Smart Bitches Trashy Books | All of the romance, none of the bullshit.

I feel compelled to post because I waited to have sex until I got married and I still stand by my decision as a good one for me. My husband waited for three years until we got married, so there are men willing to wait. I’ve heard the “try it before you buy it” argument but because I waited until I found someone I loved and trusted and who loved and trusted me in return sex wasn’t an issue. I think because we care so much about each other it is always good. Sometimes it is mind-blowing and sometimes it isn’t, and that’s okay, we love each other anyway. I think everyone is allowed to make their own decisions about how they want to live their lives but I know the decision I made saved me from a lot of heartache, unlike many of my friends who thought they had something special but in the end just had a jerk.

I think it’s a fascinting issue. The way Sandra Browne contortured her plots in order for heroes to magically discover the utterly unbelievable virginity of the (older, MARRIED) heroine makes my sciatica flare up just thinking about.

Mary Balogh does favor the Deliverer of the Orgasm, but she did have the balls to have a historical non-virgin and a guy who was cool with it, and I admired that.

What really gets up my nose are the historicals in which the heroine goes from incredibly pure to multiorgasmic in about three pages.

Also, I may be willing to buy some blood on the sheets in a historical, but in a contemporary it’s just stoopid.

(I’m amused to see that the word I must submit to post this is “making37.” Shouldn’t that be the title of a Lisa Klepas story?)

Virgins in contemporaries actually hit my squick factor for some reason or other. Especially when the heroine seems to know nothing about herself, her body and her guy’s body. I guess I expect my contemporaries to really be contemporary, rather than a fantasy land where sex in advertising (and just about everything else) doesn’t exist.

Maybe - and Linnet (and any other virgins out there) please do not take offense - I simply find it hard to believe that all of these women have managed to keep themselves intact in this day and age.

Yes, there are women out there, and the vast majority of these women seem to appear in contemporary romance. I would love to meet more than the odd heroine who is as sexually advanced as the hero PRIOR to meeting him. And if he is THE ONE, it’s not just due to his fabulous fizznuckin’.

Great post. Had me laughing out loud, cause I’m sooooooo with you. The modern 30 year old virgin heroine (who isn’t “saving” herself for religious reasons) makes me nuts. And I don’t have the temperament to read “Inspirationals”. Just not my cuppa. And I’m sick and tired of reading about eighteen year old virgins in histoircals (or worse, the dreaded virgin widow).

Maybe it’s cause I’ve always seen sex as good, clean fun (if done right and done safely). I’ve had great sex with men I barely knew, and I never slept with the guy I loved most on earth. One does not require the other.

I’m happy to say that in the books I just sold (which are historicals) there are NO virgins. And--gasp!--the heroines had great sex with their previous partner/s. OMG! Widows are so much more interesting (and scandalous ones who take lovers are even more fun; and historically accurate damn-it-all). My vow is no virgins, unless I can come up with a good reason to write one (and, quite frankly, I can’t image such a scenario).

Having said that, I’m sure I’ll dream up a plot soon that won’t work unless the heroine has never been married . . . LOL!

Sarah - I think your friend’s issue isn’t so much the “no nookie” as it is mentioning the word “marriage.” Frankly, most men I’ve known in my life will running screaming in the other direction at the mere mention of the dreaded “m” word.

I’m fine with virgins in contemporaries as long as they aren’t TSTL.  You’re going to put what where?! Linnet - while you and your husband waited I’m sure you both had an idea of how the whole thing worked ;-) It’s amazing that romance heroines aren’t the same.  Hello?  Have they avoided R-rated movies their whole lives?

What I find interesting is that when the heroine is a virgin the author rarely sees the need to explain - BUT - if the hero is a virgin he has to have a reason.  For instance, he was raised by wolves and has never seen a human woman until the heroine comes crashing through the forest one day after her car’s radiator explodes.  Whatever.

I agree 100% that contemporaries shouldn’t have non-religious, anatomically retarded heroines. Unless, they were raised on a commune or something. I don’t know anyone who’s a virgin for any reason other than religion--and if you get down to it, no matter how good the intentions, most nice Christian girls don’t seem to make it far past college with their virginity intact. That doesn’t make it implausible, though. It’s a choice made as an adult with an adult’s knowledge. Very few real innocents exist.

If there has to be a virgin, why can’t she have made it her own choice rather than just a societal constraint? Let it be her decision to want it. Making it the hero’s perogative is just more of women being told not to take responsibility or act on their desires. The message I get is that if you don’t start it, you don’t have to feel guilty later. Which is total bullshit. Contemporaries are often jaded or seem to be worldly-wise sex bombs that don’t seem to be aware that there’s anything between their legs.

...but even I who went to all Christian school, etc. knew more in middle school than most contemporary heroines do. Would it really be so bad for them to be realistically protrayed? Readers aren’t going to be shocked by the mention of sex in a romance novel. This is an annoying enough thing that I stick to historical for romance and pretty much keep contemporary confined to erotica/romantica. It seems like non-virginal historical chicks are mostly confined to secret baby plots, and those are easy enough to avoid.

