"What I need is someone who's going to be in my bed at 2 a.m. who I don't have to lie to or eat breakfast with"

Mills & Boon Modern Romance attempts to assimilate the old-fashioned joy of falling in love into this contemporary world, offering second-hand joy to readers whose understanding of romance has been warped slightly by living in a world devoid of old-fashioned romance. Mills & Boon are escapist fantasies, offering fairy-tale scenarios through a rose-tinted view of our social landscape with the smooth veneer of nostalgia. Recently, the publishing monolith has aspired for modernity beyond stamping their novels with the word Modern. Spice has upped the sexual quota to a hedonistic-degree that trendy, urban types will immediately recognise. Paranormal hopes to cash in on the ludicrous success of Twilight, The Vampire Diaries and The Next Big Thing because part of the future is sanitising out-dated horror staples. Will these young, go-getters of love check potential dates on Facebook, update the progress of their relationships via Twitter, watch Blu-Rays together and do other things that are all the rage among twenty and thirty-somethings nowadays?

One can only hope to never find out. Of course, there is one romantic phenomenon that those who are out-of-touch, but still running large entertainment conglomerates, are beginning to recognise and that is the always thrilling-to-watch-from-the-outside trend of friends with benefits, or 'physical coupling buddies'. Soon there will be a few television series about it, there have already been films and there will be a few more, and if they haven't already, soon enough Harlequin will catch up, because they have their finger on the pulse of young people's wrists even more solidly than we Bewildered Hearts. What is a friend who offers other benefits besides friendship, however? Should we look it up on the Urban Dictionary so we don't appear uncool? Do the kids still say 'cool'? No, let's get our information from the usually reliable and insightful source of a glossy Hollywood romantic comedy? That's where we learnt so much about Valentine's Day, and Evita.

No Strings Attached tells the story of a serial romantic, Adam, played by Ashton Kutcher's mop of hair, who falls for a hard-working trainee-doctor, Emma (Natalie Portman's remaining integrity), over the course of a series of unlikely coincidences. Adam is troubled due to his ex-girlfriend beginning a relationship with his own father, while Emma is incapable of emotion, brittle and so dedicated to her work she has neither the time nor the interest for loving. The film manages to hint that she is also emotionally-healthy, suitably ambitious and willing to sleep her way to the top of her profession, alienating friends and colleagues all the while, although some of this is only barely hinted at because Adam is supposedly our protagonist, despite the film's incompetent story-telling. While Adam is our lead, the demands of the plot rest on Emma's arc from becoming a girl without a boyfriend to being a girl with a boyfriend. Before she can complete this transition, though, there is the complicated matter of filling out a running time and dick jokes can only go so far.

Emma has the bright idea of sleeping with Adam in a number of different locations, but refuses to become emotionally-involved for reasons that are never adequately explained. Adam, meanwhile, remains exactly the same for the entirety of the movie. No Strings Attached has all the hallmarks of a hip, young-people film, including a twenty-something screenwriter, Natalie Portman as both star and executive producer, the presence of Ashton Kutcher, a veritable who's who of up and coming actors (Olivia Thirlby, Ophelia Lovibond, Greta Gerwig, Kevin Kline), an uninhabited homosexual character, a black friend character played by a rapper, a sixty-four-year-old director and a blink-and-you'll-miss-it cameo appearance by Tim Matheson. Characters have iPhones regardless of their material wealth, make inappropriate jokes about genitalia, fetishise contrived lesbianism and somehow force in references to Glee, all the while relying on romantic comedy clichés such as strained parental ties and siblings getting married to reinforce a desire for a similarly committed bond.

