A while back, two sociology instructors decided it would be nice to know exactly how much sex there is in romance novels.
So Adrian Rapp and Lynda Dodgen, who teach at North Harris College in Houston, bought 100 romance paperbacks, all written by women and all published since 1971.
They read each one. They compiled statistics on them.
And they presented the results of their research last week during the annual joint convention of the Popular Culture Association and the American Culture Association, which drew about 1,700 people to the Galt House hotel in downtown Louisville.
Rapp and Dodgen reported that there were an average of 6.29 ”sex acts”
per book, that there were rapes in 17 percent of them, that 75 percent included from 1 to 57 ”sexually arousing scenes,” that 41 percent included oral sex, and that almost all-94 percent-described at least one ”act of intercourse.”
As their audience of about 20 men and women listened, a few of them chuckling occasionally, the two women read example after example of fairly graphic, but obscenity-free scenes aloud.
Finally they concluded, apparently to no one`s astonishment, that the books they had studied were ”soft porn, written to titillate American women,” and that the situations described in the books often had little relationship to reality.
Rapp and Dodgen`s talk was just one of about 1,500 presented at last week`s conference.
In all, there were almost 500 sessions averaging three papers each during the four-day meeting.
The lectures covered a bewildering array of subjects, ranging from what many people might agree is important to what many others might call trivial.
Hot topics this year included the influence of TV, the effects of the Vietnam War, the idea of political correctness and the significance of the movie ”Thelma & Louise.”
But lecturers also discussed ”Pumping Iron for Jesus,” ”Slob Hunters:
The Heroes of Popular Outdoor Magazines,” ”Trucking in Southcentral Kentucky,” ”The McDonaldization of the World,” ”The Jewish Cemeteries of Louisville,” ”The Evolution of the Female Detective” and ”Maxo Vanka: A Croatian Painter in America.”
Still others looked at feminism, subliminal advertising, comic books, the Persian Gulf war, Daniel Boone, rock music, Jack London, Madonna, Barbie dolls, Playboy bunnies, mail-order catalogs, Big Bird, Walt Disney, King Arthur, Herman Melville, T.S. Eliot, eroticism and Nintendo.
”Yes, we do get all kinds of subjects,” said Ray Browne, who teaches popular-culture classes at Bowling Green State University in Bowling Green, Ohio. ”About the only things we don`t get much on are economics and poverty. Don`t ask me why. I don`t know.”
Browne founded the Popular Culture Association, which has about 2,500 members nationwide, in 1970, and the American Culture Association, which numbers about 1,000 in the U.S., about eight years later. The newer group focuses on American pop culture, the older one on matters of worldwide interest. Browne is secretary-treasurer of both groups, which hold their annual conventions together.
The trivia question
Marty Knepper, an English professor at Morningside College in Sioux City, Iowa, and president of the Popular Culture Association, acknowledged that
”there is a tendency among outsiders to trivialize the significance” of some conference topics.
For instance, she said, some scholars might think it`s more important to study classical opera than to examine Pepsi and Coca-Cola advertising. ”But which influences more people? Opera? Or Pepsi and Coke ads?” Knepper said.
Roger Rollin, president of the American Culture Association and an English professor from Clemson University in South Carolina, said he tries to get students to think about such issues as why American football games begin with ”The Star-Spangled Banner” and a prayer.
”Certainly we don`t believe that the deity is interested in the outcome of these games, do we?” he asked.
As you might figure, the theories, explanations and answers to such queries, as presented at the conference, were far from unanimous.
In one session, Robert J. Bush, who teaches English at the University of Southern Alabama in Mobile, concluded that TV tends to make children passive. Kids can learn a lot more from books, he said, in part because reading
”is an ingestive process that involves some kind of cerebration.”
Michael L. Richmond, who teaches law at Nova University in Ft. Lauderdale, agreed in part, saying in his session that first-year law students, reared on ” `Sesame Street` and Big Bird,” tend to ”learn passively.” They have to be taught to take active part in classroom discussions and debates.
TV inspires fans to action
But M. Nawal Lutfiyya and Kari Whittenberger-Keith, who teach in the communications department of the University of Louisville, said their study showed that the TV program ”Beauty and the Beast” had actually inspired some of its ardent fans to get up and take action in their personal lives.
”Fans are often thought of in negative terms,” Lutfiyya said, ”with nothing better to do with their time than watch TV. . . . But `Beauty and the Beast` fans do not match the stereotypes.”
She said that many of the women who watched the show said they felt
”empowered” by the program.
For example, one said on a questionnaire mailed out to about 300 fans that the show inspired her to return to school and get a degree. A second said that Vincent, the Beast of the program`s title, encouraged her to start writing fiction.
A third woman said the program gave her the confidence to ”become politically active.” She traveled to El Salvador and participated in a demonstration there. When she and others had to duck to avoid gunfire, she said she asked herself, ”Vinnie, is this what you call `facing your fears`?” Other speakers and topics included:
– Karen Koegler, a geography instructor and doctoral candidate at the University of Kentucky, talked about ”Mulch and Taxus: The Suburban Front Lawn Revisited.” She said you can tell a lot about a society, neighborhood or family from the front porch and yard.
– Walter F. Utroske, who teaches English at Eastern Montana College in Billings, dressed up for his remarks on ”Slob Hunters.” Wearing boots, jeans, a red and black wool shirt, and a camouflage cap, he told his audience to ”mount up” for his speech. Are writers who describe their deeds in outdoor magazines really truck-riding slobs? Utroske answered with ”a qualified no.”
– Maryellen McVicker of Booneville, Mo., discussing the question, ”Is Daniel Boone Buried in Kentucky?” injected several interesting asides. She said Boone`s wife, Rebecca, ”had nine children by him, and one by his brother while Daniel was away on an expedition. Daniel said that as long as it was his brother, it was OK with him because the blood was the same.”
McVicker also asserted that Rebecca was a better shot than her husband. She concluded that both are, in her opinion, really buried where they`re supposed to be, in Frankfort, Ky., not in Marthasville, Mo., as some have contended.
– Jeannette Kahn, president of DC Comics, reported on the social significance of heroes such as Superman. She contended that comic books don`t always reinforce social conventions and cited instances in which comics have depicted gay people and other minorities sympathetically.
She also mentioned a few of DC`s more unusual characters, including Lobo, who is supposed to be a satiric treatment of creatures who do evil just for the fun of it.
Lobo, Kahn said, is an ”intergalactic bounty hunter” whose name is supposed to mean ”he who devours your entrails and loves doing it.” She added that DC had published a ”Lobo Paramilitary Christmas Special” issue.
Out in the hallway, a sign saying ”Apathy Hour” had been taped to a TV set. Phrases ran across the screen in a loop that seemed to comment not only on the conference, but on life in general:
”Do you have an answer? . . . It doesn`t matter much, does it? . . . If we have the right attitude, television can relieve all our illnesses. . . . No big deal. . . . Please stay unorganized.”
