• ... dirty magazines ...
There are no "dirty magazines", sex is NOT 'dirty'. Minds are!
"There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book.Books are well written, or badly written. That is all." — OSCAR WILDE
6
If you want something a little different from a bodice ripper, try Volume 1 in Lois McMaster Bujold's Sharing Knife series: "Beguilement". The heroine, Fawn Bluefield, starts out as a "girl in trouble". It's in large part because she's trying to find her way into adulthood without a lot of practical advice, and a family that doesn't really grasp who she is.
It's a fantasy series; the first book starts out with a twist - the heroine and hero have the climactic battle with the monster up front - and the rest of the story is about the hard part: falling in love in the aftermath, trying to cope with their sexuality, and where to go from there.
Fawn is learning her way into adulthood, including the sex bits. It's an ongoing theme through the tetrology - and her partner learns as much from her as she does from him along the way about what a relationship really is.
3
Maybe women should start thinking about themselves as sexual subjects rather than sexual objects. To see how awful sex ed.in the U.S. is- see “Last Week Tonight’s” piece.
3
Why wait until you're old enough to read romance novels? By then so much has already been assimilated by both males and females about love and lovemaking and the roles of the partners all these stories do is add is confusion and unrealistic expectations to the mix. Please let's accept that sexuality is organic and a part of us from the very beginning of our lives. As such communication about it has a place in life as soon as children start to ask questions or display behavior related to it.
2
I also find myself in a sort of "gray area" with the Ansari-Grace conundrum. After reading the original story on Babe.com and op-eds from various news sites, I find myself not wanting to form an opinion that would demonize either side. Human sexuality is inherently messy, and to over analyze every nonverbal cue during an encounter is enough to make a person anxious and question what "really" happened that night. With Ansari being a well-respected comedian and actor, the issue of power imbalance can't be ignored; but from all accounts, it does not appear that he intentionally used his status as a way to coerce Grace into a date. Yes, he seemed demanding and eager; but at what point does it become the woman's responsibility to speak up for herself and own the experience? The #MeToo movement is important in combating systemic sexual abuses too many women face, but is it necessary when dealing with plain old bad, bothersome, yet consensual sex? My generation of millennial women, I believe, are becoming more outspoken about what they want, and I could not agree more with Jennifer that we need not be afraid to own up to what we want- or don't want.
10
Nice article, nothing too controversial, humorously presented, pretty accurate and (unsurprisingly) not delving far into the "simple complexities" of sex.
Sex is as old as life. It should be obvious to all that the two are inextricably coupled — "joined at the hip" one might say. :) The parts of our brains that regulate sex derive from the very earliest brains (indeed earlier) of organisms hundreds of millions of years ago. Walk into the garden in spring and you will observe, though perhaps not comprehend, rampant orgasmic experiences happening across the spectrum of taxonomy as bees and other pollinators provide their services to the flowers. All species use sex to procreate. It is the most important act in the (living) world. Without it, none of us would be here. The rest of Nature seems to have successfully worked out what is "appropriate"... why can't we?
8
When I was teaching, some of my male students would confide about problems they had encountered with their girlfriends. The conversations surprisingly were not about sex but fell into the category of "What women expected or wanted in a relationship?" My advice:
If you really want to have a better understanding of women, stop reading men's magazines (Playboy , GQ, etc.) and listening to celebrities (such as Donald Trump) and misogynist hip-hop music.
Start reading magazines published for women. Aside from questionable articles in Cosmopolitan, most women's magazines including Redbook (if it is still published) covered the things women were concerned about in their lives (relationships, kids, sex and of course weight). Funny as it may seem, sometimes those magazines did not have one article about men. I know this because waiting in line at a grocery store gives you ample time to scan through these magazines.
And to think some of my male students thought they were (or should have been) the center of attention for their girlfriends. No doubt, for some of them that attitude carried on into adulthood.
14
There is a line in the song “Ten thousand words” by the Avett Brothers that states, “Ain't it like most people? I'm no different. We love to talk on things we don't know about”. Sexual education is undoubtedly one of those things. I have taught the science of human sexuality to university students for many years and I am an avid reader of what I will call “Erotica and Romance”. In my course, students read and critically evaluate peer-reviewed articles on topics in human sexuality. As a rule in class, we do not discuss our personal sexual experiences. We discuss specific testing strategies, analyses, and interpretations. It is not possible to discuss human sexuality research without discussing pornography as both a component of the research and its potential role in people’s sex lives. What is rarely researched and discussed are the erotica novels that are so ubiquitously consumed. Ms. Weiner interestingly asserts that many young women read these novels as a form of education. The argument she makes is that is preferable to image porn in that it allows the characters the time to care about each other before they have sex and then they, of course, live happily ever after. It’s the HEA that many of us enjoy. However, like image-based porn, this is a fantasy. Adolescents who are learning about sexuality should be dealing in realities first and fantasies second. The only way to do this is to require “real” comprehensive sexual education for all our young citizens.
9
These pulp romance novels are thin gruel indeed and often propagate sexist themes. For achingly erotic and excellent literary fiction with a strong feminist point of view read Exit to Eden and Belinda written by Anne Rice which can be found under the pen name Anne Rampling. Also highly recommended in this genre are Marge Piercy's Small Changes and Fly Away Home.
3
i have a question: what makes prince charming so charming? women say they want to meet prince charming. but what does prince charming say that makes him so charming? in pride and prejudice, darcy couldn't be charming if his life depended on it. in mad men, don draper is generally gruff, caustic, and emotionally distant. are they charming/ i start to think prince charming = prince handsome and that women are using "handsome" and "charming" interchangeably. men wan to know what verbal and social characteristics prince charming has that makes him so charming. in charade, a great movie, cary grant's character is gruff and stand-offish. in star wars, han solo is presumptuous and smug. but they are good looking men.
12
If the lessons learned in these books were the foundation of the author’s sex education, relationship model and feminism, and if it’s true, as the author suggests, that a significant number of young girls have also been influenced by these books, then it is no wonder that the modern feminist movement is so lacking in intelligence and moral integrity. It also explains why the #MeeToo movement can’t distinguish the shades of gray between the fantasy of consensual sex and harsh reality of rape. Consensual sex, which these books and all pornography promote and normalizes does not have explicit rules of engagement nor does it allow moral judgement to stand in the way of sexual desire. It sole purpose is self pleasure and its method of attaining that pleasure is to objectify both participants. It degrades the moral principles of people who engaged routinely in the practice and, by our willingness to accept casual sex as some kind of “coming-of-age” practice, it corrupts our youth and the moral principles of our society as a whole. But it’s greatest harm is that it makes it harder of people to form true loving relationship.
To even suggest that this kind of pornography should become the sex guide for adolescent youth is so bizarre and warped of all moral decency that it is an affront to all that is good and wholesome.
8
Really enjoyed this piece, thanks so much! No blame, no finger pointing, just emphasising that this stuff is complicated and intricate. This has been largely missing from both sides of the current debate.
5
At twelve my mom gave me a book titled "Where Babies Come From". At thirteen she gave me "Catcher In The Rye". The rest became a life long voyage as it is for all of us.
While this column makes for interesting newspaper fare there is no replacement for the few and far between honest and brave parents able to tell their children the truth — are their any?
As close as my mother got was to issue a warning regarding fast girls, I barely got what she was talking about and became a victim and perpetrator of fast relationships as most of us are prone to in one way or another.
5
It seems gay boys have a similar sexual education, with open conversations about gay sex and gay intimacy. Which leaves us with the usual suspects: straight boys. Amongst the many arguments defending or mitigating Mr. Ansari's behavior, one would explain why otherwise well meaning men behave badly: they are clueless about how to do better. I have been fortunate to have gotten very belated apologies from a few of ex-boyfriends from younger days. Unfortunately an assertive woman, such as this article describes, can't hope for more. We can protect ourselves by running fast and as far away as possible from bad relationships, but we can no diminish the frequency of the potential disasters. We need a new genre of novels, that will prepare straight boys for better sex.
4
“So many men cannot get their heads around the idea that women are not first and foremost sexual objects,” the novelist Jenny Crusie told me. “...you get that from a persistent worldview modeled by the men around you that you’ve been taught to admire.”
Well I don't disagree that there are men who model this behavior, there are plenty of places where women also objective women. One only has to look at the cover of Cosmo each month or books like 50 Shades to see that happening. Men don't deserve all the blame here; women are in no small way also guilty of objectifying their own gender and buying into society's objectification of women.
9
Oh, the tantalizing title:" Bodice-Ripping Sex Ed". Sounds great for the NYT audience; But- Sex Ed- it "ain't". Does Ms Weiner suggest a curriculum around Harlequin-Like Books be created for the 11-13 year old middle-school female and more advanced version for 14-17 High Schoolers? Will there be a male version? Jennifer, please keep us posted when you have your first school board curriculum-committee adopting your idea.
4
Can a bodice (truly) be ripped with consent?
I mean, isn't the whole point of bodice ripping, uh, transgression?
I mean, if one said, "I now give you enthusiastic verbal affirmation that I am consenting to you to rip off my bodice," doesn't it kinda defeat the whole purpose of having one's bodice ripped?
I mean, if everyone expects his or her bodice to be ripped, and everyone knows he or she is expected to rip off his or her partner's bodice at some point, wouldn't there be a backlash against bodice ripping?
Like jock strap ripping? Can we have jockstrap ripping sex? Can't we expect men to start donning jock straps?
17
Genius comment. Winner.
4
Not necessarily. I have consensually yanked off a woman's clothing. I broke up with a woman. We were apart three months. Then we ran into each other. We still loved each other. We rushed back to my place. We undressed as quickly as possible.
I think the deal with a bodice is that its' supposedly to be difficult to remove. So, the couple, in their lustful impatience, rip it off. I feel like I've seen or read scenes in which the woman helps with the ripping.
8
Doesn't bodice-ripper by definition mean forced sexual encounter?
6
Doesn't "It was a trip to the moon!" mean that the speaker has been to the moon and back?
2
In most of the romance photos it is significant that the hot man always taller (by just a bit) than the hot woman.
3
Gee! Women like and enjoy sex! Wow! You’d never know it, circa, 2018! Then again, who reads all those Romance novels?! And who trapes around more to be noticed?!!!
6
I stopped reading these years ago, when men started writing them (under pen names), and they became full of rape in place of seduction.
9
But who still buys them any why?
2
“So many men cannot get their heads around the idea that women are not first and foremost sexual objects,” the novelist Jenny Crusie told me. “You don’t get that from porn;
- said by nobody ever, who has actually seen porn
1
You are very young, Steve. Before you were born, there was a time when porn was as illegal as marijuana and harder to find than the Lost Dutchman Gold Mine. 99.44% of the population of the United States had never seen any or read any. But men _still_ could _not_ "get their heads around the idea that women are not first and foremost sexual objects.”
American culture doesn't begin with your experience of it, Steve.
6
If Gen Y spent more time reading books and less time on Facebook, Twitter and their computer screens (and no time looking at porn) half their mental health problems would disappear.
10
So now some cold water will be doused on the next generation of Harlequin romance novels. Instead of the 6-pack-abdomen lusty, sweat-glistened shirtless males very gently grabbing the lucky woman's long hair in a moment of passion, he will instead now be tepid and polite and ask permission instead to sweep her up in his strong arms or make any other semi-lusty move out of fear of a career-ruining accusation being broadcast to the world. So maybe now you'll just have to hit the snooze button on that orgasm egg timer.
12
Note to authors. While you're ripping that bodice don't forget birth control and or safe sex.
3
Sadly, many romance authors use a formula that is supposed to increase sales. You know the ones, a few pages of story line followed by endless pages of unbridled passion (sex scenes). Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.
Read the Amazon reviews for the key descriptor: steamy.
These authors need editors to help develop plot and character instead of thesauri of synonyms for male and female anatomy and the intimate actions related thereto.
(Hey NYT, I've done my best to use words that won't get this comment into the 'exclude' list. How did I do?)
4
"They taught readers that sexual pleasure was something women could not just hope for but insist upon."
1. Normal=ideal sexplay=orgasmic play (OP)=feel good play presumes a desire to play with someone wanting to play with you.
2. It's a paradigm of co-operation--a duet or team sport.
3. It's self and other centered--the aim is (a) the pleasure of pleasing AND (b) being pleased AND (c) pleasing by being pleased.
4. (c) explains fake orgasms; they compliments the other--letting him.her know s/he did a feel good deed.
5. Faking it may also suggest ulterior motives--as in sex trade.
6 Sex trade is (OP) for some nonsexual compensation (NSC)--$, job, promotion, grade, social status; the NSC may be per episode, vacation, per sexlife--as in monogamy.
7. But people can enjoy their work. Exceptions are "alienated laborers/workers", trading some lifetime for pay/compensation. But artists, academics, professional and craftspeople--enjoy their work--for them its a paying hobby.
8. Better than hating your job and making a lot of money.
9. But even those enjoying their jobs might not do them as often or as regularly without pay.
10. ON AVERAGE, women are just as horny as men. A bell curve distribution for both males and female. Some are rarely interested; some super horny.
11. But sex is riskier for women--socially and biologically. So often they hold out for reassurances of security, privacy, respect.
12. Holding out for marriage is just another kind of sex trade.
1
Same is true for MM or even MMM romance novels.....into and during relationships ....even in old age and marriage (smile) (wink). “The Gays” like a good shirt ripper just as much as the straights do. And there’s a ton of them available. Most written by women!!!
3
Correction: NPR program "Here and Now" interviewed Cindy Pierce whose book is "Sexplotation". Looks like a must read and need to attend one of her lectures!
1
How refreshing to read this essay. How did it get past the editor in today's #metoo environment?
4
"sexual pleasure was something women could not just hope for but insist upon."
Let's turn that around and see how it sounds.
sexual pleasure was something men could not just hope for but insist upon.
Hmmmm
6
You might have a point, Richard, if sexual pleasure was something that men could only hope for, instead of having it guaranteed.
4
So...recommend a title for us.
1
Wow! Today's Americans really _do_ expect to have everything handed to them on a silver platter. How can anyone else possibly know your taste in erotica well enough to recommend something that will turn you on?
"Different strokes for different folks."
"Please! Loose control! Want me! Be spontaneous! Rip my bodice!!!.....but sign this first."
22
I dont see why people are so critical of the women who told her tale about ..a bad date.she never said he assaulted her or harrased her. She just said he was lousy. Maybe she wanted to warn other women abkut him, maybe she wanted to hurt him for being callous to her. Should we care?