Every effort is made to update No Strings Attached as a modern romcom, but on their first date Adam takes Emma to a miniature golf course and then to an all-night diner where they innocently squabble over a shared milkshake. Once the predictable end to the formula comes the viewer is left to wonder whether the conservative attitudes were intentional. No matter how much the youth attempt to avoid traditional relationships with their ironic emotional distance, casual sex and devotion to their careers deep down everyone craves the same thing, and that is what their parents where unable to achieve, a happy-ever-after and a kiss atop a fountain while an elf plays the violin. We are all slaves to our sex-specific mating interests and even Hollywood's continued delusion towards glorifying individualism and the free-spirited pursuit of dandyism can break us from the conclusion that humans are simple animals who like babies, houses and Ashton Kutcher movies.

Be that as it has been scientifically-proven to be, No Strings Attached remains responsible for its inept fumbling of narrative, characters and comedy. Evolution cannot be blamed for everything. Adam and Emma are smug, instantly-detestable, hard to warm to and face no difficulties in their idealised versions of life. For the film to work with Adam as its hero and the love story told through his mentality, the world of the film would have needed to have been heightened with a satirical play on gender roles. Adam is the feminine male, the romantic, betrayed by broken entanglements yet still relentlessly optimistic. His long-time goals are marriage and family and he is honest in the validity of these dreams. Emma, meanwhile, takes on the masculine form as Adam's emotional counter-point, refusing connection beyond the physical, commitment-phobic and rejecting the social norms that dictate love shall bring stability and happiness.

However, because of the realism of the characters' rooting there is never a satisfactory excuse given for Emma's inability to accept feelings. Her sister and mother are healthy, her father is never mentioned. She is self-assured, funny, smart and grounded. Therefore, Adam, the hero, must work even harder to convince Emma to reject her principles, prove that work and relationships can be combined and also manage to solve the deep-rooted cause of her emotional frigidity, with hilarious results. Still, to shirk on laughs is forgivable if the film's inclination is for conceptual credibility, but with neither you have a romantic comedy that is not romantic, comedic or believable.

The other option, and clearly the one the filmmakers decided to follow two-thirds into their picture, is to make Emma the heroine having to re-evaluate her ambitions when a friend with benefits turns into what a friend with benefits is, someone you like who you have sex with. Consistently throughout the film supporting characters and strangers walking their dog in the middle of the night tell Adam that such a scenario is unworkable in the long-term, but this is surely no revelation as the system is designed to be transitory and functional. Inevitably, thanks to the central conceit being short-sighted and misunderstood by the writer, there is no drama to the concept, no mystery and no insight. This leaves us with nothing more than a pathetic attempt to repackage When Harry Met Sally... without the wit, iconic scenes, depth or Billy Crystal. Critics have argued the film is feminist, as did the director, but if this were the case Emma would have been the protagonist and all the obstacles the central romance faced would not have stemmed from her independence masquerading as psychological problems which are then cured by a penis.

As the story actually goes, Adam meets the girl of his dreams only to discover girls are weird! However, because of his manhood and sturdy torso she stops being weird and starts crying and speaking sentimentally. With Emma as the film's centre there would be greater nuance and a more compelling protagonist. We also might have had what the writer originally intended, less of a generic, broad romantic comedy, and more of an insular exploration of the troubles facing modern women trying to juggle the professional with the personal, with evolutionary conditioning drilling maternal instincts into their pretty, little brains. Does such a sexual agreement between colleagues afford the ideal situation for determined career types, and furthermore is that an interesting scenario for a feature film? We shall have to wait and see, for No Strings Attached sets out to do all kinds of things and ends up only doing one, being a terrible feature film, two hours of Ashton Kutcher attempting to convey bafflement with his lips.

Would a Mills & Boon author aspire to tell the tale of two friends who start having sex only to continue to have sex? Presumably we can discount this as a classically-structured romance for a number of obvious reasons. Still, we have reviewed books on this very site where friends become lovers, eventually, after endlessly discussing whether increased intimacy might destroy the bonds of friendship. The stakes are never high enough and the journey is no challenge. The casual attitudes of the characters towards sex, fidelity and commitment mean that the mighty struggle to come to terms with what they risk lacks significance. No Strings Attached would have worked much more strongly had Emma lost Adam at the finale, with her coming to a realisation about priorities against a more credible backdrop of responsibilities and incitement. Of course, had that been so the film would not have been considered a romance and therefore Bewildered Heart would have been saved from having to watch it.

