by Maya Rodale
He took his cock in hand and positioned himself at her entrance. “Tell me you want this.”
“I want this.”
Gritting his teeth, he teased them both by sliding the tip of his erection in, then out. “Tell me you want me.”
Her eyes opened and locked with his. “Rafe. I want you. Only you.”
These days, heroines embark on sexual relations with both eyes open and far more knowledge about and acceptance of their own desires. Even in historical romances where, strictly speaking, the heroine would probably have very little knowledge about the mechanics of sex before her wedding night and presumably would never have masturbated, we now see historical heroines portraying more honest and open knowledge about sex. The heroine of Say Yes to the Marquess is not ignorant about how to give herself pleasure. The heroine of Unraveled, an historical romance, by Courtney Milan, uses a sponge system to prevent pregnancy—in nineteenth century England.
And yet, in advance of the launch of the 50 Shades of Grey movie, there were conversations about how much sex should be shown—and how much, ahem, of the actor people want to see. That we even discuss this shows an assumption that women aren’t interested in seeing much nudity (especially if it’s of the male variety) or graphic sex scenes on the big screen. Why is this even a question? Why wouldn’t women be interested in sex? Why wouldn’t we be interested in sex in romantic entertainment? How many copies does E. L. James have to sell before we stopped being surprised by women wanting sex?
* * *
The truth is: We’re not surprised by women’s sexual desire. We’re terrified of it. We don’t always understand it or how it works, and it’s not always clear where the line is between aroused and annoyed, sexy “throw down” or rape, and good god, what do feelings have to do with it all? Where is the goddamn clitoris and/or the G spot anyway? We know, in our heart of hearts, that it’s more complicated than insert tab A into slot B. And “bodice ripping” is a way to reduce the complexity. It’s a way to cut off the knot of emotion and raw, unfiltered sexual desire rather than attempt to untangle it.
Talking about bodice rippers, in which anxieties are ruthlessly ripped and shoved aside, is a way to avoid talking about the complexity of female desire and sexual experience. And we really, really don’t want to have this conversation. We don’t want to have it in schools, which is why we have abstinence education instead of sexual education. When conservatives rail against female birth control, it’s often out of concern that it leads to promiscuity, to which the other side replies that it’s used to treat a variety of conditions, many not sexually related. But both operate on the assumption that it’s wrong for women to be having lots of sex, especially for nonprocreative purposes.
We see it in the UK ban on certain acts in pornography. Video on Demand porn and DVD sex-shop porn are no longer allowed to show content featuring, among other things, spanking, physical restraint, or female ejaculation. Um, hello? Are these lawmakers not aware of what women are reading in books purchased at their local supermarket, right next to the milk and eggs?!
We see a fear of women’s sexuality in the practice of female genital mutilation, in which the clitoris—the source of female orgasm—is cut off. Rather than even discuss female desire, they try to get rid of it completely. While this is predominantly a practice in African and Middle Eastern cultures, this isn’t just practiced in a land far, far away: “The number of women and girls in the United States at risk of female genital mutilation has more than doubled since 2000 to half a million, say demographic researchers who expect that figure to rise even further.”[99]
We would like to think that women don’t want to do all these naughty, kinky things. We would like to think they still aren’t troubled by sexual feelings or that they certainly don’t need birth control. We would prefer to think that if a woman has sex, it’s because some man made her do it. Meanwhile, romance is a billion dollar industry, erotica is one of the fastest growing categories, and 50 Shades of Grey has sold a hundred million copies.
Romance authors and readers are not afraid to revel in those gray areas of powerful emotions, potent desire, and the unfiltered exploration of both. Rather than simplify, the more complicated and twisted, the better. Does she hate him but want his body so bad? Yes! Has he sworn never to love again, but cannot stop himself from wanting to bury himself inside her? Yes! Is this love and desire forbidden? YES! Complications are hot and sexy. Resolving them is fucking fantastic.
But that’s too much for some people, who feel more comfortable with a simple and classic understanding of sex between men and women: She’s a coy female and he knows what to do. Turgid Tab A goes into Female Slot B and they live happily ever after.
But aren’t we past all that? Don’t we know better? Yes. And it’s hard knowing better. It’s especially tempting to continue to evoke bodice rippers and their simplified presentation of sexuality, given the news these days. When brutal rapes are in the headlines too damn much, laughing about bodice rippers is a way to suggest that maybe she liked it and maybe she really wanted it without, you know, actually saying it. Maybe it’s not the end of this girl’s life as she knows it (or, wah wah, the boy rapists). Maybe it’s the beginning of a beautiful relationship. Maybe they can still live happily ever after.
When we talk about bodice rippers, we are acknowledging that sexuality, particularly female pleasure, scares us, and that we prefer to ignore it. We are demonstrating that we are more comfortable with a paradigm of sexuality that reduces a woman to a passive, ignorant body and a man to a tool even though it probably leaves a lot of people sexually and emotionally unsatisfied.
