I had originally intended to write this column on the issue of condoms in contemporary Romance, but that conversation is already in process elsewhere.
So instead I’m going to pursue whole ‘what makes a successful romantic fantasy’ question, which for me is generally the subtext of the condom question.
One of the biggest unanswered questions I’ve had since I started reading this genre is what people mean when they talk about Romance as “fantasy.†Do they mean that every book is offering an unreachable and/or unrealistic portrayal? Do they mean that no rules –real life or otherwise — apply? Are they referring specific sexual fantasies in the genre (rape fantasy, rescue fantasy, BDSM play, etc.), or to something else – the conditions in which the main couple’s relationship grows, for example?
The distinction is important, I think, because the implications are different. When I see readers complain that condoms interrupt “the fantasy,†for example, I suspect that their view of fantasy is a bit different from mine. That such a reader may be disturbed by what she perceives as an unromantic element evoking unpleasant connotations (unwanted pregnancy or STD’s for example) in the reference to the condom. That reader may find that the mention of something so important in real life spoils the “in the moment†romantic abandon.
Whereas I am disturbed by the idea that a heroine who has been sold to me as smart, independent, self-sufficient, and interested in recreational sex with a guy she barely knows wouldn’t insist on a condom. For me the fantasy goes beyond the romantic moment to encompass my entire investment in the characters and their story – as individuals and as a couple. For me to feel safe being swept away, I need to feel that I can trust in the heroine’s character, and for that I need a certain amount of character consistency. Otherwise, the heroine’s lapse throws me out of the story (assuming any complications are not part of the plot). And the same goes for the hero: if he’s playing casual sex, I want him to be conscientious, too.
Which means that for me fantasy doesn’t mean ‘no rules apply.†Quite the opposite in fact. In order for me to buy fully into an author’s vision it has to make sense to me. That doesn’t mean it has to conform with my sense of external reality, just that it has to hold to some internal consistency. I can suspend disbelief in things that would not be “realistic.†Joanna Bourne’s The Spymaster’s Lady is a good example. Readers have objected to some of the skills Annique demonstrates during the book, arguing that in real life they would be virtually impossible. But Bourne did such a good job of selling me on Annique’s integrity as a character, not overplaying her competence by showing a lot of vulnerability, balancing her intelligence with fallibility, that I could accept some of her more “unrealistic†accomplished moments (like when she removes the bullet from Adrian’s chest). And how many super-duper spy-like heroes do we lap up in the genre without a thought to the believability of their stunts? This is one of the reasons I tend to think that the “realism†argument is a bit misleading, but that’s a topic for another column!
Back to condom as fantasy-breaker/fantasy-maker conundrum, I’m going to suggest that the debate has less to do with what any woman (or man!) would do in real life and more to do with how the Romance reader conceptualizes the fantasy element of the genre. Readers who see the fantasy as more directly connected to the sex, for example, may not be bothered by an independent heroine’s unconcern for protection, whereas a reader like me can’t even immerse myself in that fantasy moment without said protection. Other readers might not notice either way.
So what kind of reader are you? Do you measure the fantasy in the moment or in the broader structures of the storytelling? And for the record, are you pro-condom or anti-condom in contemporary Romance? Or does it not matter to you at all?
No related posts.
I think what this addresses is what kind of love scene you’re readng If you tend to like the step-by-step, every single moan and touch, tab A-into-Slot B love scene, then yes, a condom makes all the sense in the world. If the scene is more of a fantasy, blurred, sort of not every single thing that happens, then a condom’s appearance jolts you out of the fantasy. I used to be strictly anti-condom in novels, but I realize now it’s the context around it that makes it a part of the scene or not.
I want to clarify what I just wrote because I just read it over and don’t want to be misconstrued. Erotic romance is very detailed, and other kinds of romance are not. Both are wonderful in their own right. I didn’t mean to suggest one is better than the other.
I just meant to discern between a very detailed love scene and a more blurry one. If that makes sense.
I think condoms are icky and I have no interest in Romance novels with recreational sex in them, unless the relationship matures into true love. To me, recreational sex means Erotica. Not Romance. In a Romance novel, I expect the couple to be in love by the time they make love. To fall in love, they need to have spent time together, learning to *trust.* If a couple has spent time together, learned to trust, and fallen in love, they ought to know the other is disease-free. Therefore, condoms will not be needed. A myriad of different, more pleasant contraceptives can be used instead.