2
She said that, at first, he attempted to brush her off. Hence, if _she_ had taken no for an answer, there would never have been any reason to be discussing whether _he_ should have understood that she was telling him no before she actually told him no. After all, when a woman refuses to take no for _his_ answer, most, if not all, men routinely assume that yes is _her_ answer.
1
Men and women have criticized her for good reason.:
She clearly values her own privacy but violated his.
She had the childish expectation that he should read her "non-verbal" signals. She demands respect but takes no responsibility for her actions.
Is this feminism, or narcissism?
7
"Talking’s not sexy, people complain."
Merely proof that we've become a post-literate and, even more sadly, a post-verbal nation. With smart phone porn, or more likely smart phone addiction, how do kids learn to see, use, or verbally hint at, the good old "look of love." I freely admit that "would you like to come up and see my etchings" may be lame, but at least it expected the inamorata/victim to be alive, conscious, verbal, and able to make a voluntary decision.
And then, giving a perverse lie to all the above, we have those sorry, phone sex cases for whom "talking" is the only sex they get.
Just to be clear—sexy talking conversation (yes, it takes at east two) is way more fun, stimulating, and human than sexy watching little, private porn movies.
2
You can't jump into a sexual relationship before you even know the other person. I think when you do what this anonymous photographer did (have sex on the first date), you are sending the signal that you don't want a romantic relationship.
7
"(have sex on the first date),you are sending the signal that you don't want a romantic relationship."
That's not even close to being a universal truth, with respect to either men or women. In fact, it's total nonsense. Even a lot of men who sleep with prostitutes hope that it will develop into a "romantic" relationship. And, sometimes, it does.
You never know.
1
We need bodice ripper Sex Ed (good luck, Texas) but the interpersonal extension of that is “the talk”. Not the one with your parents - but the one BEFORE you have sex with your date or partner (even if it’s first date, please set expectations upfront as opposed to pulling off all your clothes and asking him or her to read your non-verbal clues). The talk where you talk about everything from interests, preferences of what you like sexually, don’t like, and would never be interested in. And birth control and those expectations. Who goes home and what it means if anything to each of them. Deliberate exploration. Otherwise it’s really just self gratification using another human body.
4
Meh. Romance-novel feminism, eh? Just another form of objectification, this sort of the male objectification variety. Malebashing "villains" with a helping of sexist stereotyping: "a guy who goes to sleep thinking, 'That was fun!' and a girl who goes home crying in an Uber." ("A girl?" Really? If a male wrote that...)
Not uncommon a man goes home thinking it wasn't much of a fulfilling encounter, and sometimes because of an over-insistent woman wanting to "get her needs met." Insistence seems to be a prerogative for women here, and borderline assault for men now...
5
Nevertheless, it seems like a lot of young folks get much of their sex education from porn. So as a public service, some great film makers ought to make some really hot porn in which a little patience and vigorous consent feature prominently. Then they should distribute it to all the porn sites.
1
So, fictionalized, idealized sex is a good instructor of sexual relations? Sorry, let me rephrase: so, fictionalized, idealized sex according to some (any) writer is a good instructor of sexual relations? I understand the point, yet aren't "romance novels" considered formulaic, where the woman always orgasms (first), and the man holds orgasm until the very end, and all is happy ever after?
And this is different from (some) porn how?
It is easy to pick on "porn" because yes, there is a lot of pretty bad (often degrading) porn. Yet, I would wager there is more than a bit of bad, perhaps degrading "romantic fiction" too. After all, what was that 50-shades business all about, women sharing their feelings and needs with a guy holding a whip or something?
Hard to argue otherwise if one considers book sales.
So, a script? Is that the real implication here? Or perhaps, romance novels and a Hitachi? Perhaps that's where we're headed. Seems that for the majority of the human race, virtual reality sex cannot come to soon, no pun intended.
But honestly, might this conversation be just yet another distraction from one of the main issues, which is that many (many) people are unable to say the word 'NO'.
Perhaps we need classes on that: 'NO' Ed, or 'Bite-his-finger-if-he-shoves-it-in-your-mouth Ed. Do-not-get-naked-and-consider-that-a-nonverbal-NO Ed.
There's not much else one can say to this issue, really, because the bottom line is: don't be stupid.
Apparently, that's an issue.
4
"I would wager there is more than a bit of bad, perhaps degrading "romantic fiction" too."
Read some and see for yourself.
"what was that 50-shades business all about, women sharing their feelings and needs with a guy holding a whip or something?"
What it _wasn't_ all about was what a Harlequin romance is all about!
Ms. Weiner, nicely written. Perhaps an anthology of Bodice Ripper genre to accompany a sex education class might go a long way? Granted the young males would publicly reject it but if I'm sure many of them would read it at night ----with a flashlight.
1
Freshman year, Catholic high school. That paperback of Puzo's "The Godfather" was passed around so quickly (and surreptitiously--nuns) that eventually the only thing left was page 28.
1
Well and necessarily said!
There's a particularly hilarious moment in Nick Kroll's "Bad Mouth" where newly pubescent boys discover girls are essentially reading porn in school. They never looked at the library the same way again.
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.
Please women and men, talk to one another, don't service the fear.
1
Sorry, I don't need pulp. Not in the NYT, nor on my reading list, and definitely not in my life.
2
What gets me is how few young people realize that one sex act is enough to produce a child.
Speaking of teens and sex, what will kill the abortion industry is an ultrasound system that you can carry around in your coat or purse. When expectant mother thinking of going ahead with abortions, 4 out of 5 of them decide to carry the baby to term once they see he kid living inside them.
We also have 3-D ultrasound that can be a video stream sent to smartphones. The babies may/should eventually have legal representation in court as well since it become a death penalty case for them.
1
"...sexual pleasure was something women could not just hope for but insist upon."
Try changing just one word in that quote and see whether you agree with it:
"...sexual pleasure was something men could not just hope for but insist upon."
4
Re Nixon:
In addition to his manic-depressive behavior, boosted by alcohol addiction we have not seen in a president since Grant, who drank a quart of a popular mixture of wine and cocaine, Nixon, particularly hiding behind stalking-horse VP Spiro Agnew, was a terribly poisonous polarizing figure.
Nixon was constantly inflaming the infectious foreign policy left by Johnson, and, at the same time ripping open freshly healed skin of Johnson’s excellent domestic policy driven by the Texan’s attempts to wash away th blood of Southern racism.
Nixon”s confusion of “law and order” quickly added politically active Boomers (confused to this day with narcissistic hippies) to those he considered personal enemies- nowhere near the level of Trump ‘s l’etat se moi view of the US and the world. Nixon laid the path Trump follows in his loathing of most Americans.
Starting with demonizing American youth, especially those who led opposition to White House policy, Nixon and Agnew added white college kids to those traditional enemies of the US bigot.
For many, May 4, 1970 will be remembered as the day “middle America”, egged on by Nixon’s policies, turned against its own onthe bloody campus at Kent, Ohio.
The date of four murders by National Guardsmen will remain more a symbol of evil than Sept. 11, 2001.
We expect attacks by our radicalized enemies, not by our own.
1
Henry Miller apart, most reading doesn’t do it for me, but seeing is believing: that 1953 Playboy nude centerfold of Marilyn Monroe drove me crazy.
Never read any of these -- who has suggestions on what to read?
Will Fabio be making a comeback?
It may be tongue in cheek and coined in jest, but maybe the term “bodice-ripper,” is not the best term for literature giving women any sexual agency-depending of course on who’s doing the “ripping.”
Ansari's problem is precisely that there are no Asian men on (or inside) the covers of bodice-ripping literature.
(You would think with the prominence of Asian women in porn that Asian women would also have a presence in bodice-rippers, but no...)
That's because white women are the overwhelming consumers (and producers) of bodice-rippers. White women are writing for each other, their tastes are reflected by and dictated to each other, in bodice-rippers, and while it sometimes include a bodice-ripping (but non-threatening) black man, it never includes a bodice-ripping Asian man.
I don't know what Grace was expecting from Ansari, I don't even know Grace's ethnicity, but whatever their fantasies of each other, we would learn nothing from bodice-rippers.
Considering that Grace, by her own admission, refused to be brushed off, what Ansari was expecting from Grace when he asked her out and then to his crib is glaringly obvious to anyone, male or female.
1
Reading the book to one another would be a better start.........
"We need"..... Says who, Ms. Weiner? Please assume that I may very well have at least as many degrees as you do, and that my intellectual and emotional skills are no less developed than yours to decide what I need for sex, and how to get it. If you must acquaint us with the ways that led to your own sexual education, it need not be a lecture for the rest of us. We are not your daughters.
2
But “bodice-ripping” suggests force not romance...
1
And I thought reading just taught you how to write better! If your partner isn't enthusiastically consenting (tough to miss it) then switch to foot rubs and back rubs and try again on the next date.
1
"try again on the next date"
Why bother? He didn't come on to her. She came on to him and refused to be brushed off. Clearly, he was not interested in her.
#MeToo
We strongly disapprove of romance novels! The woman should decide the "when and where" not the man !!
And how does that motivate your strong disapproval of romance novels?
This is probably mean, but once Jo Walton has reminded you what sex positivity can be in SF in "Among Others" her implication that romance novel readers are not real readers is amply justified.
1
When I was a kid the Sunday afternoon movie would come on the TV on channel 11, and it was usually some old black and white classic.Casablanca was burned into my mind as the ultimate illustration of love. 40 years later it seems to be even more relevant. My mother read hundreds of romance novels with raping and wanton fornicating in them. They had pirates on the cover, or a shirtless Fabio. As a kid I used to flip through them for the sex parts and they were pretty bad. They were as bad as today's more mild porn. You need to see both sides of the coin, the burning loins and also the selfless love. People are not very smart. They are going to make mistakes and fumble around and generally be foolish. But men and women should be allies, or life will suck for everyone. That doesn't fit the porn scenario certainly. It fits Casablanca but Rick and Ilsa never even get to have sex before she gets on the plane and leaves forever. No one has the complete answer but I'd say the author is on the right track, romance novels might not be a bad idea.
6
“So many men cannot get their heads around the idea that women are not first and foremost sexual objects,” the novelist Jenny Crusie told me.
If there is nothing first and foremost about the women it is much easier to allow her to fulfill her dreams rather than his, and by the time she's 52 the matter is moot. So your statement about men making all women objects is just daydreaming on your part.
1
Current disagreements over sexual engagement generally center around "consent" versus "incremental consent." He says, "Let's hook up," and she responds, "Sure." He mistakenly believes he has received her consent to engage in everything from kissing to foreplay to penetration. However, she reasonably wants to maintain moment-to-moment control over her body, issuing incremental consent and perhaps stopping at any point short of penetration. Reading romance novels won't take the place of guys being told, explicitly, individually, and collectively, "Don't engage in sex-talk, kissing, foreplay, or penetration without the woman's incremental consent."
2
"Talking's not sexy"? At our house talking's foreplay.
One of us will read a funny/serious piece in the Times about bodice-rippers and their possible importance as teaching tools. And that will lead to talk about the Swiss fellow we met in Africa who once headed marketing for Harlequin books and who told us that in Russia far more men than women read romance novels. And that will lead to talk about the piece one of us read in the Times about how greater gender equality in Russia had led to better sex. And that will lead to questions about how anybody really knows what's happening in Russian bedrooms. And that will lead one of us to remember those photos of shirtless Putin and I will say, "Eeuuw," and he will say, "You don't like shirtless men?" And that will lead to . . . .
I wonder if more folks didn't see talk as foreplay we wouldn't have less ambiguity about consent and more satisfying sex all round. If you talk more first, you establish more common ground, more emotional intimacy, and that makes it easier to talk about things that are harder to talk about--like whether or not you want to go further. Or maybe more talk doesn't establish more common ground, but that might make it easier for women who, for whatever reason, might otherwise simply acquiesce to call a car.
Either way, it tees up consent more clearly. And if the talk does establish greater emotional intimacy it will likely lead to greater physical intimacy as well.
9
How do you then explain Fifty Shades of Grey phenomenon - a bodice-ripper that celebrates a domineering (but young, rich and handsome, of course) man and a submissive younger woman? I shouldn't think it was terribly empowering but then I haven't read it - I couldn't get past the execrable prose.
6
"Fifty Shades of Grey phenomenon - a bodice-ripper "
"Fifty Shades of Grey" is not a bodice-ripper. Whether it can be considered a "phenomenon"is open to discussion.
Well, since you asked, I will tell you that the male protagonist in that series was at once alpha male sex god and super-sensitive, loyal, madly-in-love, helpless little boy wrapped into one. I think the trick was hitting on both sides of the male fantasy: strong and in charge while sweet and sensitive.
But Ms. Weiner's point in the article is actually illustrated perfectly by the 50 shades series as well as other modern romance novels. There is a TON of talking about feelings, emotions, how the relationship developed, etc.
2
How about we see this as an opportunity to put the sexy in consent? For a great road map how this can work for all genders, Laurie Mintz's Becoming Cliterate shows us sex positive scripts that promote sexuality that allows for pleasure, fun, bonding and connection - both to yourself and your partner.
1
Sexual relationships are not about equality. And talking things out can undermine satisfaction. Anybody who tells you they know the secret to good sex surely does not, because the secret is part unknowable.
4
A man writes to columnist Dan Savage:
"My girlfriend wants to know my deepest fantasies. What should I tell her?"
Savage: "Lie."
He argued that women aren't really equipped to deal with the reality of male desire, so keep her in her fantasy world where everything is unicorns and rainbows.
Savage may have overstated it, but I think he did have a point.
Many women, even (especially, perhaps) "woke" feminists, seem to need to live in a fantasy world where men know all, are secure and sure-footed in all their sexual interactions. One shouldn't have empathy for men's challenges in the dating world because, of course, they have none.
Only women are expected to please their partner, only women have society place expectations on them, only women are constrained by their gender roles.
Fantasy, of course.
Where did I learn about sex? And love, BTW?
Women, of course- Cosmo magazine and some hands on training.
And no doubt my girlfriends learned a lot from me, particularly about how men are fallible and imperfect- very different (I hope) from the predatory cardboard cutouts of patriarchy they rapped about in their Womyn's Studies ovulars.
You can probably learn more about sex and love from bodice rippers than plenty of other places, to be sure.
