But..then..what the fuck are all the romance novels about?

jcrpta · 2016-08-28T11:29:52+00:00

I'm going to stick my neck out here and say that you've never read a trashy romance novel; instead you've speculated as to the contents. (Nor, as it happens, have I, and I'm not about to go out and read a whole lot of them for research purposes).

And your speculation is that the male hero volunteers down at the local cat shelter, the "romance" is chapter after chapter of dinner dates, movies, walks by the beach and the sex - which will be very much second to the storyline - will comprise four hours of tongue-numbing foreplay condensed into one paragraph in the penultimate chapter. All of which would obviously fly in the face of RP theory.

I think you're mistaken. If RP theory is correct, those novels are going to feature:

Big, muscular men. (Or at least very strong men, even if muscles don't feature that heavily).
If jobs or hobbies are mentioned, they're at least one and often two out of: very high-paying, high pressure, require great physical strength.
If how the man earns a living is not mentioned, it will at least be obvious that he is not short of cash.
Who don't ask for permission to fuck, but instead just gets on with it. The closest the author will ever get to establishing consent is "he seemed to know exactly what she wanted".
"Sweeping off feet" meant in a literal, physical sense.
There will be sex scenes that start off with "she wasn't sure she wanted it", but rapidly become "his firm, yet gentle grip made her putty in his hands" or words to that effect. A basic rape fantasy, in other words.
There won't be hours of foreplay discussed in great detail; at most there will be a paragraph of kissing that gets ever deeper. Most of the "foreplay" will consist of establishing that the male lead is a muscle-bound stereotypical bad boy and how the heroine can't wait to get her hands on him.
When you boil it down, the books are mostly about women having sex and the men they have sex with. "Romance" is a euphemism, because it's far more socially acceptable for a woman to admit to reading romance than reading porn, even if they're the same thing.

[deleted] · 2016-08-28T09:32:29+00:00

Romance novels written by women for women? You mean fifty shades of gray or any other of the stories where the bad boy kinda raped her in the start, and then she sets out to "fix " him?

[deleted] · 2016-08-28T09:22:50+00:00

It's fiction. Love stories rendered through their minds leaving them with a picture of how Chris Hemsworth is giving them flowers while telling them how beautiful and gorgeous they are looking today and everyday.

Something vital here is that women don't know what they want. They read all those romance novels ...and out of nowhere , some author becomes extremely popular because she tells a story of a male that is extremely dominant in bed and is into BDSM.

MrArnie2 · 2016-08-28T13:19:14+00:00

Romantic Stories are p0rn for women. It's a power fantasy: A grey mouse of a girl gets the most successful man's hearth. The Man who 'owns' the world is now owned by Her.

Men and women work in different ways, hence have different p0rn.

[deleted] · 2016-08-28T11:41:19+00:00

Women want to be loved and desired by a high value man. It's even better when she can bind him to her exclusively. But hypergamy tells us it must be the top guy around.

Then there are the 'The Notebook' type of romance novels: When she's young she can be made an alpha widow for life. That's why she fantasizes about her first true love... But it must be the most handsome and confident guy around.

Ranger_Mitch · 2016-08-28T13:18:14+00:00

Have you ever read a "romance" novel? It's porn. It's porn for girls.

inspiron3000 · 2016-08-28T11:49:49+00:00

Romance novels offer something to readers.
It provides validation for confirmation bias, hope and escape.

For the authors and publishers it provides an easy way to make money.

JackGetsIt · 2016-08-28T13:36:29+00:00

which doesn't seems to confirm with anything we are talking about her

It doesn't? There have been several posts on redpill in the past drawing very strong parallels. Especially to the classic romance novels.

mordanus · 2016-08-28T17:01:07+00:00

They are to fulfill female fantasy about making themselves valuable for no reason. Useless woman has amazing alpha men contend with each other or outside forces to protect/provide for her and win her love. She does nothing to earn this usually as she is quite plain but something special about her wins the alpha. That's the majority of romance novels and it fits exactly with everything that is talked about here.

So what exactly do you see that doesn't jive with trp?

[deleted] · 2016-08-28T17:07:57+00:00

If you watch romances for women (I've not read a romance novel besides flipping through, but I've had them summarized), they are all about the woman being pursued by a man. The man is usually a bad boy that ravishes her and she then tames him.

You will not find much romantic female sentiment that revolves around their deep love for and sacrifice for a man.

It is the same thing in real life and is a big part of TRP.

brngamer · 2016-08-29T13:51:55+00:00

Read Pride and Predjudice and come back to this post.

marianasentmenudes · 2016-08-28T14:07:12+00:00

Lol. If you couldn't realize romance novels are bullshit because they are for women written by women imagine all the other shit you believe. I suggest you stay here for a long time.

W_O_M_B_A_T · 2016-08-28T22:01:39+00:00

The majority of dime romance novellas are actually written by men, often using female-sounding pseudonyms.

I have a few theories about this. The first that being a productive writer lends itself to a specifically antisocial lifestyle. It requires one to give few fucks about repeated failure, or about your public perception. Women tend to be too risk averse, too socially involved.

The second one is that women aren't that interested in the way other women think. It helps to be a man, in order to write about a man's sexuality in a compelling way. Note that women are totally fascinated with men's sexuality, provided he has credibly high SMV.

Title	But..then..what the fuck are all the romance novels about?
Author	pathtolife
Upvotes	12
Comments	28
Date	August 28, 2016 9:18 AM UTC (9 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/askTRP
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/asktrp/comments/4zypxx/butthenwhat_the_fuck_are_all_the_romance_novels/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/askTRP/butthenwhat-the-fuck-are-all-the-romance-novels.110418 https://theredarchive.com/post/110418

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