I think you explained it all well though.
Fantasy is nice, but too much and I just cannot relate.
And, remember, some of us love the ‘consequences’ of sex. Reading a Romance in which the Heroine does not conceive or want to conceive by the end is like drinking decaffienated coffee. May taste fine, but I miss the ‘kick.’
I’m a worrier by nature, and none of my personal fantasy scenarios nor the ones I enjoy reading involve worrying about unwanted pregnancies or STDs/AIDS. Therefore, I can’t “relax and enjoy” the fantasy scene depicted if I’m not assured that these fantasy-breakers won’t happen. I need to know the condom is there. Once I know it’s taken care of, I can forget all about it and get back to the fantasy.
It’s like stories with kids – I can’t relax and enjoy the hero and heroine enjoying each other’s company if I’m not assured that his/her/their kids are properly taken care of. This is why I avoid stories where the H/h already have children. It’s too much reality to forget.
“And, remember, some of us love the ‘consequences’ of sex. Reading a Romance in which the Heroine does not conceive or want to conceive by the end is like drinking decaffienated coffee. May taste fine, but I miss the ‘kick’.”
Hear hear. To Kimber’s whole answer.
I can really see lines in this discussion where some women choose to not to have children and some do. I’ve been quite taken aback by some of the heated answers against pregnancy being included in the HEA but it served to show me how an HEA is different for every woman.
As an writer I get to the point of the HEA and I envitably end up feeling guilty for being too romantic, too emotional, to cutesey if I end the story with a marriage and pregnancy. But to how many women is that is valid HEA and am I being affected by certain feminist thoughts in my storytelling?
My only conclusion is that it is too subjective and that we are all offered stories we like by having all of these choices books. For which I am glad for because feminisim to me is that ever woman has her personal choice of which HEA applies to her and her choices.
There is no right answer. There is only the right answer for YOU.
Now I’m off to write a torrid bareback scene where they agree to get married and have children.
I am already fascinated by some of these comments, because I see I didn’t explore something that is emerging here: whether we’re talking about erotic Romance or straight contemporary Romance.
I was referring to straight contemps, and let me just clarify a few things before pursuing a bit what I see coming out here.
For me, the fact that *we* know the hero and heroine will end up together at the end of the book does not apply to them when they are unaware of that themselves. So anything that occurs outside of that awareness I judge within the context of the characters’ knowledge.
Also, many a hero and heroine in contemps have sex without love (I’m thinking here about Jennifer Crusie and on to Rachel Gibson and even SEP, just to start). So when I talk about heroines who are willing to engage in “recreational sex,” I am talking about the heroines who do not require love to be sexually active.
Regardless, what I am getting from this thread so far is that for some readers, a heroine who prepares for sex with a condom is more akin to erotic Romance than straight contemp Romance. I have to say that I disagree with that distinction, but I think it goes right back to that issue of how we each read the genre, and what it is we want from the “fantasy.”
For example, I know many a reader who believes that once the hero and heroine are paired in a book, it does not matter that they are unaware of their destiny with each other because the reader knows and that changes the rules (I think some of this is evident in the current Suzanne Brockmann controversy). In that context, I can see why a condom would seem like the intrusion of something unpleasant into the equation. For me, though, it doesn’t matter that each of them are totally disease free, etc., because I am looking at the couple from the POV of *their* limited knowledge of one another. These different types of reading result in different expectations and perceptions.
One more comment about the baby HEA. Although I think the genre has become a bit mindless with this trope, I personally don’t object to it and am really more interested in context than anything else. The CEO heroine who never exhibited any maternal interests who is finishing out a book flushed with pregnancy hormones and a new small town life to look forward to can be jarring for me and not completely logical. OTOH, I have no problem with the goal of marriage and children, and for those couples who are actively seeking that, the chance of pregnancy with unprotected sex might be perfectly logical.
I say “might” because all the secret baby plots clearly rely on a certain deception around the pregnancy, and in that situation IMO there’s often not enough attention paid to the fact that lives were altered fundamentally because of that. Also, I appreciate it when children, even in Romance, are planned or at least conceived with conscious desire for them. Not that the ’surprise we’re pregnant’ storyline can’t be great (one of my top 2008 books was a Susan Napier HP with an unplanned pregnancy). But I’m not in the ‘Romance automatically ends with marriage and babies’ camp.
