Another book
Posted by CM under History on Sat 3 Feb 2007
heck this out: Sexual Science, from the 1870s.
Some of this won’t be a surprise to anyone. But the part I found most amazing was the discussion of “self-pollution”–ie masturbation, a subject surprisingly absent in romance novels. (The number of men who are unwilling to obtain release by any method except sex in romance novels is both staggering and unbelievable.)
The amazing part is on page 363:
It is called masturbation, and consists in indulging immodest feelings and actions, and imagining sexual pleasures with the opposite sex. Most boys indulge in it, and a great many girls. . . .That night he staid with a former parishioner, was shown to bed with a lad of eleven, a church-member, a Sabbath-school scholar, all nerve, and, as he supposed, all purity and goodness, whom he no more suspected of this vice than an angel; but whom, soon after retiring, he caught abusing himself and reproved. The lad replied, –
“Why, that’s nothing, for all the boys do that, and all the girls, too.”
So why the absence of masturbation in romance novels? Any ideas?
February 3rd, 2007 at 11:10 pm
OK, I actually have come across this in a few books recently. All of them reference female masturbation, although it is never shown “on screen.” Well, wait - The Raven Prince has the hero fantasizing about the woman touching herself. But that’s his fantasy.
Then, in The Leopard Prince, there is mention that the virgin heroine already knows all about that little button down there.
And in Christina Dodd’s The Prince Kidnaps a Bride, the heroine quite openly discusses having engaged in it (the hero asks her).
I have yet to read a book where the guy, um, pollutes himself. Even the fantasy in TRP is a dream.
That is astonishing, that a book written in the Victorian era would discuss it so openly. The Regency period was actually rather loose when it came to sexual morals, comparatively speaking.
February 3rd, 2007 at 11:44 pm
To be fair, the book is from the US, and then goes on to say that masturbation is the cause of consumption and all sorts of childhood diseases.
February 4th, 2007 at 1:06 am
Robin Schone made a biiiig commotion when the first scene of Awaken My Love (I think that’s the title) was the heroine masturbating. I think it’s not in romance novels because most romance readers want to see the heroine and hero together, not off pleasuring themselves alone. There’s also the ‘identifying with the heroine’ thing for some people. Again with not wanting to identify with the Lonely Miss taking care of her own business, but preferring that the Studly Hunk do it for her.
February 4th, 2007 at 5:40 am
I’ve got “it” in my two completed books when the h/h are apart, fantasizing about each other. Of course whether those scenes will stay in if they ever get published is another matter.
February 4th, 2007 at 9:02 am
Good for you, Maggie.
I do have a little line in my book where the hero is thinking about how long it’s been since he had a woman, and it says something like “he’d been polishing his self-control to a sterling luster.” I meant it as a vague allusion to the act, but I don’t think any of my readers got that out of it.
I can understand why it isn’t shown “on screen” too often - I mean, it has the potential to defuse all the sexual tension (it also has the potential add to it, IMO, but..). If the guy can just slip around the corner and pleasure himself, he might stop and realize that maybe this hot chit isn’t quite worth fighting the Komodo dragon.
On the other hand (oh dear, everything’s a double entendre with this topic), what bothers me is that it’s de rigueur for heroines to have never experienced an orgasm until the hero gives her one. I mean, I realize that part of the romance recipe is that the hero “awakens” her sexuality. But it seems rather implausible in most cases, that she would be completely in the dark about it.
And the thing is, we all know young women (and young men) read these books to Figure Stuff Out. If they read that all these heroines are so out of touch (there we go again) with their own bodies, what message does that send to them? It’s not quite saying “you’ll get consumption or go blind,” but it’s not very affirming of a young woman’s natural sexual curiosity, either.
I have been debating back and forth whether to revise my book’s first love scene to suggest that my heroine knows what’s, um, coming. (seriously, I’m not trying to write these!), and now I think I will. It’s always seemed completely implausible to me that *this* heroine would reach the age of 20 without figuring it out. I mean, she’s got a book.
February 4th, 2007 at 11:53 am
I agree, Tessa, I think that it’s a little unreasonable that heroines don’t know at least *something* about what’s coming, even in a historical. *Certainly* in a contemporary.
I have written a couple of virginal heroines. I don’t think I’ve done the first orgasm thing with any of them, because I think that’s just a little too precious.
February 4th, 2007 at 4:19 pm
I always want to laugh at passages where the hero touches the heroine “in a place she’d never even thought to touch.” Seriously? She never even thought about it? But she’s still eager, responsive, passionate and all-around amazing in bed.
The only masturbating hero I can think of is in To Sir Phillip With Love, but the episode is really brief. It’s funny to me that frequenting prostitutes is favorable to masturbation. Other heroines who admit to masturbation include Diana in JoBev’s Devilish and Imogen in Taming of the Duke (or am I making that one up? Eloisa’s so darn subtle).
February 5th, 2007 at 10:55 am
Ooooo. I am glad that you brought this up. It’s one of my peeves that there is not enough masturbation in romance novels. Just for the change of pace that it provides, I love it when I come across it in romances.
Obviously erotic authors like Bertrice Small, Sylvia Day, and Susan Johnson uses it a lot but examples of more mass-market size examples are Sabrina Jeffries (THE PIRATE LORD, TO SEDUCE A SCOUNDREL) and JoBev’s ST RAVEN. If I remember right, there was a masturbation scene in Christine Monson’s STORMFIRE but then again, it had everything but the kitchen sink including incest
February 5th, 2007 at 11:58 am
The erotica I just wrote for Ellora’s Cave has a masturbation scene. Involving a cucumber *g! And the heroine admits to having masturbated before, too. But that’s an erotica. Different kettle of fish, as they say.
February 5th, 2007 at 12:15 pm
Several of the early Harlequin Blaze books had masturbation. Then they toned the line down and it disappeared. There must be some marketing thing involved.
Alice
February 5th, 2007 at 2:20 pm
I can’t help but notice how many comments are on this post, yet I scroll down just a teensy bit to the blog on Google Books and, Gasp! Only 4 scholarly posts! LOL
February 5th, 2007 at 4:47 pm
Oh, but this is about science. The science of sex….
February 9th, 2007 at 5:29 pm
Well — I know I HAVE to leave a comment.
One of the erotic romances I wrote has a masterbation scene in it (but as Jacqueline says, that’s a different kettle of fish!
I guess I dont’ mind reading about it. . .we all know it happens and quite regularly, I’m sure. If it’s done right, I think it can enhance the sexual tension — when they know what is coming and can’t wait to get there!
Science, indeed!
March 27th, 2007 at 3:01 am
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