My writing friends often talk about the influences their favorite romance authors had on them when they were younger. Which formed their eventual love for the genre. For me, those names, although more familiar now, meant nothing to me in my early writing years.

My parents kept a tight rein over our reading options, and my mother personally refused to touch a romance. Which kept romances away from me until I was in my late teens, and in college.

That first book formed my attitude towards romances of the time. I found myself shocked by the first sexual encounter of the young wife/heroine of the story. I’m not sure if the term, ‘forced seduction’ was loosely used during that time, but this book had a good example of it. I didn’t pick up another romance for over thirty years, because that one particular scene felt very much like a rape to me, with a nice flowery frame of love surrounding the actions of the hero. 

I understand it was the 70’s, since I was there, and lived through personal sexual harassment. Still it didn’t take away from the awful realization a young woman was raped on a page that was covered up with the excuse of love. It is the very bases for the term, ‘bodice ripper.’ Yes, the covers were very daring and also perpetuated the attitudes, but the story did nothing to help.

When I decided to write on the fringes of romance, I had a conversation with my mother on the subject. When asked about this invisible moral platitude that kept romances at bay, her answer surprised me.  She told me it wasn’t the romance or sex in the books, but the heroine’s actions or inaction. Women were written as weak and allowed the hero to treat them as if their feelings didn’t matter. She believed that ‘forced seduction’, was rape seen through rose colored glasses. 

What really angered and annoyed her, romances were written by women, exclusively in the early years of the genre.  

The change for women came slowly. As did the idea of changing the forced seduction and bodice ripper ideals in romances. The first case prosecuted for spousal rape blasted onto the scene in the 1970’s. It made headlines, it spurned debates everywhere. In general it was sneered at. The wife won the case, and the laws of men suddenly were shot out of a cannon to land in a lavender scented pond, controlled by women, but not without a big battle over it.  Not until 1999 did spousal rape become a more serious criminal charge. Until this time it was considered a lesser crime, and could be prosecuted as a misdemeanor, with a slap on the hand.  

It brings to mind the Luke and Laura rape on General Hospital. It was 1979 and fit right into the very confines of a bodice ripper situation, only we got to watch the action. Although Laura admitted to the rape, she never named her rapist, protecting Luke, who was never prosecuted or arrested for the crime. The characters went on to make history and created the term, ’supercouple’ because of their exploits and love story. Sadly, the rape scene can still be viewed on YouTube. Over the years GH has tried to bury the rape by treating other characters rape story with more sensitivity and realism. They’ve also abandoned the idea, that one can actually fall in love with their rapist. Thank goodness someone gained some common sense among their writers.

In the final years of my mother’s life, she read romances. I often would pick up signed books for her from my published friends, and authors I met at conferences. She was always so thrilled, and kept a sizable TBR pile next to her chair.

Why the change? She explained to me, the heroines had grown up with the times, were strong and resourceful. Forced seduction had become a distant memory. Many of the young writers I know, are unaware of the fact, back-in-the-day, forced seduction was a requirement for a romance to be a romance. Fortunately, it had gone right out the window, along with so many other attitudes about women. My mother was pleased with the changes, and was immensely proud that one of her daughters would some day add a strong heroine to the genre.

I can hear Sheryl Crow croon out, “Are you strong enough to be my man?” Which has become the mantra of heroines of our modern romances.

Question of the Day:  What do you think of the all this, and the ’forced seduction’ attitudes of the past?