Interesting topic. I am more of a casual romance reader, I absolutely love HEA but I have to admit when the novel ends with their first kiss, I feel like I want to keep reading (sign of a good book I guess)
As for condoms, I tend to lump them into the details category. Books need to skip mundane details such as going to the bathroom and eating breakfast unless they are an integral part of the story in order to keep pacing and interest. Similarly with clothing, many times the removal of the first article of clothing (or the sexy one) is described in detail but we don’t really need (or usually get) a description of the boots and socks coming off.. I view the condom in the same light, if it was important to the story it would be mentioned, if not it is skipped, leaving me to dream my own personal views on if it is there or not.
I think it’s all a matter of context; if condom-use seems appropriate to the characters and plot, then it doesn’t yank me out of the story. It’s usually out of place in a category for me, as is recreational sex. I’m more accepting of both in a single-title.
When I pick up one or the other, I have pretty specific expectations; when the book (or love scenes) don’t meet those expectations, it pulls me out of the story.
On the other hand, if I was looking for a book that included casual or recreational sex, I would read erotic romance or chick lit. I don’t see sex as casual or recreational, and I wouldn’t typically like H/H who did, either, but neither do I see sex simply as a means to make babies. For me, sex should express the affection, intimacy, and attraction between two people who are falling in love or who are already there.
As Eva illustrates, though, it’s all about individual preference; fortunately, we live in a country where we have the opportunity to read whatever most appeals to each of us.
I neither recoil from mention of condom usage nor ascribe characterization (to character or author) if there is no such mention. While visiting a world where all couples are attractive, all sex results in orgasm, all historical Englishmen have titles, and everybody finds true love, even monsters and time-traveling space Vikings, I’m fine with assuming a lot of other unpleasant realities of the real world, such as AIDS and herpes and ghonorrhea, don’t exist in Romanceland.
The only time I would have a preconceived expectation that a character would absolutely insist on a condom would be if that character’s involvement with treating AIDS patients or a friend/family member with an STD or an OCD aversion to bodily fluids was specifically included as part of the story. In that case, yeah, I’d question the lack.
I think opinion on this issue also has something to do with where you’re standing when you read a story. Where I stand (fly on everybody’s shoulder), I *know* the H/H don’t have STDs, and I *know* if there’s a pregnancy, it’s not really accidental because it’s planned by the author, and I *know* everything is going to work out for the best. It seems that readers who are closer to “in the characters’ shoes” are more adamant about fictional condom usage because they would insist on it, and the character’s failure to do so is inconsistent with their own wants.
Which is fine. PEOPLE READ DIFFERENTLY. What sets my teeth on edge is when someone presumes to dictate that all books should be written to their specifications and, particularly in this case, throws in the old “Think of the children!” bit.
If you have a kid old enough to read a romance novel who doesn’t know about STDs and condoms, that is entirely your own fault and not the responsibility of an author to correct.
I think opinion on this issue also has something to do with where you’re standing when you read a story. Where I stand (fly on everybody’s shoulder), I *know* the H/H don’t have STDs, and I *know* if there’s a pregnancy, it’s not really accidental because it’s planned by the author, and I *know* everything is going to work out for the best. It seems that readers who are closer to “in the characters’ shoes” are more adamant about fictional condom usage because they would insist on it, and the character’s failure to do so is inconsistent with their own wants.
It’s so interesting you should say this, because I am the kind of reader who tends to observe rather than participate in the action of novels (what do they call that — objective v. subjective reading, or something like that?), but I still work from inside the characters’ awareness on this issue, seeing it as a character consistency question. I dunno.
If you have a kid old enough to read a romance novel who doesn’t know about STDs and condoms, that is entirely your own fault and not the responsibility of an author to correct.
I personally don’t see the condom thing in terms of a RL parallel. I really do understand why people argue for condoms as a function of “role modeling,” but I agree that the genre should never be expected to be or used as sex ed. OMG how scary would that be!!
I personally don’t see the condom thing in terms of a RL parallel.
I just realized this isn’t entirely true, since reading anything that has a referent to RL creates some relationship. What I’m trying to say here is that I’m not paying attention to the protection issue because I think it’s important for people to do so in RL, and the characters need to set a good example. That’s not my expectation as a reader.