But I think a good starting point is to just assume that inside every package, whatever it's gender and level of attractiveness, is a human being, fallible, valuable, and capable of being broken.
Handle with care.
10
Interesting. I've lived a looooong life and never heard even one woman, feminist or otherwise, say she thought "men know all" when it comes to anything at all.
1
Maybe male supremacy in church, mosque, and temple are the problem. The world’s religions all value men more than women. The world’s religions subordinate women, and in America, fetuses are more important than the women carrying them. Execution of women for adultery was once common to all major religions. Male promiscuity is “normal” and forgivable and female promiscuity is shameful, sinful, Sex outside marriage is “sinful” primarily for women. Why does sex drive us to allegories? Religion.
The Pro-life movement IS a religious movement grounded in “fetal souls” dogma which has no place under the establishment clause. It’s a religious “wedge” issue that Republicans love because it’s based on beliefs and not facts. Exploitation of race, gender, and sexual orientation in a religious context, is a commonality of American conservatives and of autocrats around the world.
Electing a man like Trump was preferable to electing a woman “scorned” like Hillary Clinton. A man is forgivable while a woman whose husband was a sexual predator could not be judged on her own merits.
Roman Catholics can weather the pedophile priest scandal, and ignore punishing responsible prelates but comes under attack by conservative Catholics when it shows compassion to gay members, divorced Catholics, and advocates for the poor. Catholic women cannot become priests because male supremacy is primal.
Coldblooded scientific analysis may be the only route to compassionate humane sexual relations.
7
Great column, but:
"there are worse places to start than curling up with a good book"...
or even a bad one.
Dan Kravitz
1
Books are great starting points. But people need to learn how to talk about sex. And organized religion is, in many ways, the chief culprit of sexual shame. It is this shame that prevents most conversations from happening because shame is an emotion and strong emotions nullify our reason.
Had Aziz and 'Grace' had a conversation about what each was looking for or wanted, they probably would not have wound up in all these tabloids; of course, they might not have even wound up at Aziz's apartment had they discussed their post dinner plans during dinner.
We are an incredibly prude and horny country. Prude for pretending sex is beyond discussion and horny because we wind in bed together very often. It's a bad combination.
7
"they might not have even wound up at Aziz's apartment had they discussed their post dinner plans during dinner."
They wouldn't even have wound up on a date, if she had allowed Aziz to say no. After all, according to her, his initial reaction was to attempt to brush her off.
1
If a woman is not satisfied with the sex she gets from a man, the best thing is to show him how, in a caring, encouraging way. While you're at it, value his emotions, so he will feel good about being more emotionally present with you. Don't criticize him. Men have been told for most of human history to shut down all their emotions and sensitivity. Men are more fulfilled when they become more developed sexually and emotionally. I ama man, so I know what I'm talking about. Be positive about these parts of your guy, and have fun with it.
If women want to keep talking about what they are not getting, and expect men to listen, they should also focus on the things men have been discouraged from feeling. Success is mutual!
4
I love bodice rippers!
1
Your second-to-last sentence mentions Über. Über? Really? Rescue from a bad sexual encounter necessarily must require the service of that misogynistic extractive company? It truly adds insult to injury. We have a long way to go as a culture.
3
I'v never read one of these gems but judging from promotional artwork, and other female geared material, Barbie, advertising, movies, and the print press it is impossible to avoid the fact that a fantasy has been sold, bought, and propagated infinitely. Hook, line and sinker — the female audience has been sold a bill of goods. The leading Readers Picks commenter today has it right, Sharon, Miami Beach. ! On top of that men are steered wrong too.
Can we please get honest? Get honest about sex and love and lust? Get honest about sexual fulfillment and emotional fulfillment? Sometimes they are linked other times not. Looking at popular culture in the Times one would think people are victims of some sort of menace. But the menace is, in fact, themselves.
As we grow, evolve we are presented with an infinite array of choices, really more then we can handle. but at the top of the list are sex and romance, forever intertwined.
Women and men take heed, playing with matters of the heart can kill who you are.
At 14," I never looked at hard-boiled eggs the same way again."
The thing is, did you ever find the guts to tell a man your truth, probably not.
And that as much as anything spells out much of the problem between men and women. At the tender age of thirty I asked my partner to tell me what to do. Her response; "no, you are the man, it is on you to figure it out". A no more depressing statement has never been uttered in my lifetime.
5
Iconoclast, beautiful comment.
Yes! Let's get honest: men want sex and will pretty much do anything in any way to please the woman. Woman say they want empowerment and equality -but when it comes to sex that is simply not true. Most women want to surrender "agency" and release their feminine nature. This is why your partner would not tell you what to do.
2
In my adolescence Grace Metalious' novel "Peyton Place" advanced the 5% of sex ed provided by my mother, the nurse. But today, the budding adolescents in my Unitarian Universalist church benefit from "Our Whole Lives," the age-appropriate comprehensive sexuality curriculum developed jointly with the United Church of Christ. Our young children are taught to identify "inappropriate touching," teens learn about the full range of sexual identities and expressions. All questions are answered by trained adult facilitators. Most of all, OWL puts sex into the context of loving: mutually respectful relationships and shared responsibility. OWL is the antithesis of learning about sex through porn.
4
With four young women who I spent time and money during thier coming of age, I was pretty much ignorant. I wish I'd had a stack of the Romance Novels on hand.
1
This is unrealistic. Bodices are expensive.
2
No, we don't need more "Bodice-Ripper Sex Ed". We need high quality, comprehensive sex education programs which teach more than the 'names of body parts' and 'what goes where in the straight-people intercourse'. Having worked with middle and high school students for many years, I can say that they are eager to learn the "facts" but, perhaps even more importantly, desperately want a supportive, non-judgmental place where they can discuss the nuances of consent, when/how to say no (or yes), online sexting, peer-pressure, contraception, resources for reproductive health services, etc. etc. etc.
We should not be embracing romance novels and pornography simply they are where so many teens and adults learn about sex and sexuality. The #MeToo movement, the fact that the US has the highest rate of unplanned pregnancy in the developed world, high rates of sexually transmitted infections, gay teens committing suicide at much higher rates than their straight peers, all suggest that these sources may not be the best sexuality educators.
4
Nice insight. Perhaps we men can benefit, too, in an instruction manual sort of way...
1
I saw a western film as an adolescent in which the female star's bodice was ripped open. It made me queasy. Isn't that deemed to be sexual assault? Where is the line between fantasy and behavior, and aren't we trying to move it? How can a serious writer even think of recommending smutty novels as a means to sort out sexual mores in this day and in this climate. If you think that bodice ripping is ok, we are not even on the same page. Smutty novels are just cheap thrills.
1
I read a few of these and I always felt in the mind of a stupid girl, or woman, one that I would never want: hot but invariably uncultured and shallow, and generally ruthless in the pursuit of a rich male, sometimes touted as alpha by the heroine. Not once have I read a romance novel devoid of hypergamy: the happy ending is not the female gets good sex, but that she bags a rich man. Always. Real women are often better, kinder and far more intelligent an cultured than the heroines (which is not hard). I propose renaming this genre Gold Digger Romance.
7
The best romances are not about gold digging, but about an array of masculine traits that are appealing to women. Rhett Butler and Healthcliff’s appeal is not about money but about brooding strength. Ultimately most romances have elements of submission and domination (as well as the protagonist being understood). Romances may well be the equivalent of porn but for women, and yet, ultimately, the two genres show how compatible men and women are — we both want the same things. Many men want to be dominant, many women want to be submissive but in a cherished and understood fashion. It’s nice to think that we’re compatible, eh? Sure maybe woman aren’t fantasizing about broke men but then men aren’t watching porn filled with ugly women.
1
There are romance novels, and then there is porn (yet another fiction). The short-cut to grief is to imagine that the person of interest to you is going to make those fictions become reality, because reality never goes by the script.
Oh, and by the way, in any relationship worthy of the name, passion is the first thing to burn out. After that happens one can, hopefully, see clearly. And what is left is either a void, or actual love.
I know many women who after marriage refused sex. I also know many women who use sex as a means to get married and then, pretty much sign off. The drumbeat in the trendy culture of #metoo, in all ways of how women are neglected gets tiring and doesn't match up to the reality most men experience.
But, best of luck to women griping about not being able to meet a man, and to women who meet men and only complain about how they're treated. Frankly, most men and some women are sick of this narrative.
6
romance novels are for girls/women what pornography is for boys/men. for their targeted audience, both are infatuating and delightfully unrealistic. romance and action movies can also be delightfully unrealistic for their targeted audience--hence their popularity. ("action" movies effectively glorify violence and sanitize its horrific effects, but that topic is for another article.)
but do you wonder why girls are generally infatuated with words + imagination, while boys are generally infatuated with visuals + imagination? i bet it has something to do with reproductive advantage. more than the converse, women like men who are mentally convincing; men like women who are visually convincing. and why are there photos _only_ on the cover of romance novels, while a lad magazine has photos throughout, and more exposed photos at that?
...
"...the stuff you don’t see in porn..."
how would you know?
3
Actually, I've always thought talking was super sexy!
4
Ayaan Hirsi Ali in "Infidel," page 69, of the books read by Somali girls on their own "with sexy parts" : "All these books, even the trashy ones, carried with them ideas -- races were equal, women were equal to men -- and concepts of freedom, struggle, and adventure." And on page 79 on the "cheap Harlequins" provided by a friend's sister: "Buried in all of these books was a message women had a choice. Heroines fell in love, they fought off family obstacles and questions of wealth and status and they married the man they chose." They read about sex that felt good, which was the only place that message came across.
7
Right. Too often, we have miles of layers of celluloid film that extends from our skin down to our hearts and we simply assume and infer without real dialogue. The movie runs in our heads and we are simply acting it out for fun. Drugs made it even worse because they separated us from our real awareness. Cultural differences made the models in our heads from parents and home into layers of confusion and the inference continued until we broke apart. It was male, it was female, it was male-male or female-female. Divorce, it seemed, was not limited to heterosexuals and demons.
We are an anesthetized society that values numbness with sexuality being the only approved version of kinesthetic feeling. But there is so much more, however only the Warrior allowed the man to develop his psycho-physical awareness to it fullest. Only the Courtesan was allowed hers in Camille or Violetta. The cure was breeding and settling down to a nest and a job that while boring made everyone secure. What life? In Traviata, Germont said it when he told Violetta that eventually the anesthetized and thoroughly acculturated Edgardo would leave her and she knew it was true. She was alive and he was tamed. But is that the only model for a human male or female? More movies? Lina Wertmuller and the male seduction of Mimi, a guy? The answer? Art. Study, learn your culture and grow up. Say no, like Congress can't. Be an individual and cooperate and grow greater truths.
1
I am very amused that an educated person takes their life lessons from romance novels.
2
Education doesn't equate to wisdom. It doesn't even equate to knowledge.
You have to understand the author's cultural milieu.
I am very amused that an educated person takes his life lessons from religious writings.
Romance novels give girls unrealistic expectations of men, and unlike visual porn, it also gives them an unearned sense of entitlement.
Aside from that, objectification is a good and integral part of sexuality. There is an assumption on the part of "gender critics" like Jenny Crusie that objectification means the person is only an object and nothing else. This is a conclusion arrived at via the analyst's own insecurity, and does not relate to reality.
1
The portrayal of sex in American television and movies is a horrendous and disastrous joke. It is all hurried, animalistic, out-of-control throwing bodies together, lack of foreplay, lack of tenderness and no real lovemaking. Women almost always keep their tops on. Come on, who likes that? Who prefers sex up against walls, on tables? Who goes from uncomfortable conversation to burning gazes to passionate lip-locking to pulling down panties to doing it and finishing in ten seconds? Triple yuck. If this is the sex instruction our young people receive then both romance and female sexual pleasure are doomed.
2
BEFORE reading this opinion piece, I'm transfixed by the heading's reference to bodice-ripping. In the current context of vague notions of what constitutes sexual assault, the need for express consent at each/every step, etc., no sane or prudent man should ever come within spitting distance of tearing a woman's clothing ... whether she openly or tacitly ached for this or not! C'mon NYT, the days of sanctioned bodice-ripping ... unaccompanied by jail time, I mean ... as dead as the zoot suit.
3
This is correct. But let us remember to reap the rewards of scripted fantasy between consenting lovers where we can explore these more "negative" energies. In this safe space almost anything goes. So tear and spank away.
This should be the true focus of women's marches and the MeToo movement: advocating, nay demanding, satisfying sex. "The heroine in the book got off; I want it for me too!" All decent men will support this.
2
Jennifer, if you learned about heterosexual sex from pulp fiction, you haven't learned anything about sex between consenting adults. You've learned that selling idealistic fantasies written by women, for women, is a profitable enterprise. That's all.
It takes asking a man what he expects from a relationship, and telling him what you expect too, to form the basis of a sexual relationship which is meaningful for both of you. Just self-confidence, and honesty. You won't get either from pulp fiction.
1
I agree with the author that the “ripped bodice” pulp-fiction perspective can add something to the present gender wars, if we take such books in the way they were intended by their clever authors, with a stifled laugh. Every time I read another humorless article about the “#MeToo” moment in the New York Times from a supposedly “woke” feminist point of view, I feel like I am listening to the age-old music of girls dishing about boys at a slumber party. They seem to have no more knowledge of real life than an adolescent girl. The future world where the dangerous business of love will be sanctified and smoothed over by the triumph of egalitarian progressive sexual mores is a cheap dream on a par with romance novel fantasies. Men objectify women in their locker room talk for same reason women dish about men at the office cooler, because love is a dog-eat-dog world and safety is paramount, as every male media personality trying to survive the present cutthroat gender skirmishes (think Aziz Ansari) knows all too well. As for the “#MeToo” movement, Twitter is a forum for Trump to vent his narcissism, as well as a place to make potent political and personal denunciations without consequence to the accuser, not a place to cultivate respect and love. True love (if it exists) comes sans hashtag.
3
Funny when I worked at the bookstore the Romance novels all had titles like, “ The Billionaire’s Secretary”, or “ The Oil Tycoon’s Mistress” and many if not most seemed to be promoting inappropriate relationships in unequal power arrangements. Not so feminist.
6
Well, that would set feminism and sex education back 200 years.
The romance novels I am familiar with victimized women and had the female protagonists falling in love with her sexual abusers. I haven't picked up a romance novel since.
They didn't get the reputation for being "bodice rippers" from nowhere.
