stories written by and for women, but because they challenge androcentrism, the male gaze, and patriarchal dominance. Romance writers and readers are not idly accepting such derision from mass culture, as they continue to thrive despite such open disdain. Readers and writers are actively creating their own spaces, including

87 dozens of conferences and conventions every year, in addition to the online communities, fan forums, social media, podcasts, etc. Moreover, romance novel sales have risen in a time period where book sales overall have dropped (RWA, 2019), and many internationally consumed publications are starting to recognize the power of the romance community with mainstream coverage, such as (Alter, 2018) and

Washington Post (MacLean, 2019).

Furthermore, participants knew mass culture considers their desires and fantasies, whether sexual or not, suspect, unhealthy, or maybe just simply unimportant. The continued devaluation, or ghettoization, of romance novels has not diminished the readership or economic viability. The cultural and publishing stigma romance novel readers, writers, and publishers have faced encourages readers and writers to work together and value each other, even if mass culture does not. The popularity, and accompanying stigma, surrounding romance novels is evidence romance novels are a space of resistance that must be subdued and devalued, if not shut down, by patriarchal mass culture. If romance novels were really so trivial and insignificant, then such a negative stigma would not continue.

Mass cultures’ persistent and open disdain of the romance genres is evidence that contemporary American culture has yet to achieve gender equity. Romance novels provide a safe scapegoat for misogynistic beliefs and practices to operate in mass culture because everyone already knows said books have no value, and in fact might be unhealthy, thus denigrating romance novels is certainly not the same as devaluing women in general. The stigma continues, despite such drastic changes in content, because

88 romance novels are dangerous for the patriarchy. Thus, the outdated perceptions and stereotypes persist to diminish the resistant power of the genre, much like feminist myths persist to reduce the power of feminist collective action. If mass culture presents romance novels as trivial, unhealthy, and bad, then less people will read them, or in the least, read them and take them seriously. Yet, romance novels continue to be the most profitable genre globally, which speaks to the power of said books to reach audiences despite a negative reputation.

Romancelandia has increasingly become a space where women and other marginalized groups are not internalizing the oppressive structures of the patriarchy but are finding ways to resist and form coalitions through common reading habits and participatory culture. Romance novels speak to women’s agency in resisting patriarchal rule, even while many of the narratives simultaneously reinforce many patriarchal beliefs and practices. Chapter 5 explores in more depth the contemporary appeal of romance novels and investigates the sexual politics involved. It also delves into how female- centric narratives and spaces are important within a patriarchal culture and provide safer spaces for coalition, entertainment, and pleasure.

89 Chapter 5: Gynocentric Fantasy and Desire: The Enduring Appeal of the Romance

Novel

“Romance novels are about hope. We usually say “happily ever after,” but that’s code for hope…. I think romance is popular because we all need that in life. And let’s be honest. Life is often very void of hope” (Heidi Cullinan).

Feminism, as a counterhegemonic discourse, engages in the critical analysis of structures of power, and can provide a useful analysis for understanding how popular romance culture simultaneously resists and reinforces the patriarchal structure of society.

Postfeminism, or the idea that feminism is no longer necessary, is a discourse academics often use to explore contemporary media marketed towards women. Scholars define postfeminism as the commodification of feminism (and detachment from collectivism and social justice) coupled with the conflation of female independence and power with individual purchasing power and the internalization of the male gaze (Genz, 2009; 2010;

Genz & Brabon, 2009; Gill, 2007; Modleski, 1991; Williams, 2016). Popular postfeminist narratives for women often liken women’s advancement with the internalization of the male gaze—equating one’s worth with one’s ability to be sexually appealing to men—as opposed to personal agency, knowledge, or skill. Additionally, postfeminist narratives position women’s sociopolitical advancements as necessary, appreciated, but ultimately to blame for women’s growing discontentment with heterosexuality and intimate partnerships (Genz, 2009; 2010; Genz & Brabon, 2009; Gill,

2007; Modleski, 1991; Williams, 2016).

Postfeminist narratives tend to reject the need for women’s political advancements and collectivism in favor of adherence to proscriptive gender roles. One

90 must only watch a Hallmark movie to grasp the power of retrograde postfeminist narratives. In Hallmark films, female-centered popular culture does not critique the lack of sufficient space for female subjectivity and sexual desire in contemporary culture, but rather, women’s liberation and excessive expectations of contemporary males are the problems (i.e., women simply want too much these days). Postfeminist narratives (e.g., the vast majority of Hallmark films) function to encourage women to understand their value only in terms of femininity, and aesthetic and sexual appeal for the male gaze—for the direct benefit of men. Romance novels are easy to dismiss as postfeminist, particularly given their media reputation (Kamblé, 2014). However, the romance genre is heterogeneous and diverse, both in its subgenres and themes, as well as its increasing diversity in the subjectivities of the characters. Furthermore, romance novels are not for the express benefit of men.

Romance novels are on the margins of hegemonic popular culture, immersed in undervalued and disdained feminine popular culture. On the surface, romance novels seem easy to deconstruct and analyze, particularly by critics and academics, as tools of the patriarchy, or individually consumed fictional narratives that ultimately indoctrinate, reward, or normalize, heteronormative intimate partnerships in a contemporary neoliberal patriarchy (Firestone, 1970; Jackson, 1993; Modleski 1984; Radway, 1984; Williams,

2018). In the following chapter, however, I explore how readers and writers understand their relationship with romance novels as gynocentric spaces of pleasure and resistance of cultural misogyny within a primarily androcentric culture, not as tools for the patriarchy, nor as simply postfeminist narratives that help to reconcile women to a role of

91 subjugation and sexual objectification. Romance novels provide spaces for readers and writers to explore gendered hierarchies, power, sexual agency, and women’s subjectivity and pleasure in general.

Scholars have increasingly acknowledged that one cannot control how audiences or consumers create meaning with texts. Thirty-five years after Radway (1984) first published Reading the Romance, I endeavored to explore the contemporary function and appeal of romance novels for readers and writers. What I found was an exhilarating, empowering, and empathetic community of readers, writers, and industry professionals that have not only resisted androcentric notions of value but also the rigid divide between producer and consumer, a theme that I will further explore in the next chapter.

Dismissing romance novels as lowbrow “emotional porn” is a powerful tool of the patriarchy to further devalue female-centric spaces and gynocentric narratives. Refusing to respectfully and critically engage with romance novels, readers, and writers ultimately upholds the hierarchy of the gender binary that privileges androcentrism and reinforces masculine entitlements, particularly where female embodiment and sexuality are concerned. The stigma and shame steeped in the writing and consumption of romance novels are products of culturally ingrained misogyny, a socially constructed attitude immersed in patriarchal discourse concerning legitimacy, or valued, states of being in the body politic. Readers and writers resist such discourse by engaging with, enjoying, and finding pleasure and power within a female-centric space dedicated to the normalization and legitimacy of gynocentric modes of being. Romance novels are further dismissed by

92 mass culture due to an inaccurate media reputation (Kamblé, 2014), or the tendency to categorize all romance novels by the tropes and trends of the 1970s and 1980s.

Contemporary romance novels evolved out of women’s participation in the public sphere as economically independent units. Regardless of any feminist intent on the behalf of the readers and writers, romance novels are constantly participating in a female-centric space that celebrates many of the major tenets of contemporary feminism: female agency, female sexuality, female collectivism and community, and the notion that everyone, regardless of their intersectional identity, deserves love, family, companionship, and a

“happy ending.” Romance novels are not a utopian space of resistance, however, as the majority of novels published reinforce white, heterosexual, middle-and upper-class privilege (Edmondson, 2007; Schalk, 2016). Still, romance narratives have evolved, and finding romance novels featuring protagonists that resist racist, heteronormative, ethnocentric, ageist, ablest narratives has become easier over the years. Popular romance culture still has a lot of work to do in the context of intersectional gender politics. One need only look back upon the origins of the modern romance novel to understand the feminist evolution of these texts.

Romance novels have significantly evolved since the 1970s and early 1980s, a time when consent was not always a given within the primarily Anglo-European, heteronormative romances that were published. The origin story of the modern romance novel begins with the publication of The Flame and the Flower (Woodwiss, 1972) by

Avon (Lyons & Selinger, 2015). Woodwiss’s book, set in the turn of the nineteenth century, was the first mainstream romantic narrative written by a woman for a female

93 demographic that focused on the emotional journey of a female character, involved sex, and was over five hundred pages and formally published and distributed. The Flame and the Flower (1972) is firmly within the realm of bodice rippers, or narratives constructed around a “pure” Anglo-European virgin being kidnapped, snatched, misunderstood and thusly “seduced” against her will (what is now understood as rape/date rape in contemporary culture, or acquaintance rape) by an excessively (toxic) masculine and powerful male “hero” (Lyons & Selinger, 2015).

The Flame and the Flower (Woodwiss, 1972) was published in a time when women had only just begun to gain control over their bodies, reproductive rights, and sexual agency (Lyons & Selinger, 2015; Millett, 1970). Romance novels published today do not introduce female sexuality via male entitlements to women’s bodies, as consent is now a key and unwavering necessity in modern romance novels (Diekman, McDonald, &

Gardner, 2000; Lim, Hellard, & Horyniak, 2018; Ménard, & Cabrera, 2011; Ménard,

2013). As women have gained civil liberties and cultural acceptance within the body politic, so too have their cultural understandings of sex, gender, and sexuality progressed, and romance protagonists progressed alongside women’s socioeconomic advancements.

Bodice rippers simultaneously reinforced and subtly resisted female sexual passivity at a time when the patriarchy did not take women seriously as sexual agents, members of the body politic, or as legitimate literary consumers (Radway, 1997; Lyons, & Selinger,

2015). The idea that women would make reading choices beyond short domestic novels and recommendations from the men in their lives was hard to digest for a publishing industry controlled chiefly by men in the early 1970s. Nonetheless, The Flame and the

94 Flower (Woodwiss, 1972) was a success and led to the publication of similar novels by female writers, and by the 1980s romance novels written by and for women were a “real market.” Use of the term “real market” is not implying the publishing world critiqued or acknowledged the novels as legitimate, nor their readers and writers, but that women as a demographic independent of male consumers emerged within the publishing industry as a viable revenue stream.

Scholars must consider the women’s liberation movement and the sexual revolution that emerged out of the 1960s and continued into the 1970s in relation to the rise of the romance novel (Jackson, 1995; Kamblé, 2012; Vivanco, 2012). Women were fighting for access to the public sphere, economic independence, job and pay equity, reproductive justice, the right to knowledge about their own bodies and sexualities, safety from gendered and sexual violence, and basic civil liberties that have historically only been available to privileged men. They sought space for not conforming to proscriptive gender roles without fear of social censure. The Flame and the Flower (Woodwiss, 1972) emerged during a time period where birth control became legal for women regardless of marital status, abortion was decriminalized and regulated, historically all-male colleges and universities opened their doors to women, gendered violence became a public health issue, and women’s and gender studies emerged as academic disciplines. While novels like The Flame and the Flower (Woodwiss, 1972) were popular in the 1980s as Radway

(1991) was conducting her field research, the romance novels of the 1980s are not representative of the romance market today.

95 Thus, as women’s sociopolitical positions have progressed, so too have romance novels, and contextualizing the consumption of romance novels as a reading practice that functions to reconcile women to their own subjugation is problematic, as popular culture more often functions to both reproduce and resist dominant discourse (Hollows, 2000;

Kamblé, 2012; Regis, 2004; Thurston, 1987; Weisser, 2013). Contemporary heroines are not weak-willed, nor do they lack the opportunity to consent to sex (Diekman,

McDonald, & Gardner, 2000; Lim, Hellard, & Horyniak, 2018; Ménard & Cabrera,

2011). What follows is a discussion of the thematic analysis of my ethnographic data, focusing on three primary themes: romance novels as spaces of hope, optimism and escape, as spaces of gynocentric resistance within an increasingly neoliberal, or individualistic, patriarchal culture, and as texts that explore and celebrate female sexuality.

Hope, Optimism, and the Romance Novel

I can’t just discount the value of escapism of reading in general, of being able to climb into a book. It’s lifesaving and it’s immersive; it’s beautiful, like I don’t know why you wouldn’t want to get lost in a book. And to me, romance is a wonderful place to get lost, because no matter what happens, you know that things are going to be all right. (Reader 7)

As a literary genre, romance novels are diverse, comprised of dozens of subgenres and hybrid genres, from stories to futuristic, paranormal adventures. The

HEA, or the “happily ever after,” is the unbreakable rule, however, of romance novels.

As writer Amanda Weaver happily pointed out, “I like that they're unabashedly optimistic. There's always a happy ending.” Similarly, author Liz Selvig passionately exclaimed, “It’s just that it is positive; it’s guaranteed positive.” Readers may not always

96 like all of the plots, characters, writing style, or subgenres, but they never fear that romance novels will betray their trust in the knowledge that everything will work out well for the protagonist at the end of the story. As one reader put it, “romance is a wonderful place to get lost, because no matter what happens, you know that things are going to be all right” (Reader 7). Unlike day-to-day reality, in romance novels, everything works out well and readers find comfort in such a genre convention, as industry professional

Christine Brashear (Samhain Publishing), points out below:

Well, for me romance is happy. It has a “happy ending,” and there is a lot of sad

reality out there and I don’t always want to experience that. So, its, you’re

guaranteed to be able to get out of the bubble of your world into somebody else’s

world and experience the highs and lows and have a completely satisfying ending.

(Christina Brashear)

Overall, romance novels are fantasies of hope (Regis, 2004), a hope that everyone finds love, companionship, and meaning in life. Romance author Heidi Cullinan explained,

“romance novels are about hope,” which was a common response from other participants.

As romance writer Jeni Burns explains below:

Whatever that happiness looks like, you want happiness right? That’s what all of

these books provide. Whether you are reading male/male, a ménage,

female/female, or heterosexual couple. You look at a romance novel anywhere in

that genre and they are talking and working towards a happy healthy life at the

end of that book. That is great. (Jeni Burns)

97 Today, technological developments make various types of media, including books, television, and films easily accessible. Yet, romance novel sales have not only endured in a declining publishing world, but have also increased (RWA, 2019). Radway

(1991) argues that reading romance novels psychologically reproduces readers) by functioning as compensatory literature. In other words, romances novels supply women with emotional release, allowing them to escape (or distance themselves for a time), from the day-to-day hardships and stressors of life. In the context of romance novel readership, this psychological reproduction must be understood from the perspective of readers’ unabashed faith in romance novels to deliver a specific type of escapism—that is, an escape into a gynocentric fantasy of hope that will psychologically reproduce them. As a reader explained, “I’ve been reading romance for twenty years and the list of times it has mentally stabilized me is unending. Romance novels have been, for me, the go-to stress relief I need. They always have a happy ending” (Writer Questionnaire 8).

Overall, the majority of participants talked at length about how much joy reading romance novels brings them. Readers get to escape into a world where love and human connection are the root of happiness, which the following reader championed: “At their best, romance novels are about love. That’s what makes them significant and important.

