In a recent Luna release (to be reviewed on this here weblog, yessirree!) I encountered a heroine who had multiple partners in various ways, some of them through actual coitus and some through physically pleasurable exchanges of magic. But either way: one lady, and quite a few dudes.
And yet there was a romance in each of the relationships, with a primary romance as a centerpiece to the story – and it worked for me, as the reader, once I accepted the “monogamy rule” had been broken in a well-written manner.
I also had an interesting conversation with a Bitchery member about the romance novel expectation that once the hero meets and realizes his attraction to the heroine, neither party gets to boink anyone else. I’ve seen that standard undone most obviously in romantic erotica/romantica, and often in fantasy/futuristic and some paranormals as well.
I wondered in the email exchange if perhaps fantasy and erotica are going to be the branches of the genre that break the highest number of rules and expectations of romance fiction, and not just expectations of monogamy. From the exploration of multiple partners to the strong heroine who has more important things to deal with besides winning herself that handsome hunk of man titty, are readers more willing to explore new scenarios for romance, even if those scenes break rules to which we are accustomed?.More importantly, am I wrong that fantasy and erotica are the rule-breakers of late? What other standards of romance do you see being busted down?
If you’re referring to erotica rather than erotic Romance (or Romantica), then maybe. But lately I’ve been feeling that—at least in terms of the erotic Romance I’ve been reading—that some of the rules are actually doubly enforced.
Case in point, Pam Rosenthal’s short story A House East of Regent Street (spoilers follow!), in which the heroine, a former prostitute who wants to open a brother (promising, oui?), ends up bargaining with a guy who wants to buy the same house as she does (where she was formerly a prostitute), sex for the house, basically. So all great, all great, UNTIL we find out that this guy was, ta da, the woman’s FIRST lover (and I use the term “lover” loosely), and that despite his dismal skill and immediate retreat, she’s been IN LOVE with him for like 15 years since. No love for anyone else, including the Frenchman who she’s been living with for a long time, and who has been absolutely wonderful to her. Anyway, that “twist” just seemed to slam much promising transgression right back into conservative historical Romance territory.
So please, please tell me that there is some romantic erotica (like Emma Holly’s, maybe?) that’s breaking some of these boundaries on behalf of women’s sexual liberation from virgin widowhood and the like!
I don’t have much experience of erotica/romantica, but I read a lot of fantasy/sf. I don’t have any useful insights right now, but I think you do have a point.
There’s a whole range in fantasy, from the traditional and conservative to the stories that push the boundaries. Those are all there in romance too, but romance is already subdivided into its own smaller genres so the readers get to choose which part of the spectrum they wish to read before opening the book. Fantasy’s continuum is still all stuck under the same category, so there may be a little more ‘risk’ for the average reader.
Or I may be talking total crap.
I know which book you’re talking about and look forward to your review. I really enjoyed it and I’m looking forward to the next in the series out next month.
Kerry said:
I know which book you’re talking about and look forward to your review. I really enjoyed it and I’m looking forward to the next in the series out next month.
Same here. I was surprised—and not in a bad way—that something so unconventional came out of that particular house. I still don’t think they’d want a book where there’s any serious male-male action, but I could be surprised yet again.
The author got around the whole multiple partners squick factor rather neatly by having them all married to each other. I don’t recall there being any all out orgy scenes in the first book, but in the back of my mind, the potential was there. I kept thinking, “Well, if the law says y’all can do it, how long’s it gonna be before someone brings in a bottle of magical wine that gets the whole lot of you in the mood?”
I sometimes read erotic romances where there are male-male-female encounters, so it’s not something that offends me. However, some of the ludicrous plot devices used to force the three of them together drive me NUTS. I haven’t bought one in a long time, for that reason.
You do find that one-true-and-only-love rule broken more in the SF/F fields and the romances based there. I think part of it is all of us have been influenced by our fairly liberal forefathers in the genre, esp. Heinlein (pick one, though _Stranger in a Strange Land_ is probably the best suited to the discussion), and part of it is that you find that type of alternitive lifestyle running around fandom a hell of a lot.
