Don’t Call Me Honey
Suzanne Brockmann’s Prince Joe was published in 1996, not exactly what we think of as the Dark Ages of feminism. But when I pulled it off my keeper shelf for a reread the other day, I noticed something that drove me absolutely bonkers: nicknaming.
The hero, Joe Catalanotto, is a Navy SEAL who grew up poor in New Jersey but happens to be a dead ringer for the prince of Ustanzia. When a wanted terrorist group tries to assassinate the prince, Joe steps in to impersonate him as bait. Veronica St. John’s job is to teach Joe how to pass as the prince. With just 48 hours until the tour resumes, and with admirals and senators involved and the economy of the prince’s country and the fate of one of America’s Most Wanted on the line, it’s a high stakes impersonation.
And Joe gives Veronica the least time and respect he can get away with.
“You name it, honey,” Joe said. “We can do it.
“My name,” she declared in her cool English accent… “is Veronica St. John. Not honey. Not babe. Please refrain from using terms of endearment. I don’t care for them.”
She was trying to look as chilly as her words sounded, but Joe saw heat when he looked into her eyes… He knew, with a sudden odd certainty, that when they made love, it was going to be a religious experience. Not if they made love. When. It was going to happen.
Joe’s willful refusal to see her complaint as anything other than an attempt not to look sexually interested in him is obnoxious. Women have lots of good reasons not to want to be called “honey,” and Veronica doesn’t owe him an explanation of any of them. She has a name, and she clearly asks him to use it. How does Joe respond?
He suggests “Ronnie.” Veronica counters “Ms. St. John.” Joe responds:
“I’ve decided if I’m the prince I can call you whatever I want, and I want to call you Ronnie.”
“No, you most certainly will not!”
“Why the hell not? I’m the prince,” Joe said. “It’s your choice – Ronnie or Honey. I don’t care.”
Aw, Joe. You’ve given her a free choice between two names she’s already said she doesn’t like. How magnanimous. You really are a prince.
He continues to call her “honey,” “babe,” and “sweetheart” throughout the book, although thankfully never in front of other people. He calls her Ronnie, however, whenever he wants, including in front of fellow members of the mission. It’s patronizing and undermining, and it drove me up the wall.
What’s going on with this?
First of all, it’s intended to show an immediate and intimate bond. “Honey” and “sweetheart” and “babe” are all relationship nicknames. Perhaps the implication is that by calling her those, Joe can will that relationship into reality. Giving her the name Ronnie, which nobody has called her before, creates intimacy (in theory, anyway), as we typically take nicknames from people close to us. Plus, Joe knows that Veronica doesn’t REALLY want him to stop calling her by nicknames. It’s all a front to conceal her sexual desire for him. This is a large part of what rubbed me the wrong way – all of this happens too fast. Joe names her Ronnie long before the characters have an actual connection.
It’s also character shorthand. One reason I picked Joe for the example here is that he’s not Southern, which is the usual group who is allowed to get away with “good ol’ boy” speech patterns, but it can also be a way to show class. “Honey” and “sweetheart,” for Joe, are the equivalent of a patronizing “my dear” from an aristocrat. Yet while misogynist speech from the wealthy is a hallmark of villains and the older generation, for the working class, the author uses it to show confidence and arrogance. Veronica is beautiful and posh, but Joe’s not going to yes-ma’am her. He’ll do the opposite, using speech to create a dominant position. No intimidation here. Every time Joe talks to Veronica, he can put her in her place.
Just like any other alpha male tropes, this can be used to be sexy, but I expect I’m not the only one who finds it polarizing.
I don’t always hate this trope, and my visceral indignation at Joe’s behavior had me thinking about why. My favorite hero of all time, Han Solo, nicknames Princess Leia incessantly, and I love him anyway. He calls her everything from “Your Worshipfulness” to “sweetheart,” even though she asks (more “orders;” this is Leia, after all) him not to. Why can Han get away with it, and it didn’t work for Joe?
Well, Harrison Ford is a large part of it. But there is more.