“I’m going to suggest that the debate has less to do with what any woman (or man!) would do in real life”
I disagree. Those who don’t like condoms in real life seem to be more inclined to regard them with distaste in romance novels. In fact, much of the debate at DA seems to stem from religious beliefs (anti-contraceptive) and sex ed in school (pro-abstinence).
Safe sex or unprotected sex is fine by me. As long as I like the characters, and find their choices believable, I’ll live that moment with them. I’m pro-condom, for the most part, but I’m also pro-baby, pro-marriage, pro-family. I find HEAs with those elements incredibly romantic.
For me, these issues depend a lot on the overall plot structure of the book. If the characters fall in love after a week (or a day), then I know I’m in fantasy land and wouldn’t expect a condom. If the characters have known each other longer, have been flirting around a relationship, are both characters that seem the types to logically use condoms, then have sex and don’t without consequences, I’m thrown off. It depends a lot on the plot—not just the characterization—for me too. I won’t always put a book down that doesn’t include a condom where I expected one, but I appreciate them when they do exist. In the case of recreational sex in contemps, it would depend on the character, but otherwise, plot factors in a lot for me too.
“I am the kind of reader who tends to observe rather than participate in the action of novels [...], but I still work from inside the characters’ awareness on this issue, seeing it as a character consistency question.”
I’m this sort of reader too, I think. I feel like I’m observing real people. When I pick up the book, I know what the basic ground rules are and I absorb more about the social mores/magic abilities/level of technology as the book progresses. If it’s a fantasy or science fiction story, I accept that certain things not possible in my world are real in that world. I expect consistency within the rules of that world and I judge the characters’ behaviour against the standards of normal behaviour in the world in which they live. I also think of them as subject to all the risks that exist in the context in which they live. As I read the book, I don’t think “oh well, the happy ending’s coming.” I still get anxious that it might not, even though on an intellectual level I know that there will be an HEA.
So, if I’m reading a historical and the hero has been very promiscuous, I may well worry that he has syphillis or some other infection and then it could interfere with my belief in the HEA. In a contemporary, if the characters don’t use a condom and I’m not told otherwise, I’ll assume there’s a risk they could contract diseases from each other.
I suspect that my feeling that what I’m reading is “real” is why “forced seduction” won’t ever work for me as a reader. In real life it would be rape, and I don’t want to read about a rapist getting an HEA with the person he’s raped. Similarly if the evil villain is sent into exile at the end of the novel, I worry that the villain will carry on being villainous and raping/murdering/deceiving people wherever he/she ends up. That doesn’t make me feel very happy, even if the hero and heroine get their own personal HEA.
I know other people read books differently, but for me, while I’m reading, the events and people I’m reading about feel very real.
Kerry can I haz your babies now?
And Jill, I’m a person of faith and I DO believe sex ed should be taught in schools (and yet I homeschool mine
but not for those reasons). So I don’t think it has anything to do with faith, but not that faith could play an ancillary part. And yes, I HATE condoms, but I’ve gotten pregnant on every other form of birth control and apart from sterilization that’s all I have left.
And I write bareback in either my ER or contemp romance. Cause I like to.
I kind of agree with what Mark said. I don’t think about condom use unless the pregnancy plot line is being used, just like I don’t think about whether or not the H/H use the bathroom or have morning breath for that first kiss of the morning. It doesn’t bother me if the author includes condom use, I don’t think it’s yucky, but the RL use of a condom is seldom as smooothly accomplished as it’s written. But I can suspend my belief for that too. I actually like when the hero is considerate enough to protect his lady or that she is smart enough to insist on it.
I’m not going to say much here, because, as was pointed out, this topic is a major hot button elsewhere. If I want to believe the characters in the book could be the folks I might find in the checkout line at the grocery store, or anywhere else in my community, I want them to behave in an adult, rational fashion. I don’t need to see the condom being put on. But I want to see that they’ve had the smarts to address the issue.
If the author does the job well, it’s not going to be obtrusive. The discarded foil packets tells me enough. As a matter of fact, in this day, it still amazes me that it seems 99% of the condom usage talks only about pregnancy. Dying of AIDS seems to be a much bigger issue. If the author is writing in today’s world, then it seems unrealistic to show everything following the rules, except there are no STDs. I don’t want lectures, but if something exists in the world the author is writing about, it deserves some kind of recognition on the page.
