For some time now I have been relaxing with romance novels...something I would have considered a useless expenditure of time and trivial reading. Now in my senior years, I no longer have to cram professional readings as everyone writes the same stuff but in their own invented language. Even clinical sex manuals are pretty bland.
The plot in romance novels is predictable; they have happy endings; women prove themselves to have value in historic times when they were considered mere chattel; whatever other problems the women face about the men, they are always virile, and considerate lovers to the extremely passionate women.
The men patiently bring their women to sexual climax before reaching their own; premature ejaculation, never mentioned, remains just a medical term in some book, somewhere. The shared sexual experience between them spells a positive prediction for the implied 'and they lived happily ever after'.
Those who write the books must read one another's because they use the same euphemisms rather than anatomical terms. The word penis does not exist...that appendage is lovingly referred to as his 'arousal' and he is always well-endowed. Stroked, it is referred to as his shaft. Usually orgasm is referred to as 'fulfillment'. Those scenes end with the man 'pouring his seed into her'.
Many of the writers must share the same ill-informed mother, teaching them about the wedding night. The women are prepped for great pain, which inevitably happens, in the book. Apparently these writers never studied anatomy. The term hymen has not appeared in the approximately 150 books in the romance category I have read to date. Instead, now named the 'maidenhead' instead of the insignificant tissue it is over the vaginal opening, the romance writers have moved it to the middle of the vaginal canal and cast it out of concrete, judging from the hammering, plunging through which is required to qualify as the woman being 'taken' made 'his' and all those other joining, mating concepts.
2 comments:
As an Author of Romantic publication I believe your comments are valid but I think you miss the whole 'fantasy concept' about them. Women who buy and read these books are looking for an escape from reality, and hopefully have better sence that to think there is anything real in them.
We are not all ill informed about first sexual contact as a writer we want to create a pleasurabil illusion. But every story is always created around a measure of truth. Women like to feel special, these books create one an avenue to do such a thing. But as I stated before it is not a means to an end. Romantic writing should never be taken as fact. Reality is reality. Fantasy is fantasy.
Anonymous: Julie Garwood was anatomically confused about where the hymen was located. I believe some other authors might have believed her and written similarly or were confused on their own. That is behind the reference I made to ill informed. Otherwise, I read lots of romance novels for good reasons, know they are fantasy when they talk about fairies, vampires , etc., but human physiology internally is not my idea of fantasy. Believe me, I DO understand fantasy.
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