Men, Masculinities, and Popular Romance seeks to open a lively and accessible discussion between critical studies of men and masculinities and popular romance studies, especially its continued interest in what Janice Radway has called "the purity of his maleness."
Popular romance novels, perhaps more than any other genre, explore sexuality and gender, creating an ideal space in which to consider and explore theoretical models that think seriously about gender. The romance novel has long been criticized and celebrated by feminist critics. How can these novels maintain, according to some, feminist ideals, while also upholding what Raewyn Connell has long theorized as "hegemonic masculinity"?
Over the course of Men, Masculinities, and Popular Romance, I will argue that popular romance novels are ideal sites in which to study representations of men, masculinity, and the male body, and that to do so we must engage with the eroticism and sexualities that underpin the textual encounter between the protagonists and also the erotic impulses and desires of both the authors and readers. I do not treat these texts as just texts but rather as proof of eroticism and desire, which needs to be studied accordingly. In so doing, I will enter into one of the longest debates in popular romance studies: Are popular romance novels porn for women? (4)
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Over the course of Men, Masculinities, and Popular Romance, I take seriously Radway’s notion of ‘purity of his maleness’ and explicitly think about what this might mean for scholars of men and masculinities – in particular – but also for scholars of popular romance, popular culture, and media studies, to name but a few of the most obvious fields of research. Like Radway, I argue that the ‘purity of his maleness’ is central to the hero in popular romance fiction. Put bluntly, the romance novel depends on and is committed to an ideology of masculinity that needs to be engaged with and critiqued by scholars of critical masculinities. (9)
Studying the Popular Romance Novel: This chapter seeks to think through some of the challenges of studying popular romance novels; for instance, what is a big enough corpus and when can one speak about ‘the genre’?
Desiring hegemonic masculinity: This chapter pays particular attention to Janice Radway’s phrase ‘the purity of his maleness’ and provides readings of a number of romance novels from the 1980s and 1990s.
Reconsidering the money shot: orgasm and masculinity: This chapter pays attention to the importance of the ‘happily ever after’ ending but argues that in the romance, before this can be achieved, the hero must prove his sexual prowess.
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Surprisingly, romance scholars have not spilt nearly as much ink on the orgasm as porn scholars have on the money shot. As such, this chapter works to show how the orgasm is essential to romance and moreover that it functions like the money shot in pornography. (40)
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In this chapter, then, my argument rests upon the centrality and importance of the orgasm to the popular romance novel, which I am arguing is not merely there to fill space but rather to serve the demands of genre. The orgasm, I contend, is a necessary step on the way to the money shot that will come at the novel’s close: the declaration of love. (42)
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Theorising male virginity in popular romance fiction: This chapter studies the figure of the male virgin, a fairly anomalous figure in romance. Male virgins become a vehicle through which to think about challenges to masculinity, while still ultimately maintaining traditional masculinities.
Slashing and queering popular romance fiction: This chapter begins the study of male/male romance novels by focusing on slash and queer texts. Included is a discussion of the bromance and the limits of bromance.
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I work to provide a close reading of Marie Sexton’s Never a Hero, which is something of a controversial novel because it challenges the limits of the genre while also actively thinking about masculinity and sexuality. (84)
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I have included the "medical/health" topic because of the discussion of HIV in Marie Sexton's Never a Hero.
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Towards an anatomy of male/male popular romance novel: This chapter studies male/male popular romance novels and considers the ways in which they both challenge and affirm traditional ideas about masculinity.
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In this chapter, I return to the question of bodies in order to think through how they work in popular romance novels, especially the male/male popular romance novel. (91)
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Vanilla sex, or reading pornography romantically: This chapter considers the relationship between pornography and romance novels. Many have argued that romance novels are merely pornography for women, but if this is so, is pornography a romance novel for men? Could one read pornography romantically?
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This chapter considers the ‘surprising’ film Tension by Nubile Films and works to read it as romance. (104)
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Epilogue: Are billionaires still sexy?: This brief chapter considers how the excessively wealthy hero is represented and how this may have changed in recent years.
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I introduce a case study: A Virgin to Redeem the Billionaire by Dani Collins. (121)
This was reviewed by Jackie C. Horne, at the Journal of Popular Romance Studies.
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The chapters are as follows (text immediately following a bullet point is taken from the summaries at https://doi.org/10.4324/9781351240024 ):
Allan notes that "The chapter titled ‘Desiring Hegemonic Masculinity’ appeared previously as ‘“The Purity of His Maleness”: Masculinity in Popular Romance Novels,’ which appeared in Journal of Men’s Studies (2016)" (xii).
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Allan notes that "The chapter titled, ‘Theorising Male Virginity in Popular Romance Fiction’ brings together two articles that appeared in Journal of Popular Romance Studies, ‘Theorising Male Virginity in Popular Romance Novels’ (2011) and ‘“And He Absolutely Fascinated Me”: Masculinity and Virginity in Sherilee Gray’s Breaking Him’ (2019)" (xii). Although, according to the record in this database, that second one was published in 2020.
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I have included the "medical/health" topic because of the discussion of HIV in Marie Sexton's Never a Hero.
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