Hubby showed me Dear Abby’s column in the paper today, wherein a woman writes that she is concerned about her 14 year-old daughter’s romance novel reading, because the content is too explicit and mature for her age. The daughter told her that “there is nothing in the books that she didn’t already know about, and having learned about sex and relationships in school, there is no reason why she shouldn’t be allowed to read what she wants.” The mother is concerned that “her current reading choices [will] cause future problems”
Abby’s response is interesting:
Literature may have become more risque than years ago, but these days the chances of sheltering your “mature, straight-A student” are slim. Rather than censor her reading, stress to her that if she has any questions about anything she can come to you for straight answers. (You could also keep the channels of communication open by asking her to lend you the books when she’s finished reading them.)
Some might argue that the idealized depiction of romance, and women being “rescued” by powerful, wealthy men, is more worrisome than the sex and eroticism. However, if you are raising your daughter to respect feminist principles, I don’t think you have anything to worry about.
There certainly remains a niche of the romance genre that reintroduces the “rescue” format, but if the mother (and Abby) took a look at current romance trends, from the paranormal heroines (and heroes) to the Bombshell ass kicking accountants, for example, there’s no shortage of heroines that embody “feminist principles.”
Maybe this girl needs a reading list. What’s your favorite heroine that embodies strength, self-reliance and independence?
I wrote about this back before Freebird was born, before I knew he was a he, but the question still pops up now and again. Would you let your 14 year old daughter read romance? I’ve met 14 year olds of varying degrees of maturity, but without a list of specific conditions, I’d have to say yeah, I surely would, because I’d much rather a teenager learn about sex from the context of romance than from current pervasive and prurient portrayals of violent sexuality.
I started pilfering romances from my mom when I was nine, simply because I had run out of decent reading material. My mom found out about 10, and while she didn’t really approve, the only thing she said was “Don’t store books on the radiator” and “Have any questions?” By 14, I was having full discussions on the merits of plot and character in romances with my mom. Now that I look back, I’m sure she would have liked me to have read romances that were less sexually explicit when I was first starting out, but romances were what solidified what wasn’t the strongest relationship I had.
So yay romance! Yay teenage depravity! Yay loose parenting!
My mother introduced me to Georgette Heyer when I was about 10 or 11. All this new and exciting reading material did wonders for my vocabulary (odious! solicitously! maquillage! bang-up turnouts!). A year later, I was surreptitiously filching her “contemporary” reading material … Fear of Flying, The Ladies’ Room, and of course the infamous Naked Came the Stranger (oops, just gave away my age, huh?). I must say that the descriptions of and attitudes surrounding sex in today’s romances are frequently a great deal healthier than anything in those three books, especially the last one. (Going on a revenge-sex spree, just because you caught your husband with some bimbo? Where your actions cause at least two deaths, one of which was a suicide? Cripes.)
So yes, I would let a 14-year-old read romance novels. Why not? I would have already visited the library several years earlier to have the “my kid can check out any book s/he wants” conversation with the librarians.
I started at 13, with a Mills&Boon. However, I swiftly moved on to bigger, thicker novels, and the sexual explicitness grew exponentially. But then, it was the 90s, and even the good ol’ M&B had the bedroom door at least partially ajar. My mom, if I remember correctly, didn’t much care. In fact, she asked me to hand over the good ones so she could read them. But 2 things: first I was a farm kid, so I knew pretty much all there was to know about reproduction by the time I was 6. I was the kid in the schoolyard to talk to about this stuff. And second, I read practically everything I could get my hands on, and the stuff I was reading in Stephen King and Dean Koontz was a lot scarier, sexually, than any romance novel. There were rapes and attacks and, well, sex from a man’s point of view which can still be somewhat frightening 😉 . Yet those authors are more acceptable for teens. Why, oh why is violence okay but sex a reason to censure?
I just had a discussion with a friend last night about this very subject. My daughter is fifteen and she had been asking to read some of the romances that make me laugh out loud. I kept telling her to wait because a lot of them do go into heavy detail in sex and yeah, I know she knows about it, but as a mom, it felt weird giving her the books.
