Rape is almost an obsession in the works of Penny Jordan (1946-2011) written for Mills & Boon and published during the 1980s. Arguably, rape is not at all romantic and has no place whatsoever within a romantic novel. However, Jordan uses rape as a trope within her novels repeatedly, particularly during the mid-1980s. This raises the following questions: why does Jordan use rape as a trope particularly during the mid-1980s? Furthermore, why was the first half of the 1980s so important for Jordan’s primarily female readers that she felt her novels focused on this subject would immediately engage their interests at this point in time? The answer lies in analysing debates surrounding rape taking place in the media at the time. This article explores the social context in which Jordan’s romance novels were produced, in order to better understand both the novels and the society from which they emerged and to which they respond. This paper will show how Jordan’s works for Mills & Boon use the ongoing contemporaneous debate surrounding rape myths and the treatment of rape by the Police and the judiciary system within her novels, to explore challenging areas such as the nature of consent. It will go on to argue how her novels expose rape and gender-based violence as damaging to both women and men in society.
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