In a world filled with and crime, romance novels allow women to escape for a short while and find a place where love can conquer all,” (Reader Questionnaire 7). In a world filled with poverty, , and violence, especially violence against women, modern romance novels may provide a safe space, or a space free of explicit and intentional gendered violence and misogyny, for women to find an escape from the real

98 world, a world that is not always so kind and safe. Moreover, within the pages of a romance novel the protagonists always find a way for love to win, for human connection to endure, despite all of the roadblocks and obstacles people may face within their intimate relationships. Readers feel drawn to romance novels because of the optimistic, or positive feelings romance novels elicit within them, particularly a “swoon worthy” read.

Readers love nothing more than a truly epic romantic journey that overcomes great odds, as a group of writers pointed out: “It’s nice to read things that are, like, to make you feel good, I guess” (Writer FG 5).

Romance writer focus groups often noted the responses writers get from their readers. Writers receive correspondence from readers thanking them for creating stories that keep them hopeful and able to work towards their own “happy endings,” as the following writer discusses:

It has been the biggest response out from readers that I’ve ever heard of is that

romance novels give them hope; romance novels made them keep searching for

something better, that kind of a thing. I know when I’ve been depressed and I’ve

been sad and I’ve gone through ups and downs and everything like that, reading

those books got me through a lot of bad times, and I’ve heard other readers say

the same thing. (Writer FG 2)

Focus groups with readers and writers, as well as participant observation and interviews, helped illuminate the ways in which interacting with romance novels is therapeutic for readers and writers, not only working to psychologically reproduce, but provide hope, faith, and strength that they too can overcome the hurtles the protagonists face within the

99 texts. Below, author Karen Booth discusses emails from fans who have felt personally moved by her work:

I had a woman send me an email saying that she read one of my books like three

times and it was the week that…her divorce got finalized, and she said “that was

her escape. That was, I can read this and I can believe that there is love out there

that I can find it…and if I had a bad day at work, I’m dealing with all this other

stuff, this is a place for me to go where I can be happy.” (Karen Booth)

Romance novels are a lovely escape, but they also encourage readers and writers to hope for more in their lives.

While romance novels are primarily fantasies of female desire, they do address many of the everyday realities that women contend with in contemporary culture, including relationships and work, and all of the errands, tasks, and unpaid and unacknowledged labor (both emotional and physical) the patriarchy often expects of women. Romance writer Eden Bradley describes romance novels as texts of sexual and romantic possibilities that engage with everyday life:

I think romance novels allow us to sort of see what the possibilities are in love, in

sex. These books address so many other aspects of life, you know, work, raising

kids, family dynamics, medical issues, , and I think that readers find

strength in reading about a character who transcends these circumstances.

(Eden Bradley)

Romance novels privilege female subjectivity and speak to the everyday realities of women, which many readers and writers find comforting.

100 Participants regularly commented that romance novels not only bring them joy as escapist texts, but also the novels encourage them to strive for healthier, happier relationships in their lives. A group of writers discussed romance as a technology of joy at great length, pointing out the role of representation in romance narratives, or the idea that everyone should have the opportunity to hope for happier, healthier relationships:

So, I think with romance it's really important that love is the focus and then you

have a happy ending. I think that allows your readers to see love and relationships

in this positive light, and then if you bring in a wide variety of characters then

you're showing your readers you too can have this kind of love, whether you're

plus size, or this color, or you come from this economic background.

(Writer FG 5).

Several writer and reader focus groups mentioned agency, body positivity, multiculturalism, and self-worth as romance novels increasingly provide opportunities for readers to explore a range of narratives, cultures, and characters. While the romance genres have a history of producing narratives that promise “happily ever afters” only to young, able-bodied, thin, Anglo-European women, many writers and readers have been increasingly supporting a “happily ever after for all” mentality as everyone deserves a happy ending in Romancelandia. Overall, writers and readers made clear they feel romance novels have the ability to improve their and outlook on life.

Readers also discussed personal stories, recalling how romance novels helped them manage chronic illnesses and pain, stressful work lives, heartbreaking divorces, and the deaths and illnesses of their loved ones. Several readers shared how reading romance

101 novels helped them understand that they were in unhealthy, abusive relationships, and romance novels gave them hope that they too could build healthier intimate relationships.

Thus, romance novels have the ability to become educative escapes for readers. As one reader shared, “I was in an abusive relationship for years, and reading romance helped me stay hopeful,” (Reader Questionnaire 4). Romance novels can provide a lovely escape, a fun journey with the heroine, a happy ending, and provide psychological reproduction, but for many they may also function as inspiration to make changes in their own lives.

Radway (1991) notes that her participants enjoyed going on a journey with the heroines in romance novels, and when those heroines were able to overcome the obstacles preventing their happy endings, the strength of the heroines had a positive impact on their own self-perception. She argues that the boost in self-perception helps women feel more comfortable with motherhood and domesticity, providing a balm to the ills of the patriarchy. Thus, the positive self-transformation Radway’s (1991) readers reported ultimately functioned to reconcile them to patriarchal rule. While acknowledging the role of romance novels as gendered technologies that reinforce patriarchal power structures is significant, romance novels have changed in content and scope in the thirty-five plus years since Radway (1991) collected her data, which complicates Radway’s (1991) argument that romance novels ultimately reproduce patriarchal rule. Readers and writers discussed romance novels as spaces to explore gender and sexuality, readily acknowledged the feminist, or progressive evolution of romance narratives, and often discussed heroines that do not have agency as unappealing:

102 Women’s agenda and desire is not only valid but actually pivotal in these stories,

and is the most important, so the books that we get mad at are the ones where the

female is just like, she’s just kind of like a bitch the whole time or she’s like

hapless, too stupid to live, needs to be rescued, two-dimensional. (Reader FG 5)

More often than not, heroines in romance novels have careers, are financially independent, regularly acknowledge the need for birth control and protection from sexually transmitted infections, and do not view female sexuality (or premarital sex) as a desire or action that inherently devalues women. Many of my participants discussed having loved and read romance novels for decades, and how much they have enjoyed seeing how strong the heroines have become in romance novels. For example, a reader discussed how the strength of heroines in romance novels has a positive impact on their own self-perception:

…there’s nothing more empowering than finishing a good novel with a good

heroine who can accomplish anything; you have the struggles, they get past

it…and it really does; it helps you think you can accomplish anything and do

anything, and even though you know the stories are fictional and you know the

scenarios are not real, but it does. (Reader FG 1)

Many participants used words like “empowering” to discuss how romance novels make them feel. “Like I love the optimism of romance, there is an optimism to the genre and there is just something empowering and uplifting about the genre,” (Reader FG 2) explained a reader.

103 Popular culture has the ability to both reinforce and resist hegemony, and romance novels are no exception, as they explore intimate relationships, gender, and sexuality. The majority of romance novels published in contemporary culture may still be primarily heteronormative relationships that reflect the gender and sexual binaries, but the narratives have also evolved to speak to the desires and concerns of contemporary women. Some romance novels reinforce patriarchal rule, others push back, and still others take a sledgehammer to patriarchal power. Thus, readers do not feel that romance novels inherently reconcile women to their own gender oppression or function as tools to reconcile them to patriarchal rule, but instead empower readers/women to feel more joy, strength, and hope despite a patriarchal system that continues to oppress women.

In fact, readers often discussed their favorite romance novels as friends—as opposed to patriarchal foes—texts they could rely on for emotional support. Romance novels remind readers what it feels like to fall in love, and sometimes people desire such a reminder of that, as one’s day-to-day realities are not generally filled with one “happily ever after” moment after another; as author Jaquelin Patricks explained, “falling in love is a wonderful feeling. Romance books capture that excitement, but real love, everyday love, isn't exciting; it's doing the dishes and going to work.” Romance novels are friends readers can rely on to help them escape reality and psychologically reproduce, find joy and entertainment, and explore relationships, emotions, gender, sexuality, and the patriarchal infrastructure of society. Romance novels are also texts that resist and challenge power imbalances constructed via the gender binary, subverting patriarchal rule at the same time that they provide an enjoyable and uplifting escape for readers.

104 Feminism and the Subversion of Neoliberal Androcentrism

“What brings us together is in society, the emotions are discounted: don’t be a cry baby, don’t be mean, don’t make any emotional decisions, but when we are among ourselves and we can talk romance, and emotions are allowed, and they are valued and they are important--we feel safe. I think that’s why women come together for romance; it’s because it’s like our people, they talk our language and no one says, “No, you are doing this wrong.”….We are allowed to be women, be emotional, be not emotional, whatever you want to be…” (Writer FG 1)

Popular culture often devalues women and femininity, particularly in the context of emotions and the cultivation of relationships. In contrast, in romance novels women win, and their subjectivities, emotions, desires, and fantasies are respected and celebrated.

As the majority of romance novel protagonists are female, exploring this genre beyond a categorization of gendered technologies that function to reinforce the patriarchy helps to highlight one of the few narrative spaces within contemporary culture where the primary goal is to speak women’s subjectivities. Romance author Tessa Dare spoke with passion as she explained, “But what is special about romance is that it’s written by women for women and it deals with things that are important to women, and to me, that’s just so exciting and it’s very empowering.” Furthermore, romance author Heidi Cullinan points out that romance novels provide a safe space for women to claim agency as female- identified subjects without rejecting female subjectivity: “I think reading happy endings and hopeful stories makes everyone a little brighter, more hopeful themselves. I think women seeing positive role models and seeing themselves as protagonists gives them permission to claim agency in their own lives.”

One-dimensional, sexually objectified female characters are a normative construct in television, film, books, advertising, and other aspects of contemporary mass culture.

105 Romance novels represent one of the few spaces where women can take refuge from the proliferation of misogynistic and derogatory images and narratives that exploit women’s bodies and subjectivities for capital gain and entertainment, and this alone is a relief for many readers of romance. As a writer explains:

Romance novels keep me optimistic about the human race as a whole, as opposed

to the news media or advertising media, as they both constantly bombard women

with horrific and evil acts (the news) or women as sexual objects (adverts).

Romance keeps people real, and it focuses on love, sacrifice, forgiveness, and

understanding another person’s point of view. (Writer Questionnaire 8)

Primarily female-identified writers are writing books about women for a female audience, and romance novels represent a space where many readers feel comfortable escaping.

Readers and writers were very clear about the primary appeal of romance novels; as the following reader explains, romance novels speak to women’s desires: “Women’s agenda and desire is not only valid but actually pivotal in these stories, and is the most important” (Reader FG 5). Romance novels are a safe space for female-identified readers to engage with aspects of life dismissed in androcentric culture: emotions and the cultivation of relationships. Readers and writers discussed romance novels as texts that provide a gynocentric, entertaining escape for women to psychologically reproduce themselves by reading about the emotional journey of fictional women, as discussed by romance novelist Maya Rodale, below:

But I think it cannot be underestimated that women who are tired, women who are

stressed, women who are dealing with serious hardship, if they have this refuge

106 for a few hours, they can just escape and relax and be soothed and comforted and

have a happy ending and laughter and love, and then you come out of that like

stronger, a little more like, “Phew, okay. I can do this now.” I think these books

also show how to tackle some of these issues. I mean even the most outrageous,

outlandish, paranormal romance are at heart, or any romance at heart, dealing

with very basic human feelings and issues. (Maya Rodale)

Romance novels are about emotions and the cultivation of relationships, two traits commonly devalued in public discourse when associated with femininity; thus, romance novels function to resist such discourse. Moreover, romance novels explore the impact that gender, sexuality, and human connection have in women’s lives, and in so doing, reinforce, experiment, resist, and challenge the status quo in a variety of ways. Romance novels give readers hope that intimate relationships, particularly those that emerge within a patriarchy that routinely reinforces gendered power imbalances, can evolve and be healthy. Readers find the emotional, and sometimes physical, strength of romance heroines appealing, but also the championing of equity in power in intimate relationships:

They often have a message of the heroine not settling, or not being rescued. Even

in cases when the heroine IS rescued or in a difficult position at the beginning of

the book, by the end she’s strong and ready to stand on her own two feet and be

the partner that the hero needs – and vice versa. I find most romance novels are

about the characters changing and growing so that they are able to meet as

emotional equals by the end of the story. (Reader Questionnaire 13)

107 Contemporary romance novels often show women what could be when they resist the toxic gender ranking and privileging of not only male subjectivity and embodiment, but also men’s entitlements to women’s bodies.

As romance author Julia Kelly explains below, romance novels tell women that their desires and perspectives, are not lesser:

…I think that romance, in everything that you’re reading, tells you as a woman,

whatever it is that you want it’s valuable and it’s worth it and you are valuable,

and I find that to be a message that doesn’t get conveyed very often, and when it

does it’s often kind of laughed at. (Julia Kelly)

Romance novels create worlds where women ask for, strive for, and get what they want.

In the previous section, participants’ use of words such as “empowering” characterized how romance novels gave them strength, made them feel good. Romance author Sarah

MacLean, who also writes on romance novels for The Washington Post, explained what

“empowering” in association with romance narratives means for readers and writers:

“The heroine is the hero in romance….I think romance novels, when they are well done, are about the triumph of women. It is about women sort of getting what they want, and that’s very empowering.” Romance actively spoke about the power of romance novels to communicate and generate conversations about women’s everyday lives within a culture that has evolved to include women in public spaces, but not necessarily their subjectivities, as a romance author points out below:

I also think that romance novels tend to give women a voice. They give them

where a lot of women might feel stifled in their own life and everything like that.

108 Romance novels do tend to give them a voice in a pretty much male dominant

society even though women are now able to have full high-power jobs and things

like that, we are still looked down on… (Writer FG 2)

Much like scholarship on soap operas has shown (Brown, 1994; Brown, 1990;

Fiske, 1987; Rapping, 2002; Spence, 1995), romance novels represent a space where both the public and private realms value female subjectivity, where women’s voices and desires are centralized and legitimate. Author Liz Selvig discussed the appeal of romance novels in the context of the conversations they may produce about women’s lived experiences: “But here is the other thing I think romance novels do, is that they give women an opportunity and an avenue to talk about women’s journeys, and to talk about how we are evolving.” Romance novels provide women with a window into a world where female subjectivity is the norm within both public and private spaces, resisting the notion of the public/private split.

Romance novels humanize female subjectivity and speak to the various ways women’s everyday lives evolve as society progresses by privileging emotion, the cultivation of relationships, and female subjectivities. As a result, romance novels reject neoliberal androcentrism, an ideology of stoicism, competition, and aggression that places value on excessive masculine individualism and devalues women’s spaces and collectivism. Below, a reader discusses the pleasure she experiences in choosing to read a narrative produced by and for women:

The vast majority of romances are written by and read by women. There is

something empowering in picking a book to read for pleasure; it’s a way to say

109 that one’s time is spent in the way of one’s choice. And romance in particular

focuses on emotional engagement and the development of relationships, saying

that these things—which are seen as the province of women, and are not always

respected in society as a whole—are in fact vital. (Reader Questionnaire 1)

Reading may be an individual activity, but romance novels privilege family and community, and as author Liz Selvig explains, are ultimately stories about journeys from isolation to connection that value female subjectivity:

Romance novels are all about the journey for isolation to community, from

isolation to connection and it has always fascinated me that the larger world

somehow feels like that’s shameful. That that’s not something that we are all

aspiring toward….what all romance novels do is talk about people who are

hungering to be connected in a really powerful and authentic way, they want to go

from being isolated individuals to being part of a family that works, and

somehow….Somehow it becomes embarrassing, it becomes the problems only of

women. It somehow becomes a second-class thing.

