Bodice Ripping Cliches

Those of you who know me know that romance novels are my not-so-secret shame; there's no amount of college-educated veneer that can cover up my craving for far-flung adventures, flowery purple prose, and aesthetically pleasing protagonists who find themselves falling in love in the most improbable ways. (Don't believe me? Click here for the entries I wrote in my regular blog on this very genre.)

And, as I have mentioned on my blog before, I am excruciatingly picky about which bodice rippers I get to buy. None of your $4 Harlequin romances for me - give me the $6-$8 paperbacks with the shimmery gauze and flowers on the front cover (which often conveniently hides the potentially embarrassing Regency-era bodice-ripping tableau underneath), or your contemporary romances with cartoon women in fancy heels and silky scarves! Give me something that has the words "New York Times Bestselling Author" on them, and you'll know I'm a sucker from the get-go.

Now that we've gotten this out of the way, here's a sampling of romance-novel cliches that I truly believe should be retired as soon as possible:

- Coercion. Hello, romance-writing people - it's the 21st century already! How many times do we have to remind you that No Means No? And don't even try to retcon the whole thing by giving us the ol' "hard-to-get" trick, or that she ended up enjoying being in the sucker's own bed, because really - if she didn't enjoy it then, she'd be a fair amount of crazy to think it's acceptable later. It wasn't acceptable back in the days of Jane Austen, and it sure as hell won't be acceptable now.

- The Stockholm Syndrome. In the same token, please don't give us any more of those "heroine falls for her kidnapper" plots unless you can give us a plausible example of how it happens. I personally used to enjoy this particular plot, until I picked up an Ann Rule anthology that explained the Stockholm Syndrome to me in shockingly gruesome detail. Let's just say that a lot of books went back to the library that day, and there was vomiting involved.


- Fabio. Fabio the person is already reprehensible to me (not the least of which for his ongoing childish beef with my boy Intern George), but the concept of Fabio and his clones - the long hair, the rippling muscles - being brandished indiscriminately on the front covers of paperbacks is representative of everything that gives romance novels a bad, bad name. Am I, as part of the Dear Reader contingent, supposed to swoon like a maiden and lay myself down, expecting to be ravaged by this masculine beast? Also, judging by the shots from Old Fabs' guest appearance on America's Next Top Model, it's beginning to look more and more to me that the guy, er, doesn't seem to genuinely enjoy the company of women. I'm just saying.

- The Mandingo as Noble Savage. You will never, ever, find me picking up any books where Africans, Latinos, Asians, Native Americans, Gypsies, and even Hawaii-based surfers are being held up as shining examples of manhood for the bored haole ladies who fall at their feet. Likewise, if you ever find me picking up books where bored haole men fall in love with equally "exotic" women, there's a good chance that you will definitely find me laughing in the aisles. There are relatively few novelists that are truly adept at making interracial relationships believable and plausible without having to resort to such borderline-offensive generalities.

- Vampires. Yes, I'll say it - I'm one of the few women in America who does not, repeat, not get turned on by the thought of an otherwise luscious ol' bloodsucker nipping at my heels (or any other part of my body, for that matter). What is the big deal about fraternizing with the undead, anyway? It's not like you could take them anywhere for dinner. For this, I blame Laurell K. Hamilton and her silly notions of ardeur.

- Improbable sex acts. Man, I wish I had the link to that one actual novel where Our Intrepid Hero takes "a flying leap" into, er, Our Lovely Heroine, with her lying on a wooden floor beneath him. Yowch!

- The Underage Bride/ Dirty Old Hero. If the age of Our Lovely Heroine is younger than the age of consent in a good majority of the 50 states, and/or the Intrepid Hero who's supposed to love and save her is older than her by more than 10 years, that's not romantic - that's plenty creepy.

-The sentence "I'll take that as a yes" as an acceptable closing line. The first time I read this was cute. The next three dozen books that I read afterward that had the same line... not so much.

Yes, I do seem to have more rules on romance novels than Barney on How I Met Your Mother has rules on dating. Please note, however, that not all bodice-rippers have these cliches, and not all romance-novel cliches are this excruciating to behold. It's all a matter of where you look.