What do you think about women who are into Rhett Butler, and other “dark heroes” from romance novels?
Dark heroes in romance novels generally aren’t disrespectful or aggressive towards the heroine, and if they are domineering or deceptive towards the heroine, it’s generally motivated by something that the hero at least believes is for the heroine’s good, and often at the expense of the hero’s own interests.
For example, if a fantasy-romance novel heroine gets put under a curse that makes her terribly lustful under the full moon, the heroine might lock her up to protect her… even if she secretly wants to have sex with him anyway, and he wants her as well. Or in an adventure-romance where the heroine is a trained assassin with genetic superpowers, the hero might trick her into getting left behind when he goes to kill the bad guy, to protect her… even if his powers aren’t as powerful as hers, or he has no powers at all besides his secret agent training.
Even if the hero is a bad guy with a past, his actions toward the heroine never turn out to be actually evil or unprincipled, though they may be mistaken and tragic for one or both of them.
(To be fair, romance has a lot of subgenres, and my knowledge is limited to skimming the books my wife has left in the bathroom over the last 20 years or so, and a handful of conversations with her about the emotional and sexual significance of the various tropes in the genres she reads. It’s possible that things are different in subgenres she doesn’t read, like “contemporary”; she almost entirely prefers ones with fantasy, SF, adventure, and other “non-realistic” themes, since this lets her get two categories worth of entertainment at once. ;-) But I’d be a bit surprised if it’s dramatically different.)
I think it’s fair to say that a lot of romance fiction is powered by the idea of a frightening man, even if, as you say, he has a good reason. I admit that this conclusion is the result of realizing that I don’t like the genre, and I think that’s the reason.
The thing I don’t understand in all these discussion is I know a fair number of men in long term—and sometimes happy—relationships. They aren’t high-display of masculinity guys, and yet, somehow they’ve hooked up with someone. How did they manage it?
Gone with the Wind is a hard thing to argue from. It’s an extraordinary book—very popular, but never duplicated. One of the things that drives it is that Scarlett is much more motivated by survival and status than the average female lead.
I just realized—it’s actually an example of a relatively rare sort of women’s fiction. Perfect guy shows up, but the woman is too busy to notice for most of the novel. The other examples I’ve got (Murder with Peacocks and Good in Bed), she’s distracted by a bunch of things going on in her life, but not by being in love with the wrong guy. In a normal novel, she’d realize she’s in love with him while he was still in love with her.
Also, it’s interesting that I’ve never heard anyone say that it was implausible for Scarlett to be fixated on Ashley.
Part of what makes these discussions messy is that the fantasies that hook the hindbrain aren’t necessarily what people want to live. There are a lot more men who like action movies than who’d like to be in violent fights.
The thing I don’t understand in all these discussion is I know a fair number of men in long term—and sometimes happy—relationships. They aren’t high-display of masculinity guys, and yet, somehow they’ve hooked up with someone. How did they manage it?
How old are they? Most people get married eventually. Furthermore, the older people get, the more they switch over to long-term mating strategies.
If you’re an average guy, eventually you’re going to “get lucky” and run into a woman who is into you. As people get older, more and more women get tired of bad boys and switch over to their long-term mating strategies (and in some cases, are looking for men to support them).
So our average guy will find a mate. The question is, how many years go by while he is only dating sporadically, while women (on average) are off having fun with the more masculine and exciting guys? When he finally does find someone, how much choice does he actually have? What is her level of attractiveness (in various areas) compared to his? Is she the “one” who is “right” for him, or is she simply the one woman who has shown interest in him in the past few years?
It seems that during youth, most people do some combination of short-term mating and attempted-but-aborted serial long-term relationships, until eventually they find a good match. People test-drive each other. According to the model I’m outlining, women concentrate their test driving towards men at the top, while men’s test driving
of women is more evenly distributed (though of course, still skewed).
As a result, men who aren’t flashy rides get disproportionately overlooked or cut out of the developmental test-driving stage, until with time women’s average preferences shift and they want something more dependable. I’ve heard men express frustration with this situation and ask, “if the kitten didn’t want me, do I want the cat?”