I think the reason virgins populate romance is that first sex is such a milestone, even if it’s terrible (and it usually is). But contemporary women are young when they lose their virginity (I was 17) so it’s hard to formulate a story around a character who’s had not much life experience.

It irritates me to see the losing virginity scene in so many books as a bit of pain and then fabulous orgasms. The books where that doesn’t happen and the heroine is left thinking never again, are more interesting and provide more conflict.

I think you have discovered why some authors are stuck in ‘Romance’ and others get the joy of being in the ‘Fiction’ section of a bookstore as ‘chick-lit.’

Also, I have more than one friend who have gotten past 25 and maintained their virginity, not because of religion but for lack of timing and time.  Tho, I do doubt serverely that any of them would act timid if the opportunity and chemistry presented itself.  And since they are avid romance readers and went to public school in this great country, we can be assured that they know what goes where and how and the end result.

If the heroine isn’t a virgin in a historical, it generally becomes a plot device--is she a widow?  Abandoned by her lover? A skanky ho?  A good girl who thought it was true lurve?  There is an expectation that the author will explain why the heroine has deviated from the “norm”, and the trick is to use the heroine’s sexual history, or lack thereof, to advance the plot.  With a contemporary, this is less of an issue.

I believe the non-virgin contemporaries are more realistic.  I get thrown when a woman is 25 and still ‘pure’.  Kudos to you Linnet for making that decision and sticking with it.  I was too curious to wait for my DH (or even my 16th bday).

I don’t know many men that care.  My DH certainly didn’t.  As a matter of fact, I ‘deflowered’ him. 

Sam...who wonders what woman kept a flower up there…

After the discussion so far, I’m a bit embarrassed to say it, but I was a virgin until I was 32.

As an early teenager Catholic upbringing was a factor, but by the time I was in my twenties it was mainly due to lack of opportunity than anything else.  I was one of the highly academic and very socially inept girls.  The very few guys I did go out with just didn’t do anything for me and it ended very quickly.  I never had to decide whether or not to sleep with them because I didn’t like them enough to want to consider it.

Added to that I developed Chronic Fatigue Syndrome at 21 and that seriously curtailed my already meager social life.

I just happened that I was older when I finally found the right guy.

But I certainly knew how everything worked and wanted to find out for myself - at the time that was right for me and with the person I chose.

And that’s how it happened.

I guess that would be a boring plot though.

(Just thowing in another perspective here.)

Ahh, the virgin. What I hate the most is the virgin heroine who, apparently lacking either fingers or a shower massage, has never even realized her own sexuality. Until, that is the hero “awakens” it.

And why is it that romance novels so often equate virgin with total lack of experience with the opposite sex? For instance a YA novel that I read recently had a character, Manda, that was saving herself for “The One”. Yet her nickname was Lenda-Handa-Manda until she graduated to The Headmistress. Virgin? Yes. Virginal? No fuckin way. Her life was headed down Virgin Route 69 with road signs reading “Caution, Heavy Petting Ahead”

Bet she’d make an interesting romance heroine as a grown up.

I always found the eroticization of virgins squicky, especially when I was one. Which I was until 28.

But I’m talking less about first times in romance novels--which I see as female fantasies of (instant) gratification, idealized versions of what was probably for most of us an underwhelming experience, mixed with some wierd good girl politics--and more about the kind of guy who would offer obscene amounts of money for a night with the then-supposedly-virginal Brittney Spears. Or the way the public gobbled up the stuff about Jessica Simpson and Nick Lachey.

I’m not sure if I’m typical. I lost my religion at 27, then started dating. I don’t know if I would have broken the no-sex rule with a nice Christian boyfriend. I suspect not, because they didn’t just tell us to keep our hands to ourselves. They completely fucked us up when it came to sex. Like having us sign abstenance covenants at 13. Actually, it was a covenant for no action below halfway down my neck. I’m 31 and I still freeze around men who demonstrate interest in me, pretty much like I’m programmed to do.

But like I was trying to say above, I think there’s a difference between the way women and men eroticize virginity--those who do, anyway. I suspect for those men it’s something about power, the difference between girls and women. The latter being so much more intimidating… and critical.

He was, I wasn’t—kind of a table turning in the style of Dara Joy’s “Ritual of Proof.”

and my word to type was “like34”.  I saw the like & was looking for the number to be 69.  :-)

I always thought the virgin in romance was all about the fantasy for women who lost their virginity miserably. 

Is the virginity bit so readers can go back and redo the debacle of that sweaty 20 seconds in the uncomfortable backseat at fifteen, and all the sordid one night stands and sticky condoms later and pretend they kept their legs squeezed shut until their rich Prince rides in and sweeps them away like Calgon, breaking their unpenetrated hymen with his mighty cat-barb penis, carrying them away to the land of unparalleled passion forevah?

I thought that was it.

I only discovered this blog a few days ago (you made a sucky call night far far better).  Excuse me if I violate some rules of the blog. I am gosh 24 pushing 25 and a virgin. On the other hand, I sure as hell know that tab A can fit into slot B, C, and D and it can be a whole lotta fun. Truthfully, it’s cause I had/have shit to do.  So, I am looking forward to a dude who rings my bell.  But no guilt.  If I happen to meet someone and think we will be together, I don’t know if I will wait for marriage.  It would suck to like him and then find out he can’t roll the way I like it.  I see fast track to unhappiness there. 