PURE HEROINE
FROM “OH, NO” TO “OH, YES”
Women’s sexuality has been endlessly discussed, often by men, and often by celibate men at that. Too often, the options presented are extreme opposites: She must be a virgin or a whore; she is innocent and good and has all the potential in the world, or she is ruined, bad, and useless. She has voracious sexual appetites or no sexual feeling at all.
Romance novels are the space where women can examine their sexuality on their own terms. And while there are plenty of trembling virgins and hard heroes who show them what they’re missing, these books present an alternative view—one that isn’t either/or, black/white, but one with shades of gray.
The virgin heroine: WTF?
Nothing highlights the importance of virginity in romance quite like the virgin widow trope. In these particular plots, the heroine has managed to go through a marriage (for years, in some instances) without having had sex with her husband. This is often due to impotent old men, absent husbands, or kindly old men who just want to marry a very young girl to not have sex with, but to grant her access to his impressive library (there is so much to unpack in that fantasy).
The Virgin Widow has to be one of the most absurd tropes, and it leads one to wonder why authors go to such great lengths to preserve a heroine’s virginity throughout a marriage.
Part of the reason is because romance novels reflect the world in which they are written and read. In real life, for most of human history, a woman’s sole value was in her marriageability, which was dependent upon her virginity, because we developed a system of private property that relied almost entirely on the paternity of offspring. A woman’s virginity was a way to ensure a man’s kids were his and that his wealth was passed on appropriately. A woman’s virginity became her primary possession and currency in a world that did not allow women to legally own anything. Virginity was the one bargaining chip a woman had to cash in or exchange for better circumstances.
In many places in the world, it still is.
Many eighteenth and nineteenth century novels for women tended to emphasize the virtue of the heroine (Hello, Pamela; Or, Virtue Rewarded). And many historical romance plots hinge on a heroine’s sexual inexperience—for example, a marriage of convenience to protect her reputation, a heroine who deliberately gets “ruined” by a notorious rake to avoid an unwanted
marriage, or a couple caught in a compromising position and swiftly marched down the aisle.
Like virtuous women in real life, books with virtuous heroines were deemed acceptable for polite company. While there was a great fear that novels would corrupt innocent young women, a heroine who exemplified virtuous behavior made a book more suitable. This also widened the audience for the books, and thus the potential market and sales. Books deemed “unsuitable for ladies were commercially sunk.”[100] Virtuous, virginal heroines—like virtuous, virginal women—were worth something.
Virginity, then, was all about value. For a real life woman, it was what she could trade for a better life and marriage and thus a measure of economic security. Or at the very least, by preserving it, she could avoid becoming a “fallen woman,” potentially with a child to support and barely any way to financially support herself—an economic disaster for herself and the community that would have to support them. The linking of virginity and marriage, then, wasn’t just some lofty, noble, ideal but a practical consideration. In Virgin: The Untouched History, author Hanne Blank writes of the Middle Ages: “Spinsters and bachelors were as rare as hen’s teeth. Remaining unmarried was not an option many would, or could, choose. Economic survival meant participation in the economy of the larger household and community.”[101] This pressure only increased with the Industrial Revolution.
But the funny thing about physical virginity is that it doesn’t really exist. “Virginity cannot be seen or measured, in and of itself,” Blank writes in book that explores historical, medical, and religious concepts of virginity. What she found is that there isn’t really a physical, medical, reliably testable way to establish a woman’s sexual state. “Virginity tests do not look for virginity, but for signs of virginity. The difference is subtle but crucial,” she writes. “Virginity tests cannot tell us whether an individual woman is a virgin; they can only tell us whether or not she conforms to what people of her time and place believe to be true of virgins.”[102]
That, of course, assumes that virginity ends with penis-into-vagina sex. How far in does it have to go? But what about anal sex? What about oral sex? Studies show that teenagers who took virginity pledges were more likely to engage in anal and oral sex. And how does it all apply to gays and lesbians? Are there separate virginities, some more valuable than others?
What the Virgin Widow plot does is separate sex from marriage. Traditionally, because she presumably no longer had virginity or value to protect, a widowed woman had more freedom to travel unaccompanied in the world or have a gentleman caller without a chaperone breathing down their necks.
Why not just have a widow, then? Because the romance heroine’s virgin state isn’t purely about whether or not she’s had sex. It’s not because romance writers are reinforcing ideas that only virgins have value, or that heroes care about a woman’s level of sexual experience and want to be her first, last, and only. The romance heroine’s virginity signifies the un-awakened woman.
And romance is about a woman waking up.
The rude awakening
All these frantic thoughts buzzed in a small, secret part of her. It was the same place where she hid the core of her self—the shining rainbow of her mind. Layered in multiple shields she continually reinforced, it couldn’t be breached by anyone without using such brutal force that it would kill her.
——Slave to Sensation by Nalini Singh
In Sleeping Beauty, the awakening begins with just a kiss. It’s a gentle version of what we see again and again in romance novels, where the hero often takes charge of the heroine’s sexual awakening. He’s the guide through which she discovers her own desire, explores her sexuality, and emerges on the other side as an experienced woman with a deeper knowledge of her body and herself.