Sex differences in attraction is also important. For men, looks are relatively more important in attraction, while for women, behavior/personality is relatively more important. If you are a guy dating people you find attractive, they can still turn out to be good long-term mates for you. But for women, the guys you find most attractive during youth may have personality traits that exclude them from making good long-term mates. Of course, there is variation in women on this trait: for some, their ideal short-term mate and ideal long-term mate are the same guy. On average, the people who young women are sexually excited about are less likely to make good long-term mates than the people young men are excited about.
I think it’s fair to say that a lot of romance fiction is powered by the idea of a frightening man, even if, as you say, he has a good reason. I admit that this conclusion is the result of realizing that I don’t like the genre, and I think that’s the reason.
Given that there are so many subgenres of romance, I suspect we are talking about different ones. In the small sample of my wife’s books that I’ve read, the hero is never described as frightening to the heroine. Typically, he takes the form of an annoying rival who the heroine believes is overconfident or arrogant, someone whose goals are (superficially and initially) at odds with those of the heroine. (It then usually turns out that one or both characters have been operating on the basis of a mistaken impression about the other’s goals or character.)
But I have never seen fear described as a heroine’s reaction to anything except the villain, or her feelings for the hero. (Or more precisely, her anticipation of the problematic consequences of allowing her feelings for him to develop and be acted upon.)
Fear of the hero himself, or his actions, though? To my recollection, never happens in these genres.
Thanks for the information. I may have been over-influenced by the blurbs on paranormal romances.
And my take on “frightening” was that these are guys who any reasonable person with ordinary human abilities would find frightening, whether the heroine does or not.
The thing I don’t understand in all these discussion is I know a fair number of men in long term—and sometimes happy—relationships. They aren’t high-display of masculinity guys, and yet, somehow they’ve hooked up with someone. How did they manage it?
From the “Perception Lab” at St Andrews:
Women’s preferences for men’s facial masculinity are especially interesting, as there is great variation in preferences across individuals. These preferences have been demonstrated to vary with age, womens’ own self-rated attractiveness, and across different phases of their menstrual cycle.
Older women tend to prefer more feminine faces. Women in the infertile part of their fertility cycle tend to prefer more feminine faces. Women rating themselves as less attractive tend to prefer more feminine faces.
By the way, I don’t mean to imply that your guy friends in particular are in stable relationships because of these tendencies—I can think of many other reasons beyond the differing attractiveness of their faces, or their demeanour.
Part of what makes these discussions messy is that the fantasies that hook the hindbrain aren’t necessarily what people want to live. There are a lot more men who like action movies than who’d like to be in violent fights.
This deserves emphasis. Our instincts are not interested in our happiness. There is no reason to presume that those we are most attracted to will be the same as those who will be the most satisfying either in the long or short term. (Although it is certainly strong evidence to be considered as well as a direct contributor to that satisfaction.)
The thing I don’t understand in all these discussion is I know a fair number of men in long term—and sometimes happy—relationships. They aren’t high-display of masculinity guys, and yet,
Are these mostly older guys or more precisely guys in LTRs with older women?
The increase over the last 4 decades in female personal income has made the “beta good provider” male strategy less successful.
Also, some (e.g., the Man Who Is Thursday) say that the increase in female promiscuity has had a similar effect because (the thinking goes) once a woman has had sex with 1 or 2 extremely exciting men, she is less likely to settle for a LTR with a much less exciting one (and as long as she does not demand any sort of commitment from them, a woman using a “modern” sexual strategy will probably have sex with 1 or 2 extremely exciting men).
Although I have a relatively small circle of friends, even I have a friend of a friend, now in her 60s, who only ever had sex with one man (the father of her kids to which she is still married) and she was quite beautiful, grew up in the proverbial big city (Manhattan) and has and had no notable social handicaps.
Also, some (e.g., the Man Who Is Thursday) say that the increase in female promiscuity has had a similar effect because (the thinking goes) once a woman has had sex with 1 or 2 extremely exciting men, she is less likely to settle for a LTR with a much less exciting one (and as long as she does not demand any sort of commitment from them, a woman using a “modern” sexual strategy will probably have sex with 1 or 2 extremely exciting men).
If she doesn’t demand any sort of commitment from them, she can have sex with many more extremely exciting men than that, if she’s at all attractive. Even less attractive women can similarly easily have lots of sex and non-serious relationships with men who are far above what they can realistically expect to get for serious commitment, even if they won’t be extremely exciting by absolute standards, so the same principle applies.
