Oh, absolutely. And I’m enjoying the discussion. (I’m talking to you, too, Kate.) My only point was that I was surprised by everyone’s knee-jerk emotional response to this, especially as the “all romance novels are porn” view is not held by anywhere near the majority of conservative, evangelical Christians. Nobody’s being threatened here. Not the romance industry, not Art, and not Civilization As We Know It.

I like to think we’re exceptionally discerning people.

Hey, I like to think that, too.

In short, Brenda was comparing apples with oranges.

Now, if the article had instead talked about, say, the standards proper womanly behavior as portrayed in the Leviticus and argued that all Christian women should conform, I might not necessarily agree, but I’d do what Brenda did: yawn and click away. If the article argued that ALL women should conform, I’d sit up and take notice–but that’s a different issue, of course.

Setting aside the idea that I was guided in this direction, if someone is out there searching for the phrase “romance novels pornography”, then they are going to be lead to this conversation (blogs being very search engine friendly beings). They are also going to be lead to the article we’re discussing here. By virtue of placing the article in a public forum, the target audience is broadened. Had they (pardon the expression) preached to the choir, or limited the article to subscribers, then I would indeed be inserting myself in a private conversation. But this became a public discussion by virtue of where it was placed.

I would prefer that those searching on the above phrase come here to read what we’re saying — because I think we’re having an interesting, healthy debate — but I know the chances are about equal. The average web surfer is not likely going to discern the provenance of the article; I didn’t notice the Focus on Family notation until you pointed it out. Somebody is going to stumble across that article and come away with an incorrect view of certain art.

Publishing the article in a public forum makes it open to debate, just as something you post on your blog or something I post on my blog (or heck, last week’s rant about the Booklocker owner’s suggestion that bookstores stop accepting returns) is open for dissection. You and I might have a clear understanding that the article was targeted to a specific audience, but I like to think we’re exceptionally discerning people .

Sure, I can understand that response. Muslims are a minority in your country. But if the government was in control of Muslims or even if most of the officials were paying respectful attention to that point of view, its importance to you increases. You’d be foolish to click away from any article pertaining to the majority thought of where you live–particularly if you disagree with it.

I’m afraid I just don’t get how this kind of private instruction could be offensive to outsiders. I have no interest in what Buddhists or Muslims, for instance, talk about when they get together to encourage one another in their particular spiritual beliefs and practices. I gather they have some pretty strange ideas about things like reincarnation and about women covering their faces, but those beliefs have no bearing on my life. If I came across an article on a Muslim webzine that suggested romance novels were evil, I would just yawn and click away from the site.

And building on the authors’ definition, all art is guilty of creating an idealized (or whatever the opposite of idealizing is) world. It remains unclear to me (and I read this article several times) what the danger of interacting with art that charges your emotions might be. Emotions are such a powerful aspect of the human experience and if, as these authors are suggesting (and yes, of course I get the nuances of persusasive writing), intense emotional reactions are destroying our ability to face reality, it doesn’t make sense.

Joan’s comment about women’s art being dismissed as, in this case, dangerous hits a big point. Because this tarred all romance and chick flicks as undermining womens’ ability to look at relationships realistically. I do worry about the impact this has on romance because it perpetuates a misconception and continues an age-old tradition of treating the work of women as something to be discounted. I’m sure pork farmers, when they face misconceptions about their work, also work to correct information that is factually incorrect. Though, unlike dispelling the idea that romance is pornography, proving or disproving that pork is sinful is tougher. I mean, who do you verify this with .

Kat — I think the bad boy fetish is as old as human nature, or at least as old as the Robin Hood fantasy. I think you’re right about the hole called Mate. It takes a long time to understand what makes a marriage (or any relationship) work.

At the time I was going through college and watching the antics with my peers with increasing horror. A lot of the girls had no idea how to communicate with guys except on a sexual basis; they’d never had a boy friend, only boy friends. And then they wondered why all their relationships went up in smoke. Others… well, fake is as fake does. They got the guys they deserved. Still others, the sad ones, attached themselves to Bad Boys with the idea that love would make him change his ways.

At the time I concluded that it was too many romantic comedies at work. These days, I suspect it’s just ordinary human selfishness, and the unwillingness to recognize that the peg that fits into the hole you’ve labeled Mate may be more than the sum of your desires.

Except the Bad Boy Reform fetish. That, I totally blame romance for.