rted that they were in love. Only seven percent of teenagers reported that their favorite songs were about sex, violence, satanism or drugs, while twenty-six percent liked love songs the best. Local and national Miss America contests were #1 among all sources of college scholarship money for American women. Approximately forty percent of the total fiction book market in the U.S. is romance novels and about twenty-five percent of American women over age 18 read them compulsively at a rate of 8-12 per month. The themes of "the more powerful, and somewhat abusive, slightly older male first resisting and then falling in love with and being transformed by the "love" of the pure, and rather innocent, woman" are pervasive. Attempts at communication between these two alien species in the book, the male species and the female species, is presented as being confused and close to impossible. The scenario of the woman being abused, battered and even raped many times in the book by the hero and/or other males before the "love conquers all differences and they get happily married ever after" ending is also pervasive. "Pretty Woman", one of the largest grossing movies of the year, is a perfect example of the standard "romance" genre and the American ideal of love and relationships. In the book, "Swept Away, Why Women Fear Their Own Sexuality", Carol Cassell states, "We are constantly bombarded with the message that romance is the ultimate goal for a woman and the only acceptable rational for her desire. As soon as a woman feels a physical tug for a man, she transforms it into a romantic drama -- wondrously, joyously she begins to drift into love because she is aroused. Transported and transformed, she becomes Swept Away. But when a relationship begins because of a fantasy, and not because of a clear-eyed assessment of who the woman is, who the man is, and what they each want and expect, illusions are bound to crumble. We exchange the brief moments of ...