I finally decided to let her try since I was even younger when I read my first. Also, she’s pretty mature and intelligent and she felt ready.
She went through a series of three books in two days! This is a child I had to force to read for years. Now it’s her favorite thing to do. She isn’t vegging in front of music videos and she’s laughing and talking over the plots with me—she loves them! And since I’ve got keeper shelves everywhere, she’s constantly going over all the books.
We’re having a blast and now I’m reliving some of my favorite books through her—even rereading them myself.
I’d say that if the daughter is fairly mature, why not? BTW, the book she really wanted to read was Undead and Unwed. I kept thinking about that scene on the roof with the intern.
She laughed and giggled and zipped through that book so fast. She had the next two and was using babysitting money to hunt down the fourth. I asked her if she had any questions and she just grinned at me and said, “Uh no.”
They grow up…
I started reading Amanda Quick novels when I was 14 and devoured all of them to move on to Nora Roberts a year later. I had actually not been a fan of reading until I picked up a romance novel. It appealed to me more than any other genre and it’s still my favorite escapist fiction. What the mother is probably most concerned about in this article is that exposure to romance novels may make her daughter more promiscuous from the exposure. I actually didn’t even date until I went to college, so I know this is false in my case. I’m curious to know, however, if this is a valid concern? I felt like the novels helped me to respect myself more and wait for someone who would be worthy of me and respect my needs. Thoughts, ladies?
I have a fouteen year old daughter who reads on a college level. I don’t censor her reading, though I do censor her activities(no dating older boys etc). My mother never censored my reading, and I had access to my much older brother’s fiction and I can’t see that it made me into uncontrollable teen trouble.
My daughter has read some Dan Brown and Stephan King, but she really prefers young adult fantasy and sci fi. She read all the libraries young adult(non romance) manga this summer.
Has she swiped a few of my Blaze books? Probably, they are not kept in a locked cabinet, afterall. Am I worried? No. She can read about twenty something characters having sexy romances, but her life style will still be that of a fouteen year old girl—school, homework, braces, band practice, sleep overs, middle school dances, Latin club…what she reads and what she lives are not the same thing!
I think that Abby’s answer was spot on. Children differ in their maturity level, but most 14 year olds should be able to handle romance. I also started with romance at a very young age. I have always been a voracious reader and my Sainted Mother kept a steady supply around the house. She was a nurse and I don’t even remember not knowing where babies REALLY came from. I can say that some of the stuff I got my paws on was not the best thing for a young teen to be reading, specifically, the prevalence of rape as a plot device which The Bitchery has discussed in the past. I was also reading Stephen King at that age. *sigh* Still, I have recovered with very little emotional scarring, at least not from romance novels. 😉
I, too, question the violence vs. sex problem. One of the best examples was when the movie Titanic came out. Everyone seemed to object to the love scene between the main characters, while no one seemed to notice all the violent death. Why are we so careful to shield our children from something that they are expected to experience while at the same time we ignore what we hope they will never experience?
Oh, man. I started reading Stephen King when I was around 12, and I got away with relatively little damage. I think Abby’s right on, and I think it applies to everything – not just reading. Movies, music, everything. Right now my kids are very young, so I still monitor what they watch, but not too stringently, and by helping them process what they do see, I get a good sense for what they’re ready to think about. They’ve watched Buffy with us (although, mostly, just the musical episode) and as they get older, I’m going to loosen up more. My only problem is them reading my books. It’s bad enough having to think about my mother and my husband’s parents and grandmother reading what I write. I don’t want my daughters reading my sex scenes. It’s just… igh. As I don’t plan on censoring their choices, though, I’m just going to have to hope and pray that they find it “igh”y too and help me dodge that bullet.
As for the books I’d really like them to read for strong female role models – definitely Jennifer Crusie and Susan Elizabeth Phillips. Georgette Heyer. Jane Austen, of course. There’s loads of good stuf out there, and I think that even the bad stuff is worthy of discussion. Right now, my oldest is starting in on Harry Potter and has expressed interest in the Lemony Snicket books (she’s seven; I’m giving her time to get to Heyer) and I’m looking forward to us reading the same stuff. My youngest, who’s almost five, is still solidly in the Dr. Seuss camp, so I’m waiting patiently. I love that they’re reading, and excited by words and stories. Gives me a little thrill every time I see either of them with a book.
