Kerry Allen

Flipping through cable channels has again resulted in despair about the state of interpersonal relationships in the 21st century.

Not as blatantly disgusting as VH1’s I Love New York or Rock of Love, Lifetime has nonetheless managed to produce an eye-snaring train wreck with Matched in Manhattan. I didn’t see the whole episode (I successfully escaped during a commercial break), but during the portion I did see, this poor woman who had just moved to New York and wanted to get out and meet some people was told that in order to make that happen with this “dating agent,” she had to have a complete makeover, redecorate her apartment, and basically undergo a personality transplant because no one could possibly like her the way she was. She submitted to this (rather than telling the smarmy little bastard where he could shove his straightening iron) and was set up on a date, before which she was coached on what to say and how to behave.

Let’s assume the guy underwent the same preparatory conditioning (because if he didn’t, that would be sexist enough to make my head explode). What you have on this date, then, is two people who don’t really exist.

What happens if they agree to continue dating on the basis of that first date, at which neither of them was truly present? Do they maintain the charade forever, or is there a point where one feels comfortable revealing that the entire relationship is based on lies? Does one then have any right to be upset when the other confesses to deception on the fundamentals, as well?

The thing that scares me (more than networks filling the airwaves with these shows) is the internet buzz. People are using this show for dating tips. As if weeding through the weirdos wasn’t a treacherous enough endeavor, they now have a new guru telling them it’s not only okay to be a phony, it’s a necessity.

And then there’s the Millionaire Matchmaker on Bravo, which I had to turn off as soon as she told the few classy-looking women in her office they had to show their tits if they wanted her to set them up on dates…

I’ve long been convinced there’s an element of magic involved in finding The One, but now there’s the added complication of having to discern real magic from smoke and mirrors wielded by people who’ve had professional training.

I’m so glad I don’t have one of those mothers who bemoans my spinster status…

I found out about AAR’s Top 100 Romances poll far too late to even consider compiling my own list, but I was interested in seeing the results.

Whoa. Talk about confirmation that I am a romance misfit. Now I remember why I don’t hang out at AAR. I fit in like a street pup of dubious origins with fleas and mange at the Eukanuba Cup.

Analysis of the results reveals 43% European historical, 8% medieval, 6% classic fiction, 2% historical, 1% American historical, 1% traditional regency, and 2% category, for a total of 63% I wouldn’t even pick up at this point. I have read a total of 15 out of the 100 on the list, no more than 2 of those would have made it onto my personal Top 100 list, and several of them would qualify for my Worst 100 list.

Despite the exclusion of any representation of my exquisite taste, the discussion of the results is fascinating. They put a lot of work into analyzing and interpreting the numbers and comparing them to historical data from previous polls.

If you didn’t put in a ballot this year, start compiling one now, even though it will likely be a couple of years before the next poll. (I’ve been working on mine, and it will take some time if you’re starting from scratch.) I’d like to see a few more women who wear pants, men who don’t wear tights, electric lights, telephones, and horsepower that doesn’t leave droppings in the street. Some fur and fangs not associated with certain dark-hued pointy weapons would be nice, too. (I love me some J.R. Ward, but honestly, there are far better paranormals deserving of recognition I would have liked to see on that list instead of the BDB box set.)

Just like in political elections, if you don’t vote, you can’t complain.

Much.

Arf.

… you are an American and have used the word “bloody” as an expletive, i.e. “I hate this bloody program,” “Get out of my way, you bloody idiot,” and my personal favorite, “Bloody everlasting hell.”

… you are an American and have ever used the word “bugger” or “sodding” in casual conversation.

… you have worn a corset and liked it.

… for want of a proper corset, you have tightly bound your torso with Ace bandages to create the illusion of a wasp waist, gravity-defying bosoms, and excellent posture.

… you are more familiar with defunct London landmarks than those in the city in which you presently reside, i.e. upon being asked the location of the nearest post office, you reply, “I can’t say, but I can draw you a map to Almack’s or Vauxhall Gardens.”

… you have volunteered to be a bridesmaid at least once solely for the opportunity to wear a big poofy dress, even knowing in advance the gown in question was a violent shade of atomic tangerine that would make you most closely resemble a radioactive Cheeto.

… you have convinced someone who has never heard an authentic British accent that you hail from Kensington and are a distant relation of Lord Byron. (High five for maintaining this ruse for a period of time exceeding one month, you devious wench.)

The 2008 Harlequin Romance Report has the theme Confessions. Confess your sins here and be absolved. Or just provide fodder for the mockery cannon that gets aimed at romance readers every time this thing is released.

Harlequin puts a great deal of time and expense into producing and distributing the Report. Do they take the opportunity to showcase the diversity of romance readers and portray them as intelligent members of society who have a soft spot for a good love story? Not this year. This year, we’re going to Hell because we are ssssinners.