Writers convey to women that wanting better for oneself is healthy “because I think it still needs to be, it’s a story that still needs to be said, even after all these decades, we still have to say it, it’s okay. Get yourself up and have your happy ever after” (Writer

FG 1). Romance novels normalize and value women’s desires and they show women that it is okay to ask for what they want within their intimate relationships. Romance novels not only legitimize and value emotions and the cultivation of relationships, but also, as the following section will demonstrate, female sexuality and desire.

110 Romance Novels as Spaces of Female Sexual Freedom

I think in a harsh world where women, especially, are exposed to so much violence and hardship and in a lot of places, civil rights violations and that it’s important to have this place to come to where your thoughts, your needs, your desires come first. Where your happiness, your orgasm, your dream, it’s all okay. So, I think that romance is so important, and that I think the women who don’t read romance don’t know what they are missing. (Reader 7)

Romance novels have a range of sexual content. Some novels are very chaste, with no references to intimate sexual contact, though most contemporary romance novels contain sex scenes. Some have only one sex scene without many details, while others contain in-depth, detailed sex scenes. Erotic romance novels, romance novels that feature a range of erotic sex scenes, have grown in popularity, particularly BDSM (bondage, discipline, submission, sadomasochism)-themed erotic romance novels (Ungar-Sargon,

2018). While romance novels always deliver a “happy ending” for female heroines, they also often deliver great sex. As the opening quote from a reader says, romance novels are a space “where your happiness, your orgasm, your dream, it’s all okay” (Reader 7).

Romance novels are narratives about the triumphs of women, and that includes a healthy and satisfying sex life, as this reader comments:

I think its impact on readers has been a cultural revolution. Women were

relegated to the dumber sex role rather than being recognized for the amazing

human beings they are. Romance gave us the ability to step up and raise our hands

in triumph—this is what we love to read! (Writer Questionnaire 14)

My data shows romance novels give women sexual agency, and while contemporary American culture is saturated in sex, the majority of sexual content available on the market is androcentric. Everything from pornography and sexual

111 advertisements, to sexual content in film and television, largely feature white male sexual fantasies (Dines, 2011). Such images and narratives, steeped in frequent and emotionally detached sex, are not primarily concerned with female sexual desire or pleasure. More often than not, pornography constructs female sexual desire and agency in relation, or reaction to, white male sexual desire and fantasy (Bell, 2013; Collins, 2005; Millett,

1970; Valenti, 2009). Furthermore, my fieldwork shows romance novels represent a safe space to explore female sexuality in general, as well as a range of sexual fantasies, be they heterosexual and monogamous, BDSM, role-, male/male, female/female, as well as a range of polysexual and polyamorous fantasies that explore both gender and sexual identities. As one reader comments, romance novels encourage women to acknowledge and nourish their sexual identity and desires:

And, women are encouraged to own and accept their sexuality in romance novels;

independence is considered a positive trait in romance novels, heroines think and

act independently and develop respect for their uniqueness. And heroines demand

to be treated with dignity and respect. These are excellent learning tools. (Reader

Questionnaire 13)

Taking pleasure in sex, initiating sex, and discussing sexual desires with intimate partners is an essential component of many contemporary romance novels. Often derided as

“mommy porn,” romance novels speak to women’s emotional and sexual desires and fantasies within a culture chiefly concerned with the desires of men. The term “mommy,” much like the term “trashy,” is used to make clear that romance novels are lesser; in this

112 case, the sexual material is lesser because women, even mothers, consume said sexual material.

My fieldwork showed me that romance novels push back against the ways patriarchal society socializes girls and women to understand sexuality and sexual desire within in a very limited framework. The patriarchal framework relies on toxic gender and sexual scripts focusing on male sexual aggression, male agency, and female submission and dependency (Bell, 2013; Collins, 2005; Millett; 1970; Valenti, 2009). What such a socializing in gender and sexuality translates to men as active sexual agents who desire and initiate sex, and women react to male sexual desire. Contemporary female sexuality, more often than not, is androcentric. In sociologist and psychologist Bell’s (2013) study of what she terms the “paradox of female sexual freedom” in contemporary culture, she argues that, culturally and socially speaking, society has yet to acknowledge a wide range of sexual subjectivities, particularly female sexuality and desire. Bell (2013) uses the term “paradox of sexual freedom” to argue that while women have more sexual and economic freedom than previous generations, they feel generally confused, conflicted, and uncertain about the goals of sex and love overall. Specifically, women do not know how to achieve sexual intimacy because they live in an androcentric culture that detaches sex from emotions. Because masculinity is associated with sexual aggression and stoicism, emotions and the cultivation of relationships are associated with weakness.

Thus, patriarchal hegemonic culture constructs hegemonic sexuality via aggressive male desire and emotional detachment.

113 Thus, Bell (2013) notes that despite the rise of female agency and sexual freedom in contemporary culture, her twenty-something female participants reported feeling a sense of detachment between their sexual and emotional desires, and often felt deeply ashamed about their sexual urges and desire overall. Patriarchal mass culture bombards women and girls with conflicting, androcentric notions of female sexuality and subjectivity, as narratives of female purity and passivity conflict with the constant sexual objectification of women’s bodies: women must be simultaneously pure and passive, yet ready to hit the bedroom like a porn star. The cognitive dissonance Bell’s (2013) subjects reported about their sexual and emotional desires also reflects the fact women and girls often have very few gynocentric examples of sexual desire and intimacy in popular culture to consult for guidance.

The inability of heterosexual monogamy to fulfill the desires it engenders within women has been a persistent analytical result in research on women’s cultural, political, and economic realities. The wide body of work on gender and sexual politics spanning the last several decades is evidence of such (Bell, 2013; Collins, 2005; Firestone, 1970;

Friedan, 2001; Jackson, 1993; MacKinnon, 1989, 2001; Millett, 1970; Valenti, 2009). For example, Friedan (2001) found that women suffered from the “feminine mystique,” a lack of identity as a result of rigid gender roles that place women’s identity solely in caregiving and domestic work, with heteronormative monogamy failing to fulfill women’s lives. Firestone (1970) and Millett (1970) argued that romance in general is a tool of the patriarchy to keep women oppressed, as gender and sexual scripts function to reproduce male dominance, legitimizing the emotional, sexual, and physical exploitation

114 of women. Feminist theorists and critics have long interpreted feminine narratives that focus on love as ideology that functions as a boon for women’s complacency in their own subjugation (Jackson, 1993; Modleski, 1984; Radway, 1984). However, recent scholarship challenges such second-wave feminist notions by exploring romance novels as spaces that both reinforce and resist the patriarchy (Hollows, 2000; Kamble, 2012;

Thurston, 1987; Vivanco, 2012; Weisser, 2013). Hollows (2000) argues that while romantic love does function to reproduce compulsory heterosexuality and can rely heavily on female dependency and subordination, academics must address the significance and resistance within female and acknowledge reader agency when consuming texts. Readers are capable of critical engagement with romance novels, as interacting with popular media coproduces and resists hegemony (Moody,

2015).

Bells’ (2013) “paradox of sexual freedom” functions as a contemporary postfeminist sexual mystique. This postfeminist sexual mystique is steeped in neoliberal postfeminist ideologies sold to women by porn culture, media, religious ideology, politicians and women of privilege, all wrapped up in conflicting gender and sexual scripts. The contemporary postfeminist sexual mystique that women find themselves navigating, while not new, points to the persistent work of the patriarchy to delegitimize and devalue femininity, female sexual agency, and economic and emotional independence. The pervasive and ever-conflicting constructions and representations of women as sexual objects, but also as pure and passive, is problematic. Within patriarchal mass culture, women are simultaneously sexually objectified for the male gaze (Genz,

115 2009; 2010; Genz & Brabon, 2009; Gill, 2007; Williams, 2016), yet held to a higher expectancy of sexual purity and chasteness to remain of value (Valenti, 2009)—an example of the Madonna/Whore complex at play in contemporary culture. Porn culture and purity myths are a battleground of female sexual identity, yet both construct female sexuality in relation to male entitlements to women’s bodies. Overall, patriarchal mass culture sells sexual freedom to women as reactionary; female sexual desire is a response to male sexual aggression and desire, and it is too often emotionally detached and/or functions to reward men and punish women.

In romance novels, readers find gynocentric sexual narratives that delve deeply into both the emotional and sexual landscape of intimate relationships. Romance novels are about intimacy, and sex is a large part of intimate relationships. As the transcript from a reader questionnaire points out below, romance novels legitimize and celebrate female sexual desire and fantasy:

Yes, because romance novels today tend to celebrate women’s sexuality.

Romance novels say it’s okay for a woman to have good sex, enjoy good sex, and

have a healthy sex life without any negative connotations. Romance is the genre

where women take charge of their sexuality and take what they want.

(Reader Questionnaire 5)

Between the pages of a romance novel, women are able to leave the cognitive dissonance of a purity-obsessed, slut-shaming porn culture behind, and safely explore sexual intimacy, desire, and fantasy. Romance novels subvert hegemonic sexuality, masculinity, and femininity by resisting the role of women as passive sexual agents that simply react

116 to male physical desire. Moreover, romance novels explore sexual intimacy, all of the acts leading up to and after the main event—intimacy that is often missing from popular sexual images and narratives. Readers and writers find empowerment in the gynocentric sexual narratives that romance novels produce, as showcased in the below transcript from a writer focus group where the role of romance novels in developing healthy female sexual agency was discussed:

I think one of the things in today’s romances is that you find women taking

charge of their sexuality, so then they’re not under some man’s terms; they are

making their own choices about what they want to do with their bodies. That’s

incredibly empowering to have stories of women who are, I don’t want to say

sexually ready, that’s not exactly what I want to say; I just want to say sexually

empowered. Women who make choices one way or the other about what they

want to do with their bodies. Our books are just filled with those kinds of stories.

(Writer FG 7)

Romance novels feature narratives where women make decisions about their bodies and sexual desires. None of the prompts used during the data gathering phase specifically referenced the sexual content in romance novels or female sexual agency.

However, when asked questions about the appeal of romance, and if romance novels are empowering in any way, participants often spoke of the sexual agency they experience reading and writing romance novels. Both readers and writers alike discussed sexual agency in romance novels and the positive impact gynocentric sexual fantasies may have on female readers who might be struggling with their own sexual agency within a culture

117 that lends itself to male sexual agency and female sexual submission. The below transcript, from a reader focus group, points out the significance of romance novels as narratives that not only encourage female sexual agency but also detail positive sexual experiences for women:

I think reading and writing romance novels is a good way, I guess, to encourage

women to take control of their sexuality….I think there is still sort, an

understanding, of like you are just kind of there as a willing participant and the

guy is supposed to just know what he is doing and….There is instruction that has

to happen and you know the sooner you realize, like you read a book and you are

like, “Oh that kinda turns me on, maybe I’d like to try that.” There is this kind of,

this element of putting women back in control of their own sexuality, as opposed

to just waiting for something to happen. (Reader FG 6)

Romance novels portray women as active sexual participants, not simply beings that react to male sexual desire, normalizing female sexuality and desire where mainstream culture does not, as romance writer Alyssa Cole points out:

Because it can be hard for a woman because society…it doesn’t tell you what you

should like….like it tells you what you should do, to like find a man, and what

you should do to keep a man, and what you should do to look good. But it doesn’t

really tell you what they should do for you, to make you happy, what they should

do in a relationship to make you feel good. (Alyssa Cole)

Romance novels not only feature women’s emotional triumphs but also detail positive sexual encounters that revel in women’s sexual satisfaction, as opposed to men’s

118 sexual satisfaction. Patriarchal mass culture labels romance novels “dangerous” because they resist the patriarchal notion that sex is and has always been about male sexual desire and gratification. Romance novels push back against misogynistic gender and sex stereotypes like victim blaming and slut shaming. Romance novels acknowledge that women are sexual beings, and sexual freedom does not need to equate to emotionally detached sex, but if it does, that is acceptable as well. Furthermore, romance novels start a conversation about sex and intimacy, and normalize and celebrate female sexuality, as romance author Maya Rodale points out below:

But I think there’s also, these books like legitimize people’s, women’s desire. It’s

like you are normal for feeling that way. You are normal for liking this, or liking

that, and I think you can find a book for any act, any combination of people, any

fetish, whatever. So, I think by showing that its normal, a heroine feels these

things and does these things and is rewarded for it, it’s like, “You’re okay honey.

You can go do that.” (Maya Rodale)

The routine celebration of female sexual agency and desire in romance novels is one of the lesser-discussed (at least in a positive manner) widespread appeals of the modern romance novel.

One of the reader focus groups that was conducted during fieldwork was comprised of members of a pre-existing romance novel book club that meets monthly, and the participants discussed how liberating and validating it feels to talk about the relationships in the books, especially the sex scenes. The book club self-identifies as a feminist book club, a safe space for women to critically engage with the romance novels

119 they love and do not want to feel shame over their love for such texts, as evidenced by the transcript below that characterizes the book club as inherently feminist and sex- positive:

And like part of our feminist community is really openly talking about what we

think is hot….So when you have us all together in a room constantly talking about

sex, I’d say that’s like a pretty great leap in realizing, like in seeing each other as

like full real people that deserve just as much as any man in the world.

(Reader FG 5)

Many of the readers and writers spoke at length about how they believe reading and writing romance novels has a positive impact on their sex lives, a theory academics should further explore in future research on romance novels.

Culturally speaking, a legitimate space for female-centric sexual agency has yet to emerge in popular culture outside liminal gynocentric spaces, like romance novels. When misogynistic societal stigmas tell women that romance novels are dangerous, that female fantasy and desire are bad, and that respect, love, and good sex are not feasible goals in life for women, society is telling women that their sexual desires and thoughts are of no value or concern. The stigma against romance novels is a reminder that women are still second-class citizens, and any evidence of their female subjectivity detracts from their value in a patriarchal culture. Sexual content, particularly sexual content used to sell goods, are plentiful in contemporary culture (Dines, 2010), but because romance novels are texts written by women, for women, an androcentric, misogynistic culture continuously works to discredit writers and readers of romance novels by labeling them

120 dangerous and unhealthy. Romance novels are not sexual fantasies written to appease hegemonic culture; romance authors write to reflect the desires and fantasies of a subaltern group, female-identified individuals and groups, as well as, increasingly, the

LGBTQ community. Author Tessa Dare declared passionately in response to a question about romance novels as dangerous books, “God forbid we get ideas. God forbid we start to expect orgasms, commitment. What’s so threating about that?” Romance novels are dangerous, but they are not dangerous to women; they are dangerous to the patriarchy because they show women they can be active participants in their emotional and sexual well-being, and that female sexuality is not simply a passive response to men’s sexual advancements and desires.