Again, a mention that she’s not been to bed with anyone in five years covers it well enough. Of course, the way most alpha heroes are written, they’ve probably had countless partners, and if they’re ‘heroic’ they’ll take precautions. (And, not to be sexist, same goes for the reverse).
f it’s a fantasy or science fiction story, I accept that certain things not possible in my world are real in that world. I expect consistency within the rules of that world and I judge the characters’ behaviour against the standards of normal behaviour in the world in which they live. I also think of them as subject to all the risks that exist in the context in which they live.
I think there’s so much under the surface of this issue, and your comment here, especially the last sentence, which I bolded, got me thinking about the unspoken rules that seen to exist in Romance (any genre, of course), some of which relate to the formalistic definition (happy ending for main couple) and some of which are IMO unstated and perhaps vary more among readers.
I think you could argue that the HEA creates a “read back” type situation, in which we can trust that the protags are safe, at least in having unprotected sex that does not result in unwanted pregnancy or STDs. And I think this is a compelling argument.
Where it breaks down *for me* is in those circumstances where the author does not create a perfectly safe environment for her characters, whether one or both are in danger, or whether one or both are wounded, etc. So *for me* there is implicit uncertainty in what I can trust and what I can’t. And in some cases, I may not feel that the author has enough control over his or her story to be leading me where s/he intends me to go with the plot or characters.
Also, what happens when things turn in such a way as to frustrate those reader expectations and the book fails for the reader? Is it because those implicit rules were not followed, and if so, does it make a difference if the transgression was deliberate?
I wonder if there’s another layer here in terms of inductive and deductive types of reading. I think I read both ways, and it certainly impacts how I manage my own reader expectations. Perhaps it plays a role in how we all interpret and accept various scenarios in different books.
I think fantasy means that women sometimes want to see the heroine make a choice that they wouldn’t feel free to make in real life. In real life, they might make the safe choice, but in fantasy, they want to make the romantic choice.
For a while I had this romance blog – it was fictional, but people didn’t realize it was fictional. It was all about this girl who had a crush on a guy. Now clearly, the way it was written, the guy she was crushing on was no good for her – he didn’t appreciate her, he didn’t love her. And there was another guy, a safe guy, who DID love her.
But 95% of the email I got from women – hundreds and hundreds of women – urged the heroine not to give up on the crush. Not to give up on it. Even though it didn’t make sense. They wanted her to get the guy. In real life, would very many of them have continued to chase him? No. But it wasn’t their life. It was someone else’s. And they wanted the romantic fantasy to happen. They wanted the unrequited to become the requited. They wanted romance.
It was fascinating.
I think you could argue that the HEA creates a “read back†type situation, in which we can trust that the protags are safe, at least in having unprotected sex that does not result in unwanted pregnancy or STDs. And I think this is a compelling argument.
The idea that the protagonists were safe from STDs because of the HEA had never occurred to me. I suppose that while I hope that the protagonists won’t die shortly after the end of the book, unless there’s an epilogue showing that they lived into old age, I don’t know that one or both of them didn’t die shortly after the end of the novel. Particularly in historicals, I can’t really forget that life expectancy was rather shorter than it is now. So I hope for the best for them, and I feel relatively confident about their future lives but I don’t feel they really have a guarantee of happy ever after till very old age puts an end to them.
Something that’s certain, though, is that in romance there is absolutely no guarantee of safety from unwanted pregnancy. It’s just that if the heroine does have an unwanted pregnancy it’s usually transformed almost instantly into a wanted pregnancy. That doesn’t tend to feel very “real” to me. Clearly lots of people have unplanned pregnancies, and lots of people are happy about their unplanned pregnancies, but how many people in the situations in which romance heroines find themselves when pregnant in an unplanned way (e.g. pregnant having spent one night with a man they think they’ll never see again/don’t want to see again) would really be delighted about the situation almost instantly?
the unspoken rules that seen to exist in Romance [...] which are IMO unstated and perhaps vary more among readers.
What sort of things are you thinking of here, Robin? Do you mean actions which readers find unacceptable and are therefore generally excluded (e.g. infidelity, abortion) or general likeability/relatability in heroines, or something else entirely?
I wonder if there’s another layer here in terms of inductive and deductive types of reading.
I’ve not come across either of those terms before (well, I know Sherlock Holmes deduces things, but I don’t think that’s what you mean). I did do a quick Google but the examples all seemed to relate to logic and I couldn’t really understand how the same concepts would be applied to reading. Would you mind explaining it to me?
In real life, they might make the safe choice, but in fantasy, they want to make the romantic choice.