1
I grew up with a grandmother in residence. She was smart, funny, wise, and loved soaps. To spend time with her, I found myself, even in elementary school, spending my lunch hour watching a half hour of news, and then the next 25 minutes watching Search for Tomorrow and the Guiding Light. I learned a lot about men and women by watching those soaps, and the difference between moral and immoral behavior in relationships. The good guys -- the Adam Drakes, Mike Carrs, and all the cops and lawyers that dominated those shows-- treated women with respect, loyalty, and, most importantly, love.
The feminist movement changed daytime soaps. It ushered in Tad the Cad, and Luke the rapists, anti- heroes and sirens ruled the day. The bad boy, always a womanizer or abuser that treated women like dirt, was the hero and what any educated thinking woman would prefer. A man who treated a woman with care and respect was simply not very exciting in bed. Too much talking.
I raised a teen during the 1990's. I saw feminism become a dirty word. Show me a young feminist, I'll show you a girl having sex with a boy because that’s what he wanted. She didn't just say no because no was only sexy if it lead to yes. That's where we stand today. Pop culture has always played a large role in how women see themselves. Just now, looking back, those Harlequin Romances were far less destructive than Fifty Shades of Gray.
20
I'll admit Harlequins turned on a lot of lights when I was 13. I couldn't figure out what these nagging distracting feelings were that kept cropping up. Then Mom handed me a copy of That Boston Man by Janet Dailey, suddenly I knew. "Oh, those are sexual feelings."
And the author is right. These books largely were about getting blissed out by heavy petting.
But in the end I'm not cool with the whole bed trick narrative. "I am so naive. I have no idea about men. Oh, dear. We just had sex. Whoops but, oh, wow."
Ugh.
I'm sorry but we made a mistake here. Sex is something we can prepare for. It should not be set up as something we stumble blindly in and out of. It is too intense, too awe inspiring. It changes us. And, what is beautiful, we can change to meet it.
I reject the pervasive myth that pain in sex is a woman's destiny. I reject the notion that the only way for me to discover the joy of sex is to have it thrust upon me.
We can tell better stories than those of jerk bosses preying on cute secretaries. Or desperate naive girls and poor little rich boys.
We can meet this with more humor and humanness.
12
The best thing about this is it's well written. That almost beats sex. We males are stubborn, prideful and deluded. I am afraid that to achieve what is sagely advised we would need a mandatory first-grade curriculum with the necessary props. Knowledge is not that difficult to acquire.
2
Hm. I'm with commenters Sharon and Lynda on this -- I understand Ms. Weiner's point in general, but I thought that the name of the category -- "bodice-ripper" came directly from the phenomenon of women being unable to be *willing* partners in sexual activity. My understanding for the last forty years is that bodice-ripping as presented in those books was straight-up rape fantasy... at least, in the books I read of that genre, which I consumed with avid curiosity as a kid, but never aspired to. I think "bodice-rippers" can be awful examples of what NOT to do and how NOT to talk in a relationship.
I never picked up a Harlequin, but books like "Forever" made sense to me as a teen -- not particularly erotic, but a lot of fumbling and trying to figure stuff out. I've been sitting here a good ten minutes (I'm an English teacher) trying to think of a young-adult book that centers sex and sexual education in a way that doesn't involve coercion, violence, and aggression towards women. I got nothin'. I guess I need to do some homework....
6
I read romances all the time, and I have NEVER read one that glorified "coercion, violence, and aggression towards women." I think the plots focus on misunderstandings or other failures to communicate feelings and the fact that Pheromones are oblivious to social/financial/etc. structures. I think you should do some internet searches. I'm at present re-reading Suzanne Brockmann's Troubleshooter series. Number 3, "Over the Edge," includes a scene where a Navy Seal literally throws up in horror because he is unable to protect a young woman. That's how men REALLY feel about violence toward women! I have long believed that high schoolers should read romances (although there probably is a specific sub-genre out there [maybe the "erotics" that I've never read for example] that are different, so research! Check out some 'lists' in Goodreads.)
Goodreads has lists of inane books for inane people. The majority does not rule for my choice of books.
That's because the lists are meant to be _suggestive_ and not definitive. You are free to consider them "inane" and to insult their readers. Others are free to do otherwise.
I'm a great reader of romances, and have been since childhood. The best romance for my taste however is found in another genre entirely and is the several books long courtship of Harriet Vane by Lord Peter Wimsy, ending in a treatise on what it means to really commit to marriage and happiness (while cleverly solving a murder) in the book Busman's Honeymoon. I highly recommend all the Wimsey/Vane books to romance aficionados.
4
These are well written books and would flop completely for the readers of the genre known as Romance (fantasy). Please, try as you might Romance novels are trash, first foremost and always.
The modern American bodice ripping man?
Prowl, prowl--but necessarily with genius! Increasing equality between men and women in America, coupled with never really satisfactory economic environment, not to mention unsatisfactory economics, creates a really tense and subtle forces of power atmosphere, and the entire ladies man game is jacked up to a whole new level. The best of ladies men of the past were always characterized as suave, but now you had better be super smooth to be a bodice ripper or not enter the game at all. Women gaining power, having everything from legal aid to greater comprehension of male behavior and mind, not to mention women working together, sharing forces and knowledge, makes bodice ripping a truly subtle art. Today a man really has to know himself, the situation, and the woman to make really daring moves, which is essentially what we mean when we speak of bodice ripping. Far more likely these days are timid moves, because the daring move is more likely than not to be punished. In fact, more likely than not daring moves of the past were not really daring but rather men just forcing their weight crudely on women, which is to say the game of bodice ripping in the past was on a very low skill level. A lot of men today are angry about changing circumstances between men and women, more power for women, but it could be we are entering a high and sophisticated culture of seduction, that finally all historical traces of high seduction are coming to the fore.
2
I think you're missing the whole point of the romance novel.
A "romance" according to the classical sense of the word, is simply a story with a happy ending, as opposed to a tragedy. In the modern sense, a romance novel is one in which "love conquers all." IOW, these books aren't all about the sex-ed bits of life, they're books women (and men) read -- and write -- because they want to believe that there will be happy endings for all involved, even if things start off badly at first.
There's nothing wrong with a woman wanting her bodice to be ripped from time to time, (heck, wanting to have perfectly nice clothes end up in tatters isn't even remotely as strange as wanting to whip a woman, IMO). As a way of showing passion and excitement, there's a certain freedom in throwing out convention that way that's quite healthy, IMO. The important part of the story in a romance novel is always going to be that both parties change their opinions about themselves and their partner so that they find love and commitment -- and good sex -- in the end.
1
This is an interesting viewpoint, and one I'd never considered. I've read a book or two like this in my early teens, and yeah, my vague recollection and sense is that indeed, these books send home the message that women can and should enjoy sex for the mere pleasure of it...and that it's their right.
On the other hand however, my sense is that these books and the way they are considered overall, is as a sort of 'discreet' little secret for 'naughty' women to enjoy. In other words, unless one has read these books, one may not fully appreciate just how descriptive and arousing these books can be, and using very coy but clear terminology. So my point is, I both agree and disagree with the point that these books embolden women when it comes to their own sexuality. It's not that much unlike say strip clubs for women, which seem to be marketed in a very different manner than those for men. Strip clubs for men are very transactional and business-like. Whereas strip clubs for women are 'fun'...often with a 'girls night out' feeling...or for bachelorette parties. Why can't women just admit they actually feel horny?...why must there always be giggles or the focus being more on a night of 'wild but innocent fun', versus on 'carnal sex'?
1
This is certainly a woman's approach. If you know anything about young men, there is no likelihood that they will read this sort of material. That may be fine. Certainly boys don't have to learn that sexual pleasure is their right. But for boys and young men, they need specifics - simple and clear notions about what women want and about the confusions in sexual communication. No suggestions how this can be done, but for boys and men, a more direct approach may be necessary.
1
"Romance novels taught me that sexual pleasure was something women could not just hope for but insist upon. " (sub-title; front page)
Really? What right do any of us have to 'insist' upon sexual pleasure from another. As a man, I would consider myself abusive if I were to 'insist' that my lover gives me pleasure.
I dont read romance novels. But if this is the 'education' people get from reading them, I worry for those who do and how it effects their expectations in relationship.
2
"As a man, I would consider myself abusive if I were to 'insist' that my lover gives me pleasure."
Considering that sexual pleasure for men borders on the automatic, there is no motive for a man to "insist" other than abuse.
Romance novels allow and encourage women to create ideal situations in their imaginations and the ideal men to be along side them in the fantasy. Are they then set on "filling in the colors in each other's paint by number dreams"? The men have rippling chests, muscles elsewhere always at the ready and good looks that could knock over a whole room of school girls.
It might be that these slender volumes are indeed educational, but there are many other sources of useful knowledge. They can be found in a place called a library. There are mounds of studies of human sexuality, particularly in college libraries, but, perhaps, knowledge of statistics and sexual mechanics are not actually what is wanted.
Many women seem to be looking for the perfect encounter with the perfect male. If it can be found in the pages of an inexpensive paperback, why not in real life?
When I was a teenager late in high school, I concluded that I would never likely fulfill a girl's or a woman's ultimate dreams, with no plans to become a movie star or get ridiculously wealthy. It is easy for anyone to feel scorned at that difficult time in life. The feeling that many women were only looking for that single ideal, as in romance novels, probably carried through many years and helped lead to a tentativeness around women, always wanting to avoid the moment of rejection that often comes after "hello".
1
I hope that headline is a joke. What you're describing is a teenager who was really interested in depictions of sex, and read what she could about it outside of formal educational strictures because you were a reader. I was the same. I did the same thing with a couple of books I found around my house. The reason I read those, though, wasn't because I found the message progressive, or the writing masterful, because for the most part, they weren't. It was because they turned me on--because that is precisely what they are designed to do. There is no way I would have wanted to discuss that with my school peers, especially not boys. Unless you want an epidemic of thirteen year olds dying of embarrassment, of course.
There is something pretty cynical about assuming that reading for pleasure or any kind of game, regardless of its quality, should be now considered worthwhile if it can be immediately marshaled into the service of some direct end. Sex education is pretty lacking in this country, but this isn't the answer. However, foster habits that turn kids into curious, variegated, and skilled readers? That might turn them into adults who get that they aren't the only person in the world that matters, and stop thinking their own orgasm long enough to care about what the other person might be feeling.
4
Sex ed for me came from many different sources, the best advice probably from sex-ed books though, starting with the Joy of Sex in the 80's.
Regarding the Ansari debacle, casting aside the nuances of what he or she said throughout the evening, the bottom line is he 'thought' it was consensual because she agreed to go up to his place after just meeting him.
2
The article fails to mention the most important element of satisfying sex; "chemistry," the vague personal aura absent which a sexual encounter is merely a social convention or play quantified by orgasmic intensity.
The dissatisfactions described in articles such as this one, typically arise in situations where the parties don't really know each other and sign signaling thus subject to misinterpretation.
Gauging them by reference to fictive images seen in movies and novels is hardly an intelligent way to decide whether to have sex, much less "adult."
Right, the Aziz story struck me as completely bizarre, but indeed I had read my grandma's copy of Erica Jong's Fear of Flying when I was about 12 and other books like Story of O when I was a teenager. I grew up in the 70s and 80s. Women taking charge of their sexuality was the norm in my world, and reading graphically sexual books written by serious women writers was also normal in the somewhat avant garde educated circles I existed in. To me "bodice ripper" sounds corny. We used to just call the genre erotica and every serious bookstore had a well curated section with a lot written by women, and none of it was dumb romance novels.
Today, the idea that a young NYC creative type woman would NOT have her sexuality grounded in these types of sexual autonomy is strange to me. I guess that is the effect of mainstream porn. I never saw mainstream porn until I was older, and I thought it was really boring, but that is indeed what passes as a kind of sex ed for most millennials now I think, which is depressing.
And to the person who thinks these books are about attractive men, nooooo, they are about the mental side of sexuality. The complete opposite of porn. Complete opposite. I don't think you could represent the mental side of sexuality in video. It has to be written, by women, really, because women understand the mental side of sexuality better than men do. Indeed men who have read those books are hands down better lovers than the ones who've never read them.
7
"Sex might be easy"--maybe for some but when I remember my first attempts with my wife (before we got married) there was a lot of fumbling.
2
I'm not concerned about what is better. Your writing, Jennifer, is truthful and, if that is disputed, has the ring of truth.
There really is very little reductive in your accounts. You don't try to establish a dialectic in your discourse. There are certainly enough imitators among the cheapseaters. Not to point the finger at a specific class of potential malingerers, but it seems to me your revelations depend not at all on the "expectations you were taught" but your own expectations.
So I salute! What words do we use: lascivious, salacious, exciting? And what we say about the men is either gay or dirty. Men may have their own opinions. Sexual and otherwise interpersonal relationships are supposed to be individual.
So say we, so say we all. Men and women are better prepared to respond to their desires without bias or design than to later advise "this was all unanticipated, I was unable…" there
are so many variants. Are either men or women stronger? The answer is contradictory.
2
This well written article leaves out the dates of her sex -ed classes and reading material. Sex in and of itself has remained the same, but birth control and legal abortion have changed cultural thinking about who to have sex with and when. We now have a culture called "hook up" sex. A wonderful NPR talk yesterday by the author of "Sexpoilation" discusses in depth her experiences on college campuses. Well worth listening to and thinking about meaningful relationships that lead to satisfying sexual relationships not just hooking up.
1
Why do we constantly ignore 13.7 billion years of evolution. Free will is mostly an illusion.
1
Perhaps we would all be better off, if we do not stereotype others. People will also use statistics to prove a stereotype but perhaps it does not prove the point. In the political realm someone may candidate x won because woman support her but then we look at the results and we see a 60/40 split. Forty percent is big number and indicates that every other person voted differently than the stereotype. I know woman who think that porn is just awful and that it demeans woman and in years past, I have known woman who had large porn collections hidden from their children. I know women that want sensitive romantic men and women that laugh at such men. I know women who think that only men are against abortion but I have met many women are are also against abortion. I know women who thought that only men voted for Trump or that some women were brainwashed by their husbands but I know single women who are very opinionated who voted for Trump. There are all kinds of people and articles that paint broad brushes of women are true for a large number of women but are not true for a large number.