Conclusion: Romance Novels and Feminism

“Romance novels star women and speak to the obstacles we face in everyday life” (Writer Questionnaire 14).

Radway (1991) posits that instead of simply reaffirming and rendering women complicit within a dangerous patriarchal ideology, as Modleski (2008) theorizes, romance novels also speak to the fundamental inability of heterosexuality to fulfill the desires it enculturates in women. Radway (1991) is referring to the inability of contemporary gender and sexual roles and social contracts of the 1980s to fulfill the promised happiness that women would experience as a result of adequately performing one’s gender and sexual role or place within society. Such is a more contemporary version of Friedan’s

(2001) problem with no name, or the lack of identity women were feeling in post-WWII culture when fulfilling proscriptive hyper-feminine roles failed to provide a sense of purpose or identity for women. In contemporary culture, romance novels still function to

121 grapple with the gender and heterosexual binaries’ inability to provide fulfillment.

Images and messages of women’s subordinate and inferior nature, as well as their sexual ambivalence and dependence on male sexuality, persist in contemporary culture. Women as sexual beings outside of an emotionally detached, male-driven porn culture focused on the sexual sell are rare in mainstream popular culture, particularly when looking beyond female-centric platforms. Romance novels not only allow women to reject self- abnegating social roles but also an androcentric, neoliberal, zero-sum approach to life that increasingly relegates issues that impact women as personal problems or simply

“women’s issues,” not societal issues. By providing optimistic narratives of female triumph and the power of intimacy, family, and community, romance novels provide readers with the hope that they too can cultivate satisfying intimate relationships, and perhaps have their own “happy ending.” In general, romance novels help readers and writers feel more optimistic about the world around them.

Radway (1991) proposes romance novels to be an escape from the reality of everyday life for women and a mode of psychological reproduction. Radway’s (1991) theoretical and methodological framework shifted romance scholarship in the 1980s from perceiving romance novels solely as technologies of patriarchal ideology to understanding them as spaces of opposition as well. Women are still the primary caregivers, both in private and public spaces, and still responsible for the cultivation of relationships and psychological reproduction of others. While contemporary culture does now urge men more often to reject toxic masculinities steeped in stoicism, misogyny and

122 violence, ideologies that represent and reinforce men as strong and stoic and women as weak and emotional persist in contemporary culture.

Interviews, focus groups, participant observation, and questionnaires with readers and writers paints a picture of romance novels as celebratory gendered technologies that assign the highest value to “women’s issues.” Except, in romance novels, “women’s issues” are simply everyday human issues, as women are not the “other” within a romance novel. When one picks up a romance novel, they will not need to worry about the sexual objectification of women and girls for the male gaze (Mulvey, 1999) or the denigration of female-centered pursuits, emotions, or desires in life. When one picks up a romance novel, there is no need to worry that the patriarchy will punish characters for showing and celebrating emotion, assigning value to relationships, or for desiring a satisfying sex life. Women are accustomed to derision for asking for more—more respect, more civil liberties, more safe spaces, more money for their labor, more female orgasms. Romance novels provide a safe space for female and feminine subjectivities to figure out what they want, and how to ask for it, or as Heidi Cullinan explained, romance novels teach women that “They are not asking for too much. They’re learning to ask for what they want.”

Contemporary postfeminist culture simultaneously vilifies feminism, as well as acknowledges how important it was but is now unnecessary (Genz, 2009; 2010; Genz &

Brabon, 2009; Gill, 2007; Modleski, 1991; Tasker & Negra, 2007; Williams, 2016).

Popular culture is rife with images and narratives of women living in a postfeminist culture where feminism is apolitical. Feminism, or female empowerment, becomes an

123 individualistic, commodified version of feminism to sell women an androcentric version of empowerment steeped in neoliberal ideology, internalization of the male gaze, and the sexual sell (Genz, 2009; 2010; Genz & Brabon, 2009; Gill, 2007; Modleski, 1991; Tasker

& Negra, 2007; Williams, 2016). While the intent of this research was never to make the argument that all romance novels, readers, and writers are feminist, and in fact not postfeminist, the goal was to get a better understanding of the relationship between feminism and romance novels. I have encountered numerous romance novels, readers, and writers that I would categorize as feminist throughout my exploration of romance novels, just as I have encountered romance novels, readers and writers that I would not categorize as feminist.

As women’s roles in society, as well as their sociopolitical positionality, have evolved, so too has the romance novel (Kamblé, 2014; Thurston, 1987; Vivanco, 2012;

Weisser, 2013). Women’s opportunities in the public sphere have progressed, and romance novels reflect the changing positionality of women. Between the pages of romance novels, heroines have grown to have more agency, economic independence, success in their careers, sexual agency, and life trajectories that do not revolve around the desires and whims of men. Romance novels are products of popular culture, and thus reflect women’s contemporary political economic positions (Kamblé, 2012; Thurston,

1987; Vivanco, 2012; Weisser, 2013); they have had no choice but to evolve, as do many other consumer markets within popular culture (such as television).

Throughout my fieldwork, I spoke to women who absolutely identified as feminists and viewed romance novels as feminist, just as I spoke to women who did not

124 identify as feminist, and/or actively distanced themselves from feminism. Despite the fluctuations in participants’ understanding of and identification with feminism, all of my participants had similar responses to why they love romance novels, how they understand the stigma, and why they believe romance novels have a positive impact on women’s lives. I walked away from my fieldwork feeling optimistic about what I learned about the romance genre; readers and writers feel empowered, appreciated, and celebrated in romancelandia. The romance genres have a real impact on the everyday lives of readers and writers, be it providing a short escape from the chaos that is life, or, in the context of writers, also paying for the mortgage.

A concern I was left with is the fact that scores of women (and men) still misunderstand feminism, and often view feminism as the enemy to women’s progress.

Much like postfeminism, such participants would acknowledge the necessity of the women’s liberation movement but reject feminism as a social justice movement and a political stance. Many women I spoke with expressed the desire to be feminist, but they felt they were too traditionally feminine, conservative, or religious to be welcome in a feminist community. Some participants felt like feminism did not need or want them; moreover, they did not trust feminism to support them as women. The power of negative myths about feminism that flourish in mass culture are problematic. For example, the idea that feminists are, at worst, man haters who want to take over, or at best, misguided liberals who are blind to the very real differences among the genders, persists. In fact, various approaches to feminism center on equity, not the idea that everyone is the same and has the same needs, nor the belief that women are inherently better than men and

125 what society needs is a matriarchy versus a patriarchy (Seely, 2007; Valenti, 2007).

Third-wave feminism champions intersectional gender politics, which acknowledge that women are different in a variety of ways (Collins, 1993; Crenshaw, 1991; Lorde, 1984).

The majority of my participants discussed romance as a literary genre about the triumphs of women, empathy, and forming healthy relationships. Thus, regardless of my participants’ belief, trust, or identification with feminism, they all acknowledged romance novels as progressive spaces for women that place value on female subjectivity, empathy, the cultivation of relationships, and collectivism. Romance novels will never be

“perfectly” feminist, as they are commodities of pleasure and entertainment, not manifestos of social justice. Yet, romance novels continue to resist, in increasingly progressive ways, a patriarchal value system and the control it has over the everyday lives of women.

Romance novels are a testament that emotion, community, family, friendship, and love are not simply a consolation prize for women upholding patriarchal rule, but that the cultivation of relationships is difficult and involves work on behalf of both members of a partnership, regardless of gender and sexual identity. Within the pages of a romance novel, the patriarchy cannot equate emotional labor with the gendered division of labor, but as a requirement of the human condition. Romance novels are a safe space for women to escape for a little while, a space where the protagonist always wins and every story ends well. Modleski (2008) argues that romance novels inoculate women against the ills of the patriarchy, functioning as women’s salve for their continuing and willful participation in male domination. While I do not agree that the primary function of

126 romance novels is to reward women for their continuing participation in their own subjugation, I argue that romance novels do have a function in the context of women’s everyday battle with the patriarchy: as a space to grapple with gendered hierarchies, female sexual agency, and women’s subjectivity and pleasure. In so doing, romance novels continuously reinforce and resist the patriarchy within a space that both women and the non-binary community turn to for escape and pleasure. The following chapter,

Chapter 6, explores romance novels as a participatory realm of gynocentric production.

More specifically, Chapter 6 investigates romancelandia as a gendered participatory realm.

127 Chapter 6: The Romancelandia Collective: Gynocentric Production and

Participatory Culture

Understanding romance novels in the context of fandom, or participatory culture, while not the primary motive for this study, proved to be a bumpy road, as analyzing the data to contextualize participatory culture in the romance genres within the discourse of fan studies has not been easy. Despite interrogations of gender, hierarchies, and participatory culture, fan studies is still dealing with the patriarchal hierarchy of the discipline. Fan studies as an academic field has evolved over the past several decades to be more inclusive in its definition and understanding of what constitutes both fan identity and participatory culture. However, the androcentric nature of fan studies, and academia in general, has made it difficult to situate gynocentric production and participatory culture firmly within the canon. As with many other critical and cultural disciplines, women’s and gender studies included, fan studies has struggled to evolve into a more intersectional canon, and is now in what academics refer to as the third wave (Gray,

Sandvoss, & Harrington, 2017).

Gray, Sandvoss, and Harrington (2017) describe the evolution of fan studies in the context of waves, much like current theoretical and historical understandings of feminism. The first wave of fan studies was primarily concerned with structures of power and representation. First wave fan studies explored fandom within a rigid producer- consumer binary that situated fans as a league of disempowered consumers resisting the top-down structure of media production through subversive techniques to extend the relationship with the object of fandom (Gray, Sandvoss, & Harrington, 2017). Scholars

128 often refer to the first (and second) wave as the activist phase of fan studies, where academics themselves began to “come out” as fans and argue for the construction of a legitimate discourse in order to properly engage with the rise of participatory culture in a technologically mediated society (Gray, Sandvoss, & Harrington, 2017; Zubernis, &

Larsen, 2012). The second wave of fan studies focused on cultural production and hierarchies within fan communities, extending the analysis of social hierarchies and fan objects beyond the producer-consumer binary to explore relationships and hierarchies within fan communities themselves (Gray, Sandvoss, & Harrington, 2017; Zubernis, &

Larsen, 2012). Fan studies scholars encourage the third wave of fan studies to broaden the contemporary and historical understandings of what constitutes participatory culture and fan identity by exploring larger social, cultural, historical, and economic movements alongside participatory culture and objects of fandom (Gray, Sandvoss, & Harrington,

2017; Zubernis, & Larsen, 2012).

The meaning of participatory culture is not static, for participatory culture is a concept used to discuss the ways in which consumers are active recipients of media products in a capitalist economy (Bacon-Smith, 1992; Booth, 2010; Gray, Sandvoss, &

Harrington, 2017; Hill, 2002; Jenkins, 2006; Zubernis, & Larsen, 2012). Within participatory culture, consumers have the agency to engage in practices to share media products (Bacon-Smith, 1992; Booth, 2010; Gray, Sandvoss, & Harrington, 2017; Hill,

2002; Jenkins, 2006; Zubernis, & Larsen, 2012). Moreover, fans both produce and extend the meaning of cultural texts in a variety of ways, including using said media objects to construct new texts and new ways of constructing meaning (Bacon-Smith, 1992; Booth,

129 2010; Gray, Sandvoss, & Harrington, 2017; Hill, 2002; Jenkins, 2006; Zubernis, &

Larsen, 2012). Fanzines, vidding, fan fiction, cosplay, conventions and conferences, blogging, podcasts, and various online fan forums via social media are simply a few examples of the ways in which fans engage in participatory culture in order to nurture emotional engagement and attachment to objects of fandom.

Alongside the waves of fan studies, the ways in which academics position themselves when discussing participatory culture has shifted. Initially, academics studied participatory culture from a purely outsider perspective that constructed a barrier between the researcher and the subject, or an “us vs. them” dichotomy (Jenkins, 2006). The emergence of “acafans,” or academics who self-identify and celebrate their participation in fandoms, changed exploration of fans to a more personal, insider perspective in defense of the subject being researched (Jenkins, 2006). The third wave of fan studies resists the debate of outsider vs. insider by acknowledging that discussing researcher positionality is more important than debating whether the insider vs. outsider perspective is superior or inferior within fan studies (Jenkins, 2006). As was explained in the introduction and methods chapters, this study utilized an ethnographic, or insider approach to participatory culture.

What follows is an introductory exploration of what gynocentric production and participatory culture look like, and a call for further study of gynocentric participatory communities. Gynocentric production disrupts the consumer-producer binary, fostering female-centric dynamics not only within producer-consumer relationships, but also within the structure of the romance market in general. Thus, in order to better understand

130 participatory culture within Romancelandia we must explore the gynocentric nature of the production of romance novels. The preceding sections address contemporary gender issues in fan studies, the gynocentric nature of romancelandia, the blurred producer- consumer binary, and gynocentric participatory communities as spaces where producers and consumers celebrate emotions, the cultivation of relationships, and female sexual desire, as opposed to ignoring, denying, or classifying such as inferior or problematic.

Gender and Fan Studies: Emotions, Attachment, and Femininity

The relationship between fan studies and gender has been problematic, as contemporary fan studies initially emerged out of academic research on participatory communities constructed by female-identified fans of androcentric media platforms and fan objects, such as the Star Trek series (Roddenberry, 1966). Yet, the construction of fan identity is androcentric in nature (Bacon-Smith, 1992; Coppa, 2008; Zubernis, & Larsen,

2012; Wilson, 2018). The archetypal subjectivity, or construction of fan identity, that is associated with “fan” and “fandom” is typically a “geeky” white man, or “the bespectacled, pockmarked man-child nervously waiting for autographs at a convention or milling about a comic book store” (Wilson, 2018, p. 434). In fact, hierarchal fan terminology has emerged to identify lesser (female/emotional) fans, the “fangirl,” and those male-identified fans who perhaps become a little too emotionally attached to their objects of fandom, the “fanboy” (Chin, 2013; Kirkland, 2017; Trier-Bieniek, 2015;

Wilson, 2018; Zubernis, & Larsen, 2012). The struggle to contextualize romance fandom and fan studies stemmed not from exploring romance fandom as participatory culture, but with the construction of fan identity in relation to the gender binary; fan hierarchies

131 reflect the hierarchies of the gender binary, associating legitimacy and value with masculine traits and inferior fan identity with feminine traits.

The activism or “coming out” academics participated within in the initial phases of fan studies centered around revealing oneself as a non-normative consumer of media products, or having what patriarchal mass culture considers an excessive emotional attachment to an object of fandom (Zubernis, & Larsen, 2012; Wilson, 2018). Fandom and fan identity presented themselves as extended emotional attachment to media that manifested within some form of participatory culture or group and/or individual activities and relationships that nurture one’s attachment to an object of fandom. From the beginning, fan studies has endeavored to legitimize emotional attachments to media objects. An outcome of such research, whether intentional or not, has been the acknowledgement and construction of hierarchies within fandom communities.

