Guilty Pleasures

Every four seconds, a Harlequin novel gets sold somewhere in the world. The formula is simple: man falls for woman, makes it through a variety of obstacles and manages to win her heart. Invariably on the cover: muscle man and luscious lady in a passionate embrace. What is the secret of these paperbacks, replete with barely believable love stories? A Japanese reader swoons over the scenes in which the protagonists are ballroom dancing and decides to get some lessons herself. Whirling over the dance floor in the arms of her handsome teacher, she feels just like the adored heroine from the novels. Her husband knows he can't compete with her favorite fiction, for he'll never get his mouth around the sweet nothings that the men in the books are always whispering. And dreaming about an ideal world with an ideal partner isn't just for the ladies. There's also the buff cover model of many Harlequins who is diligently searching for his soul mate. lightheartedly confronts us with the very human need to escape to a world that's somehow better than our own. This all sounds much more romantic than the writer of many Harlequins would put it. In her words, "Marriage is the price men pay for sex and sex is the price women pay for marriage."