By Chloe B. McAlpin, Staff Writer, Emerson College
Freshmen year of high school I went exploring about my small town of Stuart, Florida and found the biggest gold mine of my life: Maggie’s Junque, a hybrid used-bookstore-thrift shop. It was there at Maggie’s that I found my first romance novel. I actually found five floor-to-ceiling bookshelves of them. I wandered the bookstore in awe until I found this section and, in a state of half embarrassment-half wonder, I explored the books. Since Maggie’s was a used bookstore, these novels were the real deal: vintage shirtless Fabio types firmly grasped swooning maids in scandalous dresses in front of some scene that always displayed horses in the background. They also always had sexy names like Savage Dream or Passionate Pursuit or Ripe for Seduction. Embarrassed but curious, I picked up the novel with the best name I could find, Temptation’s Tender Kiss, and started my life as a romantic novel reader.
Freshmen year of high school I went exploring about my small town of Stuart, Florida and found the biggest gold mine of my life: Maggie’s Junque, a hybrid used-bookstore-thrift shop. It was there at Maggie’s that I found my first romance novel. I actually found five floor-to-ceiling bookshelves of them. I wandered the bookstore in awe until I found this section and, in a state of half embarrassment-half wonder, I explored the books. Since Maggie’s was a used bookstore, these novels were the real deal: vintage shirtless Fabio types firmly grasped swooning maids in scandalous dresses in front of some scene that always displayed horses in the background. They also always had sexy names like Savage Dream or Passionate Pursuit or Ripe for Seduction. Embarrassed but curious, I picked up the novel with the best name I could find, Temptation’s Tender Kiss, and started my life as a romantic novel reader.
Of course no one else knew I was reading these books, because that would be way too embarrassing. I had friends who scoffed at such books, made fun of their covers, said they were for menopausal old ladies, called them names like “bodice-rippers” and “lady porn”. I was horrified they’d find out I read them, embarrassed they’d come to find out I liked lady porn.
My friends and I both were falling into a dangerous societal trap that tells women that it’s bad and dirty to be curious about sex. We women are not encouraged to question sex or to be sexually attracted to anything. Girls are not encouraged like men and boys are to be attracted and to explore sexuality. So while men righteously have their porn, I would cowardly hide in my room with a flashlight and by night read my lady porn. My curiosity drove me on and I continued reading these erotic romantic novels with only the store clerk at Maggie’s in on my secret.
Over time, I started to notice small changes in myself due to my new reading material. These books, through their entertainment and pleasure, taught me a lot about myself sexually. After some time, I came to be more comfortable with my sexuality. Maybe it was from reading about it so often or from admitting that I had sexual desires of my own, but I slowly stopped seeing sex as this taboo and unholy subject. Sex and sexy things became kind of… normal. When I first started dating, I wasn’t as fazed and embarrassed with sexual acts or desires that might have earlier freaked me out. I knew these things were for pleasure and they did, in fact, feel nice. There didn’t have to be anything dirty about them. Pleasure was an exciting thing and I wanted to explore it. My romance novels taught me that, and I’ve come to realize how lucky I was to be comfortable with sex and sexuality early in life.
But alas, friends, the romance novel is not the Mecca of all life’s answers. It can teach some negative messages as well. My education via erotic romance novel is where things get a little tricky, because I wasn’t necessarily learning all good things. I was fortunate enough to have a mother who had always been very open with me about the anatomy of sex, so I didn't have to learn about the birds and the bees from the novels. However, It wasn’t until later, when I gained some of my own sexual experience, that I realized how ‘cookie cutter’ the stories had been. For one thing there were never any sexy times written about two men, or two women, or any combination of gender, sexuality, and identity that wasn’t strictly a heterosexual male and a heterosexual female having heterosexual sex. This seems boring and offensive now but at the time it wasn’t much of a concern to me. Of course there were other things I had been misinformed of as well like, hey, you’re not going to orgasm your first time, or, hey, he’s not going to fall in love with you just because you’ve had sex, or, hey, STDs are a thing.
These were damaging messages about sex that could have potentially hurt me. Many of these stories also played very heavily into dangerous and degrading gender stereotypes. I found in every single story I read that the strong and reckless man always ended up saving the young and beautiful maiden, even if he was the one who put her in the dangerous situation (and he often was). Women in these stories never saved themselves, never thought for themselves and had hardly ever had sexual experience before the hero came along. The message that women have to be weak and passive to gain male approval is extremely dangerous for impressionable young girls and boys and should never be encouraged. Because I was raised and taught in a sex-positive environment, these ugly messages never affected me too much. I can only image what they could do to someone with no other sexual or social outlet to explore.
