Though each book is
supposed to be new and unique, invariably paranormal romance, like it’s bigger
cousin conventional romance often ends up following the same patterns.
Obviously all fiction has its tropes and there are certain patterns which,
while they may be overdone, are not necessarily damaging. For example, there is
the obvious boy meets girl, girl hates boy, problem arises, they overcome the
misunderstanding and live happily every after screwing their brains out for
eternity
These books are meant
to sell us on the idea of romance and the inevitability of true love. However,
some of these tropes are less benign and that path to true love can often be
highly misogynist which is either expressed through characterisation or placing
the female protagonist in untenable situations, even outright abusive
situations - where she should be calling the police while running away
screaming. Yes, these are not meant to be more than fantasy but this does not
excuse the horrible messages that are repeatedly sent.
While we have
addressed many individual elements that uphold abusive relationships, it is when we see several of these
troublesome elements come together that the full scale of the problem becomes
clear.
1) The Inexperienced/virginal woman is an absolute
favourite. This places the man in dominant position because he is more sexually
experienced and inevitably suggests that the perfect woman, is the woman who is
pure. Let’s have a look at a few characters which we were introduced to as
virgins: Sookie Stackhouse (Charlaine Harris) Bella Swan (Stephanie Meyer)
Cassandra Palmer (Karen Chance) Clary Fray (Cassandra Clare) Chrysabelle
(Kristen Painter) Cindy Spencer Pape - 4 out of 5 of the female protagonists,
Damali (L.A. Banks), many of the female love interests in Lyndsay Sands Argeneu
series. This long list of doesn’t even include the penchant for the gently used protagonist, who has had few experiences and is, of course, tortured to
some degree over it (see Anita Blake before Laurell K Hamilton discovered that
porn sells). The woman must always explain why she has not saved her virginity
whereas this is an acceptable status quo for the man and any sexual experience
she has had will have been deeply inferior and unsatisfactory (as if bad sex
gives one honourable virginity). Virginity or little experience is always
stressed and yet these women moan and carry on (supposedly in pleasure and not
pain) about being penetrated with 12 inch penises as round as tree stumps.
2) Centuries Old, Powerful Love interest: To contrast
with the virginal purity of the protagonist, her love interest will have been
around for years, sometimes centuries, boffing away at anything that moved. He
will be experienced, he will be skilled, sometimes supernaturally skilled, he
will teach her and show her and open her eyes (and other places). Yes, this
fits the usual fantasy elements of the romance story - shouldn’t the love
interest be the epitome of excellent sexual prowess? But it’s a power imbalance
- his experience, his skills contrast sharply with her complete “innocence”.
Her ignorance and sheltered life leaves her prey to being coaxed into
“expanding her horizons” whatever reservations she may have and inevitably puts
him in the driving seat of their love life.
And he will often be
more powerful than her as well, especially if he is a supernatural creature.
The power imbalance is pushed wide open by centuries old, supernatural monsters
seducing inexperienced teenagers in school, women - or girls - who are utterly
helpless and dramatically fragile in contrast.
3) The Woman is Isolated: This common trope in a lot
of Paranormal Romance (or Urban Fantasy with strong romance elements)
repeatedly brings us women who have few people in their lives. It’s a running
joke that parents are an endangered species in the genre - given the number of
orphans running around (Sookie in the Sookie Stackhouse Series, Elena in
The Vampire Diaries, Nikki in the Nikki and Michael series, Elena
- in fact, a number of female protagonists, in Kelley Armstrong’s Women of
the Otherworld series, Tessa in The Infernal Devices, Gaby in Hopeless - the list goes on) and an equal
number of characters who have either absent or inadequate parents (Bella Swan’s
absent mother and out of depth father in Twilight, Clary’s comatose
mother in The Mortal Instruments).
Similarly, many of
these women do not have friends or many friends (many of the female characters
in the Black Dagger Brotherhood, and many of the female characters in
Sherrilyn Kenyon’s Dark Hunter Series) - they are often considered
outcasts or freaks (like Sookie) or don’t fit in to their respected worlds
(Sookie, Elena from Women of the Otherworld).
These isolated women are inherently vulnerable - they lack protectors and advocates, they lack people who are ready and able to warn of dubious behaviour, they lack second opinions and they lack safety nets.
4) The Woman is Unhappy/Unfulfilled: In some
ways this is understandable - after all, many of these stories are fantasies of
a dream come true and where else would you start but in a place of unhappiness
to make the ending all the sweeter? There’s a reason so many fairy tale
princesses have such miserable beginnings. The problem is in relation to the
other tropes - because it’s another element that serves to make the woman
vulnerable. By being unhappy and unfulfilled, often with either no job or a job
they find deeply dissatisfactory or they’re lonely or sad (again, the Black
Dagger Brotherhood features heavily here, but so does Sookie, the grieving
Elena in The Vampire Diaries, the frustrated Elena in Women of the
Otherworld and Bella) makes them easier prey. Having no ties means, again,
having few means of support and protection, fewer choices and fewer
alternatives to the man who swoops in to make things better.