Annoying is the virgin heroine who is a pure innocent and doesn’t know she has a clit or that she can get herself off.  Hello, videos, freaking Oxygen/We sex talk, get a clue.  Even better, she is afraid of the lust of the hero. WTF. But that’s the nice thing about erotica/romantica, they can get off and enjoy sex. Thanks for letting me get that out.  The book with pregnant virgin heroine (surrogate motherhood), I have the anthology, I recall saying WTF, it flew nicely.

I remember more than a few plots in older historicals and Harlequin Presents where the hero treats the heroine like total crap because he thinks she’s a slut, but then is undone by remorse and luuurve when he finds out during The Act that she’s a virgin.

Pretty interesting message there, huh? Not something I’d choose to perpetuate, that’s for sure.

I tend to read romances and then toss them aside. The plots are too canned to keep most of them. Thus, when I keep a romance novel, it’s for a very good reason.

I remember reading a historical and it was canned line, canned plot, canned characters… and then WHAM… the characters jump into bed and when the guy penetrates the herione he freezes… because she’s NOT a virgin. Duh Dun!

The book took off from there. I think if more romance novels broke away from the canned virginity plot structures they would be a lot better.

I read mostly historicals, so I tolerate virgin heroines more easily than in contemps. But even in historicals it’s getting pretty tired.

As for Monica’s point about the virgin heroine being a rewrite for the reader, a well-known Romance author made that same argument about her own work on AAR, so I’d have to say it has validity.

The thing I hate more than the standard virgin heroine is the almost virgin heroine who has had like one really terrible experience and who opens up like the proverbial flower of luv for all 10 throbbing inches of the hero (who was also the love of the heroine’s life at 13), going from 0 to 60 orgasms in a weekend.  I actually think that type of heroine is MORE effective at undermining women’s free and shameless sexuality in Romance than the regular old virgin heroine.  Oh, and let’s not forget the sexually abused heroine (i.e. in Linda Howard’s Dream Man) who, after a short time, opens up like the proverbial flower of luv to all 10 throbbing inches of the hero (Jo Goodman is probably the only Romance author whom I forgive for this plot device).  When the hero of Dream Man proceeded to push the heroine face-down and penetrate the her almost violently, I felt a rage matched only by that which I experienced when reading Brenda Joyce’s The Conqueror (see, just typing that is pissing me off).

I don’t mind virgins in historicals. My pet peeve is the “One quick moment of pain and then, OH!, the ass-clenching pleasure of it all! It was so good, in fact, that we’ll do it four more times before morning and then a quick bath will heal my abraded pussy.” Puh-lease. Honey, I’d close the store after a few times and I’ve birthed two children. These women must have Teflon coated gineys and callused clits. Or is it that special Healing Salve O’ Lurve in his come?

I’m still a big fan of True Love = Big Orgasm. Probably because I’ve never had mind-blowing sex with someone I wasn’t into. Though I tried. Many times. And masturbation just ain’t the same. Though I’ve tried. Many times.  8-/

Great discussion :) For this year’s NaNoWriMo, methinks I’ll write about an old fart virgin heroine whose 20-something psychologist boyfriend makes a telepathic connection with her hymen. He’ll assuage its existential angst over its impending destruction so that Mr. and Ms. can finally get busy with guilt free consciouses…

I don’t think it’s the state of the heroine’s hymen that bothers me--it’s the lazy writing. 

How to make a heroine likeable, and worthy of the oh-so-hot hero?  Well, you could do some tricky character building, or, what the heck.  Make her a virgin, or at least virginal.  Innocent, pure, waiting for the hero--yep, all good. 

How to show that the hero’s The One? Show the development of emotion between them, how their characters complement each other, or.... Easy--he’s her first, or at least the first to give her an orgasm (because we all know that Orgasms are Gifts from the man-gods). 

Which is not to say that I think all virgin heroines are the result of lazy writing.  I’ve read plenty that aren’t.  But because so many of them are, an author has a harder time convincing me with a virgin heroine than she does with one who isn’t.

Love the theory, btw, that the fantastic first time is wish fulfillment for those of us whose first time was… not so great.

This is an issue that really does get to me.

I started off with Mills and Boon (although I have to say, only because I was a speed reader, read through most of the library by the age of 12 and needed something to read that was regularly updated).

It always bothered me that 90% of the books had two types of storylines.  Both types had a relationship with a guy, which was then scuppered when the guy thought the girl had cheated on him with someone else. Years later they meet again and the guy is all bitter and twisted about it.  In one arch they have sex, he finds out that she is still a virgin, he is all repentant, and they live happily ever after.  In the other arch they had already had sex, and she was a virgin at the time.  When they re-meet she has had a child, which looks like the guy, she has had sex with no-one else, he realises that she didn’t cheat, he is all repentant and they live happily ever after.

So you can either be a virgin or be pregnant.

Remind me to never live in Mills and Boon land.