3
The best sign of enlightenment comes from offering understanding. In such an overtly puritanically based culture like ours, to be permitted to understand through whispered giggling experience or looking at a furtive book cover or watching two people kiss in a movie doesn't make us understand the wants, needs, and desires that drive our sense of entitlements and fulfillment.
1
Forty years ago on an official visit to a Peruvian company I was invited to an office party that evening. On entering a crowd of men were surrounding a very beautiful woman who was literally holding fort. In a loud voice she announced "Amo a uno solamente" (I love but one) the men groaned in mass with "no puede ser" (Cant be). As I walked by, on my way to meet with the CEO, she turned to me and said "Pero me gusta con otros" (But I like it with others") I never did talk with her but all these years I have thought how great things would be if women would only be open with their hopes, desires wishes etc. even if they are not granted. My upbringing buried me with courtship rules so my problem has always been that I needed "yes" in writing . Hiding that yes behind all kinds of wiles left me isolated in a castle of fear that if I assumed a yes I would be a regarded as a nasty nerd, and so now at a very advanced age I am missing so many warm memories and best of all those after sex conversations that are devoid of societies inhibitions.
1
Thank you for this wise and witty piece, and especially for approaching this topic with something other than the shrill and contemptuous tone so many modern women would feel obligated to adopt.
I love this column and would just add Judy Blume's Wifey to my teenage mix of "sex-ed" books. But - in all seriousness - what was clear from the Babe piece is that "Grace" was not comfortable clearly stating in plain English her wants, needs, desires - whether it was "I was seeking a boyfriend from this not a hook up" or "Take your hands off me and I'm going home now." How have we managed to raise another generation of women that still seem so deeply uncomfortable stating their sexual feelings and desires. And - as a feminist - I would say - let's not blame the patriarchy for this one - we have voices, agency, desires - let's make them known - as all those women in the Harlequin and Danielle Steele novels due in the cheesiest of ways!
8
As in everything in life, romance novels have their own upsides and downsides to them
To speak of one bright side, as Jennifer Weiner pointed out, romance novels allow readers to have a deeper and subtler understanding of what building a relationship between a man and a woman is like. We could learn emotional interactions and sensitivities and, more importantly, how different perspectives men and women have about each other.
This comprehenshion is hard to get elsewhere like porns dedicated to stimulate purely phyical pleasure and a sense of conquest for men and like sex ed at schools with a primary focus on reminding inquisitive boys and girls of potential consequences from implusive or unplanned sex.
Romance novels enables readers to get a glimpse of what a cherished or damaged relationship is like.
Despite this merit, they also have the minus: elevating expectation of women for their Mr. Rights, especially for women no serious dating experience. The fantasized expectations put some women in insular cocoons, waiting for an implausible romantic encounter in their life. The prolonged romanticization without achoring the reality then turns these women into skeptics or pessimists of love.
What corrosive effects!
As with other things in life, a balancing act is crucial to fully taking advantage of pluses romancd novels in our love life.
An ability to make a understanding is a prerequisite before a romance book enriching our love life is picked up.
2
I never caught the romance novel bug, but a very dear friend of mine did and became a romance novelist. her books sell well, but they are pale compared to my real life.
Agreed. We are starting to see the ill-effects of rampant technology at the expense of humanity. Just the tip of the iceberg - and maybe the end of it if men and women can't sufficiently connect to have sex. Stay tuned - to life, not the screen(s).
1
“So many men cannot get their heads around the idea that women are not first and foremost sexual objects . . . You don’t get that from porn . . ." I think that in the internet porn age you do. But it's mainly because so much porn is really, rally bad and unrealistic - poor or absent scripts, awful acting, lacking continuity - or so much continuity it's really boring, and featuring the sort of sex that appeals mainly to sexually jaded men. It's difficult to find good porn - in which the participants act naturally rather than just displaying their genitalia, are enjoying themselves, and ARE COMMUNICATING about what they like or don't like. It's from the communicating that the watcher is likely to learn the correct sensitivity to sexual partners, as well as what to do to make sex mutually satisfying. If more porn was like that it would be educational, and could be recommended (together with good soft-porn books) as something everybody should dip into regularly to improve their sexual techniques and sensitivities. I wish that I had had access to good porn when I was younger - I might have avoided some poorly managed encounters of the kind that Mr Ansari's partner suffered.
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I'm with ya, Jennifer, all the way. While I don't exactly think these sorts of novels, of which I have read more than one as an adolescent, are the best instrument to get a truly realistic expectation of what a sexual experience will be like, they can definitely help improve your skills from bad sex to fair or good sex. They can help you become more literate, which is always welcome, and will help you converse with a partner. They can be a window into the woman's perspective as you mention, even though they're sometimes written by men. I would agree that the perspective is definitely more helpful and realistic than what you would get from porn, as the later tends to distort the act in a malevolent way.
And on a side note regarding reading in general: I wish our current president could read. I'd be happy with anything at all, but especially a romance novel. I'm sure his wife would agree.
1
A great metaphor Bodice–Ripper. In American society especially, people tend to confuse sex with a desire for intimacy. Most us I believe are seeking intimacy in a relationship. Still, the best sex ever is found when that intimacy has been formed. It has something more to the desire – another dimension. Intimacy and great sex, involves the whole person - the whole body - the whole spirit–mind–emotion–intelligence paradigm. A whole connection. Intimacy can be taught and learned. Women understand this better than men because they place a higher value on forming relationships and cultivating friendship – they expect to find intimacy in their closest relationship. Men need a better a understanding of what intimacy means - they need a new vocabulary and new expectations on how to achieve intimacy. One of the keys is open communication and taking time to have the conversations that matter most – and it does take time. In the garden of earthly delights it takes time with one another to develop that karma between two people. Take time to talk to one another – do the fun work of getting to know one another and developing those connections – have some long and lingering conversations with one another. And realize that spending time on developing such intimacy leads to "bodice ripper” – wonder filled body-mind-blowing-soul-spirit sex that the best romance novels hope to capture.
2
What the author suggests is not consistent with my male experience. Asking is viewed as the ultimate unromantic act. Men are expected to be clairvoyant.
2
Aha! The kind of experience that female readers of a certain age maybe in a certain era though was IT. Many women of a certain age today - women in their 20s - may have never read one of these books, but they’ve seen the movie version, and they EXPECT THIS. Men in the certain area did not read these books and had no idea. Men today have not seen the movie version and they have no idea. They’re never gonna see the movie version, certainly won’t read the book version.
Anyone want to take young guys aside and fill them in? Big brothers? Uncles? Even if the young guys are 35? Or close to 40?
Maybe?
I don’t think the women are gonna give up their fantasies and expectations.
Right now, they are furious that men don’t know what to do, and they’re sure not going to accept that they won’t learn either. Oh, and women shouldn’t have to tell them or teach them either ...
Yeah, this is where we are.
2
Well said. And it should be noted that boys with older sisters also get their first exposure to literary sex from romance novels. In my case, though, only the “good parts” got read; all that relationship development was flyover country.
One bit of confusion for me: If equality is so important why is Ansari’s behavior a matter for public discussion while the woman is granted anonymity?
1
I was raised in a home where we had books with primitive African art, carved wooden African statues with exaggerated genitalia. Books by John Updike, Phillip Roth, and Henry Miller; novelists that pretty much covered whatever the male of our species has ever thought about sex in any depth..
My parents had wild sex on the other side of the wall of my childhood bedroom, and as Germans are inclined to believe, nudity is in front of ones family is not the end of the world.
In spite of my "horrific upbringing" I have a reverent and healthy appreciation of sex, and the women that make it the absolute joy that it is.
Sure, one can always insist upon getting something from a partner. But if it comes to that, maybe it's the wrong partner.
I've spent a lot of time in France, including rural France, where I was taken aback to learn that sex education, starting in the 7th grade, includes teaching young people about how to give sexual pleasure to the opposite sex.
Can anyone imagine that in the United States?
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It's just not godly...
I read that part of sex ed. in France includes allowing students one day per week to access sexual health services. Great article, “Wake Up and Smell the Condoms”.
1
Really bad idea. Sex in real life is not the fantasy depicted romance novels. Many a young girl has been set up for disappointment from reading and believing in this junk.
If you want to read as an escape, by all means. Just remember to come back to the real world and read a book that is actually well written and has content.
2
Don't Harlequin romances typically fly in the face of the notion of "enthusiastic consent"? That consent should be a "mutual verbal, physical, and emotional agreement that happens without manipulation, threats, or head games"?
Maybe there needs to be more discussion around what constitutes "healthy pursuit" in sex and dating. Like, What is the place of seduction? And, When does initial resistance mean "go no further" and when might it mean "keep trying"?
1
I read a Jennifer Weiner book where the female protagonist was assertive and interesting, ultimately falling in love, in a mutually respectful relationship. Weiner's prediction is ending is wrong and seems to be has the momentum to deepen into job sites and homes. But Weiner has a point—sex and romance are complex, and forming an equal relationship very difficult and specific to the individuals and communities involved. We're going to have to understand not only Weiner's secular sexual romance point of view, but traditional religious relationships, the working class, white, black, Latino, and Asian. We have to listen to people respectfully to know how to advance equality
1
I'm so glad you wrote this. I read the Babe article. We have only heard her version of events so far. The woman was anonymous and I don't think I had ever seen Aziz Ansari in anything, though I had just seen him win a Golden Globe. So like you, I am surmising about this date, but I think this is a case of romance sex versus porn sex.
Like a fearless young attractive woman in a romance novel, she boldly approaches a celebrity at a Hollywood awards show after-party, and makes a connection. They flirted. They stayed in contact and she remembers they had a moment that she thought was friendly and potentially romantic. This leads to what had potential to be a romantic dinner in New York. Perhaps she expected to come up to his apartment to see his collection of camera lenses, over which they would further bond.
His experience might be quite different. He was at a Hollywood awards show after-party, where he was approached by a fearless young attractive woman. They flirted. They stayed in contact and he remembers they had a connection that he thought was friendly and potentially sexual. He's thinking, we get to have sex, and maybe she'll be interesting.
The evening turned out to be less like the romance novel she hoped for, nor the porn film he was looking for in front of that mirror, and more like an old Hollywood screwball comedy, where mixed messages lead to confusion. She humiliates him in public. Mayhem ensues.
2
Perhaps the romance novel can teach sexual etiquette today to some middle-class child. But in some poor rural communities in the bayous, a boy’s first knowledge of, if not experience of, sexual activity, may well have come when he interacted with older children.
The introduction all too often comes from pre-adolescent, precocious girls. This is especially true of rural religious schools, whether or not the genders are instructed in the same classrooms. It comes through gossip, overheard from adults, as well as innocent joking and flirtations. No porn, nor bodice ripper fiction, are the source.
Right now the media messaging around sex is overwhelmingly negative. I agree that we should put out some sex-positive stuff - for both young girls and young boys.
At the beginning of your article you describe romance novels as non-fiction for women, which they are. They're filled with all the passion, the emotional roller coasters, the melodrama, and the unlikely and perfect sequence of events that lead to orgasm, that real life simply doesn't possess, and which speak to the emotional goals of females.
Romance novels are hardly the place to form your realistic sexual ideas. You're asking for a life of unreachable sexual expectations. You then go on to say that 80 percent of your sexual ideas come from such outlets. Does it not follow that your own novel ideas on romance are contorted by this unrealistic basis?
Also, you talk about how men objectify woman based on a "world view they've shaped"--as if it was conscious intent. I disagree and instead suggest that men and women are hardwired based on their ecological niches to seek specific stimuli which are cues to their ecological goals. I'd also suggest that porn for men and porn for women (romance novels) expose these truths blatantly.
Men want to have sex with as many attractive women as possible, which maximizes offspring. Commitment is actually detrimental to this goal and thus men don't care for such expressions in porn. They just want to see the sex.
Women (in our evolutionary past) required resources and protection to maximize offspring, which are represented by the passionate and erotic cues of commitment which are expressed in romance novels.
1
I do like your romances Ms. Weiner, but I do not think "bodice rippers" which imply a lusyt "taking" by a man and thus satisfying of a woman's latent desires really helps move the sexes into better equal relations. They do give expression t women's sexual desires. They are a testimony to that desire for sure. But it seems we are going backwards in just making men and women comfortable with women's desires and their absolute need to express and fulfill these desires. That's right guys, we aren't really different. Men need to stop and let women express and act upon their own desires. Believe me guys, we are ready to rip your "bodices." My advice is to sit back and let it rip. I think you might actually like it.
2
Leaving aside the fact that any 'bodice ripping' nowadays will, as likely as anything, get you publicly shamed, cost you your job or worse, let's sort this once and for all so we never have to deal with it again: objectification does not exist. Or, to be more precise, the objectification theorized by feminists doesn't exist.
If we want to take the term at face value then human beings 'objectify' virtually every human they see in life. People walking in a crowded space, in a queue, driving in their cars alongside you are not perceived as complex humans with backstories and lives, trials, triumphs, and tribulations. They're perceived as inconveniences, obstacles and annoyances. In short: objects....and that's ok!
Feminist 'objectification' is an attack on the natural human instinct to find other humans physically attractive (most likely launched, initially, by human beings who, rightly or wrongly, felt particularly hard done in this regard). It is a denial of basic biology and should be cast out of our language entirely, forever.
Sometimes humans lack respect for one another. Sure. Sometimes people use one another, physically, emotionally, financially, or however else for their own personal needs, disregarding the needs of the other person. Of course (one might just as well call that 'capitalism'). None of this is the mythical 'objectification' invented by feminists as part of a crusade against normal, natural sex and sexual thoughts.
Although I agree with much of what you write, I have one problem. I write romance novels. All of us who write romance novels really dislike the term "bodice ripper", a term created by those who looked down on our novels. We don't write about rape. We don't write about forced sex--as the term bodice-ripper suggests, strongly. We write about love. In many cases, that leads to sex, consensual and satisfying for both. Yes, I'm aware that those words make for a headline that grabs attention and an article with some spice to it, but it shows your real lack of understanding of what a romance novel is and insults those authors you mention.
I grew up in a posh environment (pre-internet) with a feminist mother. I never came across the Harlequin romances but I’m sure I would have adored them if I had. I had only “Gone with the Wind” and the Brontes, and how I loved them.
A lot of the comments here mention how newer romances are not bodice rippers (featuring less violence and more assertive female characters). It strikes me, though, that the older ones were the popular ones. Now we have “Fifty Shades of Grey,” and so-called “dubious consent” in m/m writing (written by and for women) instead.