OK, this reinforces an impression I’ve had for a while. My idea of what’s “romantic” doesn’t seem to be quite the same as many other people’s. As far as I’m concerned, safe is romantic. Or at least, safe can be romantic. Safe can also be boring. It depends. But for me, dangerous is never romantic. So for me, if one character seems dangerous, it would mean the author would have to work hard on the characterisation in order to convince me that they’re right for each other despite the danger, rather than something that would instantly convince me that the pairing is romantic.
A lot of the Romances I read in my formative romance-reading years had accidental pregnancies, so if the couple don’t use contraception, my brain is braced for that storyline.
If the author isn’t going to explore that storyline (pregnancy or the hope or fear of pregnancy), I’d rather that contraception was explicitly referenced in the text in some way, so that my brain isn’t counting the weeks. Doesn’t have to be during the sex scene – the hero or heroine can think about it beforehand, or the morning after.
But it’s not really about the romantic fantasy – it’s more that the reader has to extrapolate as they go through the story, and it seems unfair of the author to leave that possibility open if she’s not going to explore it further. (Like mentioning on page 132 that a serial killer has escaped from a nearby prison, even though it has no relevance to the book.)
I think I probably only read like that within the romance genre: if it was an action adventure book – where the women are easy and never fall pregnant (they just die to give the hero something to avenge) – I probably wouldn’t think about contraception.
I don’t usually think about STDs except in Regencies, and that’s really down to reading Boswell at an impressionable age.
I don’t have much to add to the condom discussion. I don’t mind either way, because when it’s not mentioned, I assume the smart, savvy hero and heroine have taken care of things. And of course, if the heroine can’t find a condom, or the hero’s is old,. well, we all know where that’s headed!
As far as the baby HEA…I’m a conservative, religious woman (so, ok, I kinda disapprove of all the prior sex
), and I love pregnancy, kids, all that. But after having 3 kids within 4 yrs of getting married, I often feel sorry for the hero and heroine having that baby so soon. I mean, as a reader, I like to see that family, and I find it romantic, but as a woman, I know they really need more time together as a couple before the blurry fatigue of parenthood starts in!
Lack of condom use in contemporary romance is one of my big pet peeves. I don’t put down a book, because there is no mention of condom use, but it definitely annoys me.
I am a member of the first generation that came into sexual maturity in the age of AIDS. It was always ingrained into me, both by sex education and “safer sex information” spots on TV, that sex without a condom could very well be lethal. So I expect condoms to be mentioned in any contemporary romance written after approx. 1985.
It doesn’t matter whether the couple already are in love or are just about to have a one-night stand that will eventually blossom into something more. Unless they both are virgins (and if they are, they still ought to use some form of birth control unless they want to have secret babies right away), they ought to use a condom. Because forcing the couple to wait until both had the chance to get tested seems rather cruel on them. The couple might decide to dispense with the condom later on, but for the first encounters it’s absolutely essential IMO.
This has nothing to do with trust or true love. Plenty of people caught AIDS or another STD from people they loved. And if a hero or heroine (though it’s usually the hero) insists that the heroine would do it bareback with them, if they only trusted them, it makes me instantly lose respect for him, because a true romantic hero should be considerate for his heroine’s safety. If the issue of using a condoms never even comes up, both characters come across like idiots to me. And I don’t care to read about idiots.
I am actually surprised at the often vehement opposition against condom use in romance, because it seems like such a no-brainer to me that they would be used in contemporaries that I don’t see why anybody would even have a problem with that. And yes, they are icky, but so are a lot of things. It seems to me that those objecting against condoms in romance – unless they have a religious reason for the objection – are mostly a bit older than me and were already safely in longterm monogamous relationships when AIDS hit, which means that the issue never came up for them. My mother, for example, doesn’t have a problem with condom use in romance, but she doesn’t notice when it’s missing. I do.
And yes, the educational aspect plays into this, too. Because like it or not, there are teenagers who get their sex education from romance novels, especially with the sad state of sex education in many parts of the US. And I wouldn’t like a fifteen or sixteen-year-old girl contemplating having sex for the first time with her boyfriend think she doesn’t need to use a condom, because true love will keep her safe. Because that’s not the way it works in real life.
I think fantasy means that women sometimes want to see the heroine make a choice that they wouldn’t feel free to make in real life. In real life, they might make the safe choice, but in fantasy, they want to make the romantic choice.