There was a discussion of this issue on LW recently. If anyone’s interested, these are my thoughts on the subject, and here I comment on some relevant research.
I’m not sure what the typical age for starting the relationships was.
OK but note that my point is not that women get less choosy as they get older (though that is almost certainly true) but rather that it was easier for a man of average attractiveness to win the hand of a 30-year-old woman 30 or 40 years ago than it is today.
IIRC, a study a couple of years back that said that the male hero raped the female heroine in about half of a large sample of romance novels they looked at. Can’t remember how they chose their sample.
Dark heroes in romance novels generally aren’t disrespectful or aggressive towards the heroine, and if they are domineering or deceptive towards the heroine, it’s generally motivated by something that the hero at least believes is for the heroine’s good, and often at the expense of the hero’s own interests.
That is disrespectful. It’s asserting that the hero knows better than the heroine what’s good for her, and is entitled to act on her behalf. In my mind that’s a much, much more dangerous meme than outright acting maliciously.
That is disrespectful. It’s asserting that the hero knows better than the heroine what’s good for her, and is entitled to act on her behalf. In my mind that’s a much, much more dangerous meme than outright acting maliciously.
The phrase ‘dangerous meme’ jumped out at me. I agree that it is disrespectful and I personally make an effort to prevent people that try from having any part of my life. I actually have to bite my tongue at times so that I don’t point out to young adults “You don’t have to take that. You can choose your own boundaries, with consideration of your options and likely outcomes.” (That put me in a particularly interesting situation when I was a teacher!)
But going from ‘undesirable behavior’ to ‘dangerous meme’, well, strikes me as dangerous. It seems like a move from discussing behavioral preferences to considering the very fact that the behavioural pattern appeals to some people or plays a role in their literature of choice is wrong.
I find the kinds of romance novels in question decidedly unappealing. Not just because they are aimed at women but because they are aimed at a different subset of women than those with whom I most empathise with. But I do know that there people who actually appreciate or are attracted to these same behaviours that I find obnoxious. Judging the very meme just because I personally don’t prefer the behaviour would seem presumptive.
I don’t think I intended the phrase as strongly as you interpreted it. However, “undesireable behavior” is too weak. As noted in another fork of this thread, I think that kind of paternalism is totally out of place between any two capable adults, but invididual cases are not what I’m talking about here. I’m talking about the notion that “members of group X know better than/are entitled to look after members of group Y.” The particular example given happens to be sexist, but it would be offensive for any two groups of normal grown-ups. Perpetuating that idea in popular culture, e.g. via popular fiction, has negative effects on members of both groups, even if they’re not directly exposed to the fiction itself.
I’m talking about the notion that “members of group X know better than/are entitled to look after members of group Y.”
That’s not a notion that was actually present in the context and nor is it one that you introduced yourself (until now). I say this not to be pedantic or to accuse you of any form of inconsistency but rather because there is an implicit assumption that I don’t share. The one that allows a leap from a fictional stories where a female protagonist interacts with an objectionably dominant hero to the general claim “members of group X know better than/are entitled to look after members of group Y”.
The particular example given happens to be sexist, but it would be offensive for any two groups of normal grown-ups.
The particular example given happens to be of heroes who are sexist (or just excessively dominant) and female heroines with arguably terrible taste. If someone is offended that the heroine is attracted to the domineering hero or offended that a woman likes to read such books or empathises with the character then that is the problem of the person taking offence. Not the problem of the author, not the problem of the fictional protagonist and not the problem of literary porn fan.
While my position on what it makes sense to declare offensive may well be irreconcilably opposed to your own it may be interesting to note that my objection here is actually similar to the objection that we both would share to the heroine being overridden. It is not OK to prevent (or shame or otherwise apply moral sanction against) people having, reading or writing stories that appeal to their own emotions. It is not OK to condemn literature because the character doesn’t fit an ideal.
I don’t think “members of group know better than/are entitled to look after members of group ”. Actually, you probably do ‘know better than’ but it is the ‘are entitled to look after’ that is in play when we consider declaring things offensive.
Yes, this particular example is of individuals in just a few works of fiction. But the pattern does happen to exist in many more. And it does happen to be a pretty common idea in our culture. I’m not deriving that from the few examples given; I’m deriving that from living in the culture. I’m not looking out for readers-of-that-fiction, I’m looking out for me, who has to live with them, and with the people who learn values from them.