I once had a creative writing professor tell me that I wasn’t allowed to write SF/F in his class because it was a genre that consisted of bending rules like pretzels when you didn’t break them. The female fighting heroine who has to do something before she can settle, the gay mage and his lover, etc., etc. Realistic fiction only in his class. Now, several years later, I can appreciate the fact that he wanted to make sure we all *knew* the rules before we set out to play merry hell with them. The same thing applies to erotica…you have to know the rules to flaunt them.
Some other rules that I’m finally seeing quietly broken in the main stream are; age- older romance is ok; style- D/s, light bondage, toys…all of the traditional trappings of smut are edging inward; partner- hell, I saw both multi-partner relationship/romance and bisexual romance on the shelf at Borders recently!; and money- if she’s wealthier, she doesn’t have to be cold and uncaring to have achieved it.
I kept thinking, “Well, if the law says y’all can do it, how long’s it gonna be before someone brings in a bottle of magical wine that gets the whole lot of you in the mood?â€
Book Two. The Barbed Rose. Out in three more weeks.
Won’t say more.
But I do think that fantasy is more willing to break the “rules” because there aren’t any.
It’s not “our” universe. It’s Different. You could even postulate that while these people look human, they really aren’t, and therefore they don’t necessarly function quite exactly the same.
Fantasy (and science fiction) are the “what if” genres, and if you can’t push those What-ifs as far as you can make them stretch, why bother?
Plus, I’ve read so many fantasy “quest” novels with men and women traveling together cross country for Months and nobody even thinks about sex? OH Come On! Talk about suspending disbelief…
Gail (who is not nearly so “out there” in her real life)
I agree, fantasy, sf, and erotica are more likely to be pushing the envelope…and more likely to be interesting reads.
Some of the traditional romance publishers are still churning out the same cookie cutter books and sometimes even the same authors as they were publishing decades ago, the same stuff I was reading as a 17 year old virgin (a looong time ago). Wake up publishers! The world and your readers have grown-up, but alot of your books have not…the mommy hunt?, Who’s your daddy?, NASCAR…eeeeewwwwh. I don’t even pick it up in the bookstore, much less bring it home and waste my time reading it.
Well written, non-traditional fiction has become my favorite. What are you reading Sarah? Inquiring minds want to know!!
There’s so much cross-over with sci-fi and fantasy in modern romance that those are the current main entry-points for new concepts. Remember when everything was about the romantic mystery/thriller? Mysteries came out featuring female private eyes, medical examiners or embittered cops, and dumber, weaker, prettier versions of same soon began turning up in Romance novels.
Just when Romanceland’s per-capita rate of obsessive, cop-taunting psycho-killers reached the saturation point, Buffy arrived to vent off some of the pressure.
I mock, but I’ll take an embittered – if occasionally dimwitted – female cop, or an embittered – if occasionally dim-witted – slayer-type over a lovelorn nurse or a fainting virgin any day.
I wonder what trend the genre will glom onto next?
P.S. Perhaps Nora Robert’s “In Death” Series represents the missing link between the dimming mystery/thriller trend and the current vogue for sci-fi or fantasy settings. Come to think of it, Roberts has done paranormal themes, too.
Mainstream authors taking safe little bites of a trend probably act as a gateway for casual or timid readers. What would happen if La Roberts ever took on teh buttsecks?
I don’t read romance. *gasp* There, I said it. The only reason I’m involved in the genre as an author is because that’s where erotica is being published these days. At times, it makes me feel like the red-headed step child, but I suck it up and smile.
I do hope that explicit sex (be it het, bi, homo, mono … or any combination of said) is not a “trend” in the romance genre (or ANY genre). Sex is an inexorable part of our lives. It makes sense that it is also prevalent in our entertainment.
I do, however, read a lot of SciFi & fantasy … precisely BECAUSE there are no hard & fast “rules” per se.
Do I have a point? *sigh* Somewhere in there, I think.
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“Plus, I’ve read so many fantasy “quest†novels with men and women traveling together cross country for Months and nobody even thinks about sex? OH Come On! Talk about suspending disbelief…”
SO TRUE. And I’m telling you, I just had a great time entertaining myself with a ‘What If’ mental cartoon show. What if the two asexual quest people from a SciFi got trapped in a big reality show with a romance hero and heroine whose plot consisted of them being forced to travel together fighting their MONSTER attraction to each other. I giggle thinking about the four of them blinking at each other. I mean, come ON now.