Furthermore, the identity construction of “fan” itself positions more legitimate fans as those who are capable of nurturing their extended relationships with media objects in

“masculine” or more visibly stoic and emotionally detached ways. The shame and stigma that surround fandom, much like the societal stigma surrounding romance novels, is what patriarchal mass culture perceives to be excessive emotional attachment and a desire to cultivate and nurture relationships with media products. Thus, like the gender binary, which assigns the most value to masculine traits, legitimacy within many fandoms revolves around masculine modes of behavior (Zubernis, & Larsen, 2012; Wilson, 2018).

When exploring fan studies as a canon, there is a common use of terms such as

“excessive” and” inappropriate” when referring to female fans, displays of emotion,

132 female sexual desire, and the “passion”—another term for an emotional attachment—that fans may exhibit (Bacon-Smith, 1992; Booth, 2010; Hill, 2002; 2007; Jenkins 1992;

2006; 2007; Zubernis and Larsen, 2012; Williams, 2018). Furthermore, hegemonic fan culture perceives the female gaze—i.e. the sexualized gaze of female-identified fans—as inappropriate within hegemonic participatory culture (Zubernis, & Larsen, 2012;

Williams, 2018). Zubernis and Larsen (2012) explore the guilt, pleasure, or the excessive emotional attachment associated with lesser, or less “appropriate”-fan behaviors, practices, and identity in their study of female-driven fandom of the popular CW television series Supernatural (Kripke, 2005). They relate what hegemonic fan culture considers excessive emotional intimacy to larger societal rejection of female sexual subjectivity—the tendency to discount, trivialize, devalue, deride, infantilize, and mock female fans who express too much emotion, particularly any sexual desire, for their objects of fandom.

Zubernis and Larsen (2012) point out the reality of female subjectivity within the gender binary, as women are still socialized to focus on their positionality as subjects of desire, not subjects that desire, thus reinforcing the idea that men desire and act out on said desire, and women are passive and must be receptive to male sexual interest. The fact that larger social trends concerning gendered behavior and hierarchies play out within participatory communities should be no surprise. Participatory culture, while subaltern in nature, functions within a patriarchal system and is not free from toxic gendered behaviors, such as associating feminine traits with a lesser value. Readers, writers, and industry professionals constructed romancelandia for the female gaze—a

133 gaze often associated with a lack of legitimacy not only within fandom, but society at large. Therefore, exploring the dimensions of romance novel fandom becomes problematic within fan studies discourse, as romance novel fan subjectivity is already positioned as excessive and inappropriate within hegemonic discourse.

The intent here is not to reconstruct a hierarchy of fandom or to necessarily be an activist for gynocentric realms of participatory culture, but to explore the dimensions of gynocentric fandom and the ways in which the shame connected to emotional displays and attachments to media objects within fandom parallels the gender binary and stigma attached to the romance genres. Gynocentric production and participatory culture celebrate and value practices within fandom that patriarchal mass culture often labels overly emotional, sexual, and/or feminine. Yet, such communities are specifically constructed to be female-centric, favoring female subjectivities, particularly in the context of emotion, sex, love, and the cultivation of relationships. Both fan studies and feminism are in their third waves, and both are still striving to become more intersectional in their construction of identity within a system that continuously favors and legitimizes masculine traits over feminine as promoted by the gender binary.

Contextualizing romancelandia and fan studies proved interesting, as both spaces are specifically and intentionally about emotions and the cultivation of relationships (both with objects of fandom and other fans). Within various fandoms, female sexual subjectivity is often viewed with suspicion and concern over “excessive” and

“inappropriate” emotions/emotional displays (Zubernis, & Larsen, 2012; Williams,

2018).

134 At its core, fan studies is about attachment, emotional attachment and pleasure in the consumption of media. Booth (2010) posits that everyone is a fan of something; thus, in a way, fan studies is a means of studying humans as social beings. Human beings form emotional attachments regularly, yet one of the issues that has persisted in fan studies is finding a language, rhetoric, set of terminology or academic theory that is able to effectively engage with affect and emotional engagement. Jenkins (1992; 2006; 2007) has spent his career in fan studies arguing for and searching for such a language, “an adequate language to describe emotion or affect in theoretical terms that would be acceptable within academic discourse” (2006, p. 26). Much like romancelandia, fan studies has been striving to discuss sentiment and attachment in ways that more directly relate to the human condition. Fan studies has struggled in its search for such a language because it does not yet exist within a patriarchy that continuously reinforces the hierarchy of traits within the gender binary that categorically situates emotion, attachment, and nurturing with inferiority. Fan studies is looking for inclusive terminology and rhetoric to explore emotion and attachment in a way that does not automatically become associated with inferiority and emotional excess, much in the same way romancelandia has struggled for decades to be critiqued fairly. What follows is an exploration of gynocentric production and participatory culture in romancelandia.

Romancelandia: The Profitability of Gynocentric Production

“We have to kind of, the world doesn’t really respect what we do, so we have to respect what we do in ourselves” (Zoe Archer).

In order to understand the ways in which participatory culture in romancelandia differs from prevailing discourses in fan studies and the producer-consumer relationship,

135 one must first explore the gynocentric production of romance novels that resists androcentric modes of capitalistic individualism and competition. The modern romance novel emerged in the 1970s with Avon’s publication of The Flame and the Flower

(Woodwiss, 1972), the success of which opened a market for female-centric romantic literature targeted towards female readers beyond domestics and category romance.

While the market opened up for female writers of romantic fiction targeted towards women, romance writers found themselves constantly coming up against sexist and elitist barriers within publishing that positioned female writers as lesser and romance novels as inconsequential, or not “real books” (Larson, 2017). Many published writers, as well as aspiring romance writers, found it difficult, if not impossible, to find writer and publishing associations and groups that would work with, or take romance writers seriously. Romance writing, an already solitary endeavor, became that much more isolating for authors (Larson, 2017).

The lack of existing resources for the creative labor of romance writers or acknowledgment of them as professionals, led to the construction of Romance Writers of

America (RWA) in 1980, the first and now largest romance writer association, not only domestically but also internationally (Larson, 2017; RWA, 2019). In 1980, mother-and- daughter romance writers Rita Gallagher and Rita Clay Estrada, and romance novel editor and activist Vivian Stephens, founded RWA with a network of thirty-seven writers, with the first annual meeting (conference) in Houston, Texas (RWA, 2019). The founders predicted one hundred and fifty romance writers would attend; however, they underestimated the desire for a professional organization for romance writers, and six

136 hundred and eighty writers showed up to that first conference (Larson, 2017; RWA,

2019). From there, RWA took off and grew, and today it has more than one hundred local and online chapters. RWA chapters are organized both by location and sub-genre of romance: one can join a local chapter that meets in person, an online chapter, or a chapter that focuses on a specific subgenre of romance, such as romantic suspense (RWA, 2019).

RWA offers craft and business classes and writer workshops, as well as information about contracts, copyright, piracy, and other business and legal matters writers must contend with in the publishing world. Both local and online chapters host monthly meetings and events, as well as workshops year-round, in addition to the annual national

RWA conference held in a different city in the United States every year.

At its core, RWA is a community of authors that functions to encourage, promote, and develop writing careers in the romance genre (Larson, 2017). One of the primary motivations for the foundation of RWA was to act as an intermediary, or means of connecting, writers with editors, agents, publishers, and other writers and industry professionals (Larson, 2017). Prior to the feasibility of self-and digital publishing, RWA acted as the go-between, or facilitator, of relationships between writers and the gatekeepers of publishing (i.e. publishing houses). Today, RWA opens communication between writers and publishing houses, but also facilitates the growth of independent and self-publishing resources for writers. Self-publishing is a means of avoiding the traditional gatekeepers of publishing, as well as provides a larger percentage in revenue per unit sold than does traditional publishing, as fewer people/entities must share in the profits from book sales.

137 RWA, as a professional writer organization, is and always has been very different from other professional organizations, primarily stemming from the intent to construct an organization for romance writers and entrepreneurs not taken seriously by a sexist publishing world. From the moment of its foundation, RWA has resisted the notion that being a professional writer is intrinsically tied to one’s already established list of publications and monetary success, as well as one’s literary genre. Thus, the RWA bylaws allow for anyone who is, or wishes to become, a writer (one need not be a romance writer specifically) to join the organization and attend local and national chapter meetings and conferences. Unlike most professional writer associations, RWA exists to help writers, published or not, become published writers, as opposed to simply honoring the individual achievements of already published or “professional” writers. RWA’s focus on professional and creative development sets it apart from other professional writer organizations, such as Mystery Writers of America and Science Fiction and Fantasy

Writers of America, that do not provide such extensive professional development and support networks. Romance author Jeni Burns, who describes her novels as science fiction and fantasy/paranormal, has previous experience with SFWA and described the association as “a bunch of men that don’t want you until you’ve proven that you are worthy [SFWA]” (Jeni Burns). Burns further explained that RWA is unique:

Because not only will they take you unpublished and give you opportunities to learn

more about the craft of writing, not just within the romance genre but in general,

it’s an organization that helps you build yourself up as a writer….This organization

[RWA] takes you and says, “Great. So, you are interested in being a writer, well,

138 let’s give you tools to see if this is something that’s going to work out for you.”

(Jeni Burns)

From its inception, RWA has endeavored to promote a business model that resists androcentric modes of individualistic competition that pit authors against each other.

Instead, RWA encourages authors to support each other and share information. After all, the founders of RWA constructed the organization on the belief the success of one romance writer meant success for all romance writers, as romance writer explains below:

So, it’s not the kind of work that thrives on competition. It was more because,

literally it floods all boats; we need to have a good book out there. If there is no

good book, people just turn away from reading. (Eloisa James)

RWA resists a zero-sum model of business and competition that assumes any success one’s competitors have detracts from one’s own value and ability to succeed, instead championing a business model that encourages writers to support each other by helping emerging and not yet published authors. Below, romance writer Zoe Archer discusses the supportive, community-driven aspect of RWA:

Yeah, so as far as that’s concerned, I think the community has been, it’s one of the

rare communities where people are genuinely supportive of one another and they

are happy for other people’s success. And, having come also from, my husband was

a screen writer, and so I was very familiar with the Hollywood model, and no one

is happy to see somebody else succeed. So, it’s very different in this environment.

(Zoe Archer)

139 This is not to imply there are no competitions, contentions, or hierarchies within the romance genre, but that information-sharing, mentoring, professional development, and author support networks are the backbone of RWA and thus the production realm of the romance genre at large within the United States (Larson, 2017).

Larson (2017) contextualizes RWA’s business model as based in feminist ethics and care, which encourages a collective, supportive, and nurturing business model over an individualistic and emotionally detached mode of competition. Writers were quick to point out such a factor out during interviews and focus groups, such as the transcript below from a writer focus group that discusses the differences between androcentric and gynocentric professional spaces:

Yeah, definitely, I mean, in my other life I'm a lawyer, which, even when I was

going to school and coming out of school, was very much very a male-dominated

world, and a very cutthroat world where everybody was competing against

everybody else, and nobody would help you. You’d had to make it on your own,

and yet, when I came into the embrace of RWA, here are all these people; you don’t

know anybody, and then “I'm so and so, meet so and so.”…. There's this sisterhood

of women who, it's not all about competition, and if I get ahead, or you get ahead,

we all get ahead if we help each other. That’s a very different environment I think

from what you find in a lot of corporations or law firms or whatever that are male

dominated. (Writer FG 5)

RWA and romancelandia are evidence that more collective-ethics, and-care-driven business models, or gynocentric modes of business, can be economically successful.

140 Romance novels are not only a supportive literary genre but also the most profitable literary genre globally, and the only literary genre that increased sales after the emergence of internet technologies and digital publishing, while other literary genres decreased in sales (Larson, 2017; RWA, 2019).

Larson’s (2017) study of the publishing industry, romance writers, and RWA positions the economic success of the romance genres as the result of the gynocentric mode of production within the romance genres due to the dynamics of RWA. She argues that the romance genre and romance writers in general have experienced a larger range of economic success in the past thirty-eight years due to the practices discussed above instituted by RWA to foster success: community-building, contests (incentives within the romance genre), and the sharing of social capital. Romance writer Tessa Dare discusses the proliferation of the romance genre and RWA’s role in supporting writers below:

It is welcoming, and sometimes people come into that, it’s like, “It’s because you

are women and women are nice.” But it makes economic sense; no single romance

writer can possibly produce enough to satisfy our devoted readers because they read

a lot….We need for those readers to keep reading other books while we are writing

the next one, or else they’re going to forget about us. So, the more good writers we

have in the genre, the better we all do, and I think we’ve just figured that out; this

is what works, and it does work. (Tessa Dare)

Such a factor alone makes RWA different from other writing associations and androcentric modes of competition in publishing that do not encourage collective

141 business practices to benefit all writers, as opposed to individual careers. As author Jeni

Burns points out below, RWA’s goal is to help writers publish and build their careers:

They are [RWA] working to help teach you what you need to know to get further

along in your career, and giving you that incentive too. I mean they are telling you

they think you can do it and they believe in you. I’ve never seen that anywhere else

in corporate America, none of my other jobs, employment, like never. So, it has

been a wonderful experience as far as I’m concerned. (Jeni Burns)

Moreover, romance writer Laura Florand points out below how RWA helped her navigate her career and negotiate better contracts:

It’s a body of knowledge [RWA] and a willingness to share knowledge. For

example, the reason I joined was realizing, in terms of my interactions with

publishing houses, I didn’t really know what I was doing, and I was signing bad

contracts and things like that. So, it’s very informative; you learn a lot, yeah. I think

it’s a pretty extensive support network; I think a lot of people who come here, not

only do they get support, but validation for what we are doing. (Laura Florand)

RWA provided Florand with the information and support she needed to build a more lucrative career as a romance writer. In interviews and focus groups with romance writers and industry professionals, one of the most frequent comments about RWA was how supportive the organization was. Participants were quick to explain how RWA is about women pulling up other women, as is showcased in the following quote from a writer focus group: “the more successful you get, it's because you’ve had people reaching down

142 and pulling you up, and then you have to take your turn, turn around, reach down and pull other people up with you” (Writer FG 5).

The national RWA conferences take place over four to six days and provide a large range of professional development workshops and events, including publisher and agent meet-and-greets and opportunities for writers to meet and pitch projects to agents, publishers, and other industry professionals. I attended a variety of craft and genre workshops in-between data collection, including workshops on plot development, writers block, how to write sexual tension, how to achieve historical accuracy in period novels, and how to accurately write about military and police procedures. I also attended workshops on tips for and paranormal themed romance, as well as public relations and self-publishing and how to develop pitching and negotiation skills. I was even able to attend a workshop on how to write through depression and hectic schedules.

Moreover, I was able to attend events that featured various publishers and what they could offer to writers, as well as book signings with complimentary books.

