The romance genre has consistently remained on top of fiction genre book sales for decades now, earning $1.44 billion in revenue yearly. The popularity of the romance genre has not worn off in its fifty years of success. That success aside, the romance genre has been heavily neglected by academia. Dr. Christy Tidwell states that, “for most of the history of academic romance studies, ‘the popular romance has been treated very differently, by scholars and critics, from other forms of genre fiction’” (Tidwell 152). Romance has been seen as less serious or scholarly than other fiction genres, which leaves a major gap in the field. The 1972 publication of The Flame and the Flower by Kathleen E. Woodiwiss, which is accepted as the first modern “bodice ripper” novel, resulted in a revolution in the romance genre. It was one of the first romance novels featuring sexually explicit written content. This thesis addresses the association of the increasingly successful pornography industry during second wave feminism and its direct impact on the romance genre and its surge in popularity.
Until relatively recently, film pornography has not prioritized a female viewership and neglected portraying women as people who experience sexual pleasure. Instead, women in pornography perform their “pleasure” for the male gaze, and an authentic orgasm was rarely seen. The priority was on the male viewer. The woman was a sexual object to be used and watched for male sexual gratification. The pornographic film Deep Throat was released in the same year as The Flame and the Flower, and as the porn industry grew with the development of the video cassette tape and the camcorder making it more accessible and mainstream, the romance genre grew in tandem. Women’s pleasure has been disregarded in the porn industry, and many feminist groups argue that pornography is inherently anti-feminist. I argue that in a direct response to the growing success of the porn industry and sexual objectification of women visible on the big screen and in magazines, the romance genre served women sexually in a way pornography didn’t. Using the porn wars and second-wave feminism as historical framework, this dissertation analyses shared features in the RITA-award winning historical romances in terms of female pleasure and sexuality in contrast to the most financially successful pornographic films of the same year, beginning in 1982 and ending in 1995. This dissertation also argues that the romance genre grew in popularity to rectify a pleasure gap in real and pornographic heterosexual relationships of the time. I also analyze shared characteristics of the “clinch cover” and “stepback” art featured on historical romance novels and how they differ from porn magazine photographs and what this artistic display of sensuality implies about feminine desire. Often on romance covers, men are in a sexually vulnerable position, kneeling, possibly partially nude, subverting the traditional idea of the dominant male and submissive female. On clinch covers and stepbacks, there are almost always two characters in some sort of loving embrace, blissfully unaware of the reader’s voyeurism. Finally, this dissertation addresses the shame surrounding the romance genre and the art featured on or in them.
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I saw an overlap of the end of the Golden Age of Pornography and the growth in popularity of the erotic historical romance novel in the 1980s and wondered if the neglect of female pleasure in mainstream pornography necessitated the representation of female pleasure in other forms of media, namely the erotic historical romance novel. I conclude that the sex is better in romance and objectification is reduced in comparison with Golden Age porn films and adult magazines from the same time period as the novels. (7)
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in the late 70s, the romance “stepback” was born to ensure that, as romance art enthusiast Jacqueline Diaz hilariously explains on her website Sweet Savage Flame, “you can have your clinch and eat it, too” (Diaz). The “stepback” is a “cover with an interior page of artwork” to allow readers to have a more tame, unassuming exterior appearance while still allowing for an explicit, sensual image beneath. Diaz believes the first stepback cover for a romance novel was Janet Daley’s Touch the Wind (1979) and they grew in popularity through the 80s and 90s. The final chapter of this dissertation will be dissecting the art in clinches and stepbacks, so understanding that terminology is important. (12)
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There are two major sections of this dissertation. The first half is about the Golden Age of Pornography, “porno chic,” pro-vs-anti-pornography sentiment of the time period, how sex is portrayed in popular pornographic films prior to 1982 and comparing it to how it is portrayed in historical romance novels from 1982-1995. I want to answer the following questions: Who was the primary audience of these pornographic films? Did popular porn films of the Golden Age prioritize female pleasure? Did romance novels from 1982-1995 prioritize female pleasure? Was the ongoing second-wave of feminism and feminist anti-pornography discourse influence the growth in the romance novel? Was the romance novel a way for women to close the “orgasm gap?” (13-14)
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The second half of this dissertation will analyze eight covers of popular pornographic magazines from 1982-1995, again asking specific questions: Who is the audience for this image? What was the usual pornographic magazine cover like? What are the common features? What did this say about women and their own pleasure? Then I will follow up with an analysis of eight romance novel covers and/or stepbacks from the same time period by four very popular romance artists, looking for any key differences seen in the cover art versus erotic magazines. Do these differences further exemplify the need for the representation of female pleasure in the media during this time period?
Finally, I will conclude the second half with a brief study into the shame of romance novel cover art. Why would publishers continue to put these images on the covers or in the stepback? What causes the shame women readers feel about these images? (14-15)
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Having a romance hero naked and a heroine clothed on the cover suggest a power dynamic that places the man in a more vulnerable position than the woman, and perhaps this physical vulnerability is a reflection of the internal vulnerability the male hero often finds himself experiencing when he is falling in love with the heroine.
Having a cover art's setting outdoors, or even directly in nature, make it more sensual and romantic versus in a bedroom, and instead of a pornographic-like image in a bedroom, is softened into a natural, more gentle erotic depiction of sexuality. (37)
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Based on my research, I conclude that the historical romance genre’s rise in popularity was due largely in part by the hunger for media targeting women, women’s issues, and women’s sexual pleasure in a time of female financial, social, and sexual liberation during and following the Golden Age of Pornography. (42-43)
Here's the abstract:
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