Let's have a conversation about trashy romance novels. Specifically why is it, in almost all of them, at some point the hero in a fit of rage is so much an ass to the heroine as to be almost unforgivable? When did completely awful treatment of another human being become sexy? This is what I want to know.

It's always the same pattern. She, in desperate need, concocts a story of half-truths to lure him into helping her. He, falling for her, finds out she lied and is furious. Inevitably they have slept together prior to the great reveal and now, arguing furiously, he accuses her of using her "womanly wiles" to seduce/control him. Usually it is implied she is some sort of succubus and, in the really classy books, maybe even a trollop. Boy, nothing says I love you like calling me a whore.

Now, I know that angry sex is supposed to be fantastic and you want sparks to fly between your main characters, but how does a guy come back from calling you a whore? Even if you did lie and were a total fake doesn't that seem a little extreme? Unless you slept with his best friend for money, or even just slept with his best friend, I'm having a hard time conceiving of justification for that sort of slander. And if you slept with his best friend I'm really anti that as a premise for a trashy romance novel; though Lordy knows there is probably a book on the shelves somewhere with that exact plot line. It's so depressing when you buy a romance and get XXX Jerry Springer instead--I can't even express how much I hate it when that happens.

Back to my point. What is the thrill of a hero that is (almost) abusive to the heroine? Is it the bad boy thing? The thrill of the conquer? He's a horrible person, but he just can't fight his love for her? Except he does fight his love, is usually justifiably angry, and ends up verbally smacking her, locking her in a tower, and sometimes border-line raping her. Just what are we teaching each other with romance novels? And why is the guy that may or may not hit you always sexy?

He's usually just this side of slapping her, some delightful bit about "trembling with rage" and "clenched fists at his side" makes an appearance but we forgive him because he never actually raises his hand to her. And his horrible behavior--read verbal abuse, treating her like a slave, locking her in a towers (I always come back to that one)--is so out of character for him. The author always goes to great lengths to describe how shocked he is at his inability to control himself or treat the heroine appropriately, but something about her pushes him over the edge. Oooh, sexy. But I have to ask myself, if my pushing you over the edge results in you calling me a whore/treating me like a slave/abandoning me while pregnant for months to a year, is that really what I'm after in life? I mean, as hot as you're loss of control could conceivably be, wouldn't it be hotter if you didn't constantly berate and belittle me? I'm just throwing that out there as a possibility.

And I'm kind of bummed about this. There has been a decided lack of good romance novels lately; I've been forced to read real literature just to pass the time. The one I'm reading now had all the makings of a mind-numbing piece of pure entertainment but then she lied and he got mad and he treated her much, much worse than any rational human being with an ounce of morality ever would and I thought--this isn't hot. I'll accept my punishment when I'm a crappy person, but this whole melodramatic, guilt-ridden, you've betrayed me with your lies you dirty whore soliloquy is just silly. Even more disturbing is the idea that this depiction isn't far from the truth. Maybe fights like this happen all the time and I'm the freak in society who doesn't take pleasure in making someone else cry. Or, I take pleasure in it very rarely.

I don't know. Now that I'm devoting the dissertation (at least in part) to an examination of what western civilization finds attractive and why I can't even read a good ol' fashioned trashy romance without getting irritated. What's a girl to do when she can't fantasize about a really hot man that loves her so much he hits her when she deserves it? And how am I ever going to find someone to love me when I absolutely insist on saving myself when possible? I mean honestly. There was a time when I accepted the message of the romance novel unequivocally: one should be a strong, independent woman, but when she finds her soul mate he will be able to relieve her of the burden of her independence and that defines happily ever after.

What's the world coming to when I question such an innocuous message as that?