I contacted many writers prior to the conference to set up interviews and focus groups. However, when I arrived and began introducing myself and interacting with writers at the conference, my interview and focus group schedule immediately increased, as writers went out of their way to introduce me to their friends at the conference and help schedule additional interviews and focus groups. Writers and industry professionals were not only willing to participate in this study but were also excited and supportive of the research. Any researcher who works with human participants in the humanities can attest to the difficulties in finding/accessing willing participants for academic research,

143 yet I found myself in a position where writers were actively seeking me out during the conference and asking to participate. Below is a transcript from a writer focus group where they discuss the emotional support and pay-it-forward attitude of the romance genres:

These wonderful women have come into my life and taken me under their wing,

and I believe in paying it forward as well. So, it really is like a system in which it’s

an unspoken rule here, where you know people will welcome you in, and you have

to give that love back. That’s how we support ourselves; that’s the kind of self-

sustaining environment that we’ve created in this romance industry. That’s why a

lot of people, we hear them when they talk to outsiders they’ll say “RWA is one of

the best types of organizations to be a part of. No matter what genre you’re in.”

(Writer FG 5)

One of the many cultural myths about romance novels is they are easy to write, and that must be the only reason there are so many on the market. Larson (2017) argues it is due to the dynamics of the industry, including contests. RWA, as a part of the annual national conference, holds the RITA awards ceremony, named after the first RWA president Rita Clay Estrada, with a range of categories based on sub-genre of romance and format, including the only industry award for unpublished fiction, The Golden Heart.

The publishing industry has traditionally left romance writers out of literary competitions and awards ceremonies, so romance writers knew they needed to encourage and reward each other for their collective creative labor from within. A RITA is the romance genre equivalent of receiving an Oscar within the motion picture industry (Larson, 2017; RWA,

144 2019). Hundreds of romance writers don formalwear and celebrate each other’s accomplishments, with different hosts, guest presenters, and tributes every year. The

RITAs function as acknowledgement and celebration of the creative labor that romance writers continually push themselves to produce within a society that claims anyone can write romance and do well, as it is not a real genre, a real career, or a legitimate form of creative labor. As Larson points out:

Romance writers are enviably prolific—not because romance writing is easy:

Completing any manuscript of length requires enormous dedication and

discipline. Rather, over 30 years, the community has developed and instilled

production practices that we now know to be associated with writing productivity,

including deadlines, public acknowledgment, appreciation and social support.

(Larson, 2017, p. 58)

RWA and romancelandia in general have been able to build a gynocentric industry that functions to provide support, acknowledgement, and social capital in order to better ensure the continuing economic viability of the genre. Larson argues these three factors, information sharing, community support, and contests, are responsible for the enduring profitability of the romance genres in a publishing environment that has undergone vast declines in sales across all other genres, particularly with the rise of digital and self- publishing.

While many of the writer and industry professional participants shared that RWA was initially not receptive to self- and digital publishing, as it makes the need for publishers and agents, and perhaps RWA itself, superfluous, RWA has nevertheless

145 adapted to the changing publishing market and managed to help maintain the economic viability of the romance genres. While RWA is a gynocentric and often progressive professional association, it is also a body of power that struggles to represent all voices, and including non-hegemonic voices (that is, non-white, heterosexual, cisgender romance readers and writers). For instance, romancelandia and RWA continually struggle with representation and publishing practices that segregate and delegitimize women of color and the LGBTQ community as non-normative voices within the romance genre

(Thompson, 2019). A long history of whitewashing romance narratives and stratifying romance categories by race and sexual identity persists in the industry, though many romance writers, readers, and activists are speaking up and demanding systemic change

(Thompson, 2019).

The romance genres have been able to cultivate a profitable collective by incorporating a model of ethics and care, not only in the production process but also in the producer-consumer relationship. Because the production of romance novels differs from mainstream modes of production and distribution, the producer-consumer relationship and thus participatory culture within romancelandia resist the producer- consumer binary and promote a participatory culture that reflects a more gynocentric model of ethics and care (Larson, 2017; Radway, 1991; Weber, 1997). The following section further explores the producer-consumer relationship within romancelandia.

Producers are Consumers: Disrupting the Producer-Consumer Binary

“If someone's writing romance, it's because they started out as a passionate reader of romance and discovered they have a story to tell” (Amanda Weaver).

146 The romance genre has continuously resisted a more traditional producer- consumer binary that draws a distinct and hierarchal line between the producer and consumer of a product. Such resistance was a response to the sexism and literary elitism that have continually marginalized romance novels and writers. In addition, the gynocentric nature of the production process and the emotional and nurturing nature of the texts themselves have helped romance novels resist an androcentric business model.

Radway (1991) argues that the romance genre is not simply a genre where writers initially define success primarily through monetary motivation, as many writers feel drawn to the genre because they enjoy reading romance novels. Thus, Radway (1991) notes that “although many of the most successful authors in the field are professional writers, a significant number of them are ‘amateurs’ drawn to the genre by a desire to write the kind of material they love to read” (p. 68). From the beginning, modern romance novels have drawn in fans, or amateurs, into the business of writing, or producing, romance due to the pleasure they experience as consumers of romance novels.

Radway (1991) collected her data and research in the early 1980s alongside the emergence of RWA, and more contemporary research, such as Weber (1997) and Larson

(2017), argue that “from the start, most romance writers started out as romance fans, not professional writers” (Larson, 2017, p. 44). With the growth of RWA, more and more romance fans and writers have had a support network to help them actualize their publishing aspirations within the romance genres. The majority of the authors interviewed in this study considered themselves readers first, or fans of romance, as opposed to strictly professional producers of romance novels, as is showcased in the

147 following quote from a writer focus group: “I would say that I read them first, fell in love with them. So, now I love writing them” (Writer FG 1).

The boundaries between writers and readers, as Larson (2017) states, have always been “porous” (p. 44), which has fostered more intimate ties between producers and consumers within romancelandia. As unjustified, elitist, and sexist as it may be, the reality is that the publishing world, a product of patriarchal mass culture, looks down upon romance novels. The publishing world denigrates authors who choose to publish within romance, as opposed to genres the publishing world considers more legitimate..

As romance author Zoe Archer noted in an interview, “We have to kind of, the world doesn’t really respect what we do. So we have to respect what we do in ourselves.”

Because of the stigma surrounding romance novels both within popular culture and publishing industry, relationships between producers and consumers are far more intimate and less formal than other participatory realms. Romance writer Amanda

Weaver discusses the blurred lines between producer and consumer below:

Maybe it goes back to that snobbery in other types of . It can freeze

people out. But if someone's writing romance, it's because they started out as a

passionate reader of romance and discovered they have a story to tell. In the

romance social media world, you're just as likely to see a big author gushing over

someone else's book as they are talking about their own book. We're all fans.

(Amanda Weaver)

Romancelandia resists inflexible categories that rank one’s identity as decisively superior

(as producer) or inferior (as consumer). Because the dynamics of the production realm

148 make an effort to resist such ranking systems, this notion carries over into the participatory realm and the producer-consumer relationship.

In addition to attending RWA, I attended three reader/writer conventions, two RT

Booklovers conventions (for both readers and writers, as there were craft and business panels and events, as well as reader events) and one RomCon (reader panels and events only) convention. RT Booklovers, started by Kathryn Falk—the founder and owner of

Romantic Times Book Reviews magazine—was the largest romance fan convention in

North America for thirty-seven years. The magazine, and thus the convention, ended after

2018, as Falk retired and ended both the magazine and the convention. I attended RT

2015 (Dallas, TX) and RT 2016 (Las Vegas, NV). Much like RWA, convention attendance at RT reached almost three thousand, took place over four to six days, and contained panels and events from 7 AM until midnight. I conducted interviews and focus groups at RT and attended as many panels and events as my schedule would allow. I attended dozens of themed reader events, including daytime events and panels, in addition to the large, themed evening events. I only attended reader panels and events at

RT, as I had already participated in writer panels and events at RWA.

Some of the daytime panels I participated in are Paranormal Reader Carnival,

Come on Down! Romance Reader Game Show Mashup, Cover Model Karaoke,

Contemporary Romance: Booze & Books, Supernatural Den of Magical

Mayhem, Cards Against Humanity—Queer Romance Style, and How Well Do You

Know Your Harlequin Authors. Romance authors, publishers, and industry professionals host and fund all reader (fan) panels and events. Reader panels and events feature one-on-

149 one interactions with authors, interactive games, themes based on sub-genre and author, and a range of food and snacks/treats, alcoholic beverages, games, contexts, and other giveaways (books, gift cards, e-books, e-readers, and author swag). The evening events are themed and sponsored by many authors, as the events are large (for two or three thousand attendees, while daytime panels and events are often limited to a few hundred or far less, depending on the size of the space) and include entertainment, drinks, dancing, and dinner/snacks. At RT I attended evening events that were western/ themed, complete with a mechanical bull, paranormal romance-themed dinner theaters, as well as location-themed evening events. In Vegas this was casino and burlesque events, in Dallas it was cowboy, western, and Tex-Mex inspired events. Reader panels and events at RT were fan appreciation events that bring readers closer to their favorite authors and genres and introduce them to new authors and romance genres. While readers and writers do have different conference badges, it is nevertheless difficult to gauge the difference between consumers and producers as one is walking around the convention area, since the producers of content both orchestrate and attend events and panels alongside consumers.

Attending RT was a very different experience from other fan conventions I have attended in the past, such as Comic-Con. While there was a lot of waiting in line for events (a common characteristic of large fan conventions—attendees wait in long lines to get into individual panels and events), producers and consumers interacted without formal barriers. For example, once one pays for their registration for a romance book convention, one does not need to purchase additional tickets to meet or obtain autographs

150 or photos of the various producers of their objects of fandom. At romance conventions, one may approach producers both inside and outside of events, chat with them, and get autographs and photos. There is, however, a general rule of respect that one does not ask for autographs and pictures in the bathroom or go to the private hotel room/residence of an author/industry professional. Convention employees informed me that there are very rarely such issues at romance conventions, as attendees respect the privacy of other consumers and producers. I met dozens of well-known romance authors in the convention hallways, waiting in lines, and generally chatting with readers and other authors. While there were specific events and panels for various producers, said events were not limited opportunities for accessing producers of content, as producers attend the large evening events, as well as various events and panels throughout the convention. The intimacy between producers and consumers was surprising: the dynamic was not a producer- consumer relationship I have experienced before, either in my research as an academic or my activities as a fan at fan conventions.

When I witnessed consumers approach producers as they were socializing at a hotel restaurant or bar, producers happily engaged with consumers, taking the time to provide autographs, pictures, and oftentimes include said consumers in their socializing.

Romance writer Nico Rosso discusses the intimacy of a romance fan convention below:

I think it’s . I think it’s fantastic on both levels for the fans and it’s also it’s

like great to see a community of writers who are willing to show up and party with

their fans. Not even fans though, just party with their readers. It’s like their fans

would also just like, again it’s part of that relationship. It’s part of that kind of

151 connection that they have from these books that serve; it’s like, they are always

kind of joining up. It’s not like, I’ve only been to ComicCon once, it was a bunch

of years ago, but it was like, everyone is kind of seeing the actors or the show

creators or whatever, and everybody lining up to go meet them. Then they sign their

helmet or whatever and then they move on. RT is like, if you are sitting at the bar

and it’s like, “Oh shit there is the bestselling author and there is one of her readers

just hanging out and having a drink talking” It’s really nice because it is much more

of that kind of communal feeling. (Nico Rosso)

When I asked romance writer participants if such intimacy is normative during romance conventions, the authors informed me that not only is it normative, but writers intentionally socialize in public places at convention hotels with the intent of getting to know readers and other writers better. Resisting the consumer-producer binary is simply the nature of romancelandia and romance conventions in general, as romance writer

Maya Rodale explains below:

I interact with my readers regularly, constantly, primarily through social media,

Facebook, Twitter. I do a newsletter that people often write back to me, so I write

back to them. Then I love seeing them in meetings and at conferences, and to your

point about the line between professional and fan, it just, these conferences I think

help lower that in a really good way, and so I can, maybe someone’s a fan of my

work, but then we can meet as friends. We both love this thing, we are here together.

I don’t know; it’s cool. There are a bunch of readers I also recognize, that I hang

152 out with, that you email with on a more personal basis. So, again, that you see that

line running again between the reader and fan versus reader and friend.

(Maya Rodale)

Rodale was not the only romance writer who described readers as friends, as opposed to fans or consumers of her work; a romance writer Amanda Weaver explained that “the romance community is heavily involved in social media, Facebook, Twitter, review blogs, etc. There is really not a line. You become friends with your readers and interact with them about all kinds of stuff, not just the books." Everyone at a romance convention is there because they love romance novels, and attendees resist a hierarchal distinction between producers and consumers in favor of a supportive romance community. Readers were quick to praise the optimistic and supportive atmosphere of conventions as well; a participant in a reader focus group noted, “I think that’s why we are having so much fun here, because that reason [love of romance novels], you are surrounded by people who are just like you” (Reader FG 2). Not all romance authors are so heavily involved with their readers, but it is a normative practice within romancelandia.

While authors do plan events and outings for themselves and other authors without fans while at romance conventions, there is not a special VIP area or professionally restricted area for producers to keep them isolated/separate from consumers, as is common at fan conventions such as national and regional Comic-Cons.

Just as RWA resists hierarchies in the context of amateur versus professional writers, romance conventions make an effort to resist a producer-consumer hierarchy, fostering more collectivity and intimacy within the romance community. When asked why the

153 producer-consumer binary is less significant in romance fandom, many writers commented on the nurturing and intimate nature of romance novels themselves. Romance writer Brenda Novak noted the relationship between content and the intimacy between producers and consumers below:

I think it's probably the strongest out there. I mean, we certainly make ourselves

much more accessible to our readers. So, I think it's a more intimate relationship. I

think that we, and this is probably true with all writers, that you put your heart and

soul into every book you create. So, the people who will read them get to feel that

they know you to a point, and in a way they do. (Brenda Novak)

The intimate nature of the novels and the societal stigma, elitism, and sexism within publishing industry were the two most common factors that romance writers brought up when I asked them about the dynamics of romancelandia. Romance novels are about love, hope, and the cultivation of relationships and community, and the content of romance novels spills over into the romance community itself.

RT Booklovers functioned as a reader appreciation convention, an opportunity for producers to meet and cultivate potential consumers. In addition, as a draw for writers,

RT Booklovers was also a business/craft development convention as there were reader events, author events, publisher events, and events for librarians throughout the day during the convention. Furthermore, romance conventions are also spaces for fans of romance, be they producers or consumers, to celebrate romance and have fun at events and panels, dance together, enjoy dinner theater, dress for themed parties, and participate

154 in games and contests; a reader discusses her experience with writers at romance conventions below:

I have met a lot of them [authors] and I would say that the romance authors tend to

be more accessible than in my opinion than the other genres. I think mostly it is

because it is mostly women and I think again we are all transported into this world

so to speak. I do, overall I think the romance authors are just so accessible and they

love to interact with their readers. (Reader 5).

Complimentary books and author swag (a wide variety of industry swag provided by producers and industry professionals) abound, both to nurture existing relationships with consumers and to entice new consumers. The range of swag I picked up during my fieldwork includes pens and pencils, markers, bags and totes, sticky notes and notepads, bookmarks, hand sanitizers, hair brushes and mirrors, lip gloss and lip balms, stickers and decals, t-shirts, mouse pads and screen cleaners, thumb drives, pins and buttons, decks of cards, flashlights, stress balls, coffee mugs and cups, shot glasses, and a large variety of snacks and candies.

