Because these books were written for and consumed by women, female pleasure was an essential part of every story.... Shirley Conran’s “Lace” features a heroine telling her feckless husband that she’d used an egg timer to determine how long it took her to achieve orgasm on her own and that she’d be happy to teach him what to do. At 14, I never looked at hard-boiled eggs the same way again.Talking's not sexy? I'd say, depends on the talking. I think there can be a lot of talking during sex, and not just instructions and continuing updates about the level of consensuality. Who are these people who complain that talking during sex is not sexy? If the thoughts in your head would be unsexy if vocalized, maybe you shouldn't be having sex. If you continually withhold your thoughts during sex out of concern that they're not sexy, why are you having sex? At one end of the bed, the genitals are interlocked, and at the other, you've got 2 heads that are 2 separate planets.
The books not only covered blissful sex but also described a whole range of intimate moments, from the awkward to the funny to the very bad, including rape of both the stranger and intimate-partner variety. Beyond the dirty bits, the books I read described the moments before and after the main event, the stuff you don’t see in mainstream movies, where zippers don’t get stuck and teeth don’t bump when you’re kissing; the stuff you don’t see in porn, where almost no time elapses between the repair guy’s arrival and the start of activities that do not involve the clogged kitchen sink....
Porn, necessarily, cuts to the chase: a little less conversation, a little more action.
Talking’s not sexy, people complain.
But when you don’t know how to ask, when you can’t bring yourself to tell, when you don’t possess the language with which to talk about desire, that’s when you can end up with crossed wires, missed signals, mixed messages, a guy who goes to sleep thinking, “That was fun!” and a girl who goes home crying in an Uber.
ADDED: I reacted to the subject of talking and not much to the proposal that reading romance novels is helpful. I've never read these things. So let me quote the top-rated comment at the NYT:
No. Just no. Romance novels give women an unrealistic view of sex and romance and are not remotely empowering. The woman is nearly always "saved" by a man in some way. Things always manage to "work out" in the end. Women's bad behavior (playing hard to get, expecting men to read their minds) never has consequences.This makes me think of Tina Brown's excellent book "The Diana Chronicles," which quotes the romance writer Barbara Cartland: "The only books she read were mine, and they weren't very good for her." And please read page 26 (click to enlarge):
Romance novels are fine for adult women that have already experienced the reality of dating, romance and sex, but for teen girls? They should be off-limits. Teenagers should be reading books, fiction or non, that focus on females being independent, of having agency, of discovering things, having careers and thoughts of their own.
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57 comments:
" At one end of the bed, the genitals are interlocked, and at the other, you've got 2 heads that are 2 separate planets."
For safe sex, you'll need to be wearing helmets.
"Oh honey, I still can't decide if Army Group Center should have driven on to Moscow, or link up with Army Group South to encircle the retreating Russians (as they did)" [pant] [pant]
"I love how you go all Wehrmacht on me in the sack..."
I think I am blessed to be pre-war, Norwegian small-town born and raised, and have never heard of any of this until now.
A bar story about Romance Novels here.
"Which brings me back to Romance Novel Woman: from her look and demeanor I would not be surprised to see her reading the latest Hot Book on Politics -- the books that tell you that you are smart, they agree with you. It's the people in Kansas that keep fucking up, for instance. But: romance novels..."
- james james
Woody Allen thinks of baseball.
Chick Lit (2016) 4 guys write mommy porn, hire woman as front-man author.
Focus-grouped plot, insight-free.
Unless you're making a baby, sex is an individual activity, other than one trying to please the other when that comes up.
“Romance novels are fine for adult women that have already experienced the reality of dating, romance and sex, but for teen girls? They should be off-limits.”
Typical of a NYT reader. There is only one correct way of thinking and censorship is required. No watching of Fox News or reading Althouse. The approved list is short: NYT. WaPo, New Yorker, Atlantic and HuffPo.
Get your mind right.
Soap opera women and romance novel reading women are cut from the same cloth. But the males in both scenarios are #metoo worthy. How do liberated feminists who watch and read square that circle?
I wonder if the romance novel addiction was a temporary escape for Diana's (theorized) borderline personality disorder or if it fed it... no man could ever live up to the idealized perfect lovers she read about in the novels.