Anyway, yeah, I was referring to The Compass Rose, which I am working on reviewing, and the creative way in which the author created a multi-amory situation with decided partners within the group – very interesting. And to be honest, I was like, “Dang, Harlequin done gone barmy on the romance requirements with this Luna line. Woo!”
It makes me want to lock the Baby Daddy characters and the In the Billionaire’s Bedroom characters and the I Married a Mediterranean Oil Tycoon characters in the room with the Compass Rose characters and some Emma Holly romantica/erotica characters and have my own romance novel reality show.
This moves into the ongoing discussion in the RWA over “What is Romance?” and as yet, it’s not fully resolved.
I don’t know what the answer is either. I think Emma Holly’s Strange Attractions is wonderfully romantic, but it clearly doesn’t meet conventional romance definitions because it’s about a menage.
So the only prediction I can make is we’re going to continue to see discussion of this topic, especially in RWA and publishing circles.
I knew right off the bat what book this was, but I still need to read it.
Now you need to read Christie Golden’s On Fire’s Wings from LUNA. Now that one broke one taboo you won’t quite expect. And did it in a way that’s sad, not squickeeeeeeee. Well, a little squick, then sad.
Sci fi great Octavia E. Buter (I forget to mention her in the sci fi good shit!!!) has a new vampire novel out right now, FLEDGLING. Just reviewed it.
Talk about breaking romantic rules, and in a challenging way, too. It’s got a female vamp who takes multiple human “symbionts” for feeding. There is romantic development between a vamp and the group of symbionts, and the feeding is an erotic exchange.
Catch is, the heroine vamp appears as a 12 year old girl.
Not for the squeamish.
I really, really hope so. I’ve been told over and over that I break too many rules to write romance. I love science fiction and fantasy, and both do seem to be opening more doors in the romantic arena. The Compass Rose is definitely on my wish list!
quote *What would happen if La Roberts ever took on teh buttsecks?*————
Man, I got some real perverse pleasure from pondering that!
Which SmartBitch was it who lamented that there were no romances featuring ex-prostitutes? I’ve got one for you—Cat Marsters’s Almost Human, from Ellora’s Cave. She’s not only a prostitute, she’s also an assassin, and she’s not ashamed of either. There’s none of that “I was young, I needed the money” stuff—the heroine likes sex, she likes kicking ass, so she’s chosen professions that pay her well for doing stuff she likes. Very interesting reading.
I agree that SciFi/Fantasy breaks rules faster than other romantic genres, but here’s one hard and fast rule I wish would go the way of the Goddamn dinosaurs: all heroines must be orphans. Travel back in time? Can’t have any family to muck up the fantastic hundred year old nookie. Get kidnapped by space invaders? Don’t worry, no one back home to miss you whilst you become queen of a planet, employing women’s rights methods from your home planet to see that nasty male domination is curtailed…unless there’s sex involved, then domination is just lovely. Fall in love with an elf? No messy family meet and greet for your pointy-eared boyfriend. Sadly, your grandfather who’s raised you since the tragic death of your parents is also dead dead dead. I love that SciFi/Fantasy pushes boundaries. I really love that Romantica/Erotica is pushing major boundaries, but I think when it concerns the simplest boundaries, plotwise, authors take the easiest route possible. I would love to see more SciFi/Fantasy authors, as well as other romance authors, not gloss over the real world problem of trying to merge families. Isn’t that what we all do in our own lame attempts at romance?
here’s one hard and fast rule I wish would go the way of the Goddamn dinosaurs: all heroines must be orphans. Travel back in time? Can’t have any family to muck up the fantastic hundred year old nookie.
You should read Robin Owens…her current Sorceress of Faith heroine travels to a parallel universe and one of her main conflicts is the family she left behind.
My book—the one with the 6-person marriage (so far) has at least 2 sets of in-laws to deal with—and will have more. Parents, siblings, cousins—enough to give one the collywobbles. I keep telling myself I will never write anything with this many characters again, but I’m probably lying to myself…
Thanks for the tip! I’m putting both suggestions on my “to buy” list as we speak.
Gail said:
Book Two. The Barbed Rose. Out in three more weeks.
Countin’ the days. 🙂 I was in one of those “can’t find anything to read” moods tonight in B&N and was getting kind of bummed out, but then I remembered that some good stuff is on the way in March.