I.
I should preface this by saying I never read romance novels, I am not an eminent source on them whatsoever, but I heard a friend of mine say (or maybe I read somewhere?) that “romance novels are like porn for chicks, because it’s acceptable for them to look at.” Putting aside the vastly insulting assumptions packed so tightly into that sentence (Is it unacceptable for women to look at ‘real’ porn? Do men never read romance novels? Is there a ‘normal’ when it comes to deciding from where we derive our sexual pleasure?), I realized I know very little about the novels themselves, their portrayals of sex and why they have come to be celebrated by some and stigmatized or put down by others (as all things tend to do, I suppose). So I went downstairs and picked up my house’s copy of Cosmopolitan Magazine and flipped to their section called Red Hot Reads… and began to read.
The excerpt was entitled “Built For Pleasure.” The description at the top read, “Reeling from a bad breakup, Maddie Moore has thrown herself into restoring an old inn she’s inherited. It’s all the distraction she needs until Jax, the sexy contractor, shows her he has more to offer than just a handy tool belt.”
The scene opens in the attic of the inn, where Maddie is busily cleaning until Jax walks in, a smoldering vision of a “tall, tattooed, and perfectly-chiseled body.” As the heat rises, the first thing that caught my attention was not how sexy the story was, but rather one particular sentence, sandwiched somewhat innocuously between sensual descriptions of passionate lust: “Writhing underneath him, she tightened her grip on his shoulders and kissed him, feeling him hard and throbbing at her hip. ‘I need you inside me.’ He quickly got up and took a condom from the wallet in his jeans. He began groaning when she helped him roll it down his length.”
I opened up the issue from the previous month. There, at the height of the love scene, “she pulled down his boxers, feeling how much he wanted her. ‘Hold on,’ Lucas said as he hastily pulled out a condom from the pocket of his jeans.”
Wait a minute. Were these romance novels… making safe sex sexy?
II.
In a 2000 study published in the Psychology of Women Quarterly, Amanda Diekman, Mary McDonald, and Wendi Gardner analyzed correlations between women’s reading habits of romance novels and their attitudes towards condom use. They surveyed about 100 female undergraduate students. In one part of the study, the subjects were asked to say if they read political essays, science fiction, or romance novels the most. The study found that of the population who answered that they read romance novels the most, they had the least-positive attitudes towards condom use, and were least likely to report past condom use.
Then, subjects were asked to read one of two types of selections from a romance novel for three weeks. Says the study, “In the traditional romance script condition, participants read segments excerpted directly from romance novels that were part of the initial content analysis and included elements of the “swept away” myth. A different segment was read each week. For example, one segment read as follows:
“He touched, hardly touching at all, and left her weak. His mouth, gliding like a cool breeze over her flesh, was rapture. . . .When she sighed, he brought his lips back to hers.
He undressed her slowly, bringing the gown down inch by inch, wallowing in the delight of warming the newly bared skin. Fascinated with each tremor he brought her, he lingered. Then he took her gently over the first crest.
In the safe sex version, participants read identical segments, except that the following paragraph was inserted between the two paragraphs in the previous example.
He pulled back slightly so he could look at her. “Should we use protection?” he asked gently. She nodded at him, her face warm, as he unwrapped the bright foil. Pleased with his concern for her, she smiled at him and kissed his throat.”
The study found that after three weeks, the group reading the segment with the included safe sex section were surveyed to have more positive views on condom use, and greater intention to use condoms in the future.
This quote stood out to me from the article:
“As expected from past examinations of the passive role of women in the romantic script (e.g., Rose, 1985), the male character initiated the discussion or use of a condom in every instance. Furthermore, the female character was portrayed as rejecting condom use in almost half of the discussions. This was a disturbing finding. “True love,” according to some novels, is apparently expressed through the female character actually disregarding the risks to her health. In fact, the female characters who rejected condom use gave reasons such as ‘I want no barriers between us.’” (Diekman et al, pg 181).
III.
So what does this tell us about how, for the population that reads romance novels, these books influence our views or standards of sexuality? This can obviously be extrapolated to pornography, movie love scenes, sexual education classes… the list goes on. Making safe sex sexy is a great way to reduce the stigma around latex use. When was the last time you saw a cunnilingus oral sex scene in a movie where the giver used a dental dam? If it were well conveyed and tastefully done, would this change the sensuality or passion of the scene? Hopefully not, though I can only assume there is a steep learning curve needed in order to get used to seeing condoms more in films and books as a passion intensifier rather than a fumbling teenaged boy’s comedic pre-sexual encounter prop.
--Mia Stange
Sources:
--> Excerpts from Simply Irresistible, by Jill Shalvis, in Cosmopolitan Nov 2010 and Last Chance, by Christy Reece, excerpted in Cosmopolitan Dec 2010
--> Diekman, A. B., McDonald, M. and Gardner, W. L. (2000), LOVE MEANS NEVER HAVING TO BE CAREFUL. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 24: 179–188.
-->Widdice LE, Cornell JL, Liang W, Halpern-Felsher BL. Journal of Adolescent Health, 2006 Oct. Having sex and condom use: potential risks and benefits reported by young, sexually inexperienced adolescents. You can read the full research here.
Interesting read: Beyond Heaving Bosoms: The Smart Bitches’ Guide to Reading Romance Novels by Sarah Wendell and Candy Tan (link on Google Books can be found here.
NB: This is a very heterosexually-directed set of studies/observations, and for that I apologize. I would be interested to look into condom/dental dam use in homosexual and/or lesbian erotica (and even just in pornography).
Also: This study is ten years old, and since then there have been major campaigns to decrease the stigmatization of condom use. Still, a lot more can be done. One other thing to think about in love scenes you read is, if they do portray condom use, who initiates it? Is it still true what the 2000 study said, that men always initiate? What does this do to female narratives of agency in these romance scenes? It would be great to get a compilation of statistics on contemporary romance novels—what’s changed? Do you think Cosmopolitan requires their authors to insert a sentence including condoms into their published sex scenes?
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