First, there’s a question of consistency. Han creates disrespectful nick
names for everybody. He calls Obi-Wan Kenobi “old man.” He calls Luke “kid.” His list of names for C-3PO may be pages long. This takes away the gender sting in a way that I didn’t see in the Brockmann, where Joe never talks to any other characters impolitely. Additionally, Han’s nicknames for Leia aren’t limited to gender. “Your Worshipfullness” and “Your Highness-ness” take shots at her social position and her autocratic conduct. There’s a clear line from this type of nicknaming to another one that never bothered me, Jamie Fraser’s Sassenach-ing of Claire. It indicates that unlike Joe, who sees Veronica from the beginning as a female to sleep with, Jamie sees an ethnic and political dimension to Claire, and Han recognizes Leia’s aristocratic, powerful, and affluent background.
Leia, a royal and a leader, has power and social status. Han is a poor wanted criminal. Han taking nickname shots from socially below holds no danger for Leia. There is no chance that she will lose her position in the Rebellion, or not be taken seriously, because a foot soldier like Han calls her by a nickname. By contrast, despite his humble origins, Joe has Veronica over a barrel. She must be professional with him as she tries to persuade him to study Prince Tedric. Beyond this mission, her career future depends on her having successfully carried off this tour. But Joe’s natural gift for impersonation means that while Veronica can make his life easier, he has no real need for her support. Veronica has no choice but to swallow the “honeys” and “babes,” and Joe knows it.
Joe’s verbal deprecating intersects with his relegation of Veronica’s job to “less important,” magnifying the disrespect each presents on its own. His laughing “Ronnie, Ronnie, I do take you seriously, honey,” is about the most slap-worthy line in book. When Veronica retorts that she won’t let his “stupid ignorance” foul up the mission, the author and Veronica both act as though she’s tagged Joe with the worst slur imaginable, forcing her into a public apology scene. Where is Veronica’s apology for Joe’s patronizing verbal pat-on-the-head?
What struck me the most personally, however, was the fact that Joe and Veronica have a professional working relationship in a modern environment which I can relate to. Sure, George Lucas didn’t put enough women in his rebellion, but the galaxy far, far away just doesn’t have the same resonance as a modern government office. When I see Veronica getting “honey”ed by a man who is supposed to be working with her in a professional context, it gets my back up in a way that I just don’t experience when Han calls Leia “sweetheart” in a spaceship in a space worm in an asteroid field.
How do you feel about “honey?” Have you been “honey’d” or nicknamed in real life, maybe in a professional context, or a relationship? Have you ever told a person to stop, and what happened?
Hmm… I don’t remember Joe being quite that bad–at least not by the midpoint in the book–but it’s been too many years since I’ve read it. I honestly don’t know what I’d think if I read it now. I grew up in a lower-class, blue-collar neighborhood full of rough and tumble boys, so I’m rather inured by this sort of thing, or maybe I just have lower expectations. I also think nicknaming and the use of pet names–whether used to patronize, bully or simply show affection–are very much a part of military culture.
IRL, I hate it when people I don’t know well and who haven’t earned the right to call me by endearments use them. However, it greatly depends on context, social position, and the culture you’ve been brought up in. I live in the southern US where people are more likely to use them in casual conversation with anyone they meet. In my place of work, which is very much a stuffy, corporate environment, women who are my peers (rather than women who are in authoritative positions above me) are the ones who are most likely to use endearments like this. Inwardly, I cringe, but I realize it’s part of their culture. I don’t think men in my workplace have ever used them, but most of the men I work with are men I work for, so they’re likely to be very careful for fear of sexual harassment suits, etc. I’m also at an age now where I’m older than many of them, so they’re likely to view me as a mother figure, although I’m not one to be very maternal with co0-workers. Over the years, I’ve learned to take things like this in the spirit in which they’re intended, In my fiction, I’ve read far worse examples than what takes place in this particular book.
Prince Joe was a DNF for me because I didn’t like the hero and his attitude. Like other Brockmann books though.
What a great blog post, Caroline, and an excellent discussion in the comments.