"A shyness came between them, a shyness that stirred expectantly, like a tree whispering in the wind"

There was more to The Texas Billionaire's Pregnant Bride: An Evolutionary Interpretation of Romance Fiction Titles than a few tables of statistics suggesting women like babies, commitment, money and men from the rural southern states of America, although the majority of the paper did seem devoted to suggesting that. Amongst all the data and well-educated conclusive opinions hid a few paragraphs that attempted to make sense of the grandest question of all, the conundrum that has riddled generations for generations. Why do our collective female population keep buying these terrible books and is the answer more complicated than that many women buy romance novels for the same reason that many men watch Zack Synder movies? Simply put, the human species is really lousy and we are all doomed.

Not so, say Anthony Cox and Maryanne Fisher, or, more likely, not just that. On page two of their paper they enter into the nitty gritty of examining the inexplicably enduring success of the genre. They quote Deborah Camp, from Rita Gallagher and Rita Clay Estrada's Writing Romances: A Handbook by the Romance Writers of America, to help point out that said novels help to satisfy an 'insatiable appetite for love in all its guises.' Not all of its guises, of course, merely the most idealised, joyous and treasured kind of eternal love that knows only easily-surmountable, amateurishly-contrived obstacles, and only love as it is first discovered to then flourish most brightly against all the odds between very beautiful people in a series of expensive and exotic locations. 'Past analyses of romance novels have extensively relied upon socio-cultural interpretations. For example, Camp writes, '(The) stories appeal to females because they teach lessons of nurturing, of aspiring, of following your heart, and of finding success.''

This is correct, but the attribution is over-simplified. Stories with female protagonists learning, daring to dream and being rewarded for enterprising behaviour are not exclusive to the romance genre, albeit a heroine's tale usually revolves around sex-specific mating interests and therefore will invariably concern love and reproduction. Yet how about those age-old tales of small-town girls heading to the big city with dreams of a career in the lucrative, empowering business of dance or musical theatre, where they inevitably struggle against mean-spirited, bitchy rivals and only find support in the cultivating arms of an attractive male, usually portrayed on film by Cam Gigandet's torso? Speaking of patriarchal interpretations to further denigrate feminist principles that women can be more than mothers, nightclub dancers and wives, there's also this. 'Feminist scholars such as Germaine Greer propose that the stories reflect women’s acceptance of their “chains of bondage” to patriarchy rather than their true selves. Likewise, Brownmiller, when talking about the occurrence of sex in romance novels, states, “the fantasies are usually the product of male conditioning” rather than an accurate reflection of women’s true desires. Modelski contends that the books provide an “outlet for female resentment” whereby heroines rebel against male authority figures.'

Bewildered Heart has sensibly steered clear of this debate for fear of revealing an embarrassing misconstruction of feminism. More importantly, however, we don't wish to guide the weblog away from its original intention of making fun of romance novels. Nevertheless, such subject matter can only be ignored for so long until accusations of misogyny or stupidity are heard from the many readers of the site. The central argument of The Texas Billionaire's Pregnant Bride is that the novel titles accurately reflect women's true desires, and as the majority of the authors are women either they are held down by these chains of bondage (Surely only in Mills & Boon Spice!) and are not manifestly free from male oppression or these stories are female fantasies and should be merited as proof of psychological evolution or dismissed as unadulterated fairy-tales that should not be taken seriously. As those who believe in evolution can attest to current human philosophies of life and aspiration represent our true selves and only the dismantling of romance literature, entertainment, magazines and centuries of religion, capitalism, and whatever else is happening out there, will bring about definitive change to thought processes and stop women from aspiring towards what they already aspire to.

