Sex, rape and romance in historical fiction; how do you find books that suit your taste?
A commentary by author JEAN GILL
I remember the 1970s UK fashion for naked bodies in stage plays so that every trip to the theatre offered the possibility of seeing actors’ goose-pimples and dangling bits. Once it became commonplace, the shock-effect diminished and nakedness became less interesting, despite a brief revival in response to outrage and censorship.
History has shown this pattern of reactions so often that, as a historical novelist, I take a long view of trends and rarely get wound up by the current ones. I do spend a lot of my time in the twelfth century after all and am not easily shocked. I am easily bored – by over-use of shock tactics, whether swearwords, explicit sex or violence. What others choose to read is entirely up to them but I do like to get the contents that match the label and I feel misled often these days.
Increasingly lurid covers might open up to 19th century classics or soft porn so I check descriptions. I am even more bemused by the changing nature of ‘romance’. I understand that ‘steamy’ suggests explicit sex but when did rape become romantic? I’ve stopped reading several historical novels, not because they contained rape scenes, but because the rape scenes were intended to be ‘romantic’. And I’m not referring to the current penchant for s-m relationships but to the new norm in heterosexual ‘love’. Maybe if Mills and Boone books had gone into the bedroom, this is how sex would have been portrayed. I hope not!
Prepared for a fate worse than death, I read the second of Diana Gabaldon’s bestselling ‘Outlanders’series. I’ll be honest; I enjoyed parts of the first book but thought it too long and yes, with too many sex scenes. Reading ‘Dragonfly in Amber’ with my new awareness of romance=rape, I really appreciated Diana Gabaldon’s loving, intimate description of a man’s body. The tenderness with which Jamie is described physically, from Claire’s viewpoint, is often beautiful. Their love-making is very explicit but keeps ‘love’ at the heart of the sex scenes. Maybe this is one reason her books are so popular – a smudgeon of history, and explicit sex that shows a woman’s viewpoint and desire for a man, in a caring relationship. The ‘romance’ comes from the obstacles they face, time travel of course being one of them.
There is rape in Gabaldon’s books: male rape is central – another unusual element in historical fiction. There is also ambiguity in sexual encounters, an awareness that people sometimes respond physically when they don’t want to – and vice versa. There are also moments when the plot twists spoil the credibility of the relationships and decisions taken, but overall I think the way Gabaldon portrays the central love affair is against current trends – and I like that.
In my own work, I do not ‘insert’ sex scenes. When they happen, they are part of the story and the relationships. I want them to be brief and powerful, not boring or – worst of all – so badly written they’re funny. For the same book, one editor accused me of being ‘coy’; one reader accused me of ‘sexual coarseness’ so you can never please everyone. However, I guarantee that in my books, rape is never portrayed as romantic.
History has shown this pattern of reactions so often that, as a historical novelist, I take a long view of trends and rarely get wound up by the current ones. I do spend a lot of my time in the twelfth century after all and am not easily shocked. I am easily bored – by over-use of shock tactics, whether swearwords, explicit sex or violence. What others choose to read is entirely up to them but I do like to get the contents that match the label and I feel misled often these days.
Increasingly lurid covers might open up to 19th century classics or soft porn so I check descriptions. I am even more bemused by the changing nature of ‘romance’. I understand that ‘steamy’ suggests explicit sex but when did rape become romantic? I’ve stopped reading several historical novels, not because they contained rape scenes, but because the rape scenes were intended to be ‘romantic’. And I’m not referring to the current penchant for s-m relationships but to the new norm in heterosexual ‘love’. Maybe if Mills and Boone books had gone into the bedroom, this is how sex would have been portrayed. I hope not!
Prepared for a fate worse than death, I read the second of Diana Gabaldon’s bestselling ‘Outlanders’series. I’ll be honest; I enjoyed parts of the first book but thought it too long and yes, with too many sex scenes. Reading ‘Dragonfly in Amber’ with my new awareness of romance=rape, I really appreciated Diana Gabaldon’s loving, intimate description of a man’s body. The tenderness with which Jamie is described physically, from Claire’s viewpoint, is often beautiful. Their love-making is very explicit but keeps ‘love’ at the heart of the sex scenes. Maybe this is one reason her books are so popular – a smudgeon of history, and explicit sex that shows a woman’s viewpoint and desire for a man, in a caring relationship. The ‘romance’ comes from the obstacles they face, time travel of course being one of them.
There is rape in Gabaldon’s books: male rape is central – another unusual element in historical fiction. There is also ambiguity in sexual encounters, an awareness that people sometimes respond physically when they don’t want to – and vice versa. There are also moments when the plot twists spoil the credibility of the relationships and decisions taken, but overall I think the way Gabaldon portrays the central love affair is against current trends – and I like that.
In my own work, I do not ‘insert’ sex scenes. When they happen, they are part of the story and the relationships. I want them to be brief and powerful, not boring or – worst of all – so badly written they’re funny. For the same book, one editor accused me of being ‘coy’; one reader accused me of ‘sexual coarseness’ so you can never please everyone. However, I guarantee that in my books, rape is never portrayed as romantic.