Sexual submission always finds a way to ooze out somewhere. It seems (some) women enjoy it, especially when combined with a superb male who adores the protagonist.
Why should our fantasies need to be politically correct and safe? Do we always have to be expressing proper agency and independence and wholesome communication? If (some) women want, in fantasy at least, to be dominated by a powerful, scary, quasi-violent, devoted, protective and nearly mind-reading alpha male, what’s wrong with that? If we can have every flavour of the LGBTQ rainbow, than why not female submission?
*
But if some women like that in books, what about in life? If gay men should be able to “bottom” without shame, what about sexually subservient women? How many traditional marriages are “happy” because of mutual sexual fulfillment? Because, a lot of husbands can be that package. And this upsets feminists ;) Toleration is needed.
1
We need a lot more sex ed taught by skilled people with honesty, accuracy and nonjudgmental critical reasoning skills. In this "information age" the paucity of such capable individuals is surprising. Or perhaps not, given the ignorance of facts and realities among so many.
Romantic relationships have been devalued by our current PC culture.
2
Like Ms. Weiner, I love a good book. But I think the argument in this article underestimates the problem. Boys and men already know what kind of sex most women like. The fact they haven't learned or appreciated how to do it is because they have decided not too. Porn--when talking about men--does not simply leave out the before and after of a sexual encounter, nor is it simply about objectification. Porn teaches men to indulge fantasies that are generally unrelated to what sex is like in real life and does serious damage to their sexual health by distancing them from the "humanness" of sex--both from the humanity of the woman they might sleep with but also their own. Men don't need to read romance novels to know how to pleasure a woman (we can always ask our partner for starters) men need to understand the fantasies--particularly those encouraged by porn--can be very dangerous to a woman's experience (and health) and their own. Great sex is possible! But extensive sexual education, a recognition that even if sex is available an emotional connection is still a crucial ingredient for good sex, more aggressive women's rights campaigns (like #metoo) and a far less puritan approach to what sex is for will be needed. But it's going to take more than just "alerting men" to the fact that porn is not how sex happens.
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One small problem, given the low attention spans of teens, coupled with addiction to texting and gazing at their mobile devices, reading is a dying habit.
1
Just this week in class, I asked a group of families to name both positive and negative consequences of having sex. A 10 year old boy responded (out loud, in a room of 120 people) that a positive was what happens AFTER the sex. I agree we need to help kids "draw a deeper picture".
I've 'looked at' my share of bodice rippers. They are aimed in general at a female population that prefers fantasy. I rather doubt if any of them are learning much from the BRs.
I think you learn how to manage your wants and needs one person at a time, and the Bodice Rippers are useless for up close and personal real life relationships.
The more time spent in fantasy, the less likely reality will ever make sense.
And the modern Bodice Ripper is as badly written in terms of language, plot, dialogue as most modern novels churned out to meet markets needs.
You won't learn anything from them, not even decent escape.
And yet I see women in their 50's and 60's placidly reading their way through on or another in the waiting rooms I visit.
Now they are probably on their Kindle as well.
Just do not elevate them as any sort of decent education in either desire or human relations.
3
Oddly, amidst this debate, I was thinking the exact opposite of this article. How romance novels set up women for unrealistic expectations about the opposite sex, how they objectify men (perhaps not so much as sexual objects, although they do that too, but as romantic objects), how they send horrible mixed signals about how women want to be chased or ravaged or paddled or have their bodice ripped (when reality is, it while might be a nice fantasy, in real life it's rarely quite as much fun as romance novels would lead you to believe.) I mean, if we're all reading about it and fantasizing about it, we must want it, right? On some level? (That was a rhetorical question. For the sake of clarity: No, we don't.)
Romance novels aren't all bad, and I think they do show how intrinsic emotions and love are to sex, unlike most porn. But I could see how a experience like the one this young women photographer and Mr. Ansari had--and the resulting impressions they left with--could be a direct result of too many romance novels.
1
When Lois McMaster Bujold dipped her toe into writing for the romance market, she found out that romance readers demanded much more emotion that seemed authentic to them than the "world building" about power and who had it that she had learned to deliver in SF. This can be both good and bad because what emotion seems authentic to the readers can just be a mindless reflection of the ideal gender roles of the time the book was written. In the romance novels I pick up in the supermarket/newsstand and read all of 10 pages of you could not get more obvious with this. I am curious whether this would happen in something that fellow romance writers would actually give an award. (I liked infamous Nebula winner "The Quantum Rose" which got a positive review in Romantic Times anyway.)
I believe the best action on the part of men and women to a satisfactory and excellent sensual encounter is to take the time to get to know one another first. Slow down. What is the big hurry?
Anticipation over time adds to the experience.
One of the main ingredients in a good romantic novel is the anticipation.
And unless you want to get pregnant, use protection.
Coming from a dysfunctional family, these books taught me that a man could actually like a woman:could actually want to be with her, not just for sex, but because he loved her. Marriage could be more than a gladiator's fight, or an arena for humiliation. My teenage daughter introduced me to them, unwittingly. I spent 3 years in my early 40's devouring them; not admitting to anyone that an Ivy League educated woman was reading “trash”. I probably read 300 or more. It was an extraordinary moment.
To this day I am enormously grateful to the writers, who literally changed my life.
2
I'm sorry but "romance novels" you're referring to are about as accurate as 50 Shades of Grey (or does that count?). Is that novel/movie(s) empowering women? Feminists howled at the objectification of the protagonist yet the book was a massive bestseller...the vast majority of the buyers being women. What does reading about the fictional Mr. Grey under the cafeteria tables teach 7th graders passing the book around teach 13 year olds about sexual dynamics?
Probably something similar to the "romance novels" in question: unrealistic expectations. The problem with these kind of novels is whether the female protagonist is empowered by an egg clock or subjugated with handcuffs, both happen in real life, but both build unhealthy expectations. I've been in serious relationships with women who enjoyed some male dominant S&M play and also women who had a "me first" attitude (I prefer the latter, but that's just my own preference) and I don't judge either...but I'm an adult.
If adolescents of either gender should read a balanced account of the confusing and nuanced details of sexual relations we should teach them something like "Cat People". But of course in America we assume that girls secretly reading romance novels or boys & girls secretly watching porn is setting up kids for the complicated world of sexuality.
There's nothing wrong with so called "chick-lit". But it's no more realistic than the plumper showing up to a beautiful woman's house and what ensues.
Yes. Just yes. I read my fair share of Harlequins in high school and thus I did have rather high expectations. I kept looking and trying things out, was frequently dissastisfied, but I had my eyes on the prize. Then I finally found him, or close enough, and with enough instruction, he got it right. So I married him and am still with him after 22 years. No harm in the high expectations. Communication is key. Know what you want and then let him know (verbally!!!). The best advice I got in college to supplement my Harlequin education was don't be afraid to ask what for what you want - it increases rather than diminishes the romance. So true.
2
This article is naive and undermines women. There are multiple reasons that most men don't read Harlequin romance novels, but the main reason is that these stories do not align with the narrative and motivations of most men. Young women need to understand that some, but not all men are predatory in their behavior - with eyes on the prize, not on the woman. Such behaviors are not difficult to identify. In fact, some but certainly not most women enjoy such objectification. If this is not what a woman wants, it would be better that she quickly recognizes such behaviors and ends her involvement clearly, firmly, authoritatively, and unambiguously. If a man does not respect such clarity, he is committing rape. Romance narratives encourage hopeful ambiguity - "despite her negative non-verbal cues, maybe she wants me to keep going" or "maybe he'll accept that I'm saying no without me actually having to say no" - the very stuff that creates these messes.
26
Steve, read the article again. What the author is saying is that the books *do* encourage and model ways for women to be straightforward about what they do and do not want and will/will not accept. Personally, I've never been a fan of romance novels, since the arc of the story always involves a woman getting a man, but the author of this piece thinks that romance novels actually show how to take the ambiguity out of an encounter.
2
Have you read a modern romance novel? If there was any book written with hero who acted like Aziz Ansari, there would be an outcry and shaming from romance fans that book was no romance novel.
Judging the modern genre based on what you saw in the early 1980s is like saying I hate all music because Wham was awful.
1
Sarah, I appreciate your response. But, I think that romance novels drive their stories through the arc of a woman's fantasy, rather than the reality that she is likely to be faced with.
1
Good points here. Sex is a powerful biological drive but the best of it is intuitive only for men, who since toddlerhood have seen and of necessity handled their highly-reactive naughty bits, and understand the scope of possible functions. Girls, however, tend to be largely unaware of their intimate anatomy, which they can neither see easily nor have much reason to handle, at least until puberty and perhaps not even then. Furthermore, it does not have the hair trigger with which males are equipped. So, women need to learn, and men need to learn this about women. If the bodice-buster stories help with this, good.
Ms. Weiner may well be right that romance novels make good sex-education, but I wish she knew what makes good literature. The very fact that she can generalize about what all these books contain (conversations about consent, etc.) ought to be a giveaway about how formulaic they are. Asking a man to "curl up with a good book," taken literally, is not going to serve her turn. He might grab Tom Jones. The best men on the planet aren't the ones who are Fabio-good in the hay, or conversant with a check-list of Do's and Don'ts from Vassar, they are the men who too discriminating to let a supermarket-literate airhead choose their reading.
The most difficult thing for us men to understand is that women don't think of men in the same way as men think of women.
Women are most often not as physically attracted to the male form as men are to the female form. She is looking for other cues that are not physical.
And for men, that is where the mystery begins.
"What is going on here and what is it that she wants?" he asks.
She says, "I am not too sure about him but let's see where this goes. Will he pan out?"
The male generally knows, by the morning after, if she is the right one. Whereas, she waits and mulls it over. She is patient.
It stands to reason.
Most men don't want to raise another man's kids. A woman instinctively knows this and will want some assurances before she commits. Her options, after having children, are limited.
And, of course, this whole theory is blown out of the water when a certain type of man strolls into the room and the eyes of the women turn towards him and, whatever hope you entertained with the woman standing next to you, is done.
I, myself, never had that effect on women and had to learn a female virtue: patience.
Ms. Weiner may well be right that romance novels make good sex-education, but I wish she knew what makes good literature. The very fact that she can generalize about what all these books contain (conversations about consent, etc.) ought to be a giveaway about how formulaic they are. Asking a man to "curl up with a good book," taken literally, is not going to serve her turn. He might grab Tom Jones. The best men on the planet aren't the ones who are Fabio-good in the hay, or conversant with a check-list of Do's and Don'ts from Vassar, they are the men way too discriminating to let a supermarket-literate airhead choose their reading.
Growing up I was an avid reader of comic books. I also read fantasy novels and allot of science fiction. I didn't read romance novels at the time because I thought they were just for lonely housewives and teen girls (yeah I know, I was sheltered). But I did encounter the fantasy sex booklets my mom hid in her dresser!! I was drawn to them first because of the pictures but later became consumed by the stories as well. I was completely mesmerized by them. I was addicted.
My mom was a single mother and I considered her very progressive. She spoke with her three sons openly about sex but our conversations left out a great deal of information. She taught us about responsibility and the mechanisms and tools of safe sex, but what she didn't teach us about is the stuff it would take me almost 25 years to learn by trial and error. What she didn't teach us about, and granted it would make for an extremely awkward discussion, was what a woman needs or wants during physical intimacy. I think romance novels and such help fill those information gaps even if what they convey isn't based in reality.
As the father of four girls and one boy, I followed in my mother's footsteps, but I do wonder how my children filled their information gaps...I see the next Thanksgiving dinner conversation lining up now!
This is a great article - thanks so much for it!
Things are in a pretty bad state, generally speaking. But there are always these odd side alleys and unusual means to learning and thinking and being an agent in your own life - and the bodice-ripper is one of them. I'd have never thought it, but I'm pleased they are!
I was a 40's child in a household where sex wasn’t discussed with us children. It wasn't a religious matter, they just didn’t know how to broach the subject with me. Not only was there no sex education in our school but the only romantic books in the library were of the chaste and uplifting type where the totality of any thing sexual was one soulful kiss in the final chapter. It’s no wonder that I lost my virginity to a much older man of the love 'em and leave'em fraternity.
My daughter also eschewed the romance novels but mad a determined effort to read all the library's available sex education books before embarking on her first sexual encounter. I wish that all of your daughters will at least read the basics before heading to the romance novels an that their first experience will not be in the back of a car.
13
I add the Twilight series, which went into great detail about non-consummated teenage petting, as it provided more of an erotic experience for many women than most erotica. The extended foreplay /petting we enjoyed when we were younger and before intercourse became what your partner would rush to, was a longingly remembered stage of our sex lives.
1
Thank you for this insightful article! You have managed to explain--rather concisely and from a personal perspective--why romance matters! Sex ed! Not only about the ins and outs of the act, but the emotional and ethical forces at play. It also teaches us that sex is not just a carnal act, but also about human connection, trust and eventually, when you find the right partner, commitment and love. Thank you for this!
2
Thank you for writing this wonderful, insightful piece on the power that well-written romance novels have to improve women's sex and love lives. While I don't think all of them set out to be a lesson on how to have a healthy romantic relationship, I do think many strive to paint a picture of what one could look like.
"Fiction has time to draw a deeper picture, covering the getting-to-know-you stuff, the starts and stops and circling back that take boy and girl from first date to first kiss to the moment where they’re both naked and hopefully into what’s going to happen next." THIS!!! Yes, this.
Thank you for your article.
Pardon my language, but I take it that it is likely Mr. Ansari did a good job in the sack, but did not follow up? And that, as a result, the missus eventually came to articulate what she felt was wrong with this "consensual" encounter? We would have heard sooner, I suppose, if Mr. Ansari had been a brute at the time. Or maybe not. Who knows.
It is a very delicate issue the way we treat one another. At this time in my life, I have learned no one consents to be treated like a disposable item. It took me a long time to get here; I had to learn it the hard way. All it takes is feedback from the people you interact with, and a willingness to heed the data.
When I was a teenager, I was a voracious reader and reading novels by female authors with female protagonists as long as it was exciting and fun wasn't an issue. As an example, I recall Joan Collins' protagonist Lucky Santangelo (female) and she was characterised to have sex in a way guys in other novels did and it was influential in my thinking.
