On women and romance novels

Myth #2: Women only read romance novels because they’re desperate

Romance novels are escapist fantasy, sometimes with interesting factual tidbits thrown in.

Also escapist fantasy, with or without interesting factual tidbits: Battlestar Galactica, Heroes, Lost, Half-Life 2, Oblivion, and George W. Bush’s press briefings.

Er, strike that last one. In my world, that was horror. But anyway.

Do desperate women read romance novels?

Er, sure.

Right after I’d had a child and a C-section and spent pretty much all of my time in a rocking chair nursing a little guy on almost no sleep, I read a lot of romance novels. It was a pretty unromantic time in my life (not my husband’s fault, thank you), given that I could barely get out of the chair for three weeks, and did nothing but feed, pump, burp, snuggle and change diapers. So it was a nice escape, baby sleeping in one arm and book in the other.

And during times I wasn’t dating (often during times when I didn’t want to be dating), sometimes a little romance in book form was a nice escape too, and a lot less troublesome than some of my ex-boyfriends, thanks.

Certainly sometimes the kind of escape a one finds in a romance novel comes out of some kind of desperation – some need not being fulfilled in a relationship, lack of relationship, partner far away, wishing partner was someone else, etc. And as I said, men could learn an awful lot about how women tick from reading a good romance novel now and then.

But I’m going to reveal a shocking secret to you…

Happy, fulfilled women read romance novels too.

No, really. We do.

See, the thing is, women like to fall in love and be loved. I remember reading the preface to a Julia Quinn novel once where she made the comment that we all like to fall in love with the heroes in these books, and I suspect it’s true. They’re improbable but imperfect, difficult and complicated, much like, you know, real people. They’re just much better in bed

I kid, I kid. Well, no, ok, they are. But as I said – women want to be courted, loved, desired and treasured, and we like reading about characters who seem real and do these things unashamedly. And yes, we do like the idea of guys who have us figured out (or at least would like to figure us out). Yes, this includes sex. I won’t lie.

(Hint: what we really like are actual men who do these things. But fantasy men are good too, as, you know, fantasy men.)

What I’m getting at is that a romance novel is a story about characters and people where the main conflict involves people falling in love. Maybe the conflict you want to read about deals with government mind control via embedded nanoprobes, and that’s fine, but love is a fine conflict too (and, let’s face it, the cause of a horde of real problems in the world, so don’t knock it).

On to Myth #3: Romance novels are utter tripe with no redeeming value…