I’ve come to expect something along these lines from the Report. What blows my mind is that people are participating in the degradation. Here are the total posts by category as of this writing: 

Lust (190)

Greed (10)

Envy (20)

Pride (16)

Anger (23)

Sloth (17)

Gluttony (17)

Other (42)

I gotta admit, I’m curious about Other.

Note the preponderance of entries under Lust because, of course, romance readers are all sex-obsessed.

What I would like to see is a category where those of us who choose not to expose our inner evil for a publisher’s publicity campaign can say so, so that when the results are tallied, the more circumspect portion of the romance-reading community is represented along with the seven deadly dwarves, Lusty, Greedy, Envy, Pridey, Angry, Slothy, and Gluttony, and their mutt who answers to Other.

Am I alone in thinking painting one’s customers with a big brush of biblical reckoning is tacky? Offensive? Insulting? Bad business? Or is this “all in good fun” and I’m missing out on a ripping good time?

I have solved the problem of labeling books for potentially offensive content. Let us emulate the music industry, which has been laboring under the heavy mantle of censorship for years. Publish a “clean” version and the “parental advisory” version of every book!

Parental Advisory Version
“If the horny bastard likes to fuck as if his life depends on it, make it so.”

Clean Version
“If the horny bastard likes to fuck as if his life depends on it, make it so.”

Leave gaping holes like they do in the songs. Sell the clean copies with a pencil so the reader can fill in the blanks. It’ll be like Mad Libs! (”If the horny UPS driver likes to macarena as if his life depends on it, make it so!”)

Of course, this method also has its pitfalls. Not only the expense of two printings, but buyer dissatisfaction will be a consideration. I can’t tell you how pissed I get when I download a song and there are blank spots in it because I neglected to scroll over and make sure I was getting the explicit version. If I mistakenly purchased the version of a book with almost a tenth of 1 percent of its words missing, I wouldn’t be any happier about it.

Notice the I neglected and the I mistakenly. My responsibility entirely to make sure I’m getting what I want, but apparently not everyone feels that way. For some people, it takes a village to make a decision.

There’s a great deal of hullabaloo (one example here) recently about slapping warning labels on romance novels because they may contain graphic sex or profanity or violence or any number of other things that might offend a reader’s delicate sensibilities.

(How about a warning label that says “The back cover copy is the best bit of writing in the whole book—don’t waste your money”? That’s one I could get behind, and it’s no more subjective a judgment than any source of potential offense.)

I think warning labels are a stupid idea (that’s the most tactful I can be about it), but as a public service, when my book is published, I will post its offensive statistics clearly on my web site. Here’s a sample:

Instances of the word “fuck”: 15

Instances of the word “cock”: 2 (not including occurrences such as “cocker spaniel,” “cocky,” and “cocktail”—I was a bit alarmed when it came up 17 times total! I know I don’t talk about that region that much)

Instances of the word “shit”: 15 (including “bullshit”)

Instances of the word “damn”: 34 (in all its conjugations)

Instances of the word “dammit”: 9

Instances of the word “bitch”: 19 total; only 1 referring to the heroine, as stated by the villain (and you can’t really expect better of him)

(That’s 94 curse words out of 100,000 total, or 0.094% of the word count, in case that’s the criteria we’re using to deem offensiveness.)

Slang terms for “vagina”: 0

Fellatio: 1

Vaginal penetration by penis: 2 (onscreen)

Heterosexual anal penetration: 0

Homosexual activity: 0

Rape: 0

Unwanted advances: 3 4 (How could I forget the licking incident?)

Violent deaths: 2-1/2 onscreen, though not graphically described; 117 offscreen (estimated)

Violence toward children: 0 (threatened but not fulfilled)

Miscellaneous: References to nontraditional theology

Have I overlooked any other potentially offensive material that needs to be red-flagged?

I’ve always been a romance reader (except when I wasn’t). 

I spent my formative years in a small town (4 streets, 4 avenues, bisected by railroad tracks) in Illinois. The town consisted of homes, a bar, a volunteer fire department, a teeny post office, a church, a playground, and a three-story brick school house containing kindergarten through 8th grade, most of its students bused in from outlying rural areas. With the exception of the break provided by the lone exit road, the town was surrounded by corn fields (and let me tell you, Children of the Corn really freaked me out). Television reception extended to four channels if the weather was favorable. There wasn’t a lot to do other than ride your bike around the block in summer or build snow forts in winter.

This dull environment made a reader of me at a very early age. The act of reading was a boredom buster, the stories themselves an escape from the suffocating sameness of every day. (Granted, I probably wasn’t thinking in those terms when I was five, but I definitely would now.) I quickly read everything I could get my hands on. By second grade, I had gone through the entire minuscule library of the school. (They didn’t know what to do with me. It was silly to have me sitting around reading Sweet Pickles books with new readers, so they sent me to the library for an hour every day. I remember having to write a report and present it to the 1st graders, which I believe is when my loathing for public speaking began.) We barely had money for luxuries like school clothes (fortunately my grandmother sewed me some pretty decent ensembles between those trips to Sears—my brother needed a larger portion of the clothing budget to save him from the humiliation of wearing homemade jeans), so feeding my voracious appetite for books by buying them was out of the question, and the nearest public library several specks on the map away was distance prohibitive.