In some cases this
can lead to outright desperation to find anything or anyone who can make them
happy - in true extremes it can leave them in a position where ONLY the love
interest can make them happy
5) Woman often endangered - needing his protection.
Why is it that the majority of these pure and gently used women are
always facing some kind of danger? Is the hymen just a natural magnet for
trouble? Inevitably, little Miss Taint-Free will find herself on the run
because someone or something wants to hurt her because of her extra special
specialness. Being purer than the driven snow, and no experience with the
world, she cannot possibly protect herself or even act in her own self defence.
Enter dark, brooding stranger with a secret heart of gold who is fascinated by
her extra pure specialness to save the day. Oh look, now she feels feminine and
loved Now that he has protected her with his extra special man powers
it’s okay for them to have lots of sex that includes words like yahoo palace, turgid manliness, and everyone’s favourite,
liquid core.
Of course, the
additional problem is that the peril binds her to the man. Her
life/freedom/woo-woo literally requires her to remain with him, accepting his
protection and often on his terms. Again she is vulnerable, again there is a
power imbalance
6) Woman Becomes an extension of the Man’s life: This
is another pernicious element that works badly with nos.3 & 4. Because the
woman has such an unhappy life and few or no ties holding her down, we often
see women entirely abandon their old lives and become extension of their
menfolk (again, The Black Dagger Brotherhood and the Dark Hunter
Series.) Their old lives are discarded either entirely or almost entirely
with just small shreds of any previous ambition, career, dreams or plans
(assuming they even had any; some, like Bella, didn’t even bother).
In many supernatural
cases, this is often combined with the woman turning into the same being as the
man and breaking from her old life (such as Elena in the Vampire Diaries
and Elena in the Woman of the Otherworld Series and many examples
in the Argeneu series). In others, the woman is either mystically bonded
to her male love interest, (Cat from the Spiritwalker Trilogy, and The
Black Dagger Brotherhood again and, yes, the Dark Hunter series, repeatedly,
again) never to leave again, or the woo-woo ensures she will not be
happy with other men, or without men like her love interest (such as Sookie’s
telepathy requiring a supernatural partner). She quite literally cannot leave.
7) Badly Behaved Love interest: And all that
isolation, vulnerability and eternal bonding comes together and reaches a
really nasty peak when we reach this trope - the badly behaved love interest.
Maybe his supernatural nature makes him aggressive and jealous and controlling
(yes, the Blackdagger Brotherhood. Again. Camille and Smoky in The
Otherworld Series, Adam Hauptman in The Mercy Thompson series, Clay
in Hopeless). Maybe he just is aggressive and jealous and controlling
without needing a woo-woo excuse (Edward Cullen from Twilight).
Maybe the woo-woo makes him bad tempered and dangerous, prone to losing control
or shapeshifting or simply being deadly (Beauty and Beast). Maybe
they’ve had a tragic, torturous past and their super-epic manpain means they
lash out at everyone and treat the woman like shit until she heals him with her
super special loving (The Dark Hunter Series, pretty much all of them,
but Zarek and Aidan take special
prizes).
Taking all that vulnerability and near unbreakable commitment (or actually unbreakable commitment) and throwing in overtly abusive behaviour and then calling it true love is frankly horrifying.
Each of these tropes,
separately, has some questionable elements and certainly makes the
relationships we see over and over again seem, at best, to involve a large
power imbalance and, at worst, to be outright abusive. But what is most
disturbing is when a number of these tropes come together. These tropes are all
common, they’re not one off story elements appearing in a few books; they are
story staples.
And they overlap - you will often have, for example, an isolated, inexperienced woman with an unfulfilled life who is endangered and falls for an older, experienced supernatural being prone to violent outbursts of jealousy whose tragic, horrible past means he often lashes out at her or treats her cruelly or unfairly. Individually they are bad, but when they start piling up we quickly establish not just elements of an abusive relationship, but a pattern that is outright worrying. Especially when these patterns are repeated over and over in book after book.
Ultimately, these
stories are presenting things as “romantic” that read like text book examples
of abusive relationships. Not once, not occasionally, but over and over again
and in a genre that is heavily marketed to women and young women.
Our very concept of
romance in fiction so often contains at least some of these elements as a
necessity and, as we’ve said repeatedly, fiction does shape society. Our very
idea of what we should want, what we should accept and what we should tolerate,
in a relationship is shaped by these depictions of romance.
