September 19, 2003

What Is This Thing?

What is this thing? This thing called love, that is. For answers, we explore the romance novel industry, a $1.5 billion empire run almost entirely by and for women. Plus, relearning the rules of romance from the other side of the gender line. And Sarah Vowell tells the story of the Greatest Romance of the 20th Century.

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Transcript

Prologue

We hear Billie Holliday, Keely Smith and Leo Reisman (with Anita Boyer) asking the musical question, "What Is This Thing Called Love?" And, reporter Sean Cole talks about love with Joe and Helen Garland, who fell in love during World War II, but married other people. Thirty years later they met again, felt the same love they felt when they were young, divorced their respective spouses, and finally married each other. (6 minutes)

By

Sean Cole

Act One

Inside The Romance Industry

Robin Epstein visits people who define this thing called love—for a living. She attends the annual convention of the Romance Writers of America. (17 minutes)

By

Robin Epstein

Act Two

View From The Other Half

An act named after two TV shows, one where women sit around and talk, the other where men sit around and talk. If men are from Mars and women are from Venus, when you switch from one planet to another, what do you need to know about love? We hear from several transsexual men who've done exactly that. They were born as women, became men with the help of modern medical science, and had to re-learn how to love on the other side of the gender line. Griffin Hansbury reports. (22 minutes)