I’m also withdrawing from this conversation, because the amount of mental effort it’s taking to participate is exceeding the payoff significantly.
I’m also withdrawing from this conversation, because the amount of mental effort it’s taking to participate is exceeding the payoff significantly.
In all sincerity the my goal in this conversation was not primarily to maximise the immediate enjoyment of the participants, for all that I do not like draining the mental energies of either others or myself. The role of morality has been discussed elsewhere recently and within that role declarations of things that things should be considered offensive or shamed serves as a powerful power play. It even more powerful when the assumption that something is sexist, prejudiced or otherwise normatively wrong is passed off implicitly without question. It takes very little for such beliefs or injunctions to become unquestionable and once in place can be a significant inhibitor of personal freedom.
The task of minimising personal offence while at the same time acting to make a social move too expensive for it to be worth their while to try frequently is one that is quite difficult.
That is disrespectful. It’s asserting that the hero knows better than the heroine what’s good for her, and is entitled to act on her behalf.
You’re leaving out the part where I said that the hero’s actions could be mistaken and/or tragic: i.e., in actual romance novels it’s quite often the case that the hero only thinks he knows better than the heroine, that she fights his actions every step of the way, and/or the actions lead to bad results.
I’m also a bit confused as to how you can say that either of the specific examples I gave qualify as “disrespectful”. If somebody throws themselves in front of a bullet for you, is that being disrespectful because they think they know what’s better for you?
might lock her up to protect her… might trick her into getting left behind when he goes to kill the bad guy, to protect her
I don’t see either of these as analogous to throwing himself in front of a bullet. In both cases he’s making a choice for her which she is capable of making herself—he’s taking care of her instead of letting her take care of herself. Even in the first case, there’s precedent in werewolf fiction for the lycanthrope to be voluntarily restrained to minimize damage. In the second case he’s also mislelading her so as to actually prevent her from making the choice to, say, protect him with her superior abilities.
It would be equally messed up if you switched the gender roles—saying “I’m going to do what I’ve decided is good for you instead of letting you make your own choices” always is, between two capable grownups. This just happens to be the direction which conforms to the popular trope about who is supposed to take care of whom.
It would be equally messed up if you switched the gender roles—saying “I’m going to do what I’ve decided is good for you instead of letting you make your own choices” always is, between two capable grownups. This just happens to be the direction which conforms to the popular trope about who is supposed to take care of whom.
This particular aspect may be unique to the romance genres my wife reads, but ISTM that the female leads in these novels are just as likely to make the same sort of imposingly-yet-self-sacrificing decisions for the male leads—i.e., both parties doing it in the same novel, prior to reaching a saner equilibrium. The contextual implication I draw from the few ones that I read myself, is that:
1) The signal “I will do what it takes to protect you, even if you disagree” is covertly found attractive by the heroine, even when her rational/overt reaction is that it’s stupid, unnecessary, condescending, chauvinistic etc. (This distinction is usually reflected in the heroine’s inner and outer dialogs),
2) While the signal is valued, the actual behavior and effects are not—by the time they reach “happily ever after”, the hero grudgingly agrees to limit his heroic impulses to merely vigorously arguing and protesting against courses of action he deems too dangerous, rather than outright sabotage or quasi-suicidal pre-emptions.
Hypothesis: once the hero has established the credibility of his signaled concern by actually putting himself at risk, the heroine can simply enjoy the now-credible verbal signals, without having the ongoing cost of excessive risk to him, or the annoyance of being treated somewhat condescendingly.
Dark heroes in romance novels generally aren’t disrespectful or aggressive towards the heroine, and if they are domineering or deceptive towards the heroine, it’s generally motivated by something that the hero at least believes is for the heroine’s good, and often at the expense of the hero’s own interests.
For example, if a fantasy-romance novel heroine gets put under a curse that makes her terribly lustful under the full moon, the heroine might lock her up to protect her… even if she secretly wants to have sex with him anyway, and he wants her as well. Or in an adventure-romance where the heroine is a trained assassin with genetic superpowers, the hero might trick her into getting left behind when he goes to kill the bad guy, to protect her… even if his powers aren’t as powerful as hers, or he has no powers at all besides his secret agent training.
Even if the hero is a bad guy with a past, his actions toward the heroine never turn out to be actually evil or unprincipled, though they may be mistaken and tragic for one or both of them.
