Yes, it is February. Yes, every company or business will market their red and pink colored products or romance-themed book/movie/dining experience/getaway/what have you. (BTW, my birthday is, no joke, Valentine’s Day, so I know the expectation to have a romantic interest or significant other intimately.) And make no mistake that I’m going to do the same thing, but not in the same way. Instead of trying to sell you on romance novels you should pick up or novels that are anti-love that you should pick up, I want to advocate for how reading romance is a way to gain deeper “relational intelligence”. Romance centers the emotional lives of an individual and how that influences one’s romantic life. Yes, it is also concerned with sex, but not chiefly. In a genre where you know the two main characters will end up together, the power of the story lies in how the main characters identify their wants and find a way to overcome the obstacle keeping them from it. When done successfully, the reader believes that two people really are great together and that their relationship will last.
I recently finished a book from Harlequin DARE titled Unleashed, the first in Caitlin Crews’ (Megan Crane) Hotel Temptation series, and I was reminded of why romance is such an important genre. Crews book is about a professor of sex, Margot, who travels to Iceland for research on a paper about how Iceland’s reputation as a feminist country is complicated by its sexual culture. On the evening she wishes to interview the owner of Hotel Viking, a hotel where people consensually indulge in any sexual fantasy they want, a huge snowstorm rages outside and she must stay the night. While in the bar she meets the owner, Thor Ragarsson. You can assume where the novel heads from there.
“Romance centers the emotional lives of an individual and how that influences one’s romantic life.”
SPOILER ALERT: Roughly halfway through the novella, Thor hands Margot a napkin, suggesting that he is going to gag her. She is so quick to intellectualize the situation: is this feminist? Is the gag a representation of the patriarchy’s silencing of women?
“I would be handing my voice to a man, the way women have done for millennia. Why would that be appealing?”
Thor has a different understanding of the situation.
“But this is not ‘millennia.’ This is here, now. Tonight. I am one man, not the whole of the patriarchy arrayed against you. And I don’t want to take your voice from you, Margot. I want to hear what other things you have to say when you can’t rely on your mouth.”
Margot still feels uneasy and so asserts that there must be a signal — which for BDSM of any degree is a MUST — a way to tell him to stop. They agree that the signal is removing the gag, at which point she can say anything she wishes to say. This scene really made the book for me. I saw the clashes in cultural attitudes toward sex. Margot’s approach to sex is quite conservative. Margot attributes her views to feminism. I don’t fault her entirely. Many women in the US still believe that to be a feminist means there is acceptable and unacceptable behavior and a feminist woman proves her belief by being educated, cultured, and accomplished. In other words, if she wants to be taken seriously she has to take herself seriously. Margot is okay with other women being gagged, but it is not for her. Thor’s views are not tied to specific behaviors. He believes that a woman should be sexually pleased however she wants to be; her sex life has no bearing on whether or not she should be taken seriously. That reason alone is why I love this book and romance books in general. Good romance novels do not conflate roles in the bedroom with roles in a relationship. This scene gives the reader a nuanced view of relationships. Being submissive to Thor in the privacy of his room does not mean that outside of the bedroom Margot is inferior to him. She is allowed to indulge in her fantasies and be respected before, during, and after the fantasy has been lived.
“Good romance novels do not conflate roles in the bedroom with roles in a relationship.”
Margot does acquiesce after Thor assures her that he won’t judge her, and isn’t that the goal? To have multiple orgasms and not have that held against you or have it be used to manipulate you afterward? For a woman to be who she is and not feel that she has to perform her gender in a given manner for her to be taken seriously and seen as a respectable?
Of course, Thor and Margot get their happy ending. Another thing good romance does is shows me that characters, like people, are full of shit sometimes and need to have their views challenged so they can get out of their own way. For me to believe that these two characters would or even could be together, Crews had to reveal their emotional lives vis-a-vis relationships. I had to see them develop intimacy, respect, and mutual understanding to see how these two characters could be compatible. This is what I call relational intelligence, understanding how two people build a healthy relationship or how their actions ruin a relationship that they really don’t want to ruin.
I love romance. I truly do. I really, truly want people to have great sex. I know that I discussed a book about a heterosexual couple, but the same is true for male-male relationships, female-female relationships, and genderqueer couples. I want a person to experience amazing sex and with an amazing partner(s) who make them feel supported, fun, adventurous, wild, sexy, spontaneous, and, most importantly, valued. Books Are Magic now has a romance shelf, and I’m excited to see it expand! So when you next visit the store, seriously consider buying a romance novel.
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