just when you thought the sheikh might die

There’s not a lot going for sheikhs these days since they seem to be too close to reality to lend themselves easily to fantasy and HEAs.  But they hang on anyway — the numbers of new desert romances seems to be holding steady and just when you thought he might die, he even shows up among the undead.  Nina Bruhns’s “Immortal Sheikhs” series brings together sheikhs and paranormals.  Kind of like peanut butter and chocolate, but different.

This sheikh, Seth, didn’t sound like a lot of the other sheikhs I’ve read, probably because he hails from ancient Egypt.  It made me wonder if he is a cross-over hit, that is, I wonder if desert romance lovers liked him or if more paranormal lovers loved him, or if it he was a true Reese’s peanut butter cup combo.

the paris hilton of desert romances

 I recently finished Bella and the Merciless Sheikh… I decided to read it after finding a conversation about it on the I {Heart} Harlequin Presents website.  The discussion, posted by Sarah Morgan (the author of Bella), asks readers whether they prefer a flawed heroine.  Bella, you see, is a bit like the Paris Hilton of the world of desert romances — she is seen as a celebrity starlet and she’s hounded by the paparazzi who just want to capitalize on ruining her life.  She seems an unlikely match for a sheikh, especially since he is wary of spoiled western women (aren’t they all?).  She wins him over, in part, by sleeping in his horse stables every night while training his star horse to win an important race.  It all sounded a bit like A Simple Life  to me, though I do think Morgan did a good job of giving Bella some depth.  If only A Simple Life had succeeded in doing that for Paris….

a desert romance heroine who reads desert romances

I recently read Dana Marton’s Sheik Seduction and was delighted to find that the heroine is an avid reader of desert romances.  When she first meets the sheikh (but doesn’t yet know it is him), she thinks: “He worked with the sheik. A slide show of romanticized pictures flashed through her mind, straight from the sheik romance novels she’d read.” (p. 19)

I found it to be a lovely twist on the typical way of dealing with desert romance fantasies.  The heroine imagines all the usual stuff — an ornately adorned royal sheikh tent in the middle of the desert, his regal desert robes and headdress, the rustic bedouin life, but makes fun of herself for imagining such things when she knows that the country is more modern than these fantasies suggest.  Nevertheless, circumstances arise (of course) that eventually bring all of these elements to (real) life, instead of remaining in the fantasy realm.

Given that desert romances still seem to be seen as a “guilty pleasure” (and why is that?), I thought Dana Marton’s technique in this novel worked really well.  Why shouldn’t romance novel heroines be avid romance readers? Makes sense.

what role do romance sheikhs play in the war on terror?

As promised, today I am posting on the Bitch magazine article “Desert Hearts: In a New Crop of Romance Novels, It’s Always Midnight at the Oasis”.  One of the main questions she raises is about the relationship of desert romances (since 2001) to the “war on terror.”  Basically she is asking about the relationship (if there is one) between the fantasy sheikh hero and the images of Arab men in popular news media about terrorism and the war on terror.  She raises these questions because of the apparent increase in desert romances in the past few years.  I think her last paragraph sums it up pretty well:

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Ultimately, what can we make of this trend? According to a recent Romance Writers of America market research study, almost half of all paperback fiction sold in the U.S. falls into the category of romance fiction, with more than 2,000 titles published in a typical year. Though sheik novels make up only a tiny percentage of this number, the sheer vastness of the market for romance fiction makes their recent rise in popularity a notable one. Given current stereotypes, any media portrayal of Middle Eastern men as sexy and desirable is in some respects a positive step. But when that desirability is predicated on an underlying savagery, it’s worth asking why it appeals to thousands of American readers. We can’t police desire, but we can investigate its cultural roots: If, in our collective imagination, we see even the most attractive and high-ranking Arab men as fundamentally violent and criminal, is it any wonder that we’d rather see them on a book cover than on an airplane?