Are Mills & Boon authors holding humanity back with out-dated fantasies entirely constructed around the desires of males, and if so, why are all men written as commitment-phobic and chivalrous for the initial one hundred and eighty pages? Is the alternative more likely, that the authors are merely feeding into the hopes that already exist and that a gorgeous, wealthy, sturdy, physically-immaculate man with dark, enigmatic eyes, ridiculously long, thick eyelashes and no visible signs of pattern balding is the evolutionary goal for every woman, and as the basis for a genre of fiction is more offensive to the emasculated male of the species unaware of these books than the ladies who read them, foolish and misguided enough to form any unrealistic expectations from their titles, covers or contents?

Besides this, 'These interpretations do not satisfactorily explain why romance novels, and Harlequins in particular, have remained so incredibly popular across time and cultures.' Too right, Cox and Fisher. The Feminists are free to their righteous intolerance, but frankly they are not helping to answer the initial proposition. 'An alternative explanation is that these novels are consistently addressing topics that have universal appeal to women. Evolutionary psychology offers insight into human universals, and suggests that women and men have sex-specific mating dilemmas.' We couldn't have put it better ourselves. Perhaps male conditioning can be interpreted as human nature and we, as people, are naturally predisposed to procreate to further our family trees. Harlequin and Mills & Boon take this evolutionary impulse, slap a seductive title and photograph on the cover and call it pure reading pleasure. Likewise, we have even evolved to finding a sense of humour and a picturesque, though nonsensical, green map background attractive so even bitter and unwanted websites are able to sow their seeds through links.

'Across cultures, women tend to be the primary caregivers. Furthermore, women have notably lower limits on the number of children that they can have, as compared to men. These differences have led evolutionary psychologists to propose that women tend to seek commitment from their mates, and prefer mates who have a propensity to accrue resources since they will need these resources while they tend to the children. Therefore, we propose that a better interpretation for the success of Harlequin romance novels is that the books are addressing women’s sex-specific, evolved, mating interests,' explain Cox and Fisher, although they cannot specifically argue that the romance publishers, or their readers, are overtly aware of this. In truth, it matters not, because evolution has defined our idea of a happy ending and despite this doing little to explain what words men look for in book titles, it does at least help us resolve that nagging issue of why women read Mills & Boon by the truckload, and that's because they are evolutionarily predisposed to do so for the benefit of humankind. Therefore, to malign the genre, and the weblogs that have resulted from its existence, and to call for its end, is not only feather-brained it is practically apocalyptic.

"Men could be hired anywhere at any time... for only a few dollars a month”

One of the many troubling aspects of writing a weblog concerning romance fiction, besides the continuing prospect of having to read and write about romance fiction, is the clear lack of positivistic analysis of psychology related to scientific studies at renowned universities. Worry not though, Bewildered Hearts, for all that is about to change thanks to The Texas Billionaire's Pregnant Bride: An Evolutionary Interpretation of Romance Fiction Titles. You read that correctly, dear reader. Apparently one Anthony Cox from the Centre for Psychology and Computing in Dartmouth, Canada and one Maryanne Fisher from the Department of Psychology in wherever St. Mary’s University is have teamed up to make sense of fifteen thousand and nineteen book titles published between 1949 and 2009 by Harlequin, North America's very own Mills & Boon.

So, how did Cox and Fisher decide to use this huge amassed amount of information and what did they hope this venture would prove? 'First, we identified the most frequently occurring words to determine the most prevalent issues addressed by titles. Second, we performed a qualitative analysis to identify the most popular, recurring themes that appear in the titles.' Hmm, that sounds like something someone might do to obtain grant money, but for those in the audience already bored by phrases such as 'qualitative analysis' is there a pithy sentence in the opening paragraph that might set out a conclusion so obvious it renders the entire research nugatory? 'Our results indicate that Harlequin romance novel titles are congruent with women’s sex-specific mating strategies, which is surmised to be the reason for their continued international success.' Bewildered Heart likes the sound of women's sex-specific mating strategies, but we can't help but wonder whether the world needs hard evidence to show that Harlequin and Mills & Boon are successful because they offer a product that deals with an element of life a large proportion of women think about.