As long as it’s not mine. 🙂
I have posted here before but today I’m anonymous because … well, you’ll see.
We’ve got one daughter, a senior in high school. Our stance has always been that she can read anything that interests her. We prefer that she is open about her reading habits so we can talk to her. This meant she went through the awful Goosebumps stage when she was about eight. I never criticized anything she wanted to read, but I talked to her about the books and worked hard to make her comfortable coming to both of us with questions. She is free to read anything in the house or library, to spend her own money on books.
She doesn’t show much interest in romance. What she does read (and watch) with great interest are stories about gay and lesbian relationships. She prefers the gay to the lesbian. She also reads a lot of nonfiction on gender issues, sexuality studies and gay rights (she has a subscription to The Advocate). But her reading material of first choice: novels written by gay men about lives of gay men. Christopher Rice, Alan Hollinghurst, David Leavitt, etc. She also watches any movie with a gay theme. She adored Brokeback Mountain.
This is not the kind of thing that worries us. Drugs would worry us, but an abiding interest in gay fiction? Nope. I talk to her about what she’s reading and she’s open to discussion.
I know what you’re wondering. About six months ago I just asked. I said: So, do you think you might be gay?
And she gave me this teenager look. You know the one: save me from my parents, for they are so dumb.
Mom, she said. I am so. not. gay. I’ve got crushes on like, four guys at a time. I’ve never had a crush on a girl. Not even close.
Okay, said I. But you know it wouldn’t upset us…
Mom: Not. Gay.
So here’s the thing. I don’t get the fascination with gay men and gay relationships and gay sex, but nor do I see any reason to forbid her something that interests her. What would be accomplished? She’d be more determined than ever to read and watch exactly those things we pronounced unacceptable.
I do wish she’d develop at least a passing interest in romance novels, though. I’d love to talk to her about them, too.
I will say until the day I die that (almost) everything I learned about how to build a successful relationship—communication and compromise and good sex—came from romances. I was filching my mother’s when I was 12. But then, when I was 12, she GAVE me Atlas Shrugged to read, and if that isn’t corrupting young minds, I don’t know what the hell is. I think the mother needs to read some romances and figure out that they’re not all about women being “rescued.” And I think SEP is the perfect place to start for both mother and daughter.
The only book my mother ever censored was Jean Auel’s Clan of the Cave Bears, or at least the one with the man “initiating” all the young virgins as a religious ceremony because of his huge schlong. I read it eventually anyway.
I think part of the concerns here are the ones about separating fiction from reality. Both Abby and the mother seem to be caught in the “how will she tell fiction from reality?” loop. And I think that shows that the daughter is more mature than both of the adults.
My mother, catching a teenage me reading romance novels, made a point of letting me know that almost no women experience glorious orgasm from penile penetration alone while losing their virginity.
Good to know. 😛 I imagine that if I caught a teenage daughter reading those books, I’d want to remind her that while she was reading about pages and pages of fabulous foreplay from men who never ejaculate prematurely, teenage boys are getting THEIR ideas about sex from internet porn – and that expectations on both sides will probably widely differ from reality.
Hey, Not Today! I’m one of those women like your daughter who adores gay male fiction. Lots of the fiction you’re naming IS actually romances—just gay male romance. There’s also lots of online slash fiction and M/M fiction on Torquere Press (an e-book seller) and Loose Id, but most of it is written by women.
The thing about liking gay male fiction…you don’t get to watch ONE guy fall in love—you get to watch TWO!!! You get to figure out what TWO guys are thinking, not just one! It’s wonderful. None of those silly females getting in the way.
I’ve recently fallen in love with Queer as Folk, the Showtime TV show. Lots and lots and lots of sex, but as a senior, she should be able to handle that, if she hasn’t found it already. But it’s not about the sex—it’s about the emotions, the feelings, the relationships. It’s fabulous, AND you have all those hunky guys to look at!
Perfectly normal, and hey, at least she’s reading.