Professor, did you consume the media I linked for you? This is just the kind of thing that may have contributed to developing the expectations of both Grace and Aziz.
Or maybe it was the Kama Sutra after all? We are always reading of horrible sexual assaults in India of all places, all sounding more on the Channon-Newsom or Central Park Jogger level than the Barbara Cartland or even the Hollywood Oinkers level.
Mead, you and I are of the age when safe sex was putting a pillow between her head and headboard.
I knew a guy in college who grew up with his grandparents in a tiny town and, outside of school, read only romance novels for many years because those were the only books in his grandparents' house.
Don't know how that worked out for him.
Also, looking out of the corner of my eye, I misread "Harlequins" as "cousins," which would have been striking.
Making a baby adds a future to the activity that involves the other.
Hallmark > Lifetime.
He could be your whole life
If you got past one night
But that part never goes right – Amy Winehouse, Fuck Me Pumps
Fifteen hours with Fabio.
“They don’t call it the Italian dream or the English dream,” he says. “In America, there is the American Dream. It was the first place to give people of any social background their dream. You can achieve anything.”
- james james
Ron sez:
"I love how you go all Wehrmacht on me in the sack..."
Don't laugh.
An actual line from the bestselling novel "Fifty Shades of Grey" is:
"I feel the color in my cheeks rising again. I must be the color of the communist manifesto"
"Professor, did you consume the media I linked for you?"
No. I don't even know what you're talking about.
"I think there can be a lot of talking during sex..", blogged our hostess. I was going to quip, "I wonder what Meade has to say on that subject?" But that sly Meade was very quick with a pre-emptive comment. ))
They could have bodice-rippers for "liberal" women where they're "forced" to submit to brooding, hunky IRS or ATF agents. (Maybe instead of "bodice-rippers" they could be called "Ingas" after the kind of moronic females they'd be marketed to.) Or for "liberal" males they could have jackbooted federales named Hillary or Michelle forcing them to bend over and receive the Mailed Fist.
While I've never read a 'romance novel', I was very moved by Lady Chatterly's Lover.
The "talking's not sexy" comment came after the porn paragraph, so I assume she was referring to that.
Actually, restraint is very sexy. We watched the Kiera Knightly version of "Pride and Prejudice" last night, and it was great fun watching her and Mr. Darcy desire each other, yet were too proper to rip off their clothes and have at it. Especially when they were arguing at the folly during a thunderstorm scene.
"Porn, necessarily, cuts to the chase: a little less conversation, a little more action."
As a bachelor for more than twenty years it always shocks and disappoints what little conversation and kissing women do in bed. What's up with this kiss once and go down on me? I always thought it was women watching porn or maybe the Cosmo effect.
Bill, restraint and suspense are very sexy.
Bill Peschel
Agree, that is the best version of "Pride and Prejudice". I've got the DVD and watch it monthly.
Teenagers should be reading books, fiction or non, that focus on females being independent, of having agency, of discovering things, having careers and thoughts of their own.
Should be. If given ample choice, which do they prefer? Why? Why do we have to insist that women must go against their nature to prove they can be just like men?
I never read any Harlequin romances, but I have read Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights. I think they're the primal romance novels. Ok, they're great novels, but, they're very disquieting for an adult male to read. Jane Eyre is an extensive castration fantasy, and poor Lord Rochester keeps getting his limbs chopped off. The novel makes clear that he's a better and more loving man for all that transient suffering. Heathcliff strikes me more as an evolving serial murderer than as a dark and brooding romantic hero. And these are the men women chose to fulfill their fantasy lives.....I wonder if any man ever aspired to be a character like Heathcliff or Lord Rochester. They actively avoid being such characters. Women need to develop some romantic prototypes that don't involve dark, brooding men.
What is it about the Left that wants to silence critics and censor alternate ways of thinking?
Recall the Flush Rush campaign. A crew of about 12 was made to look like thousands in order to force advertisers to drop Limbaugh. Get him off the air because they didn’t like his conservative views but the ostensible reason was because he was a sexist. “Not who we are.”
It didn’t work.
To answer my own question, the Left doesn’t want a honest, open and fair debate because they know they will lose that debate.
Women need to develop some romantic prototypes that don't involve dark, brooding men.
They do? Why? So you won't be 'disquieted'? LOL.