So I read whatever I found lying around the house, and what was lying around the house (other than Playboy, which yes, I also read) were my mom’s category romances. I still remember some of those from years ago.

One featured a Siamese cat named Yaffa. The heroine was a jewelry maker who also worked at a runaway hotline. She hooked up with a dad using her to find his runaway son. The hero helped her rescue a teenage hooker from her pimp. The son, of course, had a nontraumatic runaway experience (boy genius made big bucks selling papers to college students and had a place to crash, so no dramatic pimp rescue for him).

Given my nonexistent memory for names, the fact that I remember the name of a cat is extraordinary. Naturally, I couldn’t tell you the name of the book or any of its human characters, but what do you need with those when you have Yaffa?

There are others I remember fondly, if in less detail. Then, of course, there are the memorably awful. (Spotlight on Betty Neels. Words cannot express my loathing for that woman’s writing. She’s responsible for the first book I could not bring myself to finish reading.)

I graduated to single-title historicals by the likes of Johanna Lindsey and Kathleen Woodiwiss. (One of my favorite books is still Tender Torment [gah, these titles] by Joyce Myrus, who apparently never wrote anything else.) Eventually, contemporaries by Jennifer Crusie, Nora Roberts, and Rachel Gibson, to name a few, made it into the rotation.

Did reading Romance, particularly from such an early age, give me a distorted view of real-life love? No more so than my parents’ less-than-happy marriage. I never expected one, never wanted the other. In fact, early exposure to the opposite end of the spectrum probably spared me a lot of emotional hangups in the long run. At least I knew there was a spectrum, not just what I saw around the house, which is much more likely to have scarred me for life.

We relocated several times, gaining better proximity to libraries. My older brother started bringing home Dean Koontz, and I continued my habit of reading everything in the house and branched out into Horror. My horizons expanded, but Romance still comprised most of my reading diet.

Then sometime in my early twenties, I got bored. Every romance I picked up, I could read the back and the first few pages and predict with eerie accuracy every major development in the book. I couldn’t read a romance for 10 minutes without putting the book down, frustrated by the predictability.

I turned my attention to the Mystery section, then Fantasy, then discovered there were a lot of amazing books in the Children’s section. With plenty to keep me occupied elsewhere, I completely abandoned Romance. I didn’t touch a romance novel for a good 10 years.

About three years ago, I received a much-appreciated box of hand-me-down mysteries. Hidden amongst them was Sherrilyn Kenyon’s Fantasy Lover. Much eye rolling ensued. Let me guess, the hero’s an underwear model? Dumpy, frumpy heroine with his picture thumbtacked over her bed saves him from a burning building or something, and he confuses gratitude with being in love with her? With some public declaration to his sexpot ex that he thinks the heroine is sexy despite her love handles and mousy hair?

Sneering, I read the back. Say what? Demigod cursed into a book, only to be brought out for use as a sex slave. Hmm… well, that’s different. “Different” excited me. It was the first thing I read out of that box of books. It was dark and sexy and amusing and brutal in ways Romance wasn’t allowed to be, in my experience. I had to have more, and I did some undignified squealing when I discovered there was more.

That box of mysteries is still sitting around somewhere, forgotten, overshadowed by my new reading love.

Thus, I discovered the joys of paranormal romance. It tends to be dark, which appeals to my semi-Goth, staunchly anti-perky nature. It relies heavily on worldbuilding rather than relying on the reader’s stock knowledge of Regency England or contemporary American living sans things that go bump in the night. When your boyfriend is cursed, has dietary restrictions, goes furry at that time of the month, or serves Satan, the conflicts tend to vary a bit from “we can never be together because Daddy doesn’t approve” or “I must keep my distance so he doesn’t find out about his secret baby.” (Which I know is a gross oversimplification, but there are themes we’ve all seen a million times, not just in romance novels but in real life, and there’s not much an author can do to make the million-and-first new and interesting.)

I recently picked up a historical off my mom’s TBR and couldn’t sustain attention through the first paragraph on the back cover. I’m clearly not ready to go back there yet. There have been a couple of paranormal historicals I was fine with (Shana Abe’s The Smoke Thief, notably). Maybe I need a really historical historical to make it interesting to me if there’s not going to be any bloodsucking or shapeshifting or spellcasting going on, maybe with some kind of political intrigue. It’s going to have to grab me and not let go, though, because I’m not forcing myself to read anything for the sake of genre loyalty, as the stack of unfinished books on my table can attest.

How did you get started? Have you ever fallen out of love with romance? If so, what convinced you to give it another chance?