I moved from Mills and Boon to the other extreme - Jilly Cooper, which were far more interesting and (a little) more realistic.

Personally I think I would like a book where the heroine has had all the sexual experience and the hero is the virgin, or scrap the virginity all together!

I stayed a virgin until I was married but, I also got married on my 23rd birthday, just after I finished grad school.  For me, keeping my virginity was all about a mistrust of birth control.  I had seen too many of my friends play the waiting game and decided to wait until, if I did get pregnant, I could support myself and the baby.  That meant waiting until I finished schooling and could get a decent job.  If I hadn’t gotten married so young, I probably would have sewn some wild oats.

On the issue of virgins in romance, SEP is the only consistant 30-year-old-virgin author I will still keep on my “buy” list and even she annoys me.  What I want to know is, where are all the male virgins- especially in historicals.  Where did they find all these women to gain their lusty experiences?  Where are all the bastard children- if you do it with anything that moves for 15 years before finding your true love, there have to be a few “souveniers.” And how are all these horseback riding women hanging on to their hymens- wasn’t that an issue?

For the older virgins in contemporaries, I wonder where there hang-ups go.  I would expect to see some body issues, some aprehension, perhaps some history of abuse, some therapy needs- not in all of them, but it should be present in at least some cases.  After all, it’s not realistic to think that ALL of them are waiting for religious purposes- some of them MUST have hang-ups.

Oh!  And I forgot my favorite virgin romance corallary- if you have sex you will get pregnant, even if it’s just once and you did use some form of birth control because, we all know, them virgins is easy to knock-up…

Just as an aside--wasn’t “Connie Swail” the heroine in the Tom Hanks/Dan Ackroyd “Dragnet”?  The one who was always introduced as “the virgin Connie Swail?”

Anyone?  Bueller?

Yo!  Bitches!  I need a post-upload edit key!  The question mark in “the virgin Connie Swail” belongs on the outside.

I get annoyed by scenes where the two lovers are getting it on and suddenly he realizes that she is a virgin and then he is in awe and it makes her such a better person and all that. I don’t understand the appeal of virgins to some men. My theory is that it’s an ego thing for these men-maybe a guy will think that if he sucks at what he’s doing in the sack she won’t know because she will have no other experience to compare it to. I bet a lot of girls who makes those true-love-wait pledges believe they will probably marry young away. I didn’t wait until marriage and I’m glad since I’m 30 and still single so I would be climbing the walls by now! I grew up thinking I would marry around 20, but it didn’t happen. Since there is an unequal number of men and women there is no way everyone can get married. Therefore, I think it will be unfair and make no sense to only allow married folks to enjoy what I think is the birthright of every man and woman.

Wow! Try reading that post in between bosses popping up and the phone ringing.

My gripe is the virgins - of any time period - who are blasting out orgasms within three minutes of the hero touching her through her jeans. I read one yesterday where the hero grinded up against the heroine with both their clothes on and she’s seeing stars twice.

Darla, excellent excellent post!  I couldn’t agree more!  Nevertheless, I shall put my two cents in.  I’m probably reiterating, but who cares?

The fact is, if you were raised in this country you can not help but be familiar with the “good” girls don’t and “bad” girls do social norm.  Certainly religious influence takes that norm to double espresso proportions, but we all know a girl or two in high school who was a slut because she “slept” around.

Romance (I’m speaking very generally here) takes that norm and bears out its significance very formulaically:

virgin= a rich wonder cock, sacred, perfect love, a blissful marriage, and a general reversal of all the bad that has happened.

nonvirgin= heartbreak, poverty, loneliness, and more bad on top of bad.

This may seem an example of extreme fictionalization, but think about the slut you knew in high school.  How was she treated by her peers?  Did your parents let you hang out with her?  Did anyone expect her to do anything successful with her life?  (I met my high school slut at a reunion, with no expectation about her in mind.  In fact, I forgot she existed, but when I saw her again, it all came back to me.  I’m humiliated to say, was actually surprised that she had an enormously successful life.)

Okay.  Naturally, historical romance can get away with this ideology because of the constraints of the time period within which they are set (though, Loretta Chase’s Lord of Scoundrels is fantastic example the difference between virginity and innocence AND deliberate versus lazy, unconscious writing).  Contemporary romances with virginal heroines, I believe, still try to bear out that tired ideology because, it has, sadly, not outlived its usefulness.

I remember reading about a “Sex in the City” poll (a couple or three years ago):  of the four leads who would men want to date the most and least.  Naturally the Charlotte character (the relative good girl on the show) got all the votes while the Samantha character (the bad chick) got very few.

Sure, a lot of the virgin/heroine thing is, as Darla beautifully said, lazy writing and to that I would add unconscious, but how much of it is just reflective of who we are as a people and the ideology that we are most comfortable with?  It would be one thing if these virgin/heroine contemporaries didn’t sell, but they fly off the shelves.

Sorry for the long post, but it’s a complex and fascinating issue.