Lots and lots and lots of sex, but as a senior, she should be able to handle that, if she hasn’t found it already.
Um, wow, that came out wrong. She should be able to handle the sex (I know I was having sex (with my current husband!) as a senior in high school), if she hasn’t found the SHOW already. Gotta love those floating pronouns.
Oops.
I started reading romance novels when I was about twelve. They were paperbacks available at the public library, so we’re talking Harlequin romances of the late 1960s-early 70s. Oh, and Barbara Cartland 🙂 Nothing in them could compare, for eroticism, to the novels available in my home—remember Frank Yerby? Romance novels today are more explicit, but I doubt there is much in them that the average teenager hasn’t already heard about.
What’s your favorite heroine that embodies strength, self-reliance and independence?
My favorite heroines that embody those virtues are currently the P.C. Cast female leads. I loved Rhiannon’s attitude and occasional snarkiness (Divine by Mistake), and the strength and independance that came from Lina even while she was a warm and nuturing woman in Goddess of Spring.
Previously it was Anita Blake… but I think all of us who have read LKH know there is nothing left of the strong character we used to admire.
Why are we so careful to shield our children from something that they are expected to experience while at the same time we ignore what we hope they will never experience?
I think your answer is in there. I’m not sure that bringing up attitudes towards violence when we’re discussing attitudes towards sex is that useful, really.
As for the rest, depends on the child, depends on the parent I don’t really think there’s a one size fits all answer. My first foray into adult fiction was Susan Howatch and my first sex scene involved whips and repressed husbands or something. (My memory is going.) In the scheme of things, not very important, but I would probably guide my daughter away from certain romance subgenres.
Romance novels were strictly verboten in my house because my mom thinks they’re trashy and inappropriate for everyone. So I started smuggling them in from the library at around 14 or 15. I’d check out 20 books or something with a couple of romances hidden away. Mostly Judith McNaught, Jude Deveraux, and Fern Michaels. Mom found them in my room three times, and every time she took them away and lectured me.
She would lend me action/spy/mystery novels and glue cardstock over the sex scenes. I had to read The Firm with part of the book being all clunky and awkward and explain it to my friends. That sort of thing is going a little too far—your kid can have the violence but not the sex?
All that said, I wouldn’t push romance novels on my kid, but I wouldn’t forbid them. That only makes them that much more exciting. 14 is too young for some writers, just fine for ohers. I might try to steer my kid into inspirational first, though. And I might hide the Emma Holly and Lisa Kleypas while I was at it. 😉
Anne Landers is right, though, if the daughter is all about historicals. They’ve always been my favorites, and I didn’t start reading any contemporary until college. From that, I do think that my ideas of sex and romance and relationships and proper men are less than realistic. The much-maligned Alpha Hero minus some misogyny and hubris, add some sensitivity is kind of my ideal. I like traditional gender roles, though, and historicals play into that.
Hmmm. I first read both the satirical porn novel CANDY and Stoker’s DRACULA at age 10. Both had quite an impact! I’ll never forget some of those sex scenes, and I *still* have a fascination for vampires, although less fear of them than I did for years after that. (I think I slept with the blankets wrapped around my head and clutched tight at my throat for about 5 years after reading Dracula.)
My mom had thousands of books stuffed into her house (just as I do today) and we were all free to read anything we pleased. Lots of romance, horror, science fiction and fantasy, history… We never discussed it, I just always knew I could read anything I felt like grabbing from the shelf. I’m sure if I’d felt the need to discuss something with her, she’d have been great about it, but I never did—I think I wanted to decide how I felt for myself. I think perhaps the “we can discuss anything you are curious or confused about” thing may be more of a need on the part of the parent than on the part of the kid.
My son’s always been free to read anything he wants, as well. I did try the “discussion” thing with him a couple times, but he didn’t seem interested in discussing the sex or the violence or whatever the heck I was mildly-worried-but-trying-to-be-cool-about … instead, he just wanting to talk about what he liked about the book. So, I decided maybe I was having hang ups, and let him talk about what he wanted to talk about.