Still, there are fifteen more pages of charts, tables and statistics to wade through, so enough questioning the time and cost that was wasted here, and let us examine the findings. Cox and Fisher break down this vast number of texts into Harlequin's own hilariously-titled sub-categories, such as Love-Inspired (Christian emphasis, inspired by love, no actual love), Super-Romance (Really good romance), NASCAR (Thanks to a clever marketing strategy to combine romance with NASCAR), American Romance (For patriots) and, of course, Flipside, which lasted three years before someone realised the name might be misconstrued as homosexual. To complicate matters further, our clever authors included the Silhouette Imprint and their own remarkably varied list of subgenres, which aren't nearly as silly-sounding as those of their sister company, so little wonder most are now defunct. With their database full to over-flowing with romantic words and their technical normalising work complete, the complex algorithms did their business and now the public can marvel at the surprising results. Do you think billionaire and sheik made the list of most used male occupations? How about disenchanted blogger?

With the paper outlining Harlequin's success, 5.8 billion books sold so far and counting, they go onto speculate explanations for why, and how. According to a study over at Parapublishing, a potential consumer will spend an average of eight seconds weighing up a book's appeal before buying it. As Oscar Dystel points out, in Mass Market Publishing: More Observations, Speculations and Provocations Harlequin do little to distinguish their 'uniform, homogenized, quality controlled' novels. Therefore, within these aforementioned eight seconds the potential reader forms an opinion based on the subtle differences between the books, which are the title, the author name and the photograph of a couple canoodling. Naturally, Harlequin are well aware of their target audience, and in fact, romance fiction publishers conduct more market research than any other publisher. They know what women want from their romance fiction and, for financial reasons, give it to them via implied semantic signifiers.

Therefore, when female consumers trawl through the shelves at a down-market bookshop for as long as we still have bookshops, and after that trawl through the Mills & Boon website, their eyes and opinions are immediately shaped by the title, and shortly thereafter the blurb. Yet we have learned that the blurbs lie and we have also learned that titles lie, so in one sense, the commercial draw of an enticing title is vital yet largely immaterial to plot and characters. As we have witnessed, the salacious aspect of Bewildered Heart's wanton desire for romance fiction means we search the library shelves for certain words. There is no logic in trying to pick a good one, so we pick the ones that offer our favourite clichés of the genre. Those include reclusive billionaires, emasculated former circus performers, brunettes, small business owners, Hugh Jackmen and ladies dressed in costumes of cartoon animals. Had Mills & Boon ever visited this internet treasure trove of useful information they would surely have published The Kinda Hugh Jackman-Looking Emasculated Former Circus Performer Billionaire's Brunette Wearing a Cartoon Animal Costume Mistress, Accidentally Pregnant!

The results substantiate what Cox and Fisher seemed intent on proving, that women's evolved sex-specific mating interests are consistent with the words found in Harlequin titles and the heroine's yearnings within its pages. The top twenty most popular words were Love, Bride, Baby, Man, Marriage, Heart, Secret, Wife, Doctor, Night, Christmas, Cowboy, Wedding, Child, Family, Texas, Nurse, Woman, Lady, and Husband. Danielle shall be delighted to note the absence of mistress from the list. So, Cox and Fisher argue, we can ascertain that what women want from their romance books are Texan cowboy doctors marrying and impregnating a nurse at night on Christmas, whilst one of them hides a secret family. Furthermore, says the paper, what women want from their romance fiction is what women want from life and this means the ideal characteristics of the perfect husband are decency, healing hands, a well-paid job (or cowboy) and a love of fidelity, Christmas, Texas, cooing at babies in supermarkets and different nouns for the same word.