To me, no matter what your fantasy might be, a “no” means “no”; it doesn’t mean a “qualified yes” or a “coy yes” or a “she was asking for it.” Pushing the boundaries a little bit, teasing a little bit are very different from running roughshod over a character’s (man’s or woman’s) “no.” That is an immediate red flag to me, and it pulls me out of the story and suspension of disbelief.
I haven’t read the book – and from this post I’m not going to – but I have watched this with interest. I said on Twitter that endearments are great to me if they’re endearments, but not if they’re used as a dominance or control mechanism.
To wit: I work in a family company, for my father and with my brother and uncle. We don’t shy away from that and we all tend to use endearments for each other. My brother and I were in a customer meeting a few weeks ago and one of the gentleman called me ‘honey’ and my brother went red in anger. “Her name is Dr. Donnelly.” That dude was diminishing my role in the meeting and in the company. He always referred to my brother by his name. This use of endearments as a power move is usually gendered both in life and in fiction.
I get a hint of that from a hero and there better be some SERIOUS growth occurring for me to buy that he’s an adult whose relationship I should be invested in.
Unfortunately, from what I remember of Brockmann’s novel, it is the heroine who has to adjust and accept that Joe is entitled to patronize her. Her “no” really does mean “yes” in the end, and that is a damaging message the author is sending, but it’s one that many romances readers are all too familiar.
This was so interesting, Caroline! This is behavior that tends to earmark certain romances as non-starters for me, mostly because the way a hero will treat a heroine verbally signals to me how he’ll treat her when they’re out of bed.
I’m loving the conversation that’s happening here. It made me rethink a bit of what I wrote.
I described Joe’s nicknaming as “alpha” behavior, but I think upon reflection why it didn’t work for me is that it’s the opposite. It comes across as insecure. Joe’s a Navy SEAL, stunningly attractive, in fantastic physical condition, and apparently a brilliant linguist and actor. He doesn’t have a lot of money, but we learn from the book that Veronica’s not rich despite having gone to an expensive school. Basically, Veronica’s accent and general “classiness” intimidate him so much that this physically and mentally blessed man is shrunk to the level of name-calling so Veronica will know he’s still the boss. It’s not that Joe is acting alpha-ish and crossing over into alphole territory, it’s that Joe has everything he needs to be an alpha except, apparently, true confidence. He shows that by grasping at petty put-downs to deny the heroine one of the only strengths she ought to have – professional respect – in a way that implies he can’t handle her being strong. It would have been sexier if he had embraced the class difference and somehow made calling her “Ms. St. John” knowing or kinky (“Ms. Jackson if you’re nasty.”)
So I would say, to people saying that it’s fine to like alphas, that I misspoke in my original post. Joe’s speech habits don’t make him seem alpha-like, they make him seem weak.
Yes. And what I hear you saying is that he isn’t trustworthy. And, for me, no hero that I can’t be sure is–in the long run–going to love and support the heroine is sexy.
It’s not that she ‘didn’t overtly consent’ to it, but that she explicitly told him she didn’t want him to do it. I don’t much care whether people call each other honeybunbuns or not, but for him to continue to do it when she’s asked him not to is rude, overbearing, arrogant and inappropriate at work.
Exactly. If we’re discussing this specific book, then we have to pay attention to the fact that the main female character feels victimized by the male character’s way of interacting with her. Even female readers who personally like to feel overpowered by a man cannot ethically brush off another person’s feeling of being demeaned. There is not justification for that.
This is a well-visited argument in romance. There are those who find anything in romance that the heroine didn’t overtly consent to as utterly unsexy and non-romantic. For some, such things are genuinely horrifying. For others, the alpha male who uses his will, power, and, sometimes, even his physical strength to “conquer” his woman is deeply alluring.
For me, who grew up in the 60s and 70s and read Rosemary Rogers, Kathleen Woodiwiss, and Dame Cartland, I find it easy to escape in the fantasy of the man who makes all the choices. My generation was told we could have it all–a great job, a good marriage, kids, time to read–and, whew, the pursuit of that is exhausting. The idea of having to do nothing is sometimes, in art, appealing.
