A Romantic Celebration

When I was a teenager, I used to read romance novels and I used to love it. I started reading the ones that my mom left around the house (they’d been there for a long time). Most of them were published sometime in the 1960s. They were harmless – as in free of sexual relationships – and harmful – as in totally sexist. Once I got to be about 19, I started to recognize the severe injustice to women as a whole, but the ones that were published more recently were dirty. The women weren’t stupid and the men weren’t chauvinistic pigs, but there was sex. And I agree with the philosophy that sex should not be described in detail unless it’s in a biology text book. I have my reasons.

Thus, I would like to suggest an alternative. They’re called virgin stories (categorized by me). Let me explain in more detail.

The Virgin Wife Story – This is a story where the main couple gets married very early on – maybe in the first chapter, but because of the circumstances around their wedding they’re not on the right terms to just jump in bed. It’s called a virgin story because they don’t ever have sex within the confines of the story. It ends just as they’re closing the door to the bedroom and the reader is left to understand that after the story finishes that yes – they finally have sex. I’ve been reading a Korean manhwa called ‘The Bride of the Water God’ for years. I think I’m past chapter 100 and they still haven’t gone to bed.

The Virgin Prostitute Story – This is a story where the main girl is forced into prostitution, and has repeated close shaves, but she always escapes with her virginity intact. I find that usually they’re Japanese stories since they have completely different ideas about escorts and hosts and that sort of thing than we do here in North America.

The Virgin Harem Story – These might be my favourite. As most of you know a harem situation in a story is when more than two characters are in love with the main protagonist. Ones that are really well written offer the reader not just three main love interests, but many. I’ve seen authors create half a dozen love interests for the same story. The reader is sitting back and they can’t even figure out which one to root for because they are all so enthralling.

The biggest point in each of these stories is that there is no sex in any of them. Another point is that most sexual relationships portrayed in books and films these days ought not to exist. I’m horrified. I’m sitting there going, ‘If this girl sleeps with this guy, she’s going to be seriously screwed up when she wakes up the next morning’. Can’t we prevent people from thinking this rash behaviour is normal?

Can’t we have romance novels that are just fun and that’s all?