This in and of itself is what makes these stories such a complexity. Though they are vastly flawed, one must understand that the romantic erotic book is written strictly for pleasure and fantasy. When one goes to read this genre of writing, it is not wise to go into it expecting to encounter the complication and injustice of reality. In reality, we fear losing our lover, we fear childbirth and slut-shaming, intolerance and misunderstanding. When we read romance novels we go to place where we can escape from all that. We live a comforting and pleasurable fantasy for a short time. Exploring yourself through these fantasies is healthy. Wanting to learn more is healthy. Being confused, well kids, that’s healthy too and romantic novels should be a nonjudgmental place to go for pleasure as you navigate your way through sexual desire. The truth, though, is much more complicated and filled with human emotions, sexuality and uncertainty, things that can’t be understood by just reading a romance novel. You’ve got to live a little bit to understand those.
Chloe B. McAlpin is a Writing, Literature, and Publishing major at Emerson College. Originally from Florida, Chloe enjoys crunchy orange leaves, used bookstores, and Simon & Garfunkel. If she had to pick a favorite animal it would be a Persian cat, and if she had to pick a favorite person it would be Virginia Woolf. Contact Chloe on her Twitter.
Image: Goodreads
My friends and I both were falling into a dangerous societal trap that tells women that it’s bad and dirty to be curious about sex. We women are not encouraged to question sex or to be sexually attracted to anything. Girls are not encouraged like men and boys are to be attracted and to explore sexuality. So while men righteously have their porn, I would cowardly hide in my room with a flashlight and by night read my lady porn. My curiosity drove me on and I continued reading these erotic romantic novels with only the store clerk at Maggie’s in on my secret.
Over time, I started to notice small changes in myself due to my new reading material. These books, through their entertainment and pleasure, taught me a lot about myself sexually. After some time, I came to be more comfortable with my sexuality. Maybe it was from reading about it so often or from admitting that I had sexual desires of my own, but I slowly stopped seeing sex as this taboo and unholy subject. Sex and sexy things became kind of… normal. When I first started dating, I wasn’t as fazed and embarrassed with sexual acts or desires that might have earlier freaked me out. I knew these things were for pleasure and they did, in fact, feel nice. There didn’t have to be anything dirty about them. Pleasure was an exciting thing and I wanted to explore it. My romance novels taught me that, and I’ve come to realize how lucky I was to be comfortable with sex and sexuality early in life.
But alas, friends, the romance novel is not the Mecca of all life’s answers. It can teach some negative messages as well. My education via erotic romance novel is where things get a little tricky, because I wasn’t necessarily learning all good things. I was fortunate enough to have a mother who had always been very open with me about the anatomy of sex, so I didn't have to learn about the birds and the bees from the novels. However, It wasn’t until later, when I gained some of my own sexual experience, that I realized how ‘cookie cutter’ the stories had been. For one thing there were never any sexy times written about two men, or two women, or any combination of gender, sexuality, and identity that wasn’t strictly a heterosexual male and a heterosexual female having heterosexual sex. This seems boring and offensive now but at the time it wasn’t much of a concern to me. Of course there were other things I had been misinformed of as well like, hey, you’re not going to orgasm your first time, or, hey, he’s not going to fall in love with you just because you’ve had sex, or, hey, STDs are a thing.
These were damaging messages about sex that could have potentially hurt me. Many of these stories also played very heavily into dangerous and degrading gender stereotypes. I found in every single story I read that the strong and reckless man always ended up saving the young and beautiful maiden, even if he was the one who put her in the dangerous situation (and he often was). Women in these stories never saved themselves, never thought for themselves and had hardly ever had sexual experience before the hero came along. The message that women have to be weak and passive to gain male approval is extremely dangerous for impressionable young girls and boys and should never be encouraged. Because I was raised and taught in a sex-positive environment, these ugly messages never affected me too much. I can only image what they could do to someone with no other sexual or social outlet to explore.
This in and of itself is what makes these stories such a complexity. Though they are vastly flawed, one must understand that the romantic erotic book is written strictly for pleasure and fantasy. When one goes to read this genre of writing, it is not wise to go into it expecting to encounter the complication and injustice of reality. In reality, we fear losing our lover, we fear childbirth and slut-shaming, intolerance and misunderstanding. When we read romance novels we go to place where we can escape from all that. We live a comforting and pleasurable fantasy for a short time. Exploring yourself through these fantasies is healthy. Wanting to learn more is healthy. Being confused, well kids, that’s healthy too and romantic novels should be a nonjudgmental place to go for pleasure as you navigate your way through sexual desire. The truth, though, is much more complicated and filled with human emotions, sexuality and uncertainty, things that can’t be understood by just reading a romance novel. You’ve got to live a little bit to understand those.
Chloe B. McAlpin is a Writing, Literature, and Publishing major at Emerson College. Originally from Florida, Chloe enjoys crunchy orange leaves, used bookstores, and Simon & Garfunkel. If she had to pick a favorite animal it would be a Persian cat, and if she had to pick a favorite person it would be Virginia Woolf. Contact Chloe on her Twitter.
Image: Goodreads