Now, one of the great joys in my life is to have him ask me “Hey, what’s something good to read? I finished “xxx” and now I’m ready for something else.” So we root through the shelves, he says “this may be good” or “maybe this one” and I tell him a little about the books. He chooses something, reads it, and we get to have fun talking about what is great and what isn’t. Love it.
Lene’
I saw Abby’s column this morning too. I thought her answer was excellent. I did not start reading romances in my teens since what we call romance novels today didn’t exist then (I’m a bit older than most of you). Rosemary Rogers debuted in my 20’s and I was hooked! My ex (operative word) husband didn’t like me reading them because they “set an unnatural standard for womens’ expectations of men”. Most of the romances I read are well written with good stories. Most empower their female characters to live up to their potential. Most show character arcs of emotional development that are better models for teen girls than other forms of entertainment. And a love for reading is a by-product. How could this be bad?
Funny, 12 to 14 seems to be the defining age for the most part. I started reading romances at 14 also. The first romance I read was a western and I can’t remember the name, the author or the general plot. I do however remember the sex scene. The heroine lost her virginity on the wooden floor of a cabin and I remember thinking: really? Not how I’d want my first time. Of course, by that point I had quite the range of reading material, including Robert A. Heinlein, who was an advocate of group marriage.
My parents also had a problem with me reading romance, but not because of the sex. They considered them trash because of the stereotype that they’re all badly written. I remember, my senior year I wanted a romance and my step-mom declared I had to buy a “real” book also. Oh, gee, no, I must buy more than work? Say it ain’t so!
I read my first romance novel when I was eleven, I believe. They were my great-grandmothers, and by authors like Victoria Holt, Georgette Hayer, and Mary Stewart. They contained little to no sex, and most of the women weren’t the sit-down-and-take-it types. I loved them, and read predominantly the same type for years after.
The first romance novel I read with sex was Lisa Kleypas’s “Stranger in my Arms,” and I loved it. I never got into Harlequin, though; maybe because most of the Harlequins they had at my library had titles like “My Baby’s New Daddy” or whatever and I was put off of anything with that little clown on it.
When my mother caught me, she just let me know the realities of sex, such as the first time not being like it is in said novels, that sex is a lot messier, that penetration alone usually won’t cause orgasm, and so on. So I had no illusions reading them.
And I read them for the romance, not the sex. If I wanted the sex, I had the internet. I feel young now…
I’m not a parent, and I was a decidedly odd teenager, so my perspective on this is, you might say, unusual.
See, I censored my own reading when I was a teen. Oh, sure, I read one or two novels that I didn’t want my mom to find out I’d read (I went through, God help me, a V. C. Andrews phase. Gotta love that incest. Ugh.).
But I felt guilty every time I read something I felt was too salacious. So I read fantasy, Star Wars novels (another thing to hide from Mom), Christian historical romances (…don’t ask), and Dickens for years.
And yet, from the age of 11 on, I was obsessed with Holocaust fiction. I knew far too much about very ugly things, and got very little exposure to even ideal visions of physical love. (Christian romance novels, of course, usually feature kisses as their only sexual climax. Explicit description of any kind is strictly verboten.)
The point of all of this rambling is that if I had a fourteen-year-old, I think I’d encourage her to read my romance novels. I might even highlight the naughty bits. 🙂 B/c my self-censoring led to an unhealthy perception of sex—in books and in life—as something that was bad and wrong, which persisted for a very long time.
(On a related note, nearly all of my friends discovered Clan of the Cave Bear at the tender age of 9 or 10, and that was, for them, their first encounter with fictional sex. I’ve never read it, and don’t plan to, but from what I understand of that series, I remain utterly confused as to why their mothers *encouraged* them to read said book.)
I was around nine I guess when I started filching my grandma’s old Mills and Boon novels. God, I thought Violet Winspear was the shit. Lots of May-December love going on and Greek Tycoons out the wazoo. I think probably even read some Betty Neels back in the day, but she was no Violet Winspear, lemme tell you.
There was one set in… Australia? Or Tasmania, where the girl had been away at school, and her step-brother was running the ranch / station? My god, he was the ultra-alpha male. I was in love with him for years. Wish I could remember the name of it. For some reason I think his name was Mungo, but I wouldn’t swer to it.