(To be fair, romance has a lot of subgenres, and my knowledge is limited to skimming the books my wife has left in the bathroom over the last 20 years or so, and a handful of conversations with her about the emotional and sexual significance of the various tropes in the genres she reads. It’s possible that things are different in subgenres she doesn’t read, like “contemporary”; she almost entirely prefers ones with fantasy, SF, adventure, and other “non-realistic” themes, since this lets her get two categories worth of entertainment at once. ;-) But I’d be a bit surprised if it’s dramatically different.)
I think it’s fair to say that a lot of romance fiction is powered by the idea of a frightening man, even if, as you say, he has a good reason. I admit that this conclusion is the result of realizing that I don’t like the genre, and I think that’s the reason.
The thing I don’t understand in all these discussion is I know a fair number of men in long term—and sometimes happy—relationships. They aren’t high-display of masculinity guys, and yet, somehow they’ve hooked up with someone. How did they manage it?
Gone with the Wind is a hard thing to argue from. It’s an extraordinary book—very popular, but never duplicated. One of the things that drives it is that Scarlett is much more motivated by survival and status than the average female lead.
I just realized—it’s actually an example of a relatively rare sort of women’s fiction. Perfect guy shows up, but the woman is too busy to notice for most of the novel. The other examples I’ve got (Murder with Peacocks and Good in Bed), she’s distracted by a bunch of things going on in her life, but not by being in love with the wrong guy. In a normal novel, she’d realize she’s in love with him while he was still in love with her.
Also, it’s interesting that I’ve never heard anyone say that it was implausible for Scarlett to be fixated on Ashley.
Part of what makes these discussions messy is that the fantasies that hook the hindbrain aren’t necessarily what people want to live. There are a lot more men who like action movies than who’d like to be in violent fights.
How old are they? Most people get married eventually. Furthermore, the older people get, the more they switch over to long-term mating strategies.
If you’re an average guy, eventually you’re going to “get lucky” and run into a woman who is into you. As people get older, more and more women get tired of bad boys and switch over to their long-term mating strategies (and in some cases, are looking for men to support them).
So our average guy will find a mate. The question is, how many years go by while he is only dating sporadically, while women (on average) are off having fun with the more masculine and exciting guys? When he finally does find someone, how much choice does he actually have? What is her level of attractiveness (in various areas) compared to his? Is she the “one” who is “right” for him, or is she simply the one woman who has shown interest in him in the past few years?
It seems that during youth, most people do some combination of short-term mating and attempted-but-aborted serial long-term relationships, until eventually they find a good match. People test-drive each other. According to the model I’m outlining, women concentrate their test driving towards men at the top, while men’s test driving of women is more evenly distributed (though of course, still skewed).
As a result, men who aren’t flashy rides get disproportionately overlooked or cut out of the developmental test-driving stage, until with time women’s average preferences shift and they want something more dependable. I’ve heard men express frustration with this situation and ask, “if the kitten didn’t want me, do I want the cat?”
Sex differences in attraction is also important. For men, looks are relatively more important in attraction, while for women, behavior/personality is relatively more important. If you are a guy dating people you find attractive, they can still turn out to be good long-term mates for you. But for women, the guys you find most attractive during youth may have personality traits that exclude them from making good long-term mates. Of course, there is variation in women on this trait: for some, their ideal short-term mate and ideal long-term mate are the same guy. On average, the people who young women are sexually excited about are less likely to make good long-term mates than the people young men are excited about.
Given that there are so many subgenres of romance, I suspect we are talking about different ones. In the small sample of my wife’s books that I’ve read, the hero is never described as frightening to the heroine. Typically, he takes the form of an annoying rival who the heroine believes is overconfident or arrogant, someone whose goals are (superficially and initially) at odds with those of the heroine. (It then usually turns out that one or both characters have been operating on the basis of a mistaken impression about the other’s goals or character.)
But I have never seen fear described as a heroine’s reaction to anything except the villain, or her feelings for the hero. (Or more precisely, her anticipation of the problematic consequences of allowing her feelings for him to develop and be acted upon.)
Fear of the hero himself, or his actions, though? To my recollection, never happens in these genres.
Thanks for the information. I may have been over-influenced by the blurbs on paranormal romances.