A female character I understood pretty well was Bathsheba in Far From the Madding Crowd. In many ways a practical and sensible woman, she nonetheless falls for a dashing but unsavory soldier while being ardently courted by a gentleman whom she spurns.
Is this really any different from Waugh's, Of Human Bondage, with the sexes reversed? As Connie Francis sang, "Everybody's Somebody's Fool". It's hard for me to understand why a man would consider a stripper a viable marriage prospect but it happens.
It's very difficult to be dark and brooding with red hair. Best not to try.......I think women are far more likely to admire and want to be a Hardy heroine than men are to admire and want to be the hero in a Bronte novel. Some of Jane Austen's heroes are okay.
It’s always the left about book burning and controlling what people read, but they always blame the right. That’s because they are in denial that fascism is just another brand of socialism.
BTW, the above statement is considered “hate speech” by Google. It’s almost as if they want to prove my point!
As a bachelor for more than twenty years it always shocks and disappoints what little conversation and kissing women do in bed. What's up with this kiss once and go down on me?
Maybe it’s where you are finding them, or what you are looking for. I don’t use dating apps because I like to seduce a woman over time. It’s one of life’s great pleasures.
Of course I am sure I can’t match you in numbers.
Dianna’s problem was that she settled for a German Prince.
I don’t use dating apps because I like to seduce a woman over time. It’s one of life’s great pleasures.
Tim, no woman is seduced who doesn't want to be. Nice fantasy, though. But, yes, the chase is a big part of the pleasure for both.
Tim
I'm 66 years old, I wouldn't know how to use a dating app. I agree, the seduction of a woman is a very slow dance indeed. As a general rule, if a woman can't slow dance don't bother.
While numbers might mater to some, whose counting? Besides the benchmark is whether she ask you back.
BTW, a good example of 'the chase' occurs in the movie, The Year of Living Dangerously between Mel Gibson and Sigourney Weaver.
Romance novels? What about soaps?
Judging by Amazon, romance is *big*, and lots of women watch soap operas. There is a reason for that, and generally, I think it a good sign in a woman if she conforms at least a bit to the stereotypes.
mockturtle
Everyone is sedusable (?), everyone. Women have the control the doors to their bedrooms, men don't.
Romance novels? What about soaps?
I thought bodice-rippers had violent sex. You know, because the man wants her bad.
Not sure because I don't read them either.
Do soaps feature that kind of action now?
Guess I don't know much about either.
It's very difficult to be dark and brooding with red hair. Best not to try.....
Jamie! I read the first few books in the Outlander series and found Jamie to be a very sexy fantasy character...then again I've always had a thing for boyishly handsome men with dark red hair. OTOH your point still stands, because Jamie is not brooding and he's very much in awe of Clair.
So, women like fantasy, and men like fantasy, but of different genres. They're both fantasies, that only become dysfunctional when they conflate logical domains.
Let's keep it in the near-domain, with principles that are, ideally, internally, externally, and mutually consistent.
Men and women are equal in rights and complementary in nature.
On the few occasions I've flipped through the channels & seen a few minutes of a soap opera, what amazes me is not how handsome the men are, (Duh!), but how gorgeous the women are. Especially on the Latino telenovellas, dems some sultry bee-yatches!
No mouseburger heroines for these audiences, nuh-uuuhh.
"Women's bad behavior (playing hard to get, expecting men to read their minds)."
Is it possible anyone actually thinks this is BAD behavior? Am I really supposed to think that women NOT playing hard to get is good for them, or for ANYONE - other than the permanently adolescent boy-men we are turning out by the millions now? Does this explain the insane truth that the song "Baby It's Cold Outside" has been attacked by the feminist lunatics while the most vile rap music about bitches and hos goes unremarked. After all, bitches and hos do not play hard to get, now, do they?