I just saw, for the second time, the movie Arrival, which I love. If you haven’t seen it and don’t want to know anything about it, stop reading now.
spoiler:
At the end of the film, the viewer realizes that the heroine knew, long before conception, that her child would die as a teen. She doesn’t share that with the father. In the movie, it works and the viewer sees her choice as viable. In real life, were it a friend of mine doing that to her partner, I’d be deeply uncomfortable.
end of spoiler
I just saw an exhibition called Pity and Terror: Picasso’s Path to Guernica. Picasso himself said that woman was “a machine for suffering” and in many of his paintings, women–especially if seen in a post-WWI lens–seem almost tortured. But, at the same time, those women have such agency in many of his works. The curators of the exhibit made a case that Picasso’s seeming obsession with violence was necessary for him to create Guernica, one the greatest modern anti-war statements in art. Picasso himself said, when asked about the meaning of the things in the painting, “It isn’t up to the painter to define the symbols. Otherwise it would be better if he wrote them out in so many words. The public who look at the picture must interpret the symbols as they understand them.”
If a reader defines a man who willfully calls a woman a nickname that, initially, she disdains as sexy, that man is sexy for that reader. The same calculus is true for the reader who finds such behavior disgusting.
This is a fascinating topic to me and something super prevalent in the romance genre. I don’t conflate what a significant other calls someone as a term of endearment in a relationship with what Caroline was talking about here. (Although I hate terms like “baby” even when couples use it consensually with each other, but that’s just a personal intense dislike of mine!)
I have had men call me things like “honey” in a tone of voice that usually precedes a very sexist comment, and it’s infuriating. And when this happens in romance, I’m equally bothered by it. The worst for me is when the heroine DOES push back on it, but the hero continues, and it becomes their “thing.” A great recent example of this, for me, is in Idol by Kristen Callihan. Sorry, I know this book is wildly popular in the romance community, but I absolutely could not stand the hero and I strongly disliked this book. One of the things that bothered me the most was the hero calling the heroine “baby doll” about a hundred million times, which she DID NOT like at first. However, he continues, and later it is romanticized as some kind of term of endearment. I found this both condescending and infantilizing. That’s not sexy or romantic.
I haven’t read the Callihan book, Amanda, but I can’t read her novels. I tried! The thing that is especially illogical here in this discussion is that women readers would use Brockmann as “escapism” from life’s worries. Most women I know have experienced sexual harassment in the real world and so picking up a romance that mimics the sexism around us isn’t an escape from anything. This book just replicates what we see and hear in our world.
I haven’t read Prince Joe, but from the excerpts above I know I wouldn’t like it, as my tolerance for stereotypical alpha heroes has declined almost to nothing over the years of my romance reading career. Plus I’m finding more and more, as a non-American, that cultural differences affect my enjoyment of some books that most other readers love. In this case I would just roll my eyes and find another book.
Han Solo is completely different. His barbs fail to conceal his attraction to Leia and his respect for her, as a strong woman, not just as his social superior. There isn’t that patronising feel that I get from Prince Joe.
But having said all that, I agree with Dabney. My ultimate criteria for a good romance is that it makes me feel, and what does that in a book may bear no relation to what I think should happen in real life. One reader’s favourite trope may be another’s dealbreaker. I get impatient with reviews that seem more concerned with the social implications of a book’s messages than with the quality of the book as a piece of writing and as an emotionally involving romance.
Great column, Caroline! I think one of the main reasons why women, especially, react negatively to the sexism of Brockmann’s use of language in her novel is because we experience it in our world. The “mad-men era” has not been that far in our past. I do cringe a little though whenever I hear the expression that something is “just fiction” because people construct fiction and read fiction as a way to interpret the world around them. Even the most fantastical art is an interpretation of the world as it is as much as the world as we might imagine it could be. But not only are we supposed to diminish the relevance of art, women are told constantly to minimize the impact sexist language has on us. So what if a man at work calls you “babe,” right? It’s just a word…It’s just locker room talk, after all! We’ve heard this all before.