And my take on “frightening” was that these are guys who any reasonable person with ordinary human abilities would find frightening, whether the heroine does or not.
From the “Perception Lab” at St Andrews:
Older women tend to prefer more feminine faces. Women in the infertile part of their fertility cycle tend to prefer more feminine faces. Women rating themselves as less attractive tend to prefer more feminine faces.
By the way, I don’t mean to imply that your guy friends in particular are in stable relationships because of these tendencies—I can think of many other reasons beyond the differing attractiveness of their faces, or their demeanour.
This deserves emphasis. Our instincts are not interested in our happiness. There is no reason to presume that those we are most attracted to will be the same as those who will be the most satisfying either in the long or short term. (Although it is certainly strong evidence to be considered as well as a direct contributor to that satisfaction.)
Are these mostly older guys or more precisely guys in LTRs with older women?
The increase over the last 4 decades in female personal income has made the “beta good provider” male strategy less successful.
Also, some (e.g., the Man Who Is Thursday) say that the increase in female promiscuity has had a similar effect because (the thinking goes) once a woman has had sex with 1 or 2 extremely exciting men, she is less likely to settle for a LTR with a much less exciting one (and as long as she does not demand any sort of commitment from them, a woman using a “modern” sexual strategy will probably have sex with 1 or 2 extremely exciting men).
Although I have a relatively small circle of friends, even I have a friend of a friend, now in her 60s, who only ever had sex with one man (the father of her kids to which she is still married) and she was quite beautiful, grew up in the proverbial big city (Manhattan) and has and had no notable social handicaps.
rhollerith_dot_com:
If she doesn’t demand any sort of commitment from them, she can have sex with many more extremely exciting men than that, if she’s at all attractive. Even less attractive women can similarly easily have lots of sex and non-serious relationships with men who are far above what they can realistically expect to get for serious commitment, even if they won’t be extremely exciting by absolute standards, so the same principle applies.
There was a discussion of this issue on LW recently. If anyone’s interested, these are my thoughts on the subject, and here I comment on some relevant research.
Most of my friends are around my own age, so both the men and the women are older than young.
I’m not sure what the typical age for starting the relationships was.
OK but note that my point is not that women get less choosy as they get older (though that is almost certainly true) but rather that it was easier for a man of average attractiveness to win the hand of a 30-year-old woman 30 or 40 years ago than it is today.
IIRC, a study a couple of years back that said that the male hero raped the female heroine in about half of a large sample of romance novels they looked at. Can’t remember how they chose their sample.
That is disrespectful. It’s asserting that the hero knows better than the heroine what’s good for her, and is entitled to act on her behalf. In my mind that’s a much, much more dangerous meme than outright acting maliciously.
The phrase ‘dangerous meme’ jumped out at me. I agree that it is disrespectful and I personally make an effort to prevent people that try from having any part of my life. I actually have to bite my tongue at times so that I don’t point out to young adults “You don’t have to take that. You can choose your own boundaries, with consideration of your options and likely outcomes.” (That put me in a particularly interesting situation when I was a teacher!)
But going from ‘undesirable behavior’ to ‘dangerous meme’, well, strikes me as dangerous. It seems like a move from discussing behavioral preferences to considering the very fact that the behavioural pattern appeals to some people or plays a role in their literature of choice is wrong.
I find the kinds of romance novels in question decidedly unappealing. Not just because they are aimed at women but because they are aimed at a different subset of women than those with whom I most empathise with. But I do know that there people who actually appreciate or are attracted to these same behaviours that I find obnoxious. Judging the very meme just because I personally don’t prefer the behaviour would seem presumptive.
I don’t think I intended the phrase as strongly as you interpreted it. However, “undesireable behavior” is too weak. As noted in another fork of this thread, I think that kind of paternalism is totally out of place between any two capable adults, but invididual cases are not what I’m talking about here. I’m talking about the notion that “members of group X know better than/are entitled to look after members of group Y.” The particular example given happens to be sexist, but it would be offensive for any two groups of normal grown-ups. Perpetuating that idea in popular culture, e.g. via popular fiction, has negative effects on members of both groups, even if they’re not directly exposed to the fiction itself.
That’s not a notion that was actually present in the context and nor is it one that you introduced yourself (until now). I say this not to be pedantic or to accuse you of any form of inconsistency but rather because there is an implicit assumption that I don’t share. The one that allows a leap from a fictional stories where a female protagonist interacts with an objectionably dominant hero to the general claim “members of group X know better than/are entitled to look after members of group Y”.
