Romance v Real Life

This past weekend I and fellow LoveCats Amy Andrews and Michelle Douglas had the pleasure of attending the Australian Romance Readers Association awards night. ARRA functions are always a lot of fun and the awards night was no exception. At the start of the evening the audience was challenged to give the differences between real life and romance novels. Much hilarity ensued. As you can imagine, several answers referred to expectations of sexual performance!

What would you answer if you were posed that question?  I’ll kick off with a few of my own:

• Romance heroes and heroines often (but not always) have perfect bodies while seeming to eat what they want and not do a lot of exercise.

• They rarely have to visit the bathroom.

• Inexperienced heroines achieve amazing orgasms with little or no foreplay.

• Heroines can have hours of energetic sex but never seem to suffer from cystitis (I’ve only ever seen this in one story.) 

• The reaction to stress of romance heroines is often to lose their appetite and fade away to thinness instead of binge eating and stacking on weight. (Yes, I’ve written heroines like this in maybe a fit of wishful thinking!)

• One from the ARRA night: characters on the run from people hot on their heels trying to kill them have plenty of time to have showers and leisurely sex.

 Of course much of the enjoyment of our favourite genre is that real life (such as trips to the bathroom) doesn’t intrude on the fantasy, while the emotions expressed are heart-wrenchingly real. So perhaps we don’t want too much of the nitty gritty of everyday life to intrude!

Do you have any differences between real life and romance novels you’d like to share? I’d love to read your thoughts!