Bodice Rippers!! Why are women obsessed with novels about women getting raped?

Question

BODICE RIPPER
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bodice_ripper

"A bodice ripper is a genre of romantic fiction, often historical fiction. In the 1970s and 1980s, the heroine of such a novel often lost her virginity by force. While the genre has turned away from the trope of forced seduction, contemporary bodice rippers still feature unrestrained romantic passion, and a heroine who initially dislikes and actively resists the hero's seduction, only ultimately to be overcome by desire."

"The term bodice ripper derives from the covers of the books, which generally depict a female whose bodice is being ripped by a muscular, often shirtless man. The story often features a dominant alpha male. Sometimes there will be violence, i.e. rape or physical abuse toward the heroine of the story."

Someone care to explain to me how, while rape is bad (I've been told), women are buying novels filled with rape fantasies in the millions and referring to them as romance?

Melis, now all you have to do to prove your killer robots theory is find me a genre that accounts for 40% of books sold worldwide which involves men being killed by as oppossed to killing robots (in fact replace robots with anything and you'll find none) and you've got a point on the first thing.

wrt your second point, so then if a man who rapes a woman is subsequently tamed by her and exposes his heart of gold as a result of the sex, is it not wrong at that point? That gels with the mockery feminists have made of rape funnily enough. Unless he "is tamed and begins to worship her as a result it was rape", sounds like an accurate summary!!

And croa, my bad, forgot the "vast majority of" disclaimer.. even though 40% of books sold probably accounts for the vast majority of women, I forgot a minority seems uninterested. Dear me, then the vast majority becomes irrelevant and the issue is adequately sidestepped I suppose? One level above a spelling flame there.

I see we're sticking to our bad point melis. Let's clarify. You only have a point if:

- Hero killed by robots (or anything) in scifi
- Heroine raped in bodice rippers

Is of a frequency that is at all similar. Considering that the story pretty much ends with the death of the protagonist your point is rather flawed. Give it up.

Oh yeah and your other point sucks now as well. It amounts to "it's the parts other than the rape that is important, even though rape must be included for some unexplained reason".

Answer 1

Interesting question with a a short yet simple answer: Women always say the opposite if what they want. ALWAYS!

Answer 2

Bodice Ripper Novels

Answer 3

I am going to play devils advocate and assume that "rape is bad (I've been told)" was just a joke. Jeez, some people are so uptight. Anyway, to answer the original question, it is a FANTASY. I use to have rape fantasies as early as 6th grade for crying out loud. It is about relinquishing control and submitting to the other person. It should really be called sex fantasies because while rape hurts and is not pleasurable, sex is and what women are really fantasizing about is sex not rape.

To all the other posters:
The only way someone knows rape is bad is by hearing about it. Did you know rape was bad when you were 5, NO!! You probably did not even know what rape was. You learned rape was bad from your parents and society telling you it was bad. The only way to know rape is bad without being told it was is by having experienced it as a very young child, only knowing that it felt bad. So I think you all need to lay off HappyBullet.

Answer 4

I'll go ahead and answer. Even though I'm not a woman, I've read about the subject and think I can answer well. Recent studies have found that women's vaginas have the physical reaction of getting lubricated at a heighthened level during any forced sex to protect themselves from infection. If you look at it from the evolution point of view, rape was more commonplace historically and medical treatment was not, therefore the woman's vagina became very aroused and lubricated during forced sex in order to protect from tearing and an infection that could set in and kill the woman. The more aroused the woman got the more likely she was to orgasm, and since orgasm really lubricates, it would protect from even very violent rapes.  But then comes the question: so does that mean she liked it? And probably (and this is my personal theory) from an evolutionary standpoint women are physically aroused by forced sex and mentally they ABSOLUTLEY HATE rape. I think it's an evolutionary catch 22, on one hand if the woman's body didn't get aroused, and therfore lubricated, during the encounter she ran the risk of being injured, developing an infection and dying. On the other hand if women had mentally and emotionally enjoyed rape then they probably would act pretty crazy and couldn't have been very good mothers or wives because all it would take is for some stranger to come along and rape them and they would be off with him. If the world was like that men and women would probably just be getting jiggy 24/7. But I think women's bodies physically get arouse for protection during rape, but mentally and emotionally they HATE it.   But, not all forced sex is rape. And I think women have started to learn and realize that forced sex under parameters that they set, can be a huge turn on. I think that's what domination and submission S&M is about, many women have found that if they have forced sex for a certain time with someone they love in a situation they have set up themselves, it can be very arousing and is a way for them to own this reaction and have fun with it without the guilt. I think that's why the "taken in hand," and "fifty shades of grey" material is so popular currently. Now that many women have realized their bodies react so well to forced sex, they are indulging in fantasies without guilt by setting controlled situations up with their significant other so they can really enjoy hot animal sex, guilt free.  And why not, if that isn't empowerment, I don't know what is. 