The particular example given happens to be of heroes who are sexist (or just excessively dominant) and female heroines with arguably terrible taste. If someone is offended that the heroine is attracted to the domineering hero or offended that a woman likes to read such books or empathises with the character then that is the problem of the person taking offence. Not the problem of the author, not the problem of the fictional protagonist and not the problem of literary porn fan.
While my position on what it makes sense to declare offensive may well be irreconcilably opposed to your own it may be interesting to note that my objection here is actually similar to the objection that we both would share to the heroine being overridden. It is not OK to prevent (or shame or otherwise apply moral sanction against) people having, reading or writing stories that appeal to their own emotions. It is not OK to condemn literature because the character doesn’t fit an ideal.
I don’t think “members of group know better than/are entitled to look after members of group ”. Actually, you probably do ‘know better than’ but it is the ‘are entitled to look after’ that is in play when we consider declaring things offensive.
Yes, this particular example is of individuals in just a few works of fiction. But the pattern does happen to exist in many more. And it does happen to be a pretty common idea in our culture. I’m not deriving that from the few examples given; I’m deriving that from living in the culture. I’m not looking out for readers-of-that-fiction, I’m looking out for me, who has to live with them, and with the people who learn values from them.
I’m also withdrawing from this conversation, because the amount of mental effort it’s taking to participate is exceeding the payoff significantly.
In all sincerity the my goal in this conversation was not primarily to maximise the immediate enjoyment of the participants, for all that I do not like draining the mental energies of either others or myself. The role of morality has been discussed elsewhere recently and within that role declarations of things that things should be considered offensive or shamed serves as a powerful power play. It even more powerful when the assumption that something is sexist, prejudiced or otherwise normatively wrong is passed off implicitly without question. It takes very little for such beliefs or injunctions to become unquestionable and once in place can be a significant inhibitor of personal freedom.
The task of minimising personal offence while at the same time acting to make a social move too expensive for it to be worth their while to try frequently is one that is quite difficult.
You’re leaving out the part where I said that the hero’s actions could be mistaken and/or tragic: i.e., in actual romance novels it’s quite often the case that the hero only thinks he knows better than the heroine, that she fights his actions every step of the way, and/or the actions lead to bad results.
I’m also a bit confused as to how you can say that either of the specific examples I gave qualify as “disrespectful”. If somebody throws themselves in front of a bullet for you, is that being disrespectful because they think they know what’s better for you?
I don’t see either of these as analogous to throwing himself in front of a bullet. In both cases he’s making a choice for her which she is capable of making herself—he’s taking care of her instead of letting her take care of herself. Even in the first case, there’s precedent in werewolf fiction for the lycanthrope to be voluntarily restrained to minimize damage. In the second case he’s also mislelading her so as to actually prevent her from making the choice to, say, protect him with her superior abilities.
It would be equally messed up if you switched the gender roles—saying “I’m going to do what I’ve decided is good for you instead of letting you make your own choices” always is, between two capable grownups. This just happens to be the direction which conforms to the popular trope about who is supposed to take care of whom.
This particular aspect may be unique to the romance genres my wife reads, but ISTM that the female leads in these novels are just as likely to make the same sort of imposingly-yet-self-sacrificing decisions for the male leads—i.e., both parties doing it in the same novel, prior to reaching a saner equilibrium. The contextual implication I draw from the few ones that I read myself, is that:
1) The signal “I will do what it takes to protect you, even if you disagree” is covertly found attractive by the heroine, even when her rational/overt reaction is that it’s stupid, unnecessary, condescending, chauvinistic etc. (This distinction is usually reflected in the heroine’s inner and outer dialogs),
2) While the signal is valued, the actual behavior and effects are not—by the time they reach “happily ever after”, the hero grudgingly agrees to limit his heroic impulses to merely vigorously arguing and protesting against courses of action he deems too dangerous, rather than outright sabotage or quasi-suicidal pre-emptions.
Hypothesis: once the hero has established the credibility of his signaled concern by actually putting himself at risk, the heroine can simply enjoy the now-credible verbal signals, without having the ongoing cost of excessive risk to him, or the annoyance of being treated somewhat condescendingly.