Aside: I do not know how my stupid blog ate my own comment. I know it was here, and now I can’t remember what I said.

*sigh*

do we really think all these shape changing were creatures humping ladies out in the woods won’t seem sort of ‘dated’ ten years from now

And I have my theories on THAT, too, as it seems lately I’ve heard tell a few of the werebeasts have started to not fully shift into human before mating.

I’m wondering what that says about our time, right now. 😉

And yes, thank you for pointing out that legal rape is RIGHTFULLY desexualized and I wanted to make that distinction.

As for 80s hair and fashion, well, it was awesome THEN! 🙂

Huckleberry Finn because it’s “racist”

You know what? I thought about that very book and the hullabaloo that surrounds it about every two years.

all the girls checked it out at least once

Thank you! That was a point I forgot to make.

Yeah, um, y’know … revisionist literary criticism irks me. This reminds me of people who freak out about Huckleberry Finn because it’s “racist”. If you’re not going to consider the context, don’t pretend you’re seriously considering the book as “literature”. Life isn’t always politically correct, and neither is all the literature that life inspires.

I’m going to think about it for a while.

First, it strikes me that a lot of these 70s and 80s novels are historical Romances, so the “zeitgeist” of the times is something that may not have been understood *at the time* or now.

Rape, for example, is such an interesting subject in Romance, and I know of many readers who will not ever tolerate any forced seduction at any time and in any place no matter what Nancy Friday wrote. Also, I think there’s so much more to the topos than what Friday said that I understand why some readers take it literally (even though legal rape is a violent crime that has been intentionally desexualized), and I understand why some readers see it as only a sexual fantasy. I see it differently than either of those kinds of readers.

Now, as for making fun of the 70s and 80s, OMG some of those fashion choices and hair! Having survived the 80s myself, it is as much making fun of myself as it is the stuff in those books. Just reading Tom and Sharon Curtis’s 80s contemps is such a trip, in a good and wince-worthy way. But I think you’re talking about something different.

One of the reasons I think it’s difficult for readers to take a book on its own historical terms (I think this is really what you’re talking about) is that books are not always a straight mirror between reader and historical context. I don’t think we always understand, either currently or even in hindsight, why certain things came to the fore in the genre. Was it just the time, was it marketing mimesis (you know: well, it sold in THAT novel, so let’s publish a hundred of ’em), was it an intra or inter-genre debate, etc.? Also, I think that many readers really resist the idea of “studying” Romance novels, which is why they are more likely to be dismsisive or critical of things that require some thought to suss out.

I don’t know if any of that makes sense, but it’s most of what came out of the top of my head, lol.