BellaOnline Forums Books and Music Romance Novels Rapists in Romance Novels

Wow, Lisa. I am stunned that a woman wrote this "romance" novel. And the "romance" was where, exactly? What woman in her right mind would nag her rapist into marrying her? I just don't get it!

Shay

Shay -

The argument is that this was written back in 1970 I believe, and at the time women were very prudish about sex outside the marriage. So this was apparently one of the first books that a woman could imagine sex outside the marriage because she "had to" and could still enjoy it.

However, I disagree with this point of view. I've read all the "top selling books of all time" which are:

#1: Gone with the Wind - Margaret Mitchell (1936) ~28 million
#2: Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown (2002) ~25 million
#3: Valley of the Dolls - Jacqueline Susann (1966) ~20 million

then in no particular order -

Animal Farm - George Orwell (1945)
The Bridges of Madison County - Robert James Waller (1992)
The Carpetbaggers - Harold Robbins (1961)
Catch-22 - Joseph Heller (1961)
Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger (1951)
The Celestine Prophecy - James Redfield (1993)
The Exorcist - William Blatty (1971)
The Godfather - Mario Puzo (1969)
God's Little Acre - Erskine Caldwell (1933)
Hound of the Baskervilles - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1902)
Jaws - Peter Benchley (1974)
Jonathan Livingston Seagull - Richard Bach (1970)
To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee (1960)
1984 - George Orwell (1949)
Peyton Place - Grace Metalious (1956)
Shogun - James Clavell (1975)
The Thorn Birds - Colleen McCullough (1977)

so I've read all of these. By far and large they ALL involve sex. I imagine it's how they became top sellers Readers aren't reading highbrow books. They're reading sex books. Anyway even God's Little acre in 1933 is about sex. Here's my summary of that book -

"Written in 1933, this story is set in rural Georgia in a time and location of great poverty. It was quite a sensation when it came out, because it was so full of blatant incestuous sex. First, you have Ty Ty who has raised 3 boys and 2 girls on his own. All 3 boys and one sister have married, while the youngest girl, Darling Jill, is a sex-pot sleeping with everyone who she can. Griselda, one of the sisters-in-law, has a gorgeous body and everybody wants to sleep with her. Ty Ty makes sure that he tells everyone he can talk to that her body is really hot and makes a man want to lick her. As you might imagine, disaster results."

So there were TONS of books out before this one that talked about sex - and women liking sex - outside of marriage. To say this book HAD to involve rape because it was the only way prudish Americans could imagine a woman liking sex is outlandish to me, and does not hold up given the popular sales.

Valley of the Dolls? Hello?

Yuck! this reminds me of a novel that i read that was set with a young white girl and a indian man. the indian kidnaped the girl treated her like a slave the women of the village beat her and the indian raped her all the while the girl was falling in love with the indian man he claimed her as a squaw and she was the second wife. then the first one was killed by the indian man because she caused the second girl to miscarry then the girl finaly desides that she doesnt love this man so she starts fighting bad and hates him then the man puts her in the whore teepee for anyone to rape she has formed a tenitive friendship with this other indian man so the husband has this man go in and rape the wife so she will feel betrayed and helpless to control her life or destiny and gratful that the husband takes her back. only her spirit is broken now and she has lost the will to live so she is a shell of a woman. she the husband takes on two more wifes who beat her and make her a slave then she comes to life and begs the husband to forgive her and love her again.

What a Crock of $#!T!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! my friend told me that that was the best book in the world that she had ever read! she has 3 kids but 3 different men and is living with a child sex offender!!! the whole time i was reading the book I thought she would fall in love with the friend or the friend would save the girl and stop what was happing but he willingly and inthusicasticly raped her at the first chanse he got! to me books like this are a slap inthe face to women at any age or in any culture. the girl was a mindless ninny who by the time she had a thought of her own it was too late to get out of the stituation and she gets slaped down for having a thought then has to beg for forgiveness? OH HELL NO!!! I'd be damned if I would beg for forgiveness from my raper!

it is just insane!

Wow that is really a scary book, FreeSpirit!! Is there any chance you could remember the name of it? I really think I should create a "Romance Novel Hall of Shame" and start listing these books in it as books you should NEVER EVER read.

It does really scare me what is going on in the minds of modern women who read these books and think the hero is great. Are they that low self esteemed that they think it is OK for a woman to be treated like this?? Does it make them feel like they are not alone and that their abusive partner isn't so bad after all??

Hawks Lady or something like that but I dont remember the auther I want to say Kathrine Coulter or Madline Baker because those are some of the historical romance athures that I love to read or use too before I read so many of them they all started sounding the same! I know that I was so outraged by the book because it was wrote by an auther that I really loved....

Man, I would have flipped the hell out if I read this book. I got super [censored] with the last romance book I read because (amongst other things) the male lead wound up crossing that boundary into rape. THAT book drove me crazy, but I bet I would just drop dead if I tried reading this book!

By the way, the book was "The Smoke Thief", and I just wrote a review of it on Amazon since even remembering it made me so ticked off.

I have moved passed the romance noval stage of life because the women are week and brainless and the men are neanderthals! I started with the historical romance like westerns and moved to contemporery where the women are super sex godesses and still perfect bodied and wonderful but still not to smart or strong of charictorer... even though she has oppiones and a pov she still bends to his will and needs and they all end with babies even if there is no marrage. I even moved into the time travel books by Karen Marie Moning and I do love the Highlander Series!!! this series takes madern women back to old time Scottland or brings Scottland men into modern day! there is faeries and time travel and lots of humor and it is great but it still has perfect bodied women and ends in the happy baby ending...

I wish they made CF romances where the couple doesnt want any kids and it has nothing to do with she or he cant have kids but they want kids anyways so they adopt kids....

I dont know what I am going to read now but I am tired of the perfect bodied, baby wanting romance that I have been reading!

See that's the thing, I NEVER liked romance novels, but I decided hey, maybe I was just buying into a stereotype so I'll give a few a chance. Well, the few seem to bite it!

If you don't mind pure fantasy and with some very very dark scenes but with a lot of erotica, try the Black Jewels trilogy by Anne Bishop. I love her characters, her women are strong but not meathead strong, and the males are also strong but not moron strong. They also have a clearly defined line of what is and isn't rape, and the "good guys" do NOT cross that line and wind up still being looked at as being "good guys".

interesting the few Erotica books that I read had no plot or story line and they were a colection of short "stories" that bit!

So this is a real Story with a plot and everything!!! cool! I will check it out!

What do you mean dark scenes?

Jonathan Livingston Seagull -- about sex? Okay, I read it when it first came out, back in the 70's, and was MUCH younger then and haven't read it since, but I don't recall it being sexual. More like aspiring beyond the role society tries to dictate, to reach high, that sort of thing.

Freespirit -- I had forgotten about the Highlander series! I love time travel, though can imagine for the traveler, it must be a bit disconcerting being temporally displaced!

I love strong main female characters, especially when they are able to open closed-minded male characters. Rape -- or other abuse, however, is not something I would recommend any teenager to read about. (There have been occasional exceptions, when the abuse occurred in the heroine's past, and a kind and gentle hero helps her heal those wounds.)