But God, she had great titles, and I thought Violet Winspear was the most glamorous name imaginable. *swoon* I wouldn’t have any qualms about letting a my 14 year old read romance. She’s only 9 now, though. Like everyone else, I’d rather she get their fill of sex from reading rather than boinking some guy.
Hey, for what it’s worth, my parents let me read romance at the age of 12—pretty violent stuff, too. (Catherine Coulter’s medieval books were chock-full of rape; I think she’s cleaned them up since, but wow, I have some lovely originals.) I’m 20 now and seem to have the most responsible outlook regarding sex of all of my friends. (Well, the ones that are my age.)
If I have a daughter, and she comes to me, say, before she has her first period? I’ll give her the Regencies and the non-explicit Gothic romances. I’ll save the fun stuff for when she’s bitching about cramps. 😉 Besides, if she’s a daughter of mine, she already knows where to find smut on the internet—and how to erase any traces of where she’s been!
She really would be better off learning about sex from fiction than from some idiot in the backseat of his dad’s car.
Clan of the Cave Bear only features a rape scene, but Auel’s sequels were…interesting, at least to my 15-yo self. Various positions, rituals, etc.
Before that, maybe 13-ish, I found sex in the abovementioned Stephen King books (ick, mostly, like the 8-yos having group sex in It) and the Jakes’ North & South books. I learned to keep my mouth shut about explicit content after having shared details of Love Story with my brother. He blabbed to mom and she took the book away. I was 11. Wifey by Judy Blume received similar treatment, but the fact I was pointing out the naughty bits to my little brother indicated a certain lack of maturity. Mom was probably right.
I read my first romances relatively late, say 16 – Midnight Rose by Robin Lee Hatcher (fairly chaste) and Santana Rose by Olga Bicos – a fabulous book with ORAL SEX. Eyes open. Paying attention now. Even then, tho, I felt the need to read those books at home – I never took them to school for fear of the kidding I would get. Geek A+ girl reads romance novels? Sure – but where else was my nerdy self gonna get any? Eventually my friend found Outlaw by Susan Johnson, but even at that age I was intrigued yet bored by the sex scenes. Get on with it already.
My girls are young – almost 4 and 2 1/2 – so the issue is a distant one for me. Talking, sifting through the fact and fiction – these will be strategies. I figure that, pesky maturity thing aside, if I write romances and read them, I would be like a smoker telling my kids not to light up. As long as they explore titles from all sorts of genres, go for it.
Oh, I already fear the flack.
I probably wouldn’t let my fourteen-year-old read romance novels, not for the sexual content, but because many of them are so fluffy (IMHO, she added hastily) that I fear it might spoil her appetite for other, more difficult genres. I frown on things like the “Goosebumps” series for the same reason. I was allowed to read anything as a child—not because my mother was hip and permissive, but because she was negligent and lazy—and was introduced to a whole world of inappropriate subjects long before it was probably good for me. But the thing I really struggled to get over, later in life, was not the racy subject matter but the shite writing. (All that incest in V.C. Andrews was nothing compared to the dialogue so wooden you could build a deck out of it.)
No matter what people allow their kids to read, Abby makes a point: encourage your kids to share their reading with you and let them ask questions.
Up front: I don’t read a whole lot of romance novels, honestly. I’m interested in reading about all kinds of books, but most of what I read are fantasy, science fiction, or historical fiction more neatly than anything else.
When I was nine, I got into reading Dave Barry. Different from getting into romance novels, possibly, but many of his humor books (he hadn’t written any novels back then) do contain sexual humor that a lot of parents wouldn’t want their children reading. My parents couldn’t have cared less, on one condition: I couldn’t take them to school with me. I could read whatever I wanted, but I couldn’t show some things to kids whose parents might object.
My first impulse is to say that of course I’d let a fourteen year old daughter read romance novels, while trying to correct any misimpressions they might give her and answering questions.
But then I remember when I was a teenager, and a friend of mine became very into romance novels and insisted on sharing sex scenes at the lunch table. I had been reading Marion Zimmer Bradley for years by then, and I don’t think anything she read to us was any more graphic than that. However, just because I was comfortable with reading sexual material myself didn’t mean I wanted one of my friends to read it to me in a crowded cafeteria.