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Her point reminds me of some of the reasons people have given for disliking desert romances — the reality that lots of folks associate with Middle Eastern men doesn’t allow them to fantasize about them.  But it doesn’t tell us much about those who enjoy reading romances with sheikh heroes.  For these readers, does the image of the Middle Eastern terrorist factor in?  It seems almost impossible to block all of those images and associations out.  Where do they go?  Are they the evil elements of society that the sheikh-hero is trying to overcome?  In this sense, then, do sheikh romance novels demonstrate that there are a range of possibilities for Middle Eastern masculinity?  Or, since he is also “savage” and “primal” (in bed), does it reinforce all of those stereotypical ideas about Middle Eastern men?

what race is the sheikh?

Because I’ve been looking around for online conversations about desert romances, I decided to collect links to as many as possible here.  Beginning with the last post, I’ll be linking to these conversations, old and new, in the next few posts.

One of my favorite conversations is over at Gwyneth Bolton’s blog — she talks about the Bitch magazine article about desert romances (I’ll link to that in the next post), and comments on some of the issues it raises.

It leads her to ask questions about racism in romance novels, and to compare the sheikh with Native American and Latin lover heroes.

Here is a snippet from her post:

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The recent issue of BITCH: FEMINIST RESPONSE TO POP CULTURE has a really insightful essay on the current abundance of Sheikhs in romance land. The essay by Christy McCullough titled, “Desert Hearts: In a New Crop of Romance Novels, It’s Always Midnight at the Oasis,” offers some interesting ideas about why we are seeing so many romance novels featuring men from the Middle East when we are currently at war in that region. I really liked this essay because it problematized race. It deals with race in really nuanced ways. This quote struck me as right on point:

“It seems that an Arab Man can now get on the cover of a romance novel in the United States almost more easily than he can get past airport security: According to the Chicago Tribune, the sales of sheik-themed romance novels have quadrupled in the years since the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington. Up to 20 of these novels per year…”

Given all the recent talk on various blogs about racism in romance land, I thought this article raised some really interesting questions. We have been having this discussion based on the things that most white romance readers won’t read–African American romance novels. But what happens to the conversation when we really interrogate the ever-so popular reads: the sheiks, the Native Americans, the Latin Lovers. What happens when we really interrogate how men of color are objectified and made into the exotic other? What does this tell us about racism in romance? Is it particularly telling that we have so many captive by the savage other stories in romance land?

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One of the interesting questions about the sheikh, of course, regards race.  Lots of people have been wondering why desert romances have been more popular since the U.S. wars in the Middle East — it seems counter-intuitive.  Others have argued that romance novel depictions of sheikhs offer positive  images of Arab masculinity as opposed to the negative imagery we see so often in the news.  Either way, it seems clear that they are seen as different, as exotic, but … are they seen as a different race?  Or can they be likened to the Greek and Italian heroes who seem to be some kind of exotic white hero?  Does their depiction in romance novels demonstrate some kind of racism against Arabs or, as some have argued, does it actually improve perceptions of Arab men?

 

back after a long hiatus

I took a little (okay, long) break from blogging for awhile but am back now and finding that folks are still talking and writing about desert romances (and their popularity) on the internet.  Here is the latest example that I know of:

http://thesocietypages.org/socimages/2010/11/16/racial-and-gender-themes-in-sheikh-romances/

 

It seemed to be popular as lots of people forwarded it to me.

Some of the most interesting parts of the post are in the comments, where they have a discussion about whether the sheikh heroes are portrayed really all that differently from other types of heroes.  For instance, the author of the post wonders if coveting the heroine’s virginity is particular to desert romances, because of the setting in an Islamic (usually fictional) country.  Some folks responded that virginity is a common coveted characteristic of heroines across romance novel categories.  Fair enough.  However, if all heroes do share some commonalities, it seems that there must be something distinct about the sheikh that appeals — otherwise why have the category at all?

In reading around, it seems to me that people either love or hate the sheikh — he’s a polarizing figure.  I’m curious to know what people love and hate about him.

a “SB,TB” review of The Playboy Sheikh’s Virgin Stablel Girl

I know, as Sarah from “Smart Bitches, Trashy Books” and the reader/commenters have noted, the title of  this novel about a “playboy sheikh” is enough of a gem to stand on its own.  Nevertheless, I highly recommend you check out the review for yourself.

