Green’s Dictionary of Slang

a historical novel (or film), with a greater than usual emphasis on sex, esp. the seduction or even rape of the heroine.

1990		Indep. 30 Oct. n.p.: Prototype bodice-ripper with 17th-century wild child Lorna [...] falling for her clan’s avowed enemy.
2000		M. Manning Get Your Cock Out 84: ‘I want to savour your body like wine’. Dandy didn’t know where the fuck that little piece of poetry had come from, probably one of her mother’s bodice rippers.
2021		J. Ellroy Widespread Panic 305: ‘I’m not calling them smut, but I’d call them “bodice-rippers,” with lots of skin and some pretty smutty scenes’.