I would hope that if I ever reproduced, I would raise a daughter who had enough sense of propriety by the age of fourteen that she didn’t read sex scenes to people who didn’t want to hear them. But just in case, I would probably make the same rule as my parents did for Dave Barry. She could read what she wanted, but if it was written for a target audience much older than her age, it wouldn’t be going to school.
I started reading romances at 11 or 12 with my mother’s knowledge and permission. My mother liked the historicals, and I got her interested in the Harlequins when I was 13 or so. It didn’t seem to warp me…much. 🙂
I have such a poor memory for what I read as a teenager. Must be hysterical amnesia. I know my first romance was Anya Seton’s Katherine. Loved, loved, loved it! All that honeyed oblivion. But I went down the crime and thriller road and didn’t get into romance until relatively recently.
But I do remember my mother telling me I couldn’t read Leon Uris’s Battle Cry because it had sex in it. I think I just sneered at her and continued on. Then she tried to stop me watching Arther Miller’s The Crucible on TV which I still tease her about.
Kick arse heroines – I’ve just finished reading a Ruth Wind Bombshell called The Diamond Secret? (in the process of moving and I’ve packed it away so can’t check the title). It was great. Fast cars, sexy villians and an older French hero.
It’s interesting isn’t it? I have to agree with Dear Abby here.
Does anyone else remember “Forever Amber.”? It was contraband at my junior high.
You know, I’ve noticed that with erotic romance making it’s surge forward, the sweet romance (with less explicit sex) is going unnoticed.
I’m not alone. We started a group. Sweeter Romantic Notions for writers of sweet romances and the readers trying to find them. It’s been fun.
http://groups.yahoo.com/SweeterRomanticNotions/
along the same lines as some other posters…i’ve been sharing romances with my mom since i was eleven, most of which are the trashiest of the trashy. it makes ME more uncomfortable knowing my MOM reads those more than it probably bothers her! but you know, i’ve learned a lot about relationships as well as sex from reading them, especially the good ones like nora roberts, and i always felt sorry for my friends whose moms censored their reading—i even had one friend whose mom let her read “the horse whisperer” but put paper over all the racy passages. ha. if that was me i’d’ve torn that paper right off. anyway, i love what abby said, and yeah. i’ll stop rambling now.
Heh. My mum didn’t read anything but Regencies and pre-1960’s romances that didn’t have sex scenes. I started raiding her bookshelf when I was about twelve or thirteen (97/98) and naively assumed that all romances were like that.
So I read historical fiction for smut instead. Jean Auel in particular was lovely for that. ^_^
But my folks were fairly unusual in that they didn’t care what I read, for the most part. The only book my mom asked me not to read—of course, I snuck it out and read it anyway—had a graphic gang-rape scene towards the beginning of the book and a lesbian relationship later on.
I don’t quite get why parents freak out about what their kids read. I mean, really, with so many of the modern youth screwed up on drugs, alcohol, sex, and gods know what else, you’d think reading a romance novel would be a bit low on the priority list for things to bitch about.
You know, I think it’s okay for parents to be aware of and perhaps concerned by what their kids are reading. It doesn’t necessarily mean they are freaking out. And just because there are kids with much worse problems doens’t mean you might as well not worry about what you perceive as a lesser problem.
I suppose I should say upfront that I’m one of the less permissive parents around here, though that’s more to do with movies and age appropriate activities than reading. I balk at censoring books for all sorts of reasons, but that doesn’t mean I don’t care.
I do find there is a lot of pressure on kids these days to grow up fast, much more so than when I was young, and if I can act as something of a buffer, I will. But I suppose I’m straying into a somewhat different topic here.
I suspect that many romance readers (such as myself) will write to Abby in defense of our genre. I’ll be interested to see whether she prints anything objecting to her characterization of romance as “idealized depiction of romance, and women being “rescued†by powerful, wealthy men” – didn’t that trope go out with Barbara Cartland?