I'm a very talkative person and I talk more when I am excited. So when it comes sex or intimacy, I comment a lot and ask a lot of questions, so this movement fits right in with the way I do business. I've had women put their fingers on my lips when they perceived it as too much but that's the extent to which it has been a turn off after getting involved, but prior to getting involved I've had women tell me that's too intense of a behaviour or they prefer guys who take charge and don't ask (their loss, different strokes, etc.).
My wife and I communicate well and I can definitely see the difference between what I want and what she wants and we've both found ways to make us happy but it takes some effort. It's hard to accomplish that on a first date and in fact, I know it took my wife (then someone I had just met and was seeing) several months to speak up to tell me what wasn't working and I was surprised (since I thought everything was okay - how could I know) and we addressed it immediately and since then (17 years later) there have been no more complaints within the bedroom itself.
Ms. Weiner’s excellent column suggests the following to me:
I wonder whether most young people read much pulp fiction anymore. But they play games.
If we want to teach about good, respectful, fun relationships, physical as well as emotional, we could do worse than using video and VR games that are both warm and hot, to model good, giving and great behavior.
Thank you for writing this article. It is nice to hear a feminist speak about the romantic needs of the females. Romance has been written out of the scripts and devalued by our culture where everything is about meaningless sex. Romantic novels filled the heart with larger than life experiences, sexual and romantic. They allowed girls to develop high expectations for their personal lives. Today's girls are taught to work, work, work for money... their "real lives" are neglected. Simply put, love has been replaced by money in our modern culture and women have lost out.
26
I've read about 10,000 books in my life and I have to say that I still fondly remember (40 years later) the Bodice-Rippers, Gothics (young women in creepy house finding true love), and the Regency Romance novels (go Georgette Heyes) I read when I was young. Maybe some of them were not that well written (but are the 'adventure' novels?), but they were certainly believed in by their writers and to me, that makes them so readable and memorable.
3
I haven't read that many romance novels, and my view comes from a purely heterosexual male perspective, i.e. what does a man learn about sex from reading a romance novel? One complaint against pornography is that it paints an unrealistic picture of sex that could give young men the wrong idea of what to expect. I've read scenes in romance novels that were equally unrealistic, but because of the greater context and good quality writing, the scenes felt like they are actually depicting something realistic and that could be expected. In many cases that I've read, following the example of the male in real life would get a guy prosecuted (and rightfully so). But thanks to that good writing and context, it seemed more realistic than any pornography, and therefore a young male reader could easily get entirely the wrong idea. To me, it in a way makes the writing more dangerous than pornography. Perhaps for young women, a curriculum of romance novels would be a good idea, but I think for young men it could do more harm than good.
I'm a romance novelist, and I have to admit my stories aren't always realistic. I write about cowboys, and in my fictional world they're always good-looking, and never chew tobacco.
But they're not rich, they're not perfect, and they never, ever fall into the "alpha male" stereotype mentioned in a previous comment. My heroines won't allow it. If a man threw one of my girls against a door, she'd throw him right back, and walk away with his heart in her hip pocket so she could take her time choosing a man who deserved her.
In my experience, the best romance editors won't buy a manuscript that doesn't give women their due. We're all aware young women are sneaking our books off their mothers' shelves, because we did it ourselves. And we take our sex-ed responsibility very seriously - while reliving the joy of falling blissfully in love over and over again, in all its endless permutations.
54
Agree that a range of informational sources is a good thing (as is the case for all that we are learning). But disagree that bodice-rippers necessarily have appeal to women as a gender category. My wife (I'm writing with a smile and a laugh) at no time in her life would have had an interest in fully reading one. Not that she is unromantic or lacking eroticism, but just that this is not her type of romance or literature. Romantic, ridiculous, sublime - - my point is that women differ greatly in how these overlap in their personal Venn diagram, and it is good to remember that individual differences are normal and desirable.
1
I, too, read Judy Blume's Forever when I was 12. By 13 I was reading Rosemary Rogers and Jean Auel, and plenty of others. This did not encourage me to dip into sex itself until I was 16, and within months, went by myself down to the rural, local Planned Parenthood that we had in Georgetown,TX. I underwent the exam that was necessary to get on the Pill. I did not get pregnant until I was ready at 34 years old.
Reading all those romances did give me a script and allowed me to talk about sex in an easy going way. Looking back, it is probably why I have had, overall, a fairly happy and satisfying sex life.
42
As a child of the Seventies, I read Harlequin Romances, like most other teenage girls. Even back then, I realized they were the written-word equivalent of comic books for, mostly, boys. I grew up. Did they??? And by they, I mean BOTH the books and the boys. Just saying.
1
4 words: gone with the wind. thanks for a great column. we women must stake our sexuality claims-- and own them. grace needs to chill with a good book and a v. no more games; no more anonymous hits on men for being simply inept.
Perhaps this may seem a bit prudish -- and don't get me wrong I have nothing against sex -- it is one of the best things about being human. But I haven't heard very many people getting to what I think is the underlying problem here, and that is an almost universal obsession with sex. And, that is not limited to men. Everyone it seems, these days, is compulsively obsessed with sex; thinking about it, having it, demanding it be a certain way, treating it as an entitlement, complaining about not getting enough of it, or not the right kind. To me this seems dangerously close to addictive behavior, something that is interfering with our ability to live balanced lives, with sex only one of our concerns, occupying a healthy, non-obsessive place in our consciousness. Both ancient wisdom and modern science tell us that simply feeding our desires does not satisfy them, but makes them more voracious, until they control us.
47
You seem to beieve that our behaviors do no always control us. As if we do not do what our addictions, which is just a convenience for saying obsessions, compel,almost exclusively.
Go ahead and live your balanced life: chopping wood, cooking like a gourmet, eating like a goumand, hopefully filling your thoughts with your loved one and your loves. How does that sound?
It's the natural phenomenon of rebound, from the religious, Victorian and post-Victorian repression of humanity. With its own peculiar American puritan twist.
You make a great point about "fantasy" literature. Only "real" literature was encouraged in my parent's houses. But I would often have to wait for my mother at the town library after school. There, after reading all the Victor Hugo novels, I discovered "Princess Daisy" by Judith Kranz. What an eye-opening delight at 14 years of age! It was an education into various sexual relations that I never new existed and a window into the freedom-filled lives of adults. And then I found "Lady Chatterly's Lover" on my mother's bookshelf and I was never the same.
3
I am not sure that romance novels would have helped our young disappointee who chronicled her own bad moment.
Reality is what is actually happening, not what you want to happen, or what you think might happen, or what ought to happen. So if the reality is awful, and you have the power to change it you do. You get up and leave and write off the time to bad experience.
But learning to change it often takes experience of what you can and can't stand, what you don't like, what you won't settle for. Finding out what a bad experience is and handling it is part of life. So is learning what traits you really need to like a person enough to sleep with him.
Life is not like the romance novel, because they usually handle the whole "kissing frogs" stage of romantic life in a paragraph. But that frog kissing time is the time one learns what qualities they are really looking for. Our young disappointee found she really didn't want the famous guy; she wanted the guy she thought he was. She learned that she thought he was great; he thought she was available.
And she may have learned to speak louder, act more confidently, leave when she doesn't like what is going on. To be less intimidated and more assertive.
It is not really sex ed we need, or romance novels. It is ethics, morality, communication, judgement, character and the ability to spot these traits in other. It is a life long course.
"Statistically, we know that modern men and women have access to every kind of explicit material, literally in their pockets."
I think that throughout history, men and women did, almost literally, in their pockets.
Sex is often confused with intimacy, when intimacy is what people are seeking most. How to discover such intimacy can only be found in an open conversation where two people reveal themselves to one another. When they learn to trust one another with their thoughts and emotions. Women are better at this than men, because they place a high value on relationships. Creating this intimacy takes time – but it can lead to something extraordinary.
39
I think throwing young women in wholesale to "learn" about healthy sexuality from romance novels and the sheer marketing brilliance of these authors and their publishers is about as well thought out as having people establish a personal health care strategy around the "teachings" of Suzanne Somers or Jenny McCarthy. Let's not forget these authors are not trained in human sexuality nor medicine nor sociology....but are instead merely wildly popular commercial authors, whose expertise and motivations may not necessarily lead their readers down a realistic, well-informed, or even particularly productive path (and, as a nation right now, I think we should all see the perils of equating successful commercial popularity vis-a-vis reality TV with goid policy).
As for the Grace-Aziz date referenced here, the two participants were definitely far away from each other -- and the notion of romance.
Grace was looking for a traditional first date, something that could lead somewhere, or be nipped in the bud.
Aziz viewed her as a groupie.
DD claims "Grace was looking for a traditional first date". I am well into my senior years and have never had a first date where the woman gets naked and gives and receives oral sex. Is that the traditional way today? That sounds more like a hook-up. which I have several times read is common but which I have never tried. I would be interested in how many of the rest of you, like DD, expect a traditional first date to so precede, and who like "Grace" expect the man to read her mind on every subject from wine preference on.
1
Neither lust nor love begins on a day declared by clerics or by law makers. No, nor when declared by the sisterhood.
I first fell in love with the little girl who lived on the same estate as I did. We were both four. I carried her books to the nursery school we attended together. Almost sixty years later, I have never forgotten her.
I've never been interested in sex. For me, love has always been the only thing that truly matters. And I didn't learn that from reading Mills and Boon.
2
There are so many people who for one physical, mental, emotional reason or another cannot participate in caring, sharing, loving sexual relationships that these short hot time books serve a purpose of information and satisfaction. Our puritan background will forever stifle arousal in a beneficial way.
“Forever” was my introduction into sex as more than reproduction. The irony is that we passed it around in Catholic school! I’ve never settled for mediocre sex which I think has enhanced my relationships and life.
22
Susan B. Anthony's trial court testimony is better required reading:
"All of my prosecutors, from the 8th ward corner grocery politician, who entered the complaint, to the United States Marshal, Commissioner, District Attorney, District Judge, your honor on the bench, not one is my peer, but each and all are my political sovereigns; and had your honor submitted my case to the jury, as was your duty, even then I should have had just cause of protest for not one of those men was my peer; but, native or foreign born, white or black, rich or poor, educated or ignorant, awake or asleep, sober or drunk, each and every man of them was my political superior; hence, in no sense, my peer. Even a commoner of England, tried before a jury of Lords, would have far less cause to complain than should I, a woman, tried before a jury of men. Even my counsel is my political sovereign. Precisely as no disfranchised person is entitled to sit upon a jury, and no woman is entitled to the franchise, so, none but a regularly admitted lawyer is allowed to practice in the courts, and no woman can gain admission to the bar hence, jury, judge, counsel, must all be of the superior class."
"Yes, your honor, but by forms of law all made by men, interpreted by men, administered by men, in favor of men, and against women; and hence, your honor's ordered verdict of guilty, against a United States citizen for the exercise of that citizen's right to vote, simply because that citizen was a woman and not a man."
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Susan B. Anthony - as relevant to Aziz Ansari as Blackbeard the Pirate is to Oprah Winfrey.
Great article! I have never read any romance novels, though I have always been an avid reader. I have been married for over 30 years and I think I am going to check into the more recent Romance novels to see what I can do better for my wife. As for the Aziz Ansari situation, one comment sums it up, "honest communication," is what is needed. While Ansari made some mistakes, Grace was not honest in her communication and the result was a bad date for them both.
18
I don't know if honesty is the answer here. What is more likely happening is that we come to the game with a host of assumptions, misinformation and expectations that no wonder, then, get us into very deep waters very quickly.
If we put ourselves in anyone's shoes, we soon realize how embarrassing the subject is to speak about it "honestly". What is generally accepted behavior on a date may not be sufficient to get us close to the beginning of a meaningful anything. And not everyone is even looking for this; Mr. Ansari probably was not and got burned. We are talking about a whole different language altogether.
We would all be so lucky if someone close to us would instruct us about even the outlines of this language; the reality is that most of us have to learn it on our own.
I don't really mean that we cannot be honest about this pickle, either; I mean the game demands, rather, that we must be smart. Unfortunately, being smart about this means having experience reading the clues behind the modesty of a raging lust, sometimes because we must carry that lust or interest within ourselves, too. The difference between being vulgar about the recognition, or tactful and respectful ,may determine whether we can cross the threshold. But tactful and respectful are no guarantees either if one is more inclined to this demeanor; sometimes they just want you and that's it. There is no script, no fail-safe, risk-free route to the pleasure we may be seeking.
Romance novels are not intended to be sex education any more than science fiction novels teach chemistry, biology or nuclear physics, or that detective novels are meant to prepare readers for careers in criminology and forensic science.
Yes, each genre carries information related to its subject matter, but the true purposes of a book are message, meaning, and entertainment. To put a heavier burden on them is unfair to their writers, the books themselves, and the readers.
Readers should also remember that while the emotions and experiences of described between the covers can be a true reflection of the human experience, the stories and their characters are fiction. Your emotions and experiences may--and will--vary. Tremendously.
We should let these writers write without piling on them the expectation that they also do the work Masters and Johnson .
17
I agree with you, but maybe we're looking for experiences and information wherever we can find them, since it is difficult to find any on the subject in a manner that is satisfying. Fiction may still be informative in this regard since it engages us with past experience and helps motivate introspection and understanding of who we are.
14
Nicely done, avoiding ideological stakes in the ground, and telling a wonderfully personal story. Read, think, learn, question, and try it out. But keep the honest communication going every step of the way.
115
It's a *little bit* on ideological ground. It recommends that boys read romance novels and suggests that men see women "first and foremost as sexual objects" as part of a "persistent worldview". This op-ed wouldn't fly on Fox.
That's a minor quibble. I think that the books provide great sex-positive messaging for girls. We need that. I also think that we need some great sex-positive messaging for boys, and I don't believe that this is the answer. Like the author said, this material is written for (and consumed by) women.
1
It’s a bit of an indictment of men, but I think that only about 1% of men are attractive enough, both physically and emotionally, to be the stuff of bodice ripper fantasy. There are a lot more Anziz Ansaris than there are George Clooneys, so it’s a bit of a supply and demand issue, and the guys who are that 1% know they are in a good position and don’t stick around until they are tired of playing the field. It’s hard to have such chemistry when the driver of most relationships is settling, not mutual attraction.
21
Kenneth: Is this relevant? I don't see how.
66
I'd wager that if men were pressured to spend the same amount of time and money on improving and enhancing their bodies and their wardrobes as women, rather than being told that they deserved to be loved for their souls (by a woman who is, first and foremost, beautiful - per basically every sitcom and drama), then the parity would be greater.