If romances are stories of a woman’s sexual awakening, then the rape of the bodice rippers or the forced seductions of other later books are rude awakenings, indeed. But they also served a purpose. “Women are taught to be ashamed if they’re horny, to be ashamed if they own their sexuality; if someone is sexually aggressive, they’re a slut,” says Sarah Wendell of the blog Smart Bitches, Trashy Books. “There’s a lot of negativity. The forced seduction allowed them to experience arousal but not feel any guilt for having initiated it.”
The bodice ripper functioned as part of that awakening for the real-life woman. In her book When Everything Changed: The Amazing Journey of American Women from 1960 to the Present, Gail Collins writes, “American society had always given women only one big responsibility when it came to sex—stopping boyfriends from going too far. Now [the 1970s] they seemed to be in charge of everything, from providing the birth control to making sure they had orgasms. A great deal of research was required.”[103] While there were workshops and classes, research could be had cheaply, easily, and privately via a mass-market paperback novel that a woman could slip into her grocery cart. (This is especially crucial given that women weren’t legally granted the right to have credit cards in their own names until 1974.)[104]
“The sexual revolution was about more than whether women should be able to feel as free as men to have sex before marriage,” Collins writes. “It was also about whether women—single or married—had as much right to enjoy sex.”[105] The romance novel said yes.
Nothing to lose but her chains...and a world to win
I’ve been afraid of my own voracious appetites, tamping myself down, shying away from my own power.
—Roulette by Megan Mulry
If we are still operating with the assumption that virginity = value and it’s only good to redeem for marriage, then the destruction or removal of that value opens up entire worlds to the heroine. “Freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose,” Janis Joplin sang. When a heroine is no longer preserving her virginity for the Noble Life Goal of Marriage, she is at liberty to do whatever the hell she wants. But what does she want to do?
Again, it’s probably not a coincidence that these sexually explicit stories appeared when they did, during the sexual revolution and women’s movement, when women were stepping out into the workplace. For the first time, it became acceptable to have aspirations other than marriage. Collins writes, “It was in the 1970s that American women set off on a new course. They went to college thinking about what work they wanted to do, not what man they wanted to catch, and flooded professional schools with applications. After graduation, they no longer marched right off to the altar, and the median age of marriage rose rather dramatically.” Romance novels are about a heroine achieving a deeper understanding of herself—and that includes her sexual self—as well as finding what gives her life meaning and value. In order to embark on that journey and find her place in a new world, we needed to get rid of pesky assumptions, rules, and expectations that keep women tethered to the old order. We had to devalue the idea of virginity and break its association with marriage.
And we did. Attitudes in real life and fiction have shifted. “In contemporary romance, you’re not seeing that many virgin heroines,” says Tessa Woodward, the Avon editor. “And if they are, it’s because they had some sort of block that the hero is going to help them through.” Virginity is no longer a prerequisite for love or a determination of a woman’s personal value.
Even in historical romances written today, when authors are obligated to represent these older values of a woman’s virginity and marriageability, we now see clever plotting that subverts these rules while still being true to the time period. It’s most apparent in stories of “fallen” women finding love, respect, and acceptance even though they are supposedly “ruined.” In Not Quite a Lady by Loretta Chase, the heroine becomes an expert in “Not Getting Married” so no one will discover that she’s not a virgin. Or in my own book, What a Wallflower Wants, the heroine learns to love, trust, and value herself after being raped by someone other than the hero.
Looking at paranormal romances, the concept of virginity and the forced removal of it is presented in slightly different ways, but it
still reinforces the idea that these stories are truly about a character waking up to their full potential, or a different potential than one they’d grown up expecting.
Wendell notes that in paranormal romances, instead of the violation being forced upon the heroine’s physical body, it’s forced on her will: “This sort of metaphorical breach is especially pervasive in paranormal romances, in which heroines are often changed or transformed without their consent, even against their express wishes, by the hero.”[106] One day she’s just a girl, and the next she’s a vampire, werewolf, or whatever other fantastical creature imaginative authors have invented. Her life has been drastically altered, and there is no going back.
Eloisa James provides an interesting interpretation of this when it comes to vampire novels. “When you find your vampire bride, all of a sudden, your heart starts beating, all of a sudden, you’re seeing in color, all of a sudden, you can taste food again.” Talk about waking up.
The new awakening
For a long moment there was only the sound of her soft, half-gasping little breaths, and the thud of his heart, loud in his ears. He had never felt this...this liberation, this unfettered contentment. Not with another woman, not after a hard day of accomplishment, not after a brilliant business maneuver, not even after beating his brothers at anything. His body was wrung out with physical satisfaction, his mind felt fogged and sluggish, but his head...
“If this be madness,” came Francesca’s weak voice from behind the shining veil of her hair, “lead me to Bedlam.”