A Man's Guide to Heaving-Bosom Women's Fiction

Women talk about them at parties. The conversation is punctuated by giggles, blushes and descriptive hand movements and is terminated the instant a man comes within earshot. The subject is books. Trashy books. Romance novels. The paperbacks that are advertised on the sides of public-transportation vehicles. Books whose covers are emblazoned with bas-relief gold calligraphy or feature a buxom, disheveled heroine draped across her bare-chested mate.

Romance novels represent megabucks for the book industry. They make up 40 percent of all mass-market paperback titles, which are estimated to be a one-billion-dollar-a-year business. Danielle Steel, dubbed America's number-one best seller, boasts more than 130,000,000 copies of her novels in print. When she gets knocked off a best-seller list, it's often by the likes of Judith Krantz, Kathleen E. Woodiwiss, Johanna Lindsey or Jackie Collins. Collins has written 12 novels published in 30 languages, with sales of 100,000,000 copies world-wide.

Someone's obviously reading these books and she's probably someone you know. And that affects the way she sees you. Trash fiction is about fantasy. By the time we reach the happy ending on page 472, our lubricious Cinderella gets the prince and the pulsating reader gets a vicarious boyfriend.

Since the genre is aswim with important nuance, we provide here some exegeses of the texts. You will read examples of how women would like to think of the sexual act. We will take you on a tour of what a woman who's addicted to Jackie Collins novels might pack in her bag--to your place. We will take you through a disrobing drill. In our chart, "Our Bodies, Our Shelves" (see page 178), we describe the myriad variations on the basic theme of girl gets guy and they fall down and make the human pretzel.

Remember that there's more to the world of trash than the stereotypical bodice ripper. Your friend may like her erotica served up in a contemporary setting, à la Judith Krantz and Jackie Collins. Or she may prefer the wholesome, all-American frontierswomen of LaVyrle Spencer's historical novels. Or the verbal foreplay and double-entendres of Regency romances.

What she'll like most of all is your uncanny ability to read her mind and between the lines, to know instinctively her sensitive spots, to conclude an evening with satisfaction and sweet dreams. After all, that's what happy endings are about.

Terms of Impalement how women's fiction views the wild thing

"Why don't you stop the horse?"

"And waste time spreading a blanket? I'd have to take my hands off you to do that, and I don't think I can.... You rode my fingers to the rhythm of my horse. I want you riding me to the same rhythm."

She was lifting her leg over the horse's neck before he'd even finished talking....There was a brief problem with her skirt, but by the time she'd solved it, he was also ready, and before she even thought to wonder how they were going to do this, he lifted her, impaled her, and then dug his heels into his mount. With a gasp, all Jocelyn could do was hold on.

--from Savage Thunder, by Johanna Lindsey

•

He rose. She reached. He poised. She placed. He pressed. She parted. He sank. She surrounded.

To the uncountable and ceaseless rhythms of the universe, they added one more.

Her body opened like an oyster shell, and his silken strokes sought and grazed the pearl within, that precious jewel of sensuality whose arousal unleashed some magical force that fired Laura's limbs. She met each thrust with one of equal might, and together they reached for the reward they had earned with the long winter of solitude.

They were buoyed by love but powered by a lust as rich and demanding as their hale bodies deserved. Laura's teeth were bared as Rye drove into her with a puissance that soon set off the first pulsations deep within.

--from Twice Loved, by LaVyrle Spencer

•

While his lips pressed hot kisses to her belly and thighs, well below the shift that was now wrapped around her waist, he stroked the triangle of mahogany curls at their joining with skillful fingers.... Soon she'd have her wish.

But first he had to ease the way for it, and with this thought in mind, he grazed the swelling bud that throbbed above her nether opening.... With infinite care, he ran a finger downward from the bud he'd been stroking, feeling with increased pleasure how slippery she'd grown. Then, ever so gently, he slid it into the aperture.

A rush of sucked-in breath met his ears, followed by a sound that was half plea, half sob....

And then she felt his mouth join hers in a kiss that was unbelievably sweet, sucking the honey from her core, devastating her with its pliant care. His fingers stroked a final heated caress before leaving her lower body to come again to her aching breasts. These he teased with masterful strokes before sweeping both hands to her waist, and then her hips, positioning her for his possession....

But Brittany felt he must be trying to drive her mad with this slowness, and suddenly she knew she couldn't wait a moment longer. With a sudden instinctive thrust of her hips, she met his probing manhood, felt it begin to enter and pushed it home.

--from Promise of Fire, by Veronica Sattler

•

Dimitri pressed through the falling water and crushed her against the rough side. With one hand, he tore the bottom of her bikini off and thrust himself upon her.

"You sneaky son of a bitch," she objected, half jokingly, as they began to sink beneath the cool green water.

He didn't relinquish his hold, merely gripped her tightly, his thighs like steel as they rocked together beneath the water. When they surfaced, she was gasping for air, but her legs were wrapped tightly around his waist and her face was flushed with pleasure. Silently they finished ... exploding with satisfaction at the same moment.

Dimitri let go of her. "I think it's time for lunch," he said.

"Jesus!" Lucky exclaimed. "Sex. Food. You certainly believe in catering to your appetites."

--from Lucky, by Jackie Collins

The Jackie Collins Overnight Bag

How to Rip a Bodice

Publishers Weekly reports that 40 percent of all mass-market paperbacks published today are romance novels.

On December 16, 1984, the $8.95 trade edition of Kathleen E. Woodiwiss' Come Love a Stranger was number one on the New York Times paperback best-seller list, outselling the far cheaper mass-market editions of Poland, by James A. Michener, Pet Sematery, by Stephen King, and Dune, by Frank Herbert.

According to Kathryn Falk, publisher of Romantic Times magazine, there are from 100 to 120 romance novels published each month.

Not including Harlequin, which is based in Canada and cranks out 60 titles a month, almost a third of all mass-market paperback fiction books published in the U.S. in 1988 were romances.

Danielle Steel has written 25 novels that have been translated into 19 languages and sold in 42 countries. More than 130,000,000 copies of her books have been sold around the world. Each of Steel's past ten books has been number one on the New York Times best-seller list, and the Guinness Book of World Records reports that for 381 consecutive weeks, Steel had at least one book on the Times hardcover or paperback list.

Jackie Collins has written 12 best-selling novels that have been published in 30 languages, with sales of 100,000,000 copies world-wide.

Judith Krantz has published only five novels, but each one has been made into a network mini-series. Her books have sold 1,650,000 in hardcover and more than 20,000,000 in paperback.

"If more men were willing to read romances," says Vivien Lee Jennings, the president of a bookstore chain, "we'd have a lot fewer people in the self-help section."