The data collected at a smaller, regional romance convention was very similar to

RT but far more intimate. RomCon is a romance reader convention with typically a few hundred attendees in Denver, Colorado, and while it lacked the numbers, event and panel options, and long lines that RT was known for, RomCon had a very similar feel, as producers and consumers attended events and socialized together throughout the convention. In many ways, such smaller conventions are far more intimate because people often attend the same panels and events throughout the day and evening, spending

155 far more time with the same readers and authors throughout the convention. While writing and reading may be a primarily solitary activity, the connections that producers and consumers make within romancelandia’s participatory realm make clear that reading, writing, and loving romance novels most certainly does not need to be isolating. While romance conventions are pricey, there is a large range of participatory options for romance fans. The final section of this chapter explores the larger dynamics of the participatory realm of romance novels.

Fandom in Romancelandia: Gynocentric Participatory Culture

As is true within many fandoms, romancelandia provides a large range of participatory realms for romance fans to connect and share their enjoyment of the genre.

Social media groups, blogs, podcasts, review forums and websites, national and regional conventions, romance cruises, book clubs, and a large array of reader-, writer-, and publisher-sponsored websites and social media forums abound within romancelandia.

Participatory culture within the romance genres is gynocentric; thus, empathy, emotions, and forming connections are at the core of romancelandia. In her research on reading groups as gendered activities, Hartley (2001) characterizes the defining element of reading groups—book clubs—as empathy, and then in the context of gender, reading groups provide spaces where women are able to discuss their feelings and subjectivities.

Romance writer Molly notes the participatory aspect of book sharing below:

I mean, these are friendships that are founded on sharing books with each other….It

is a shared experience that they can talk about, and they can learn about each other

through their opinions of the story. (Molly Harper)

156 Moreover, Warhol’s (2003) work on effeminate feelings within popular culture explores female-centric media, such as romance novels, as gendered technologies, or media products that emerged as gendered spaces that cater to the emotional and physical subjectivities of female-identified individuals.

With technological innovations changing the ways in which individuals and groups consume, interact with, and share texts, romancelandia is the product of a gendered participatory culture that connects and celebrates women and the media narratives they enjoy consuming. The contemporary appeal of romance novels includes the participatory realm, a factor that a group of writers pointed out in a writer focus group: “Well, it’s definitely the happy ever after. Also the readership, that it’s a way that women bond with other women. It’s a way that you create community among women…We all have this love for romance” (Writer FG 1). Romancelandia is a space for celebrating gendered narratives and subjectivities that patriarchal mass culture too often ignores or ridicules as lowbrow, illegitimate, or generally of having no value or purpose within hegemonic culture. Love of romance novels is a primary factor of romance novel fandom, but as with many participatory realms (Bacon-Smith, 1992; Jenkins, 1992; 2006;

2007; Zubernis and Larsen, 2012), it is the connections fans form with texts, producers, and consumers that nurture the participatory realm within romancelandia. Below, a reader shares why she regularly attends romance conventions, as a means of connecting further with romance novels, but also as a way to connect with others who share her love of romance:

157 Well, not just books, but romance books specifically, it’s really interesting because

it’s such a great unifier because it doesn’t matter how old you are, how young you

are, how, what you look like, we have that common denominator. It seems to me

that more so than in other genres, we start talking romance and we get excited about

it (“Definitely!” From the group), you know, that’s what I see . . . And most of us

do stay in touch, and I think for me, I don’t know about you guys that keep coming,

but that’s what keeps me coming. (Reader FG 2)

Internet forums and podcasts. Fans of romance novels have many opportunities to connect with fans via the Internet, through social media and blogs, in either producer- or consumer-sponsored spaces. For example, iconic romance publishers Harlequin and

Avon regularly engage with readers and writers via social media networks like Twitter and Facebook, in addition to individual author websites, blogs, and social media profiles and groups. Popular romance review and criticism forums and podcasts such as Smart

Bitches Trashy Books and Heaving Bosoms: A Romance Novel Podcast are popular with readers and writers. Such podcasts review books and authors and discuss themes, plots, and characters they like or dislike and why. A primary element of the stigma that romance novels endure is the idea that readers of romance either do not critically engage, or are incapable of critically engaging, with the narratives they consume. Spending time in romancelandia makes clear the falsehood of such a stereotype, as fans constantly and critically engage with romance narratives. Common talking points and jokes within romancelandia often playfully dig at the fantastical elements of romance novels, including the amount of sex characters have, as well as the ever-popular alpha male hero.

158 Romance novels are fantasies, and as was pointed out in chapters four and five, readers and writers are fully cognizant of this fact. Fans of romance enjoy joking about the unrealistic male sexual stamina within the novels, as well as the fact that most women would likely suffer from constant urinary tract infections if women actually engaged in the amount of sex that characters have in many romance novels. Romance novels may be fantasies, but as a gendered realm, they also provide women with opportunities to discuss their emotions, subjectivities, and relationships, both platonic and sexual in nature.

Romance conventions. One of the most exciting elements that I experienced during my fieldwork, both as a researcher and as a woman, was participating in collective spaces and bonding with fans of romance novels. Walking through the convention hotel during RWA, RT, and RomCon, I witnessed women bonding and sharing their feelings and thoughts on not only romance novels but also gender and sexual politics and the realities of their everyday lives. A group of romance writers explained to me during a focus group, “The other thing I think romance novels do, is that they give women an opportunity and an avenue to talk about women’s journeys, and to talk about how we are evolving” (Writer FG 1). Many writers and readers explained romance conventions to me as “It’s [RT] like summer camp for adult women” (Reader 4), because a largely female- identified producer/consumer base gets together to have fun, celebrate, talk romance novels, and talk anything female-centric.

While RT Booklovers has been the premiere national romance convention for decades, with its closing a new convention run by many of the same convention staff at

RT, Booklovers Convention, will take over in May 2019 in New Orleans, Louisiana.

159 While national conventions receive the most press coverage, regional romance conventions are popular throughout the United States. Regional conventions are more accessible economically and more convenient for fans who cannot or do not care to travel long distances to large national conventions that take place during the workweek as well as the weekend. Registration for a large, national romance convention is $400-$600, and that does not cover the cost of travel, lodging, and food. Smaller regional conventions are around $100-$300, and while many people do still travel to regional conventions and stay in the hotels, the conventions are shorter and fans living locally can avoid heavy travel and lodging costs. Moreover, regional conventions take place in the same city and state every year, as opposed to the larger national conventions that take place in a different city and state annually. The primary differences between nationals and regionals are the size and overall intimacy of the convention, with regional conventions being smaller, more intimate affairs (usually with just hundreds of participants) where it is actually possible to meet every person attending. National conventions, as they cost more and are larger in scale, have more fanfare, with professionally constructed and themed events and panels.

The themed panels and evening events at romance conventions share similarities with fan behaviors at other types of fan conventions, such as cosplay—dressing up as an object of fandom. Conference attendees regularly dress for panels and events, wearing themed outfits and costumes, and arrive prepared to have fun, play games, and dance and eat with other readers and authors. Fans pick up swag and discover new books and authors while at romance conventions, but they also form social connections. Every participant I spoke to at RT, for example, either attended their first RT alone, with a

160 friend, or group of friends, and had a similar story about their first convention. Over and over again, participants recounted stories about how people showed up alone to RT (or with a few friends) but left RT with new friends with whom they communicate regularly and enjoy seeing at romance conventions. Below is a segment of a transcript from a reader focus group at RT 2015, with each paragraph of transcript spoken by a different participant:

I think we had like, a good example is like we’re standing in line and I just happen

to like mention something. I read this book, which is like a really out there book,

and then the person in front of me turns around and she’s like “I read it too; it was

so messed up; it was great!” (laughs all around).

Every single line that I have been in, I have chatted with the person in front of me

or behind me.

Exactly, it’s just the whole girl thing.

There’s like this openness for us to just like talk. And we have a commonality.

Yeah! It’s okay to be a romance reader.

(Reader FG 2)

Participants described their enjoyment of romance conventions as safe spaces, spaces where it is not only acceptable to love and chat about romance novels but also about the everyday realities of being female.

Every participant who talked about showing up to their first RT alone and nervous had a story for me about how they were not alone by the end of the convention, and for many, they were not alone by the end of their first day, as a reader recounts below:

161 Yeah absolutely, I mean I could speak to just going to the RT book reviews. I have

been going to those for eight years. The first time I went, I didn’t know anybody, I

just went by myself; by the end of the week, you just instantly make those

connections with the women. (Reader 5)

Readers and writers often talked about how they have met some of their best friends at romance conventions and how amazing and surprising the collectivity is in romancelandia. This study provided an inside look into the participatory realm of romance novels, and the following section provides suggestions for future research.

Conclusion: Future Research on Romancelandia

I noted many aspects of fandom and participatory culture during my data collection that deserve further academic exploration. Fandom was a secondary purpose of this research, and I was limited in what I was able to investigate during my fieldwork.

Writers discussed “super fans,” and how they have special gifts and events for such fans.

Writers and readers often extend the relationship they have with specific books, series, and authors by producing crafts and other keepsakes they share with writers and readers.

Readers of romance also engage in fanfiction. Several writers interviewed shared that they had started out as readers, then writers of fanfiction based on their favorite reads, and eventually they discovered they had their own stories to tell and began to explore writing professionally. Romancelandia is vast, and there is a variety of unexplored spaces for researchers to delve into, including themed (by sub-genre of romance) and regional romance conventions, romance novel cruises, social media groups, podcasts, and other romance literary criticism and review.

162 Romancelandia is also a space struggling to address systemic inequities reflected within the dynamics of the romance genres. Stratification based on racial, ethnic, and sexual identity plagues the community. A history, as well as contemporary practice, of not acknowledging the creative labor of romance writers of color persists in romance writing competitions and distribution practices. Publishing industry categorization and distribution practices segregate writers of color into a sub-genre labeled “multi-cultural” romance, categorizing all non-Caucasian narratives as a “sub-genre” of romance, much like paranormal and historical have a long history of being shelved separately from other sub-genres of romance. Conventions that celebrate multicultural romances, such as Slam

Jam, are excellent spaces to explore the racial and gendered politics of romancelandia.

Romancelandia is a gynocentric participatory realm with a large range of opportunities to research racial, sexual, and gendered politics within third-wave fan studies.

163 Chapter 7: Conclusion

As a part of my data collection phase, I attended two national RWA conferences in order to conduct interviews and focus groups, as well as engage in participant observation. Overall, the experience was very positive, and I will never forget how I felt when I walked into the Marriott Marque in New York City for the annual 2015 RWA conference. I experienced what it was like to be involved in a professional conference comprised of almost three thousand romance writers and industry professionals, the majority of whom were female-identified. The positive and supportive attitudes of the writers amazed me. Because RWA is a professional conference about a space that champions female subjectivity and desire, the gynocentric nature of the conference felt welcoming in a way I had never before experienced at professional media and academic conferences.

Attending RWA allowed me to take part in a large professional space that actively celebrates female subjectivity and feminist ethics and care, and it was exhilarating for me as a researcher and a woman. Going into this research, I understood the long history of sexism and stigma that romance writers have faced, and I knew that RWA was a supportive professional network. However, I underestimated the strength of community and support within the romance genre, a community that welcomed me as a researcher in the same way it would have welcomed me as a romance writer. The enthusiasm with which this collective of romance writers shared information and provided support for each other was a pleasure to witness and experience as a researcher.

164 While I was at RT 2015 and 2016 to gather research, I also participated as a fan, because I am a fan of romance novels. I was very nervous when I arrived at RT the morning of the first day of the convention in Dallas, Texas in the summer of 2015. As an introvert, a reader, and a researcher, I was overwhelmed by the all of the options for panels and events, as well as the number of people surrounding me. I was so overwhelmed, in fact, that I opted out of the first panel I chose to attend and instead decided to visit the Goody Room and collect myself. At RT, each attendee who registered for the full convention received a ticket for one trip to the Goody Room, where they can choose two to three books from a large selection of subgenres. I decided I would start off my RT experience easily and select a few books in the Goody Room that first day in

Dallas.

While the line for the book room was not long, it did take twenty minutes to get into the room. As I walked up and joined the queue for the book room, the woman in front of me turned around, introduced herself, and asked me if I had been to RT before. I told her that I was alone and that I was attending because I enjoy romance novels, but also because I am collecting research for my doctoral dissertation. I admitted I was a bit nervous that I did not know anyone, and that I was worried readers would not show up to the focus groups I had arranged to be a part of the official RT agenda. She immediately dismissed my concerns by saying, “Oh, we will get people to show up, and you are not here alone!” I had no idea that I would experience first-hand the type of connections my participants described throughout my fieldwork, and it helped me better understand the connections romance fans are able to cultivate via romancelandia.

165 My fieldwork made clear that romance novels provide spaces of entertainment, feminist resistance, escape, community and connection, care-giving and psychological reproduction, as well as intimate and sexual fantasy to readers and writers. Overall, romancelandia is an economically successful industry comprised of primarily female- identified producers and consumers that also places high value on feminist ethics and care. My participants, regardless of any feminist knowledge or intent, recognized the stigma surrounding romancelandia as a product, or symptom, of sexism and misogyny in contemporary culture. Be they reader, writer, or industry professional, participants acknowledged that stigma persists due to the overall devaluation of the realm of the feminine as inferior, trivial, weak, and bad; thus, the common response “because women.” While every romance title published may not be feminist, or contain feminist themes, romance novels directly confront gender and sexual politics and challenge misogynistic and androcentric notions of sex, gender, and intimacy. Readers and writers around the globe continue to produce and consume romance novels despite the misogynistic stigma that haunts the romance genres, rendering the continued production and consumption of romance novels an act of resistance in a patriarchal system that labels female driven intimacy and sexuality as trivial, unhealthy, or even dangerous.

While romance novels more often than not present narratives of heroines who do prevail and find happiness within a patriarchal system, participants did not describe romance novels as tools that function to reconcile them to patriarchal rule. Female readers feel they always triumph within romance narratives, and they appreciate the consistently optimistic outcome for female protagonists: experiencing such satisfaction

166 within a novel cultivates empowering feelings, or motivation, in their own lives.

Romance novels are the most popular and profitable literary genre, and the contemporary appeal for readers and writers rests in the ways in which these texts speak to the everyday experiences, desires, and intimate and sexual fantasies of many women. Romancelandia provides a space of refuge for readers and writers to more freely express their gendered desires without fear of punishment and ridicule. Romance novels never fail in providing stories of primarily female protagonists who triumph and find happiness, and so readers trust romance novels as gendered technologies that will not punish readers for being, or identifying, as female. Furthermore, romance novels provide a space for women to take pleasure in and acknowledge the importance of emotional engagement, the cultivation of relationships, and female sexual desire and agency, and romance authors take very seriously the role of female agency in romance novels, because romance novels are about the triumphs of women.