I am a reader of romance novels and I'm not ashamed of it. But if you read them, you'll find the most successful ones, the really good stories, all focus on the main characters falling in love with each other's personalities. The heroine is never loved for her beauty, but for her quirks and values- even if the hero is tall, dark, and handsome, he's inevitably loved for his virtues - he's kindly, or funny, or generous. And frequently, he's not handsome-plenty of books feature damaged heroes or heroines. The trick is finding someone who can see past the damage and love them anyway. Take "Gone WIth the Wind," for example- The first line informs the reader that Scarlett wasn't beautiful. And as you watch men fall to her charms, you realize none of them really know who she is, but Rhett- who loves her for all the things that are wrong with her, that are like himself. So Charlie, Frank, and Ashley- none of them ever loved her truly, because none of them knew her. They loved what they imagined her to be. Only Rhett recognizes the bitch that she really is- and loves her for it.
example quote-"“Oh, yes, you’ve been faithful to me because Ashley wouldn’t have you. But, hell, I wouldn’t have grudged him your body. I know how little bodies mean — especially women’s bodies. But I do grudge him your heart and your dear, hard, unscrupulous, stubborn mind. He doesn’t want your mind, the fool, and I don’t want your body. I can buy women cheap. But I do want your mind and your heart, and I’ll never have them, any more than you’ll ever have Ashley’s mind. And that’s why I’m sorry for you.”
That's it right there, the fantasy, in a nutshell- why I love romance novels. The idea that someone can love you for all your faults, not just for the facade you present to society, but for your real self.
Teenagers should be reading books, fiction or non, that focus on females being independent, of having agency, of discovering things, having careers and thoughts of their own.
No. Absolutely not. You should read things you enjoy, and branch out to read other things you think you might enjoy. One of the great pleasures of reading is to vicariously experience lives that aren't your own.
Some people have inner lives so barren that the only thing they can enjoy reading is agitprop that reinforces what they already believe. The risk of that is much greater than the risk that a girl will start sitting around in whalebone corsets and waiting for the village blacksmith to come ravage her.
Blaming Diana's problems on romance novels seems like an inversion to me.
What's more likely, Diana starting out normal and going nuts because the novels were just too good for her brain to handle, or Diana starting out lonely, marrying a man in love with somebody else, facing a crazy amount of attention and criticism, and working through it all by reading sappy novels with perfect loves and happy endings?
[books].... that focus on females being independent, of having agency, of discovering things, having careers and thoughts of their own.
In other words, just read the Paradiso because Beatrice is in it, & ignore the Purgatorio & the Inferno.
How can someone say such a stupid thing about reading? How could such a statement ever be said by someone who reads history, the sciences, philosophy, theology, etc? I'll tell ya who says something that stupid -- someone who reads only literature, that's who.
I think it's a major problem with the female intelligentsia in the western world. For "facts", they read the newspapers. For books, they read "literature", and by that I mean fiction, & pretty much nothing else. It shows.
I should have said, Maugham's, not Waugh's, Of Human Bondage. :-(
That's it right there, the fantasy, in a nutshell- why I love romance novels. The idea that someone can love you for all your faults, not just for the facade you present to society, but for your real self.
I agree with Ornithophobe. I only read two types of things growing up- romances and Sherlock Holmes stories. The romances I read were the ones that were in women’s magazines, like Good Housekeeping. They did not have the porn described in the NYT essay, or any premarital sex, for that matter. Just the final kiss when the hero and heroine knew they loved each other. I turned out OK. Married someone who loves me for who I am, lo these many years later. But reading romance porn, or any porn, at a young age is not a good idea.
Also agree with Zach that children should read what they enjoy. It lays the groundwork for later serious reading. I know teachers who tell me they are not allowed to teach fiction in our local city schools because the school board/administration want the kids to read about real life role models instead. Seems like you should try to hook them in with good stories first.
Best sex of my life has almost always involved jokes and giggling.
Ann Althouse said...
"Professor, did you consume the media I linked for you?"
No. I don't even know what you're talking about.
1/21/18, 7:45 AM
On the thread where I explain to you what The Claw likely was and you presented objections 1 2 3 4, 3 being that one would resist or vomit, 4 being I didn't know my anatomy and should consult a diagram.
First (4) I posted a link to a supporting diagram (you can search for "pharynx" to find that post), then (3) I sent you a link to a video that would serve as a more practical anatomy lesson (search for "xh@mster").
Let me know if you need any more guidance.
On the thread where I explain to you what The Claw likely was and you presented objections 1 2 3 4, 3 being that one would resist or vomit, 4 being I didn't know my anatomy and should consult a diagram.
I admire your winking parody of a dopey Althouse commenter, BL.
I exist to serve, Earnie.
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