Answer 5

Women aren't.
Some Women like Bodice Rippers, just like some Men like Porn.
Must you make such sweeping generalizations?
Don't you know better?
Good luck

Answer 6

Rape is bad.. however I know women and even men who fantasize about being raped. It's just a fantasy and I think you're reading way too much into it really. Calm down, don't mess yourself over it.
You seem to know a lot about these bodice ripper things, sounds to me like you enjoy reading them yourself..

Answer 7

Dude... just because women have feminism these days... doesnt mean that deep down they dont still want to be taken by a strong man.. its the whole duality of womans desires... on the one side, they are told they should be independant and powerful and never to rely on a man, while on the other hand they want to be taken care of, and they want to have a strong man who leads them, and directs them... someone they can admire and look up to.

So what happens when you have that duality... women have rape fantasies... they fantasise about a man forcing them to do something they dont want to... why? because then they dont feel guilty that they have not been a good little feminist, yet they had no choice but to give into the big strong man which is what their instincts want. Its basic psychology 101... its just that no one wants to admit it, because that would not be PC :)

Answer 8

Why are geeks obsessed with books about getting killed by robots? Does this mean they think being killed by robots would be a fantastic adventure?

Fiction is fiction. If any strange man came on to a woman like the men in those books apparently do, there would be a whole lot of police in the area. Geeks think robots are cool and women swoon over the uber.masculine 'bad boy' stereotype, but these books are absolutely over-the-top compared to what they would actually enjoy in real life.

[Paragraph edited out because it didn't have much impact on my overall point and let's face it, not everyone who reads this needed to know certain details. I should go get some sleep so I remember how to think before posting these things.]

As far as I know by the end of most of these books the uber.male is usually tamed by the heroine, exposing that heart of gold she's always known was buried deep inside. He settles down with her, they marry, his gigantic throbbing organ bestows her with a whole litter of children, and they live happily ever after due in part to the fact that she still has earth-shattering orgasms every night from amazingly intimate sex until the day they both die peacefully and post-coitally in their sleep, together. Occasionally this happens with a different man than the one who so successfully wrangled her virginity away, but the implied ending is usually the same. I think this part of the story has more general appeal to many women who read these books than the maybe-rape scenes.

NOTE: I've never read one of these. This post is almost entirely based on assumptions [well, except for the killer robot bits; I sometimes read those books].

And in response to your edit: I'm by no means trying to imply rape is right, I'm just attempting to shed light on why people might actually read these books because that seemed to be your question. That whole happy-family-great-sex ending is, in fact, generally considered 'romantic'. As someone else has already mentioned, 'romance' novels are basically substitute porn. I suppose another factor may be that some people can feel it's more intellectual than 'real' porn since it's in written instead of visual. And yes, science fiction does in fact sell, usually involves some sort of race/species/what-have-you war, and often people on BOTH sides die [hence killed by robots as a possible example]. As previously stated I do read enough to be aware of that. If you're allowed to pretend that every woman is obsessed with the genre and in every single one of those millions of bodice rippers women are supposedly sexily raped, I'm allowed to generalize and say that in every science fiction book men are killed by robots.

Edited again to say: Usually more than one character fights a battle in a science fiction book, and usually more than one woman has sex in a romance novel. And unfortunately for you, heroes do meet unfortunate ends fairly frequently in science fiction books as well. And the quote you cited does in fact state: 'In the 1970s and 1980s, the heroine of such a novel often lost her virginity by force. While the genre has turned away from the trope of forced seduction..' And guess what. It's been a little while since the 80's, and tons of those books are still being churned out. Which might poke a few holes in your frequent-rape theory.

'it's the parts other than the rape that is important, even though rape must be included for some unexplained reason.' Well, to be honest, basically yes. That is how they used to work, except for the 'unexplained reason' part. Bad-boy-turned-good is a huge market for women who read these books.

And now I'm going to bed. Have fun. :)

Answer 9

Don't read too much into this..it's just FANTASY. Like how there is role playing like teacher-student role playing in sex..but both parties may find this type of thing disturbing in real life.

Just because girls and guys may enjoy fantasizing about rape doesn't mean they want to be raped or want to rape someone. Besides, those kind of literature eroticizes rape when we all know in real life rape is not at all like that. If a guy justifies his raping of a woman just because of these novels he is going to be sent to see a psychiatrist and get locked up for years. There are so many porn and role-playing that involve many taboos and are popular but if we are going to analyse them to see if people want to commit these taboos just because they enjoy watching these taboos in porn and sex it is going to be a waste of time.

Answer 10

LOL@"bodice ripper". Those are basically porn, especially when they have no story line away from the actual pillaging lol. They label them as romance novels so that people will be less ashamed to buy them. The fact is, I would never be caught dead buying one of those books because you are basically confirming that you are a loser with no life.

Answer 11

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