Sarah - every time I read the “virgin Connie Swail” comment in this post or the comments to it - I get a flashback to the end of Dragnet… the ‘dum-de-dum-dum’ and Friday’s raised eyebrow.  :lol:

As to the virginity-in-modern-romance novels thing, I think a part of it is that ‘traditional’ romance novels are accepted, in some areas considered almost ‘mainstream’, and you tend to write conservatively.  I’m certain that you can’t complain that for the most part America is swinging toward a ‘publically conservative’ morality… right down to the ‘don’t talk about sex where any child can hear it’ reaction of the FCC lately, ie. WB’s The Bedford Diares reedit for broadcast.

So, erotica and erotic romance, essentially outside the mainstream, can be a bit more ‘liberal’ in their dealings with sexuality and virginity then the traditional romances.  In many ways it’s just the thing - no worries - the pendulum will swing the other way soon enough.  (Just look at the popularity of all the Gay romances. :) )

[And gee - my code word reflects me today… lost22.]

Losing my virginity was the single most interesting event in my life.

I freely admit that my early teenage thoughts about M&B/category books were something like: There’s a possibility of sex! In a book! In the library! That I can reeeeeaaaaaddd!!!! Hahahahahaaaa!!!! But it also really bothered me that in so many stories any betrayal was automatically linked with sexual betrayal. This meant the heroine’s virginity was the proof of her innocence of all accusations. And so they fell by the wayside.

What I mean by this is that in a typical plot Carlos-the-hero would at some point become convinced that Gwendoline-the-heroine or one of her relatives had done him (or a vulnerable relative) wrong, cueing flinty eyes and steely rage. Needless to say, this was invariably due to something like Carlos seeing Gwendoline with another man, usually a wastrel relative who was the cause of the betrayal. Carlos would then automatically assume Gwendoline was sleeping with said wastrel, and therefore convince himself of her impurity, giving him licence to treat her most foully and shag her. Poof, no hymen. Poof Carlos realises he’s been So Very Wrong All Along About Everything (possibly only after Gwendoline experiences a nearly fatal accident). Poof, happy ending.

Which seemed weird. For one thing, even in my then-virginal state, I had an inkling that my parents would not accept the continued existence of my hymen as proof that I was thereby incapable of sneaking into pubs with badly-forged ID, smoking or plotting the hideous murder of those who dared to thwart me in my quest for world domination. What’s also interesting about this is the way her losing her virginity is a pivotal point in the story.

I’ve also got a few pet theories about virgins being blank slates on which women can project their own desires without guilt, as well as the age-old confusion of sexual desire with luuuurrrrvvve which I think come into this.

Of course, there are other plots, and other virgins. So many other virgins. I’ve rattled on elsewhere about the teeth-grinding annoyance of the “mental” virginity of heroines, and the contemporary heroine’s complete ignorance of sexual matters, and the way this knowledge is bequeathed by the man. To say nothing of the way he “knows” the way to arouse her into a frenzy of passion.

So it’s not the existence of virgins per se, but their astonishing naivety and disproportionate number in romances in general that I find annoying; the way it seems to still be the default setting for a heroine, and nothing to do with the choices she makes.

As for those technically virgin births… I make condescending doggy-pants and patronising little “ooh! ooh! push harder!” noises at them and their angelically perfect, vomit-free children. I’ve definitely read more than one, including a Diana Palmer where the heroine was still intact after childbirth. The name of the book eludes me, but it’s one that’s set in the town populated by billionaire cowboys and secret agents with the great big sign out the front that reads: “Welcome to Cowboyville. No male dress shoes or non-virgin heifers aloud (sic).” Sigh.

It’s so refreshing when you read a Jennifer Crusie book and the first time between the h/h is boring or just kinda sucks. It’s just...not going to be that good, probably. Hell, I can’t even REMEMBER the first times I slept with my exes. I’m guessing it was that bad :P

Oh, hey, I thought of another virgin mommy book: The Jewels of Tessa Kent. The guy had a microdick and didn’t even stick it in far enough to break the seal, and yet managed to impregnate. I think she even had an intact hymen post-birth too somehow, because it was this Big Deal that she married her husband as a “virgin” and never told him otherwise.

But I must second the SB line that there needs to be an explanation for why someone’s a virgin or not in the time period that they’re in. Sorry to all y’all real life virgins, but I think there needs to be one. Especially so the story doesn’t come across as, well, some of the bad examples mentioned in this entry and in the comments.

I’ve also got a few pet theories about virgins being blank slates on which women can project their own desires without guilt, as well as the age-old confusion of sexual desire with luuuurrrrvvve which I think come into this.

I can’t speak for the rest of the world, but I think Americans are rip roaringly screwed up about sex (and NOT in a good way).  Women, especially, for all our strides elsewhere still, IMO, feel guilt and shame regarding our sexuality and feel really uncertain about what’s okay and what’s not to express (let alone feel any automony and confidence in).  If we want too much (whatever that is), we’re sluts and nymphos, but if we don’t want enough (whatever that is) we’re frigid.  Then, of course, are all the ways virtue is almost exclusively associated with a woman’s sexuality (as opposed to virtue as a male ideal, of course, as in virtu=the best that man can do).  Romance, being concerned with all things woman, reflects this ambivalence, of course.