5
While many do feature the sort of "fantasy" hero (from a physical standpoint), not all do. There are plenty of everyday-man heroes, including those who are disfigured, physically disabled, or suffering from mental illness. They consistent theme in all of them is that each person has to overcome his/her own wounds before they can form a healthy attachment with another. That's a message that applies equally to all.
6
For many boomer women, the greatest source of sex education was the second chapter of Mary McCarthy's novel "The Group."
42
And, unfortunately so many of us had to settle for Masters and Johnson's clinical work!
Its perpetuation of the myth of the vaginal orgasm was pernicious.
I bought Nancy Friday's Forbidden Flowers and My Secret Garden.
8
So well expressed! The writing is superb and well-thought out.
32
This story rings so true with me! I learned so much reading women's pulp fiction when I was a teenager! what to do, what not to do, what to expect, what to avoid, how to be smart, what to say. I read a bunch of the same authors you mentioned, too. It was a great way to learn about relationships, all about them, in a nonthreatening way before you had to deal with them yourself.
61
It is truly amazing how we all feel so awkward talking about - in any kind of half-way normal way - such a fundamental aspect of being human. It's weird that it's so weird.
85
Here's another aspect that's weird: the sex education hammered into my generation in the 1970s was if you have sex you risk pregnancy -- and don't get pregnant! Today the risk of pregnancy in some places in the country is even higher than when I was a teen, yet responsible sex education is silenced, access to affordable contraception and the morning after pill is denied, sexually transmitted disease numbers are up, and abortion on request is harder and harder to come by. Still sex is being pushed from the first hookup encounter or glass of wine back at the bachelor pad; promoting fantasy-based notions of connection without accountability. To me that's not only weird but crazy; how are kids supposed to discuss sex, explore and discover wants and needs, and do so safely with so little healthy modeling and support?
119
I totally agree. The fact that this story has been up for 12 hours and only elicited 29 (!) comments attests to our collective, prudish discomfort with a topic that is, as you so eloquently and accurately put it, "such a fundamental aspect of being human."
1
It doesn’t really feel weird. What’s weird is how we can’t let go of the cultural idea that is it weird to talk about it. Somehow it’s fun to believe it’s weird, and makes us feel like we’re saying something meaningful to state that.
Maybe if I was reading a romance novel from the 1970's then I would think they were a "negative influence" on girls. But if you actually read a contemporary romance novel outside of 50 Shades of Grey, you would see that most of the women portrayed in these books are independent, have careers, thoughts of their own and are in control of their agency. Women in these novels are doctors, teachers, mothers, scientist, etc because thats who their audience is. I find it very telling that the one book genre that has the most female driven sales is the one with the most criticism. And not even valid criticism. We could talk about the lack of LGBTQ books, the lack of non fetishized interracial romances, or the lack of books by women of color. No instead its a superficial criticism based on patriarchal mindsets that women arent allowed to be in love, be sexy, or want romance if they want to be fulfilled in other areas of their life.
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"Ebony", I don't think it is "patriarchal mindsets" that causes romance novels to be put down. Critics see them as formulaic and lacking in depth and creativity. To most high brow critics, an outstanding novel is one of such depressing complexity no one wants to read it. What's more, there is an assumption that it must deal with the dark realities of life, very little encouragement or uplift allowed.
There are all sorts of literary conventions in criticism and in academic acceptance of literature. When John Updike died, he was actually complemented for never having written about the "wide open skies" of the American west, as if what happens in the urban east, preferably New York, Boston or nearby, was the only thing of any importance. Conversely, those who reside in the western states and write about where they live are dismissed as "regional writers". What else was Updike? Oh, he was universal because he wrote about suburbs in the east?
Literature of value should help release us from stereotypical views and encourage liberation convention and ordinary lives. It should challenge and, yes, inform. Academics and critics often believe something that is written quickly cannot be good. The probable fact that romance novels are not high literary achievements does not mean they have no value. Everything one encounters in life has instructional value and the less one knows, the more so.
58
You are so right about "regional writers." In a similar phenomenon, the work of artists who practice west of the Mississippi is called "western art" (even though one of the best-known western artists - Frederic Remington - was from New York)
14
Most of the actual classic fiction is good and has a plot that is reasonably easy to follow. I'm not sure critics actually pick out the really good work from the blather very well.
Pride and Prejudice is a romance novel, albeit one of the very best ones.
1
In this excellent article there was no mention of "romance" magazines . When I was young they were very popular. Names such True Romance were readily available and I read them avidly in my early teens. As I grew older I lost interest and moved on to books like Gone With the Wind and Peyton Place.
22
Of the titles in the picture, I like "Her Secret, His Duty". Well, if duty calls ...
The thing about this genre that was sort of accurate was that it showed, I think, what many people, women and men, actually want out of relationships: actual romance, and by that I mean the combination of desire on both sides, excitement, suspense, and satisfying fulfillment. Usually only happens after you take the time to get to know someone. All that might be too much to hope for over the very long term, but it can last, and I think most people want all of that. The very long-term relationships can bring other things into the picture that have value too.
If women read these books more than men, which I imagine is a good guess, then it is probably because of the emphasis on the emotional aspects, something I think "Grace" was hoping for, but her problem was that she did not allow the relationship to get a better start so that the things needed to fall into place to achieve that level of romance could occur.
Aziz appeared to be reacting in the way many guys might when things developed more rapidly than expected without sufficient time for the little things to fall into place first. I mean, guys are pretty focused on one thing often unless the time is taken to let all the other factors have a chance to work their magic and build respect and a sense of romance. Takes a little longer with most guys probably. But romance is good.
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@ David
You may actually have hit on something there with 'Grace', but rather than she not getting what she was hoping for, I took it as her not really knowing what she wanted. She may have had all sorts of scenarios in her head, but they were not playing out according to (her) script.
So one has to ask, is 'Grace' a product of too many romance novels or simply a person with an inability to verbalize much of anything? (Or both.)
2
You said, " I think, what many people, women and men, actually want out of relationships: actual romance, and by that I mean the combination of desire on both sides, excitement, suspense, and satisfying fulfillment."
Pretty much hit on the real issue. Casual sex is rewarding only if you are keeping a scorecard of "hits".
What no one has brought up in the Grace vs Aziz story is the other inequality in this issue - the one of power/fame. To Grace meeting Aziz and landing a date with him was a lot more of "value" than for Aziz (who supposedly ignored her at first). For her it was meeting someone she thought she already knew so much about and who was a familiar object of affection, while to him she was another nameless, faceless groupie to have a fling with and get on to the next one who came over to him at a party and gushed about how much she loved him and how much he meant to her.
I am not being cruel to "Grace", but I hope women realize how they come across is often not how they WANT to come across. The lady who pushed herself onto Al Franken while asking her husband to take their picture (look at who is "into" whom in that snap) and then accuses Franken of touching her inappropriately, when he is standing there in the middle of a State Fair, and has never met her before, did not invite her over, and in addition to all the strangers milling about, her husband is looking right at them taking a picture, just how delusional must Al Franken be to try to molest this lady?
3
I have nothing against romantic novels - loved the Bronte sisters when I was young. But, are you all sure anyone under 35 reads romance novels? I don't think they read at all, especially not novels set in the past. Maybe scifi...
25
I'm 25 and I've read romance novels since I was 19. Also, many people under 35 read and considering how fast the New Adult genre is growing I think it's a very lucrative target audience. Especially if you aren't trying to generalize millions of people based on their age group. :)
53
I am SURE people under 35 read romance novels. They are probably the most popular published books out there. I have read thousands and I am under 35.
35
I pretty much ONLY read them when I was under 35. By the time I was in my mid-30s, I had outgrown both the bodice-rippers and the sweeter stuff. I think partly because I recognized they painted very unrealistic pictures of relationships, partly because they all run together after awhile, and partly because the heroines got to be too much younger than I was for me to relate. (That last bit might not be so true these days.)
14
Gee If I knew about this when I was younger, I would have hung out around the romance novels in the book stores, that is even better than the vegetable section of the supermarket.
112
Met my husband in a bookstore.
2
I'd not give up o the veritable section David. There are a lot of good woman there.
1
oh c'mon NYT, favorite that comment!
1
I don't think I could bear to allow anyone to take my first romantic novel loves away from me. My Mother was a fair censor, but I was keen and determined and while babysitting for a glamorous neighbor whose bookshelves provided true delights, I managed to sneak a few into the house to be read under my bed with a flashlight. Not shocking by today's terms I'm sure, but how I wafted away in both history and torn feelings with Gone With the Wind, drooled onto the pages of Peyton Place, and forever to this day claim ultimate reward for Gatsby and my favorite, O'Hara's From the Terrace. Need? Absolutely.
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Well said. There are, however, two important challenges even beyond knowing how other people think and what they want. The first challenge is to unlearn the popular 'wisdom' that men and women each want what they want. In fact, they all think and want differently from each other. Some people - men and women alike - wants lots of sex; some none; and others in between; some want it rough, and others smooth; and a few with any of a wide variety of kinks. Few if any novels manage to display the extraordinary range of people's opinions and desires. The second challenge is finding that one special other person whose wishes and desires matches one's own! I've not read that many of the genre, but yes, vive la Romantic Novel.
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I agree. And it is also a function of maturity because as both sexes grow up they learn what they want and if they love each other learn to please each other. I disagree with those comments that imply that men only want one thing, sex, they want the closeness of having a partner next to each other and just cuddling sometimes. My wife and I did not have particularly pleasurable sex at first, but as our love and respect for each other grew with time, sex became more satisfying and more intense for the both of us. It is a matter of learning and of understanding each other, something that sometimes comes with time.
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Lamaan,
You make some good points on variety. The simple answer is to read a variety of these romance novels.
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.
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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I agree. Teens and young women today still want romance -- as in they will prep and dress to the nines to go on a date, but their male counterparts? Not, which has to be a set up for disappointment if not a huge disconnect. Recently I saw two young couples out for an evening on a double date in S.F. -- the girls made up wearing dresses and the guys wearing hoodies with one arm around their gal and the other carrying a skate board.
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I would disagree because all information is good provided it is not in a vacuum. Imagine instead these books as part of a curriculum where their strengths and weaknesses are discussed alongside non-fiction.
Knowledge is the first step to empowerment.
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No, Sharon. Just no. First of all, your generalizations about romance novels are not accurate. My guess is you haven't felt the need to read very many before slamming the whole genre. Ironically, your description of the non-romance novels you want teenagers reading fit closely the description of the women in the majority of romance novels.
And secondly, it's girls who are avid readers who do the best in school and have the best opportunities to have professional, independent lives. I taught high school English for almost forty years, and many of my best students were avid readers of romance novels. Making them "off limits" as you suggest is the kind of micro-managing that rarely ends well.
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I agree with everything you say in this and a healthy amount of it could happen if the publishing industry would change one thing: Instead of "romance novels," how about just calling them "novels"?
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In my experience, that won't work. As a young boy and then a teen in the early 60s, I read everything I could get
my hands on, and that included fiction.
I tried reading romance novels, and quickly found their world view was not something of interest, for me. They were written for a specific audience, and I wasn't part of that audience.
So an attempt to assimilate them into mainstream fiction would probably not make anyone happy. The people that love them want to know exactly what they're getting, and the packaging and marketing of these novels is designed to let them know.
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Sports books for young boys and romance books for girls was the 60's and 70's sales approach, but sisters did have significant impact on many boys. They transmitted knowledge and perspective. Seriously never able to objectify women when raised with three of them. Makes me wonder......
Human relations of all kinds take place in books and with them come many teachable moments, all sorts of books, even non fiction books.
So much of what makes people happy is real from the neck up. Sure, it's an easy route to use non-thinking, gut-instinct physical gratification to give yourself pleasure.
But doesn't it seem like making our significant other feel good requires a decent amount of thoughtfulness at a minimum? Imagination and empathy are wonderful tools if other people matter too.
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Oh, Ms. Jennifer Weiner, how right you are to remind men and women to seek out books--especially well-written "women's fiction"-- for information not found in so many of the common sources of what passes for "sexual education". Your essay is clever, wise and truthful. I hope many of the NYT readers find it and read it with understanding. In the midst of the anxiety between women and men today as they struggle with work and personal relationships, you are a hero for your advice.
Those of us born in the late 1940's, many of us in small, rural towns without movie theaters or TV (and certainly no internet or social media) are rather grateful we found inspiration from books in how to converse with lovers and how to think about how people negotiated mutually satisfying relationships.
As I look back on some of the early Bodice-Ripper books, I am, of course, horrified by the violence and lack of consent which was an early theme. These days, affirmative consent, the use of appropriate birth control and measures for safe sex are simply part of the pre-sex act relationship which follows through on the teaching aspect of the books Jennifer Weiner discusses.
I notice from Amazon Kindle lists that just about any combination of people that can be in a relationship has fiction supporting them. Books can be more accessible than movies because they allow more time to understand the words and the actions of the characters.
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great comment !
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...As I look back on some of the early Bodice-Ripper books, I am, of course, horrified by the violence and lack of consent which was an early theme...
--------- is it because most of the authors of those early books were written by men (pseudonymously ) ? . . .
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No matter how feminine the pseudonym, a very substantial percentage of these novels were written by men, typically hard-boiled Damon Runyanesque types between stints at the police blotter and the racetrack.
So it looks like at least some men got it, and they were not the usual sensitive types either.
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@Robert T: And stints writing detectives, westerns, and sometimes science fiction. Anything to make a living, not an easy thing for a writer in the old days.
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I have the feeling, Robert, that you're referencing a very different type of literature than that being discussed in the article. The illustration on the cover of the center picture for the book titled, Her Secret, His Duty, tends to remind me of a large number of books displayed in porn stores. Those, however, form a very different kind of literature, albeit, typically written by men and, quite possibly the kind of men you described.
However, those books are as different from the "bodice rippers" that Ms. Weiner is describing as they are from the literature your college literature teacher might have assigned. If you don't agree, then pick up a single Harlequin published novel and read it.
Whereas both genres focus on sexual acts, I think you'll find the porn shop novels tend to move to the orgasm forcefully, quickly and repeatedly with few words left over to dwell on feelings or foreplay. The Harlequin variety spend a great deal more time on foreplay (and afterplay) and feelings and are typically written by women.
I think that both types of novels have their purpose but I don't think they should be confused with one another.
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That might have been true at one time but today the vast majority of romance authors are women and often young, well-educated women.
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