Not only do I feel offended by the use of a man calling a women “honey” or “sweetheart” outside of an intimate and *consensual* relationship, I especially reject it in professional relationships, which this novel depicts. Brockmann is condoning Joe’s sexist behavior by not only letting him win this battle but in uplifting him to romantic hero status in the process. You called it right when you used the word “dominance.”
I do cringe a little though whenever I hear the expression that something is “just fiction” because people construct fiction and read fiction as a way to interpret the world around them.
People also use fiction to escape the world around them. Perhaps there are women who dream of living in a work world where the guy calling you honey does so because he’s fallen for you like a ton of bricks and he’s the guy who will champion your way to CEO.
In the same way that I cringe when parents tell me their kids can’t read Harry Potter because it constructs reality around magic–a decidedly non-religious and (for the other set) non-scientific concept, I cringe when those who love (in their reading) dominant, bossy, yes, even sexist men are made to feel as if somehow, by their reading, they’re colluding with dreadful real world creeps.
I completely respect Caroline’s–and any other reader’s–choice to say “This book really doesn’t work for me.” But I’m always going to also respect the readers who say “I love this stuff.”
Perhaps there are women who dream of their male co-workers calling them “honey” and “babe” but that’s not what is happening in Brockmann’s novel, which is what Caroline was examining here. The heroine repeatedly asks the hero not to reduce her to an inappropriate label because she views it as a belittling gesture. That is an act of dominance. Furthermore, most modern workplaces would not concur in female fantasies of men calling them endearments because of contemporary sexual harassment laws. I work in such an environment, for instance, with strong sexual harassment laws in place. I suspect I’m not the only one.
I don’t actually believe in the notion that fiction is just escapism. Fiction is a cultural product. We might be hugely entertained by it and it can certainly immerse us in a world that takes our minds off modern stresses, but that is not the only function and purpose of art. Art is an artist’s interpretation of the world and readers engage in interpretative labor in the very act of reading, even readers who may think they aren’t working while reading and may think they don’t want to work while reading. I find the label of escapism misplaced and just flat out inadequate to explain the purpose and function of art in our world — even Harry Potter! In fact, I’m getting ready to teach the first Potter book in my summer class and have lots of ideas about why the books are so popular and so meaningful to so many people.
And yes, I too respect readers’ decision to like or don’t like a text.
Totally agree, Blackjack. You articulated how I feel about this very well!
This whole thread has me rolling my eyes and muttering Oh FFS, seriously? My husband calls me babe. My son calls his wife baby and sweetheart. I LIkE being called honey or sweetheart by my hubby and my DIL likes it too. The main issue for the character is if he continues to do it after the heroine has specifically asked him not to, that is disrespectful. But otherwise, give me a frickin good break on all this political correctness –I expect them to hold open my doors too, and raised my sons to as well. Any hero who doesn’t is an asshat in my eyes.
It’s a way of asking for intimacy and, in many cases, it’s well-intentioned. My father-in-law called me “Doll” from the day I met him. He was born in the 20s and, to him, it was a compliment.
I do think that, in the workplace, those in charge have to be careful that they don’t use language that makes their employees feel uncomfortable or marginalized.
But we’re talking about a work of fiction here and I am much more comfortable with a less real-world approach.
The difference is you have a long-standing, loving relationship with your husband and your son the same with his wife. And I’m guessing if you or your daughter-in-law told your spouse that you prefer not to be called that, they would listen to you, not decide they knew better then you do what you like to be called and continue doing so.
As described here Joe starts calling her “honey” within a very short time of meeting her (can’t tell if the quoted scene is from their first meeting or not) and he decides on a nickname for her at the same time. Both of these she specifically tells him she does not like and both of which are happening within a presumably professional work environment. That’s a way different thing then you and your spouse/significant other having nicknames/endearments you use with one another.
Big time dealbreaker for me. It’s not the names themselves, it’s that she specifically and with her words (not her eyes) tells him not to do it and he does it anyway.
Jane – this is exactly what I was hoping to say. It’s not about the nicknames themselves, as I realized from comparing and contrasting Joe and Han. It’s about so many other aspects of the nicknaming: consent, context, dominance, consistency, the perception reflected by the nickname…
I got rid of the book after this re-read so I can’t double check, but I’m pretty sure this was their first meeting, and if not, it’s close.