I don’t find virgin heroines necessarily good or bad, but I am concerned about the ways some Romance may, somtimes be affirming a persistent ambivalence toward women’s sexuality rather than healing our torn sexual-cultural psyches.  Ironically, I’ve found some of the most conservative messages in erotic Romance, perhaps because I was so blatantly expecting something else.  And I do actually believe that on the flip side, some Romance is really trying to work through these ambivalences, to find some empowering and positive resolution (i.e. Jennifer Crusie or Lisa Cach’s Dream of Me, which was one of the first Romances I’ve read that explicitly deals with transforming negative sexual messages and experiences into positive ones).  So I don’t think the genre’s wholly one way or the other.  What I really do believe, though, is that when women really do take control of our sexuality and declare it ours and ours to keep or share as we wish and desire, the Romance genre will change substantially.

On the issue of virgins in romance, SEP is the only consistant 30-year-old-virgin author I will still keep on my “buy” list and even she annoys me.

Am I the only one who is disturbed by the way she seems to use a heroine’s being boinked by the hero as a way of “reclaiming her womanhood” (I think that exact phrase exists in Nobody’s Baby But Mine when Phoebe mounts Cal).  It reminds me of all those historicals that refer to a woman’s vagina as her “womanhood” and SEP is no less essentialist, IMO.  I’ve tried to find evidence of subversion for this stereotype in her books, but I can’t.  And it’s weird because in other ways she creates seemingly strong heroines who appeal to me in some ways.  Then there was that horrifying “uptight heroine who needs to be sexed up and loosened up by the hero, whence she proceeds to fully domesticate the heretofore untamed but still deliciously dangerous hero” deal in Breathing Room.  I feel toward SEP the way evangelical Christians must feel about that apple.  I’m attracted and repulsed at the same time. I read almost for the sheer fascination and then feel horrible afterwards.

What I want to know is, where are all the male virgins- especially in historicals.

Try Patrica Gaffney’s Wild at Heart.  Oh, what a delicious book that is!  AND very affirmative in its treatment of BOTH the hero and the heroine’s sexuality.  Laura Kinsale’s The Shadow and the Star also features a virgin hero, but the book is a lot more angsty (necessarily and powerfully, though).

I was 26 when I lost mine.  It was a mixture of religious reasons and timing and I did think my ex bf was going to be “the one”.

I don’t mind reading romance novels with virgins. My problem as a few others have said is the idea of the first time being some mind blowing orgasmic thing and then having sex three more times that night.

Well, I’m (god help me) almost 28, and a virgin. No religious reasons, no waiting for marriage, I just got to an age where I decided, hey I’ve waited so long, I might as well wait for a guy that makes the wait worth it. Til then, I uh keep myself occupied. But I also know that I AM an oddity. My friends are all like WTF is wrong with you?

So like others, in romance, it’s not the virgins per se, but their disproportionate, irritatingly ignorant prevalence that’s just so ridiculous and insulting. I mean who the hell hasn’t heard of a vibrator for gods sakes??

OT: I’m always been puzzled by the idea that romance is a subversive genre. I know that it CAN be, but the stories that are subversive are usually subverting societal AND genre norms and/or perceptions. But still those types of stories, while arguably increasingly common, are a relatively new thing. I find most romance past and present overwhelmingly traditionalist, even erotic romance. I’m curious what it is that people find about the genre itself--as opposed to individual books--subversive.

What bugs me just as much is the way enjoyment of any sort of sexual pleasure that’s not connected to the hero has frequently been demonized as well.

Yes, because it’s all part and parcel of the same thing.  How many times do you see the heroine having to be taught by the hero that her desires are healthy—he’s the one who give the heroine permission to enjoy her sexuality (as long as it’s with him, of course!).  I don’t, ironically, see this as the problem of big bad patriarchy, though, as much as I see it as a general cultural tendency to still see authority in general as gendered male.  Whether we’re conforming or rebelling, as long as we somehow orient ourselves toward a sense of authority that skews male, we’re likely to defer on those terms.  It’s like we need an entire cultural transformation such that values like wisdom, authority, virtue, power, love, caretaking, etc. are not so strongly (en)gendered.

Hey you all,

I’m right there with you on many of these points, but I think there’s a point about the virgin heroine no one’s brought up yet.  The virgin can be a strong female power fantasy, too.

I know a lot of women and girls who are really, REALLY unhappy with how they ‘lost it’.  They were pressured, they made a bad choice, they were too young, or they were even forced, and it was hardly EVER fun.

So a book that gives us the fantasy of a virgin having

1. Control over the who, and the when
2. Fun (the “instant multi-orgasmic” heroine)

...can be very good escapist entertainment. 

Virgin books can also play into the fantasy of “If only I’d started out the right way, my sex life wouldn’t be so screwed up now.  It was Joe’s fault, back in 1989, the insensitive 16 year old bastard!”

Another thought: cast your minds back to the long-ago in your own life, before the “first time”.  Do you remember the POWER of being a virgin and just saying “no” again...and again...and again… hahahaha (evil virgin laughter)?  The virgin bitch could be a powerful icon, smart enough to know what she *doesn’t* want, getting wicked pleasure out of making men beg.  Oops, now I’m giving myself away.  Remember that 80’s song, “I Know What Boys Like”?

