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This article seeks to contribute to ongoing debates about whether popular romance novels are pornography or not. I argue that we might reframe the question and instead of focusing on kinds, we might, rather, focus on degrees. For instance, how might scholars of the romance draw upon beefcakes, pin-ups, and softcore in these debates? To these ends, I consider various scenes from several novels in which the hero/male protagonist is naked and argue for a softer and thus a softcore reading. These scenes are divided into two categories: in the first, the hero is seen naked or imagined naked; and in the second, the hero is in the shower. Additionally, I draw upon both male/female and male/male romance novels to show why nakedness matters in the novel.

Softcore romance: on naked heroes and beefcakes in popular romance novels