At first, I pretended my interest in romance novels was purely academic. Maybe I’ll do my honors project on historical romance novels, I told my friends. I’m just doing preliminary research. Then I thought maybe I’d do an art project. I’d use the front cover pictures of voluptuous blondes and rugged, tanned white men with unkempt hair to make a statement about gender and race. But I never did.

So I finally gave in. Hey, I spend the rest of my days reading academic books, big fat ones. Books with words like “engender” and “historiography” in the titles. In my free time, I’d rather read books with titles like Irish Rebel.

Molly thought she would never trust another man as long as she lived. But then again, she’d never met a man like Jake Coulter…

There are a few things you need to do when reading a romance novel. The first is suspend all disbelief. Sure, women have orgasms the first time they have sex. And most women are virgins until they’re, like, 27. They’re saving themselves for just the right rugged, tan, tough, alienated horse trainer.

You also need to keep your deconstructionist impulses in check. The gender and racial discourses can really be quite impressive. In the vast majority of romance novels, there are rarely even any people of color in the book. And yet, that doesn’t stop the authors from being incredibly racist.

Her skin was white silk.

The women are always fair, milky white, pure ivory, the color of cream, white silk, etc. The men, being savage, are darker-they’re still white, of course, because interracial relationships are a no-no, but they have nice tans, from working outdoors with the horses. In one book based in 19th century Afghanistan, the white man towered above the Afghanis who were smaller, weaker, and generally lacking sexual appeal. There is an elegant mixture of exoticization and distaste of brown skin.

She was small, delicate, and through some momentary miracle, his.

Since the books, by necessity (I have yet to read a queer romance novel, though it’s possible they exist), have both men and women, the gender discourses are even more blatant. Weak women and strong men abound. If you’re lucky you get a strong women that just needs taming.

Then there’s my favorite: the sex scene that was actually a rape. The woman, imprisoned by the leader of a rival clan, wanted to sleep with her captor. However, she surmised that he would not want her to come to him willingly. So she let him think that he was raping her, when actually she had planned it all. Which is, of course, usually the case with rape. And when he threw her down onto the cold, stone castle floor, and thrust his “hot male member” into her, she came almost instantly. Unfortunately, just because she wanted it doesn’t mean his actions weren’t rape-as far as he knew, there was no consent.

But there are also plenty of novels where strong women stay strong, and I’m even reading one where the woman isn’t skinny. (She weighs 140 pounds-gasp!) I haven’t found one that has emerged from my deconstruction machine blemish free, but then again I don’t know if I’ve ever found anything that can survive that machine.

So try it for yourself. The modern ones are generally better than the historical, discourse-wise. And try to find one where the woman isn’t a virgin-i.e., she’s been married before. It sure beats your cultural studies homework.