Thing is, I don’t think any of the current crop of virgin books have virgin bitch heroines.  Sigh.

So a book that gives us the fantasy of a virgin having

...can be very good escapist entertainment.

I agree with this, and generally prefer a heroine who enjoys sex (even if it’s wildly unrealistic in how she’s portrayed) than one who struggles with it.  When Candy mentioned Laura Kinsale, I immediately thought of Merlin from Midsummer Moon, whose free attitude toward sexuality was one of the things I liked most about her (it was classic watching the hero strain for a propriety the heroine couldn’t even see).

I think, though, that there’s a slim and slippery line between portraying a woman who exercises real autonomous control over her sexuality and one who waits (for whatever reason) and then falls prey to the incredible power and prowess of the hero’s penis, giving over all sense of control she once had in exchange for the hero’s sex and love. 

But I certainly agree with you that the virgin bitch heroine can be lots of fun AND really empowering when done well.

JAK’s Amanda Quick backlist is also pretty good about the first time not being mindblowing. The hero usually knows it and is eager to show her just how good it can be.

re: virgin bitch.
agreed, i’m 23 and i am one.  if someone hasn’t written one of those yet, maybe i’ll write an autobiography :P

“This may seem an example of extreme fictionalization, but think about the slut you knew in high school.  How was she treated by her peers?  Did your parents let you hang out with her?  Did anyone expect her to do anything successful with her life?  (I met my high school slut at a reunion, with no expectation about her in mind.  In fact, I forgot she existed, but when I saw her again, it all came back to me.  I’m humiliated to say, was actually surprised that she had an enormously successful life.)”

Speaking as a Former High School Slut, I think, even at that tender age, it’s all about choices.

Those of us sluts who were genuinely into sexual experimentation for the experience and gratification—right alongside our male peers—and understood and managed the risks and consequences, probably came out all right. 

Those of us who were looking for love in all the wrong places probably encountered misfortune and misery.

I did a little of both, and learned a tremendous amount about myself and other people. At forty, I can say I regret specific incidents in my sexual history, but I’ve never regretted my history as a whole. I’ve certainly never regretted choosing to BE sexually experienced rather than inexperienced.

Oddly enough, my husband—who has only ever slept with me and one other woman, to whom he was also married—agrees.

I’ll be honest with you - I wanted to BE the slutty girl in my high school, because when I got up the nerve to ask her about the rumor that she gave good head, and how she felt about it, she replied, “At least it was good.” She totally didn’t care because she had enough confidence to know what she did and didn’t do and wow, I was blown away.

I agree that a virgin bitch would be a very interesting character to write. I’m not sure I’ve seen such a creature in the hallowed halls of Romancelandia, however.

Myself, I was a virgin dork. I was all “OMG you find me sexually attractive? HELL YES I want to have sex, wheeee!”

I’ve learned to be somewhat more cautious and selective, but overall, my first lover wasn’t BAD. Just not too terribly good, once my excitement over the novelty wore off.

I want a romance about lusty evangelical teenage virgin boys ripe for deflowering. With stuff like this: “He quivered in anticipation as she loomed over him, her pendulant breasts swaying like two ripe melons ready for the plucking. Billy uttered a quick prayer for the sin he was about to commit. His innocent male member, harder than the stone columns supporting Reverend Gleamingteeth’s church, strained against his Guess jeans. Sally Slutpuppy smacked her lips as she slowly unzipped him, eyeing his towering hardness like his pudgy kid sister salivating over a double chocolate dipped cone at Dairy Queen.”

“The only evangelicals who don’t look forward to the Rapture are teenage boys, who desperately want to have sex before the Rapture occurs. Teen evangelical boys usually drift to sleep each night praying fervently that God will delay the Rapture until they can lose their virginity. The threat of Rapture also helps to explain the young age at which evangelicals get married and begin breeding. “

From, “A Field Guide to Evangelicals and Their Habitat” by Joel Kilpatrick

“OMG you find me sexually attractive? HELL YES I want to have sex, wheeee!”

Isn’t that a turning point in your life? When you realize that you don’t have to be flattered that the cute guy wants to have sex with you? Gawd. And does anyone else look back at pictures of themselves in high school and say, “Holy Mother of Fuck, I was HAWT! Why didn’t I know that then?”

And I love that “Recent Bitching” says “Victoria Dahl said ‘OMG you find me sexually attractive?’” I think it’s going to be the opening line of my next book.

The virgin heroine does have the advantage of getting rid of the possibility that the heroine might compare the hero with an ex-boyfriend. After all, it’d be pretty hard on Fabio Q. Man-Titty’s ego to have to tell him that his ten inches of throbbing love just don’t compare with that boy back in high school who tried, like, *foreplay*.

More generally, ex-boyfriends pose a whole host of story issues. Was the heroine in love with the ex? If so, how does she know this guy’s different? If not, does she really love the new guy, or is she just horny again?

Of course these are surmountable — after all, the heroes are rarely virgins (though their exes are always invisible) but it’s just plain *simpler* if she’s a virgin.