-becca
<objecting to her characterization of romance as “idealized depiction of romance, and women being “rescued†by powerful, wealthy men” – didn’t that trope go out with Barbara Cartland? Not entirely. Some of the category lines still go down this pathway. If you want to read stereotypical gender roles in romance they are out there just as there are books full of strong, autonomous women. Something for everyone.
I’d love it if my daughters would read romances. The oldest (22) reads nothing – except Harry Potter, because she’s addicted – and the younger (19) has always been a voracious reader, but mostly Oprah books, with a bit of chick lit thrown in. If Oprah books won’t mess up your head – gimme a break. Romances are like a skip through the park in comparison.
I gave each of them copies of my books – their names are in the acknowledgements – but to date, I’m pretty certain neither of them have read any of the books. Funny, because the sex is very tame – a lot of it off the page. But because they’re first person, and somewhat autobiographical, they both say it squicks them out too much.
I can understand that.
At 12, I spent all of my babysitting money on Barbara Cartland books, then hid them at my friend’s house so my mom wouldn’t know. She didn’t care that they were romances – and uber silly ones at that – but she’d have been pissed at me spending money on books. That’s what libraries are for – but I read all of their stuff way early on – I needed a fix, right away. Off on my bicycle I went, babysitting cash in pocket.
Then I turned 16 and saved the money for a typewriter, so I could write my own romance novels. Thirty years later…..here I am! And I’ve always wondered what happened to that box of Barbara Cartland.
Oh – did I say THIRTY years later??? I so meant 20.
Yeah. That’s what I meant to say.
Some might argue that the idealized depiction of romance, and women being “rescued†by powerful, wealthy men, is more worrisome than the sex and eroticism. However, if you are raising your daughter to respect feminist principles, I don’t think you have anything to worry about.
Oh, really, Abby? What if I’m not raising my daughter to “respect feminist principles”? Am I still a good parent?
How about if I raise my daughters the way I see fit, and you shut up about what “feminist principles” I should be teaching them?
My mother isn’t the reader, in our family. My father is. So my first ventures into commercial fiction when I was about 12 were things like Michael Crichton’s “Great Train Robbery” (whose Victorian setting mesmerized me) and R.F. Delderfield and John MacDonald’s Travis McGee novels. (And “Looking for Mr. Goodbar,” which is the only book anyone’s ever yanked out of my hands when I was caught reading it. :-O)
Also, I’d get books from my grandmother, who traded off boxes & boxes of books with her two sisters, my great-aunts. Through this decorous, elderly generation, I was introduced to books by Barbara Cartland, Jane Aiken Hodge, Victoria Holt, Clare Darcy and Georgette Heyer. (The greats & grandma didn’t read Harlequins—they were snobbish about them. Yes, they who were Cartland fans, were snobs about Harlequin. Go figure.) These grandma-approved books were very different from the young adult novels I was devouring at the time, which were all dark screeds about teenage pregnancy, LSD trips, manic-depression, suicide attempts, gangs in inner-city schools & etc.
So I loved those two kinds of books: I liked to read about long-haired, big-eyed young teen chicks in trouble, particularly if it seemed they might be going crazy, like Sylvia Plath or the heroine of “I Never Promised You a Rose Garden” or “Lisa, Bright and Dark”—but I also liked to imagine feisty 19th century governesses with low self-esteem issues getting chosen by the dark, brooding handsome master for a waltz—and scandalizing all the snobbish female guests. They were saner, but still kind of interesting. And I must say, this division in my reading matter continues to this very day. The ratio that works for me, personally, seems to be about 6:1. (That is, six books outside the genre, and then one romance.) And I’m a fully functioning, taxpaying adult, frequently considered a responsible juror, free of traffic citations since 1991, consistently testing negative for anything that would worry anyone. So I’d say that early exposure to sex scenes in adult-oriented printed matter has had no lasting damage.
(That I can see, anyway.)
I remember being shocked by a couple of Judy Blume books, actually. Wifey was one and I think the other one was Forever. The “adult” romances I swiped belonged to my grandmother and I think the steamiest scenes had a bigscreen style clinch. As I recall, that Judy Blume book taught me everything I learned about sex until I was 19 and started investigating for myself.