So I picked up a bunch of books from Value Village the other day (50% off sale!), these really old cheesy-looking Harlequin romance novels from decades ago; the oldest one was from 1978, the most recent one 1991. They're the sort of books that are like 'fluff' to me, easily read in about an hour, you know how its going to end but the characters are usually interesting. Usually.
As I was reading the first book, I noticed it had a few disturbing scenes, one in which the sexually-frustrated hero totally lashed out verbally at the heroine and had a little fit, mad that she'd 'teased' him. The guy seemed like a total barbarian, but the heroine... oh, she was so annoying, and timid, and kept rejecting the guy for totally lame reasons. Like, she was being unbelievably naive and innocent. Ugh! I was so frustrated with her.
In the books I read nowadays (deemed "vampire porn" by my BFF's hubby, I totally got her addicted to these books) the women are so fiery, so independent -- kick-ass women who know what they want in life. Of course, they're usually immortal Valkyries or some such, lol. I like reading books with women like this, seeing how they interact with the usually-aggressive or dominant heroes, how they stand up for themselves. (Not to mention, the love scenes in these books are HAAWWWTTT!!! No wonder her hubby calls them vampire porn.) Which is why I was getting so frustrated with the heroine from that Harlequin novel.
Then I realized that because this particular book was published in 1979, it reflected what women and men were like back then, or at least what their relationships were like. Or even maybe, the kind of drivel that women expected in their romance novels. Chauvinistic, aggressive-in-a-disturbing-way men, and innocent, inexperienced, passive women. This was probably before, or during, the women's lib movement. Maybe Harlequin thought it was too risky to have strong-willed, independent women. And God forbid the heroine should have some sexual experience. That was probably a big romance-novel no-no.
And you know, its kinda funny that its only now, as an almost-30-year-old, that I have come to the conclusion that these cheesy old Harlequins are a total waste of my reading-time. Back in my early teen years I couldn't get enough of them. But I guess back then, what did I know about men and women, and relationships, and women's lib. I didn't have a problem with the virginal, innocent heroine because that's what I was too. If anything, that probably made me feel better about myself ("Thank God I'm not the last virgin on earth! And she's older than me, too!"), lol.
But it makes me wonder if perhaps those cheesy Harlequins didn't somehow influence how I viewed relationships and guys, and serve to keep me in this innocent bubble for far longer than most normal girls at that age. I mean, I didn't kiss a boy (a real actual french kiss) until I was 16. 16!! I was in grade 11. Considering that all my friends had been playing spin-the-bottle at age 10, I was kind of a freak. And I won't even tell you at what age those girls were losing their v-cards, because you'll just be shocked and horrified and disgusted. Much like I was back then when I discovered just what everyone had been up to over summer holidays. (There I was going to the waterslides every day with my little brothers, meanwhile my friends were... well, you get the idea. Ugh!)
And then of course, consider that in the Harlequins the woman's 'first time' is always magical and wonderful and the earth moves and she always has an orgasm. Uh yeah. Okay. Wish mine would've been like that, lol. These books are fun and easy 'fluff' but there's kind of an underlying danger in reading them at so young of an age. I realize that now. Talk about unreal expectations! I remember feeling totally let-down that my first time wasn't anything like in those novels, and that my hero turned out to be a total loser. (And no, Tyler was not my first, so don't think he's the 'loser', haha.) There's also a danger in how these women were portrayed. No wonder women's lib was a long time coming, if this is the kind of crap that was put out there for them to read.
But I guess one good thing has come out of recently reading all these cheesy novels -- I've realized just how far we as women, and myself personally, have come. No more passive acceptance of chauvinistic male behaviour, no more shame or embarrassment for having needs and doing something about it. We're not afraid to stand up for ourselves, to tell it like it is, to go out and get what we want. We're kickass women and proud of it. Take that, cheesy Harlequins!
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