And, of course, we *are* still more willing to think of a girl who sleeps around as a slut than a guy. (The situation is reversed, incidentally, when it comes to same-sex relations; make of that what you will.)

Virgin bitches? Heh, there’s a lot around. Come on, American Beauty had the classic virgin bitch. :-) Or was she more of a poser?

To me, what really matters is if the story, characters, and writing are interesting, then it becomes moot point if they’re virginal or not. However, people enjoy reading stories they can relate to, and perhaps that’s why I have a certain fondness in reading stories with virgin heroines.

While it seems a lot of you find it sooo unrealistic to read a virgin waiting for love, this is what most of my friends and I did in real life, and with generally happy results. And none of us are necessarily prudes or religious either. Just romantic, busy, and picky. ;-)

However, virgin does not necessarily equal complete inexperience, cold, or clueless. I don’t like reading when women are so completely submissive, as if they just lay like cardboard while Mr. Orgasmo does all the “magic work.”

I enjoy reading stories where the woman may have some uncertainty at first (that’s realistic), but then impishly takes control and is adventurous in bed when the intial confusion wears off.

Why aren’t more virgins teases? I’m 24, a virgin because of a heady blend of religious upbringing and academia. Not all evangelicals are prudes, ya know… One of my friend’s moms said to my mom when they met for the first time (we were about 13), “Oh don’t you just love Jesus even better than sex?! ...if that’s possible!” Which my mom thought was hilarious and has used repeatedly. Ok, we’re probably not the norm.

The power of knowing a lot but not acting on it is good stuff. I think that if you’re going to be a virgin for ideological reasons, then nothing below the belt should be going on because what value is technicality anyway? There’s a lot to be said for knowing that I could be a very virginal bride who can deepthroat (girl’s night, bananas, condom application dares...you get the picture). TMI?

The point is that choosing to submit to one person because you want to is a powerful statement. Maybe I just like control. Anyway, back OT, what someone was saying about the power of a virgin bitch is great stuff for tension. It’s strong stuff to realize that you can make people want you and say no. The unavailability makes you hotter. Most especially because you know and they know you know. EH has some choosy virgins like in Hunting Midnight.

There has already been a virgin-bitch autobiography and ohmigod was it tedious.  Nothing but her prurient “anything but” exploits over and over and… I wish I could remember the title, since it was the best part. Anyway, the field is certainly still open.

Re: waiting for love. Surely many of us did? It’s just that in romance novels, that guy you’re crazy about when you’re 18 winds up being your One True Love a hell of a lot more often than he does in real life.  But I was my husband’s first girlfriend, so I have no axe to grind with virgins. ;-)

I have just reread Crusie’s Faking It and laughing my a*se off at the hero trying to pull the ‘one taste of my nether rod and you will be mine’, followed by ‘no really This Time it will happen, promise’. Plus the heroine kept turning him down because she had a vibrator with which she had a special relationship.  It was fantastic!

It was a splendid antidote to all those romances I read growing up [sex! in books I could get from the library!] in which all non-virgins, or suspected nono-virgins, were somehow less human and could be treated with contempt.

Prime example of this was a Judith McNaught book in which the hero talks the heroine out of the Big V with the argument that, well, he would respect her in the morning. And then he didn’t. He treated her like a slapper for putting out and it took a couple of hundred pages for him to get over himself. And obviously realise it was True Lurve. Because otherwise he wouldn’t hate her so.
[no, really, this was essentially the plot]

More generally, ex-boyfriends pose a whole host of story issues. Was the heroine in love with the ex? If so, how does she know this guy’s different? If not, does she really love the new guy, or is she just horny again?

Good point, Anne.  That’s also why so many heroines are orphaned only children.  If she has a family, the story has to deal with it, at least enough to explain why they never show up.  Simpler to kill the family all off or have them never exist in the first place. 

So if your heroine’s a virgin, you don’t have to get into her romantic history because there isn’t one.  (I’m ignoring the fact that a romantic history doesn’t necessarily include intercourse because the books do, too.)

I like reading virgin-on-purpose books as long as the author (and character) aren’t making a huge EVENT about the whole thing. that is she either wants to lose it NOW or she is so determined to save it she’s lost track of what’s most important in a relationship. That makes it a wallbanger.

My last EC book was all about a male virgin—and he was just about clueless too. (it was based on a really funny Mrs. G essay about the standard virgin who never has an orgasm until some guy shows her how. She said she wanted to read about a the male virgin nearly as cluless--"holy cow! What’s that white stuff coming out of my body???"-- so I wrote it)

hey, can this count as an entry into the bwhahahaha contest?

hey, since I’m blogwhoring myself come see the funny GM ads in my blog. hey, that isn’t really all about me though.

hey.

Where have I been for the last two days?  This has been such an interesting topic to read about. 

On the subject of virgin heroes, one of the bits I liked best in Outlander was where the older, experienced heroine deflowers her new husband.  Oh la la - but also a sweetly realistic sex scene.  From memory, when Claire has an orgasm Jamie is all ‘oh my God I’ve just broken something what did I do?’.