I think this may be a British thing, but the endearment that makes me cringe/laugh out loud is “baby”. I don’t hear endearments much at work unless I’m in classes with very young children in which case I will let the odd “sweetie” slip, but usually the only time I use endearments are when they’re loaded with sarcasm. Even with Mr. Caz. We’re just not that type!
Baby has a very different vibe than babe. (See Jill Shalvis.)
I HATE, HATE “baby” as a term of endearment. Blehhhhhhh it makes me shudder.
Haha! I kind of feel the same way. I think maybe it sounds too infantalizing and I don’t want to introduce child-like words into adult discourse.
I love this! There are times in a romance where Honey works. But over all, all I hate it. I hate being honey’d or sweetheart’ed I hate it. It’s so patronizing.
And I agree with you 100% about Han and Leia. Plus, oddly enough, I didn’t feel like he was being disrespectful. Not sure why. You knew he wouldn’t hurt her or put her down.
I actually laugh at all the terms of endearment in Romancelandia because more often than not it is a plot device. I am reading Lori Foster’s The Buckhorn Brothers series right no (set in Kentucky) and , in the first book, the run away heroine’s name is Honey so the hero- and his brothers- calling her honey made her nervous until she realized they didn’t really know that was her name.
Don’t get me started on the use of “honey sweetie dear” in the workplace. I work in a hospital and I can’t even tell you the number of times I call the floor to speak with a nurse and she uses some term of endearment. For over 30 years I have wanted to say “Act professional! You aren’t a waitress at IHOP!!” (No offense to waitresses but I am in Texas and grew up with waitresses using those terms)
So, yes, this blog made me laugh out loud!
It’s funny you would say that. I have a close female friend who is an OB/GYN and who says that calling people honey fosters intimacy in a scary and often sterile environment. On the other hand, my spouse, a surgeon, would never call any patient honey or any other endearment.
I get this.
And.
This is fiction.
As has been pointed out millions of time, we enjoy things in fiction we wouldn’t in real life. The Hating Game, a book I and many readers love, has the leads talking to each other in ways that would panic any HR department. In tons of contemporary romance best sellers, the heroes talk to women in ways we’d not suffer in real life. This sort of dominance is about control and, in romance, many like stories where the woman isn’t always in control of the relational narrative. Those who study romance posit that reveling in such fantasies balance out the overextended life many women, trying to balance home and work, are struggling to balance.
Of course I know it’s fiction! What made me curious was the fact that in one fictional setting, I was not only ok with but actively into the nicknaming, but in a different fictional setting, it infuriated me.
But in The Hating Game, HR is panicked. Literally, the HR woman is roaming the halls panicked. HR is nearly a secondary character in the first half of the book. And the characters know they are crossing lines all the time. Josh worries at one point that Lucy is within her rights to get him fired. The Hating Game tackles upfront the problems of inappropriate workplace behavior. The resolution of the issue in the novel’s conclusion addresses this very clearly. The Hating Game is one novel that I thought did a good job with this issue. It seems like the very opposite of Brockmann’s example.
Great column Caroline. It’s been awhile since I’ve read Prince Joe so I’ll have to reread it again and let it know if the “honey-ing” bothers me, which it probably will.
As for Han’s nicknaming of his friends, Luke, Leia and Obi-Wan, I think it could be that it George Lucas’s way of creating banter/tension between the characters.
And yes, it would totally annoy me if someone at work called me honey. But I work in a law firm and I think most people know not to do that.
I think another factor in the Han/Leia situation is that Leia, from the get go, is established as a powerful character. One of the first things she says to Han is, “This is some rescue. When you came in here didn’t you have a plan for getting out?” Even while in the cell, Leia is not really intimidated asking Luke, “Aren’t you a little short for a storm trooper?” and telling Tarkin “I recognized your foul stench when I was brought on board.” It’s been years since I read Prince Joe but I don’t remember Veronica as having anywhere near as powerful a presence as Leia Organa.
Yep, Leia doesn’t take Han’s BS for one iota of a second!