(In case that link didn’t work, here is the url:) 

http://www.smartbitchestrashybooks.com/index.php/weblog/the-playbot-sheikhs-virgin-stable-girl-by-sharon-kendrick/

If you don’t have time to read the whole thing, check out this quick excerpt:

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If you’re looking for a middle-eastern set romance with subtext that undermine stereotypes of monarchy in Arabic countries, or debates that raise questions about gender roles in different countries, well, this is not that book. But if you want some descriptions of a hero who is so virile, so gorgeous, so highly sexed that women flock to him and men lose the ability to sustain an erection for miles upon miles, this is the book for you. Kaliq is everything you didn’t know you wanted in a Harlequin Presents hero.

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In fact, the complete lack of engagement with realities about the Middle East seem to be why many people say they don’t like desert romances.  Which ones (if any) do this setting/genre well?

progressive Ottoman harems

 

Bertrice Small's The Kadin

So … based on a suggestion from an Amazon.com discussion, I got Bertrice Small’s The Kadin to check it out, and I fully expected to find erotic scenes between the red-haired heroine and her Sultan.  This was the first historical I had read that was set fully during the Ottoman era — 15th and 16th centuries, so I knew Small would probably play up the harem scenes, especially given the idea that Ottoman sultans kept many wives and even more concubines.  

Platitudes about not judging a book by its cover aside, you can imagine how the cover added to my expectations (despite it being worthy, no doubt, of some Smart Bitches, Trashy Books snark).

• slight spoiler ahead* Anyway, I was really surprised to find that the contents were not nearly as hot as I expected.  The sultan did take four wives, but no concubines, and Small was careful to explain, in detail, how they all managed to get along.  In fact, the main point seemed to be to describe the political details of how the red-headed hottie figured out how to acquire power in the system that had enslaved her — it was both feminist and true to some scholarly accounts (Leslie Pierce) of women in the Ottoman Empire.

Here’s what floored me: The sex scenes between the Sultan and the heroine were chaste and respectful, but when she returns to her native Scotland at the end of the novel, she is raped by her future lover AND by the king…. Wow!

weapons of mass destruction, anyone?

Don’t get me wrong — I was taken with the sweet love story between Sheik David Rashid and American spy Jayde Ashton (cum Sahar) in Loreth Anne White’s The Sheik Who Loved Me, but I was surprised to find mention of weapons of mass destruction and an evil half brother smuggling uranium in order to use it for nuclear weapons.  Does this get too close to reality for fans of the genre?

the original sheik

No blog about sheikh heroes would be complete with some mention of the way it all started … E.M. Hull’s masterpiece The Sheik (which then became a major motion picture starring Rudolph Valentino).Some people even say that E.M. Hull’s novel was a precursor to mass market romance novels in general (and not just desert romances) – check out this clip:

Diana, the heroine, is wide-eyed and innocent.  She demurs.  And yet … there are hints (“don’t you know how beautiful you are”?) of something else: her unexplored, pent-up sexuality that Sheik Ahmed is going to help her unlock.  There is a lot to say about The Sheik, but I’ve always been most interested in the idea that what makes the novel so popular is not so much the sexy yet distant and powerful sheikh, or the headstrong and intelligent heroine, but the fact that her forced captivity gives her a certain kind of freedom to explore her own sexual desire.  I’m not the first to make this observation, but especially when The Sheik was first written, it wasn’t really socially acceptable for women to openly explore their own sexual desire.  But … if she found herself in a circumstance in which it was unavoidable, then she could be free to explore that desire.  It’s an interesting idea — that forced captivity could give a kind of sexual freedom.  Sex and the City aside, some might argue that it is still not all that socially acceptable for a woman to really own and explore her own sexual desire, which might account for the popularity of desert romances, or even of romance novels in general.

Have you all read The Sheik?  If so, what do you think?