148 Popular Culture Review
In 2003 , the Romance Writers of America ’ s marketing research concluded the following ; 2,093 romance print titles were released on the market accounting for $ 1.41 billion in sales ; romance accounts for 45 % of all popular fiction titles ( Romance Statistics 2004 ). Romance fiction growth in sales has steadily increased from only 38.4 % in 1998 ( Hall 2000 ). IRF accounts for 6 % of the overall romance book market , a percentage that has grown steadily over the last decade .
When secular romance fiction hit the grocery store bookstands , the market for the product came alive . As the market grew , book covers become radically more sexually suggestive each year and the sexual liaisons depicted in the novels began to border on soft pornography . At the same time , oddly enough , the sub-genre of IRF came into being , minus the steamy , lurid covers , and no sex , of course ; but , like its secular counterparts , marriage consummates the relationship between the heroine and hero in the end .
To understand the growth of the IRF sub-genre of romance fiction , a short look at the history of secular-romance fiction is helpful . Romance novels , without a Christian influence , have been in existence for centuries . “ The Mysteries of Udolpho ( 1794 ) is a direct ancestor of the Brontes ’ novels , of du Maurier ’ s Rebecca , Holt ’ s Mistress o f Mellyn , and every modem Gothic thriller ,” writes Daphne Clair , a romance novel author ( 1992 ). These novels reflect societies where men were entirely dominant and marriage was the only career in which a woman had hope of being socially accepted . A girl who lost her virginity out of wedlock in these societies would be doomed to the then very real dangers of prostitution and disease , or death in childbirth ( 1992 , 62 ) all of which is excellent fodder for romance fantasy fiction . Clair goes on to say :
Romance offers fantasies that address the sometimes intimate concerns of women in a male world . After the First World War maimed a generation of men , Edith Maude Hull gave their women The Sheik ( 1921 ), a healthy , uncomplicated male with straightforward lusts who took the initiative in no uncertain terms and didn ’ t ask that his partner be strong , compassionate , and understanding . Half a century later , in the very teeth of women ’ s liberation , Kathleen Woodiwiss ’ The Flame and the Flower and Rosemary Rogers ’ s Sweet Savage Love generated a flood of immensely successful raperomances that enraged feminists , created guilt in many avid readers , and were cited as perpetrating the notion that women really do like being forced . ( We might assume then that men , major consumers of thrillers , westerns , and detective fiction , enjoy being beaten up , tortured , shot stabbed , dragged by