Celebrate Smart Bitches Day with Sandy and arp and Paul and even Tom!


Much Ado About Nookie
Or: Gird Your Loins
Or, as a certain someone said: I don't think that girding one's loins leads to orgasms unless one girds them WAY too tight or just keeps girding and ungirding, or something.

I have like 100 bamillion things to say as regards Romance, but I had to choose one. And though I was sorely tempted to write an essay on Why Leda Etoile, Heroine of The Shadow And The Star, Is NOT A Wimp, You Dumbass Moron Who Wrote That Amazon Review, I decided not to since Sandy already drooled over la Kinsale. So then I was gonna talk about the Outlander series, and why the 5th book in it is a freaking CRIME and someone needs to introduce Diana Gabaldon to a lovely concept called EDITING - but then my instincts as a writer took over.

And if I've learned one thing from Romance novels, it's this: hurry up and get to the nookie.

So in my typical Bethish way, this is about. . . um well, me. Okay, jointly about me and the Romance novels.

The first one I ever read was a Harlequin, called Eagle's Ridge - I have a copy (found at half.com, yay for the internet) and it contains the first nookie I ever read. And it's not even nookie, it's just like second base. There is caressing of boobage. I do believe there may even be laving of said boobage.

[In the interests of accuracy, I am forced to say: I've just realized this actually this was NOT the first nookie I read. Because there were these, um, books. That my brothers had. That I got my little pre-pubescent mitts on. Another story for another day. Omg, SO hilarious, and Dr Dawn is giggling right now, I know it.]

After reading and thoroughly memorizing this Harlequin (and the one Dawn got, called Spring Girl) we moved on to historicals, and I've been in a love/hate relationship with them ever since. My first historical was called - ready for it? Touch Me With Fire.

Touch me. With fire.

The rollicking adventures of Marged Bowen and Rolf de Bretagne. A holy nightmare of a book and I LOVED IT. Now I can't get past page 20 of it, but that's okay - the nookie begins on page 14! (I think - I might be off by a page or two, but I'm not gonna dig through the boxes to find it.) All Marged and Rolf did was fight and nook. And nook some more. And fight some more and then have make-up nookie. I read that book maybe 200 times, until I had every touch and its attendant fire memorized. I truly thought this was one of the greatest love stories of our time. Let's cut me some slack - I was like 13.

Okay, here's where the blog post gets (perhaps uncomfortably) personal.

In Eagle's Ridge - my first exposure to blatant sexuality in romance-novel form - the Great Big Giant Makeout Scene is by a lake because they're like in Australia and it's night and they're looking at egrets. Or some kinda birds, I dunno, it was all cooked up by the hero (named - ready for it? Tate MacEwen, cattle magnate) to get his sweaty paws on the heroine (Helen, and yeah, I named my first heroine as a kinda homage to the first romance heroine I read).

The scene is a kiss and a grope that lasts like FOUR PAGES.

Four pages, and every last second of the described action is dee-lish. For years ever after, the manner in which Tate expertly manipulated Helen's nipples was branded in my brain. Branded, I tell you, like one of Tate's prized cattle.

And then there was Rolf and Marged. Those two went at it like crazed weasels, of course, and every third page was her world erupting in spasms of joy.

See, if you don't read or have never read Romance, then you just have NO IDEA about how the nookie is described. I think it's better now, mostly - though it's still all laden with superlatives, the blinding ecstasy seems to be toned down to more reasonable levels. But when I was a little virginal girl, I was reading the stuff that - in my opinion, anyway - kinda deserved to be called "bodice-rippers" and "porn for women." I mean, these people had orgasms that went on FOR PAGES. Hell, if the meek and demure virgin heroine turned out to be multi-orgasmic on her wedding night, it could go on for a whole frigging chapter.

Because of this, I grew up (because I began reading them at a very young age) with this way totally warped expectation for all things remotely sexual. To say nothing of the generally romantic. This goes for kissing, too - I can remember my first kiss and thinking like: um? Is that… all? I … I guess… he's not, well… he sure ain't no Tate MacEwen, that's all I'm sayin'.

And then actual nookie. Even though I was grown-up and logically KNEW there would not be fireworks and crashing waves and little putti singing and showering us with rose petals, I was still a little disappointed. (Side note to the men out there, thinking "yeah, there woulda been fireworks if it was me, babe!" -- No, there wouldn't have been. And all the girls are laughing at you for thinking so. Seriously, man - belly-busting guffaws.) So you know, practice makes perfect, yadida yadida, and real-life orgasm? I don't think this is headline news or anything, but it's really a FABULOUS thing, we all know this, I mean rrrrrrrrrrrowr - and yet still -- listen to me: it pales in comparison to the written description as given in romance novels.

In romance novels, it's not uncommon for the heroine - or hero, even - to actually faint with pleasure. Like, without the aid of drugs. Passed out cold because the orgasm was that good.

And then they IMMEDIATELY HAVE SEX AGAIN.

This, apparently, is how you can tell if it's true love.

This is also called "fiction" -- and reality was a bit of a let-down for a girl who gobbled up this stuff for years. I think my (rather hilarious) reaction to the real deal can best be summed up as: "Holy SHIT is that good stuff, hooo boy." And then a dawning realization and an overall feeling of - "It IS great. . . but it's only great? I mean - plate tectonics never came into play. I'm still conscious. The bedsheets are not reduced to ashes and no suns have gone supernova, from what I can tell… are you sure we did it right?"

Okay, I'm tired and this is where this ends, even though I have no point. Basically, I'm blaming purple prose for setting the bar way too high for both men and women. And as a writer, I have a philosophy that the best fantasy is made of the starkest reality, and nothing is beautiful that is not imperfect. This is why my first heroine not only doesn't orgasm at all during First Nookie, she actually vomits immediately after. Okay, my realities tend to be pretty stark, but I swear it's romantic! It is! He holds her hair back and everything!

Holy shit, I'm tired.

Next Monday will be another (and hopefully better) Smart Bitches Day.