Moreover, American culture is rife with sexual material, yet the majority of said material is emotionally detached, centered around white male desire, and does not engage with any element beyond the act of sex (Bell, 2013; Valenti, 2009). Romance novels celebrate intimacy, and female sexuality and agency in a culture chiefly concerned with the sexual fantasies and gratification of men. Being socialized as a woman but having

“sexual liberation” sold to one in an androcentric form creates a sexual cognitive dissonance, or a postfeminist sexual mystique. Being “sexually liberated” may not connect because one is still dealing predominantly with narratives that label women as sex objects, and sexual women as sluts.

167 Patriarchal mass culture sells female empowerment, as well as postfeminism, to the masses via hyper-feminized and sexualized images and narratives of female emotional dependency (that women have no hope of being fulfilled without the love of a man), if not economic dependency (Genz, 2009; 2010; Genz & Brabon, 2009; Gill, 2007;

Modleski, 1991; Williams, 2016). Much of the sexualized content available hypersexualizes women for the male gaze and reinforces the patriarchal notion that men are beings that desire, and women are simply objects of desire. Romance novels resist such notions by championing female sexual desire, fantasy, and agency. Thus, romance novels provide an escape from androcentric culture and the male gaze, as they make an effort to better balance the power within intimate relationships by placing value on emotions and caregiving.

Overall, readers trust romance novels to deliver optimistic narratives that feature women. They may not always like all of the plots, characters, writing style, or subgenres, but they never fear that romance novels will betray their trust in the knowledge that everything will work out well for the protagonist at the end of the story. Life is certainly not easy, nor is it a fairytale. However, knowing that no matter what one is dealing with in one’s everyday life, one can pick up a romance novel and trust that narrative to deliver an optimistic, happy narrative is the strongest weapon within the romance communities’ narrative arsenal. Readers and writers perceive romance novels as “safe” texts, as they privilege women’s desires and place equitable value on “women’s issues.” Strength and happiness in romance novels do not rely solely on androcentric, individualistic pursuits for money and power, but forming healthy and enduring connections with other human

168 beings. Moreover, romancelandia provides an opportunity for readers and writers to connect and cultivate relationships with authors, other fans, and of course, the texts themselves.

Exploring romance novels in the context of fandom, or participatory culture, showcases the gendered power dynamics within fan studies as romance novels are gendered technologies and romancelandia functions as a gynocentric participatory realm.

Fan studies is, and has always been, about exploring human beings as social creatures that consistently find ways to create meaning and cultivate relationships, be they with media artifacts or other fans. Studying gynocentric realms of participatory culture helps academics acknowledge the ways in which gendered power dynamics have both assisted and hindered fan studies as a discourse, particularly in its search for a means of more adequately discussing affect and emotion without relying on gendered hierarchies of fan classification and behavior. Fandoms are about emotion, the cultivation of relationships, intimacy, and the celebration of a media artifact or platform that people enjoy and want to share with others, and yet, decades after it emerged as an academic focus, fan studies itself continues to battle the stigma that such characteristics are too sentimental, emotional, or typically “female.”

Romancelandia, as a realm of gynocentric production, illuminates how a solitary activity (writing and reading) can become a supportive community that functions to help people deepen the connections they have with romance novels and authors, as well as provide ways to connect with other fans. Fans have many avenues for nurturing their fandom and cultivating friendships and support networks, be it via podcasts, blogs, social

169 media, national and regional romance conventions, romance cruises, book clubs, and professional and fan critique and review websites and publications. Love and enjoyment of romance novels bring fans together; however, studying romancelandia as a participatory realm will help scholars better understand how fandoms function to provide spaces of community, resistance and reinforcement of hegemonic structures of power, the creation of meaning and content, and the opportunity to cultivate meaningful relationships as social beings. Romancelandia brings readers and writers together in both digital and physical spaces to foster meaningful and supportive connections, resists patriarchal notions of value and economic and professional success from within (while simultaneously reinforcing), and creates a space that promotes the successful evolution from consumer to producer (and consumer).

Romancelandia itself is resistant to patriarchal rule, for it is a profitable gynocentric industry in an androcentric capitalist system. The production process of romance novels resists androcentric notions of hyper-individualism, competition, and suspicion of fellow producers by encouraging information sharing, mentoring, craft and entrepreneurial workshops, and competitions and awards rooted in feminist ethics and care (Larsen, 2017). Romancelandia resists not only hierarchal elitism within the production arena, but also within the producer-consumer binary, as writers continue to identify as and with fans despite their role as producers. Ultimately, romance novels are evidence that economic success does not solely rely on androcentric notions of production and consumption, for gynocentric industries are also capable of generating profit in domestic and global markets.

170 On the surface, scholars may find it easy to categorize romance novels as distinctly non-feminist; however, romance novels, and romancelandia, are continually finding ways to subvert and resist the patriarchy. Whether in the gynocentric texts that showcase female (sexual) agency, or the gynocentric participatory realm, or the fact that romance novels are produced and consumed primarily by women who adhere to a business model that features feminist ethics and care, romancelandia engages in feminist resistance of some kind. Furthermore, romance novels appeal to women who do not identify with feminism in much the same way the texts appeal to women who do identify as feminist; thus, romancelandia has found a way to bring women together who may never otherwise cultivate relationships with each other. It will never be the case that all romance novels are explicitly feminist, nor adhere to contemporary notions of intersectional gender politics in the way many readers and writers desire, but they do provide an avenue for women to explore gender and sexual politics in mainstream culture that does not inherently pit women against each other in the context of conservative vs. progressive political affiliations and identifications. In a world rife with postfeminist media products that reject politics, and encourage women to find power and meaning in their ability to be hyper-feminine and hypersexual for the benefit of men, romance novels provide a safe space to explore contemporary gender and sexual politics.

My intent was to expand on Radway’s (1984; 1991) research on romance readers by enlarging my sample size and including producers of romance novels alongside consumers. While my fieldwork produced a wealth of rich data, my research also elucidates the need for further research not only on romancelandia, but on gendered

171 technologies and participatory cultures. Further research on romance novels as objects of fandom and texts that produce participatory realms would showcase how gender, power, ethics and care, and affect and emotion function within participatory realms. Continued research on the various ways in which individual texts, authors, and sub-genres both resist and reinforce the gender binary, sexism, racism, heterosexism, ableism, ageism, and ethnocentrism is necessary to acknowledge the ways in which hegemonic culture reproduces itself even within spaces of resistance. Moreover, research on intimacy, female sexual agency, and sexual politics in romancelandia and other gendered technologies is needed to highlight the various ways in which such spaces construct and promote sexuality within in a culture primarily concerned with the sexual desire and gratification of (white) men

The modern romance novel emerged during the women’s liberation movement and created a space for women to tell each other stories about intimacy, gender, and sex; therefore, it quickly became classified as lowbrow since the texts were perceived as insignificant to hegemonic culture. RWA, and thus romancelandia, materialized because writers and readers wanted spaces to more freely produce and consume a literary genre positioned by mainstream culture and literary spaces as lowbrow, unworthy, or simply bad and/or dangerous. Yet, studying such a “trivial” space has revealed how such classifications as “lowbrow,” and the accompanying shame producers and consumers are meant to feel, is wrapped up in larger structures of power that govern value systems, and the allotment of power, in the context of “taste,” gender, class, race, ethnicity, age, and other markers of hierarchal structure.

172 The racist-hetero patriarchy is not invulnerable to resistance from marginalized groups, and some of this resistance is more visible with use of social media and other online forums. For example, activist movements such as “#MeToo” (which arose to provide a safe space for marginalized individuals and groups to discuss their experiences with sexual assault in a system that cannot, or will not help them) has made more visible powerful sexual predators in America. While empowerment, or “equity,” is difficult to obtain within a system that so overtly continues to support systemic inequities, particularly in the context of gender, race, and class, the construction of activist coalitions, and even such spaces deemed “trivial” within popular culture like romance novels, are actively finding ways to resist structures of power that reinforce systemic oppression and structural violence.

As society has progressed, so too have romance novels made room for a larger range of subject identifications beyond the heterosexual, upper- or middle-class white female. Romance novels have always been about empowering, or celebrating, marginalized identities and desires, thus while there will always be resistance to progress

(even within spaces of resistance), romance novels have been more open to changes as an industry, as well as inclusiveness in content, due the positionality of the genre as trivial and insignificant. Scholars should take seriously labels like “trivial,” “trash,” and

“lowbrow,” as such rhetoric, more often than not, is used to obscure and devalue the power of marginalized groups to seek entertainment and pleasure within a system predominantly unconcerned with their subjectivities and desires (Brown, 1990; 1994;

Mills, 2010; Radway, 1997). Much can be learned from spaces and texts deemed

173 unimportant, as value systems reflect how power functions, not only in the symbolic realm, but throughout formal and informal institutions (Brown, 1990; 1994; Mills, 2010;

Radway, 1997). Romance novels speak to women’s dissatisfaction with the status quo, to their continued subjugation and denigration in a patriarchal system, and further research on the ways that power, gender, sexuality, race, ethnicity, class, etc. and “taste” intersect in the contemporary media market is needed in order to better understand how such structures of power function within both symbolic and institutional realms.

Romancelandia is a convenient scapegoat, or space, for patriarchal mass culture to exercise cultural misogyny, as everyone knows romance novels are not “real books.” I have no doubt the misogynistic stigma that haunts romancelandia will continue to plague readers, writers, and industry professionals; however, my research has shown they will be just fine. Romancelandia will continue to find ways to flourish and resist the patriarchy in modern culture, because despite any knowledge of or identification with feminism and gender and sexual politics, participants made clear to me they are “so over” all this misogyny. Romance novels, and the accompanying participatory realm, will continue to encourage readers and writers to value themselves and others, despite a misogynistic stigma, because everyone deserves an HEA in romancelandia.

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190 Appendix A

Topical Protocol In-Depth Interviews In-person & Online [Readers/Writers]

Ø Relationship with romance novels - when did you begin to read/write them

Ø Why attend RWA/RT Book Lovers – the appeal – most exciting element

Ø When/where/why do you read romance genres

Ø Favorite sub-genres

Ø Specific sub-genres for different moods/experiences/purposes

Ø Type of connections formed with the heroines - With the love interest

Ø Types of heroines preferred - why

Ø Type of love interests preferred – why

Ø What is the relationship like between writers/readers

Ø Impact romance genres have on your everyday life

Ø How do your friends and family who know you read romance novels think about

it

Ø What are the positive and negative aspects of how people respond to you as a

romance reader [if negative – why does the stigma exist]

191 Ø Have romance genres ever helped you get through a particularly tough or stressful

time (s) in your life? How so?

Ø Are the romance genres empowering for women - in what ways

Ø Do women find connections/support each other via the romance genres

Ø Will romance genres continue to have an impact on your life (e.g. quality of your life)

Ø Define feminism – relationship between feminism and popular romance culture

[Industry Professionals]

Ø Have you worked in other genres/for other publishers

Ø How did you come to work in the romance industry – did you seek it out

Ø How is this field distinct

Ø Do you read romance genres outside of work

Ø Romance genres global phenomenon – why – general appeal

Ø How relevant is creativity – or are publishers more willing to work with certain

types of content that follow specific genre conventions

Ø Competition in the industry – positives and negatives

Ø Relationships between writers/industry professionals and writers/readers

Ø Readers impact content - Publishers/market trends impact content

192 Appendix B

Topical Protocol Ethnographic Interviews [impromptu in the field - not recorded]

Ø [Relationship with romance novels - when did you begin to read/write them]

Ø Why attend RWA/RT Book Lovers – the appeal – most exciting element

Ø When/where/why do you read romance genres

Ø How do your friends and family who know you read romance novels think about

it

Ø What are the positive and negative aspects of how people respond to you as a

romance reader [if negative – why does the stigma exist]

Ø Are the romance genres empowering for women - in what ways - feminism

Ø Do romance novels have (had), or will continue to have an impact on your life

(e.g. quality of your life)

Ø Preferred subgenres/heroines/love interests - context

193 Appendix C

Topical Protocol Focus Groups

Ø Ice Breaker: Name/from - Most exciting part of the conference

Ø Why romance – appeal

Ø Specific sub-genres for different moods/experiences/purposes

Ø What do your friends and family think about you reading romance novels

Ø How do you think romance readers are generally perceived (looked at) by society

at large

Ø Impact romance genres have on everyday lives

Ø Are the romance genres empowering for women - in what ways

Ø Do women find connections/support each other via the romance genres

Ø Define feminism

Ø Relationship between feminism and popular romance culture

Ø Relationship between writers/readers

Ø Types of heroines preferred - why

Ø Type of love interests preferred – why

194 Appendix D

Quick Questionnaire for Interviewees and Focus Group Participants

(1) Age:

(2) Gender:

(3) Race:

(4) Education level:

(5) Vocation:

(5 A) If you work within the romance industry, what area (writer/editor/etc.):

(6) Have you attended this conference, or other Romance/Women’s fiction conferences, before?

(6 A) If so, how many:

195 Your participation in this study is anonymous; however, I would love to ask you more questions about your experiences with romance novels. If you are open to receiving an email from me with follow up questions, please provide your email address below. Your name and any identifying information will not be revealed in this study. Alternatively, you make contact me at [email protected]

Email:______

196 Appendix E

Online Questionnaire

Please answer any or all of the following questions:

(1) Age: (2) Gender: (3) Race:

(4) Vocation: (5) Education level:

(5 A) If you work within the romance industry, what area (writer/editor/etc.):

(6) Have you attended this, or other Romance/Women’s fiction conferences before?

(6 A) If so, how many?

(7) What is your history with romance novels?

(8) When/where/why do you read romance genres? For example, only on vacations, in the evenings time, whenever you have the time, waiting in line, etc.

(9) Do you read specific sub-genres for different moods/experiences/purposes? For example, do you have to be in a specific mood to read a contemporary romance versus a regency, frontier/cowboy, or paranormal romance?

(10) What types of heroines do you prefer in your romance novels? Could you give some examples?

(11) What types of love interests/male counterparts do you prefer in your romance novels? Could you give some examples?

197 (12) Has reading romance genres ever helped you get through a particularly tough or stressful time (s) in your life? How so? (13) Overall, how do romance genres impact your everyday life [e.g. your quality of life, your mood, your day-to-day, etc.]?

(14) Why do you think the romance genres are so popular around the globe?

(15) How do you think your friends/family think about you reading romance novels?

(16) How do you think romance readers are generally perceived (looked at) by society at large, and why? [e.g. positively/negatively]

(17) What sort of connections with other readers have you made? [e.g. book clubs, online communities – have you bonded with others over romance novels]

(19) How would you define feminism, what does that term mean to you?

(20) What do you think the relationship between feminism and the romance genres is?

(18) Are the romance genres empowering for women? In what ways?

(21) Is there anything else you would like to share about the significance of romance novels?

198 Your participation in this study is anonymous; however, I would love to ask you more questions about your experiences with romance novels. If you are open to receiving an email from me with follow up questions, please provide your email address below. Your name and any identifying information will not be revealed in this study. Alternatively, you make contact me at [email protected]

Email:______

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