TLDR: the answers you get will depend a lot on how you phrase it and the culture.
For a population where people got the hots about as often, I do expect that phrasing things in terms of lust would get higher responses from the men (who could be inflating); the women would give lower numbers or even deny that they ever so much as notice that the world contains any men other than their husband. Putting them in terms of “finding someone attractive” is likely to get lower numbers from the men and higher from the women than the first poll (not from those women who deny they even know there are other men out there). Put it in terms of “finding someone/something/a situation romantic” and again the numbers will change.
I would probably phrase it as, ‘‘finding someone who makes you so deliriously happy you want to be with them forever and ever.’’ That is falling in love as I understand it. You might also add, ''Being an absolute fawning, gibbering idiot for the person in question."
By this definition I am still in love with my partner of 12 years. I’m not a fawning, gibbering idiot 24/7, but certainly it still happens.
I’m guessing phrased that way, you’d get higher numbers in women than men.
(I see falling in love is distinctly different from loving someone, but is so exciting because it often does lead to loving someone. But when we’re talking about the ‘‘romance genre’’ I think we are talking mostly about the giddy process of falling in love, not the long-term work of loving.)
This thread is making me want to go read a stack of romance novels.
My last therapist suggested that I read romance novels. I’m male, 32, and don’t really understand relationships at all, largely because I usually can’t get a date, despite asking. I was absolutely gobsmacked by this suggestion, and I never followed up on it. I think she was incompetent, for this and many other reasons, just thinking about her pisses me off, and I keep thinking about Pitting her.
Just a little gentle advice, personal pittings have a tendency to backfire. If you think you may not be able to handle the possibility of negative reception right now, you might put it in MPSIMS. I’m only mentioning it because you’ve struggled a lot lately and the Pit isn’t really the friendliest place. You’re free to rant and rave in your MPSIMS post, too… people just won’t be able to insult you in response.
Also: reading a romance novel to better understand relationships sounds like a terrible idea.
There might be a bit of a double standard in peoples’ reactions to stuff like that - for example, men can be really into mafia stories (because it’s about the reality of the streets, man!), but nobody assumes they literally want to get indicted by a grand jury or end up in a black bag in someone’s car trunk.
Don’t take this the wrong way, but what you just wrote sounds like a pitting of yourself.
Think about it this way: Romance novels are the idealized fantasy that women wish they could get in real life. It’s like they wrote an instruction book for you. Who in their right mind would ignore it?
Correction: Romance novels are a fantasy. Some people might say they would want their fantasies to happen in real life. Others want fantasy to remain fantasy.
Right, and I think I actually see the attraction from the female perspective. We all want to be pursued, right? She’s just so irrestistible that he can’t control him. And she gets what she wants without taking any emotional or social risks (i.e. rejection or being seen as a slut). Rape isn’t an expression of his power - it’s an expression of hers! In a safe and artificial context like a novel, I can see how that’s an erotic fantasy.
On the other hand, my self-critic is still sitting there thinking “I just read what?!”
Right. If someone reads Rosemary Rogers and thinks “Hey, women in real life want to be raped” they will be more likely to end up in prison than in a good relationship.
That is not to say that people are not influenced by what we read or watch or fantasize about, but to act like these things are guidebooks to the female heart is not accurate or safe.
I wonder if that has to do with women’s sexuality being considered more acceptable in general. I don’t think the only reason for a woman to fantasize about rape is plausible deniability (having the sex while still remaining ethically pure/socially acceptable) but I imagine it might have been a factor. Now more women recognize that double standard for the nonsense it is, so possibly there is less of a market for bodice-ripping, or the women who are writing today’s romance novels have a different view of female sexuality that is coming through.
I’m relatively young (born 1983) and was raised in perhaps a more enlightened era? Or maybe an era that straddled the transition from women’s sexuality as shameful to something valid in its own right. I did read some romance books when I was younger and the bodice-ripper style was ubiquitous. That was my concept of how romance should be written and I’d be lying through my teeth to say it isn’t a turn-on.
However, I grew up in a world where female sexuality was an acceptable and normal thing (I’m not saying we don’t still have issues, but by comparison I think we’ve come a long way in a few decades in terms of how we think about it.) So at the same time as I could read this style of romance, I could also be critical of it and experiment with a new standard, a new ideal.
The male protagonist in my book (hero? not quite) is the product of an old-style raping and pillaging invasion of his home country, has been stigmatized by his violent origin for most of his life, and the very concept is anathema to him. He’s a pervert, an alcoholic, and a bit of an impulsive asshole, but he is NOT a rapist. I frankly could not live with myself for propagating that particular trope. So maybe this is evolution.
Porn is obviously made for men, too. I wonder if more women would watch porn, if it were made for women. I have no idea what straight woman porn would look like. I suspect it would involve a lot more foreplay.
So romance fiction is either a very unrealistic depiction, and thus a terrible way to learn about such things, or it’s (within reason) a veritable instruction manual to what women want.
Which is correct, or is the truth somewhere in between?
I continually realize the extent to which my notions of human relationships were formed by what art I was watching, reading, or listening to, since I rarely talked about it with anyone, nor observed much of that sort of thing in real life. That was not good for me.
In all seriousness, I have enjoyed online discourse about the Outlander tv series in part because there has been a lot of intriguing discussion about sex and the female gaze. I have also read that in general, males tend not to read fiction in which the POV protagonist is a female (the old “Why isn’t Hermione the hero?” problem).
It’s probably somewhere in between. The tropes themselves are probably not the most realistic parts to look at - the men usually start off perceived as bastards until the women melt their cold hearts, the guys could be rapey, the set-up between the characters adversarial. That stuff is pretty much just a plot mechanism, elements that exist to create tension. It is almost impossible to write a romance without employing some kind of trope. It does not mean women want rapey, coldhearted men, it means the story has to give you a reason why the two might not get together. If everything were perfect from the beginning there wouldn’t be a conflict.
What might be more insightful as to ‘‘what women want’’ is how these issues resolve themselves. No matter what plot devices and tropes are used, the resolution is pretty consistent. Usually the conflict is solved through communication, men showing a willingness to be vulnerable, lovers meeting one another’s emotional needs, willingness to set aside personal ambition for the sake of the other person, and the decision to make a long-term commitment. I think it’s fair to say that a substantial portion of women actually want those things.
I’ve read the first book and intend to read the series eventually, and I have watched at least the first few episodes of the Starz show. It’s not really super my thing but it’s good light entertainment. One thing I noticed in the Starz pilot was that there’s a scene where Claire is shown having an actual orgasm. This is rather unusual. (I should probably also add the the director of the TV Series is the director of one of my favorite shows of all time, Battlestar Galactica, and one of the reasons I love him is that his women invariably kick ass.)