Don't lose hope though, men who are unlikely to become doctors or cowboys, for Fisher and Cox have listed the twenty most frequently occurring professions in romance novels and they are as follows: Doctor, Cowboy, Nurse, Boss, Prince, Rancher, Knight, Surgeon, King, Bodyguard, Sheriff, Soldier, Lawman, Pirate, Secretary, Consultant, Midwife, Cattleman, CEO, Executive. It shouldn't take an academic to note that these careers fit into four categories. Medical: Doctor, Nurse, Surgeon, Midwife. Masculine: Cowboy, Rancher, Knight, Bodyguard, Sheriff, Soldier, Lawman, Pirate, Cattleman. Billionaire: Boss, Prince, King, CEO, Executive. Other: Secretary, Consultant. Secretary would depend largely on the inclusion of Boss, while Consultant is frankly the most confusing one, and that is on a list that includes Pirate. So, what straightforward conclusions can we gleam from these results? Cox and Fisher note, 'two primary themes: resource-based (e.g., doctors, surgeons, CEOs, kings) and athletic (e.g., cowboys, cattlemen). Perhaps related to the athletic theme is that of protectors (e.g., sheriffs, soldiers, lawmen) since these professions also require a high level of physical fitness. Therefore, our hypotheses concerning resources and physical fitness gained at least partial support, given the emphasis on these professions.' See, they glossed over Consultant and Pirate as well.

To round out the findings the authors define eight distinct themes, beginning with the most evident and ending with the afterthoughts: 1. Commitment, 2. Reproduction, 3. Western, 4. Resources, 5. Medical, 6. Christmas, 7.Royalty, and finally, 8. Professional. Now, this data is inevitably skewed by Harlequin's Medical and Western subgenres, and a world of lazily unimaginative writers. Despite this, the popularity of these books should not be overlooked. They should be looked at as indicative of the reader's sex-specific mating interests, and when done so doctors and cowboys are basically the same man, strong, nurturing, able, protective, passionate, land-owning, wearing funny outfits and using unorthodox methods of transportation.

With the irrefutable proof out of the way, the authors can move onto their wild and unreasoned conclusions. For example, 'The 20 most frequent words clearly suggest long-term commitment and reproduction are important to readers.' As other writers have pointed out, with far less research and intelligence to back them up, the romance genre is defined by a happy ending, and unlike life, a successful relationship involves having children and dying together. Therefore many of the words and themes that appear throughout the titles are a requirement of the form of story-telling. While no one should be surprised to see marriage and offspring hinted at by the book names, there were a handful of actual surprises. 'The word “attractive” appears only once in the database, and “handsome” only six times. Synonyms like “gorgeous” appear rarely (gorgeous appears three times), and the word “athletic” does not appear at all.'

What does this mean? As it turns out, nothing, 'It must be noted that there are only a few adjectives that describe the characters’ traits in the database. The majority of the words are nouns that identify the characters’ roles, such as bride, executive, or husband.' However, a quick glance at the contents of the book assuages any doubts regarding the physical attractiveness of the characters. It goes without saying that Texan billionaire doctors who own a ranch are rugged and gorgeous. However, Cox and Fisher are obviously dedicated to the subject of evolutionary psychology and whether or not Harlequin Enterprises entitle their books with a keen understanding of evolutionary psychology. They surmise, rather disappointingly, that such technical terms are interchangeable with common sense. Importantly, there is no way of proving how successful the books are, and whether a title such as The Texas Billionaire's Pregnant Bride would sell more or less copies than The Welsh Lorry Driver's Infertile Pen Pal, although common sense would surely prevail.

Due to these flaws and a seemingly tentative understanding of the genre, the study offers little valuable insights for a prospective romance writer, besides maybe dusting off those boots of yours and giving cowboys another spin. The focus of the article concerns itself with the sex-specific mating strategies of women, and only deal with the what, leaving the why tantalisingly vague. Why would a woman's ideal man be rich, caring, honest, loyal, virtuous, handsome, muscular, intelligent, kind, stable and also a doctor? Please don't just argue that evolution explains everything, because otherwise we are going to need a scientific analysis on what evolution is and then another one explaining why Texans don't believe in evolution.