I think this is a *great* point, Sue. Of course, the whole question of “what’s romantic” is so vexed, but in any case, I think you’re on to something here with the idea that part of the fantasy is the freedom from RL concerns, or at least *some* RL concerns, lol.
Something that’s certain, though, is that in romance there is absolutely no guarantee of safety from unwanted pregnancy. It’s just that if the heroine does have an unwanted pregnancy it’s usually transformed almost instantly into a wanted pregnancy. That doesn’t tend to feel very “real†to me.
This is also a significant issue for me, and it ties in to what I was saying in another comment about the IMO mindless repetition of the ‘baby makes three’ glee in the genre. Someone above (Jill Sorensen, maybe?) said something about being pro condom and pro family/babies, which stood out to me, because I think sometimes there’s a tendency to register the pro-condom position as one of anti-family.
Historically speaking, of course, genre Romance evolved in part from the sentimental novel, which elevated the nuclear family as the locus of social, political, and economic stability, so IMO Romance is still grappling with this legacy, in some cases embracing it wholesale, in others revising or even rejecting it. The sexual protection issue is one of the places where I see this tension playing out really strongly.
re. the question of unspoken rules, I mean everything from the couple has to have a clear HEA with a baby-filled epilogue to the issue plaguing the new Brockmann book (namely that there’s controversy over whether Brockmann set up the hero and heroine of her new book to be with other people, thus breaking a central Romance expectation and convention) to the idea that the heroine must be a virgin or near to it, to the exact opposite of these expectations. I know readers who won’t touch a virgin widow book and others who won’t read a non-virgin heroine book. Which is normal, I think, and indicative of reader investment in the genre.
Although it does raise an interesting question about how Romance is defined, which in turn implicates the way readers judge particular books based on whether they meet romantic expectations or not. OTOH I can absolutely see that if the romantic plot of a book doesn’t work for a reader, than the central journey of the book fails for them. But does that mean the book isn’t a Romance? Or does it mean that the book as a whole is a failure?
As for the whole inductive/deductive thing, I’m not importing any legitimate reading theory here, only trying to distinguish between coming into a book with expectations about the characters and the plot and letting those things unfold without being too invested in having them happen one way or another. I think we all tend to read both ways, with one side more prominent, perhaps. A completely inductive approach would be one in which a reader refused to pick up a book because the heroine was, say, a redhead, and every other book the red headed heroine the reader had encountered had been TSTL. That’s a simplistic example, but it conforms to the principle, I think.
A lot of the Romances I read in my formative romance-reading years had accidental pregnancies, so if the couple don’t use contraception, my brain is braced for that storyline.
Another very important aspect to the discussion, IMO — how we were conditioned as genre readers. I hadn’t thought about this, but, yes, it must play a significant role for all of us. Combined with your point that in not mentioning protection the author can make it as strong an issue as in mentioning it, I think it’s clear that there’s a fairly interesting split among Romance readers around whether we see the prospect of pregnancy as innate to the genre or not.
And if a hero or heroine (though it’s usually the hero) insists that the heroine would do it bareback with them, if they only trusted them, it makes me instantly lose respect for him, because a true romantic hero should be considerate for his heroine’s safety.
A fascinating challenge to the idea that condoms signal something negative! Of course I tend to be on your side in this, so I’m probably biased, but yes, I think the hero’s concern for the heroine’s sexual safety can itself be very sex and romantic.
Now you’ve got me thinking, too, about the chronology of AIDS and the way that changed our cultural thinking about condoms — I wonder if we surveyed readers if there’s a correlation there.
It’s interesting, too, because as Marianne McA said above, the mention of protection doesn’t have to be the production of an actual *condom*. It can be anything from a reference to a wallet or nightstand drawer to am ambiguous mention of the hero getting up to take care of things afterward. So I wonder if the type of mention makes a difference, too, or whether readers are split along the yes or no divide first.
As far as the baby HEA…I’m a conservative, religious woman (so, ok, I kinda disapprove of all the prior sex
), and I love pregnancy, kids, all that. But after having 3 kids within 4 yrs of getting married, I often feel sorry for the hero and heroine having that baby so soon. I mean, as a reader, I like to see that family, and I find it romantic, but as a woman, I know they really need more time together as a couple before the blurry fatigue of parenthood starts in!
Okay, first let me say WOW! at juggling three kids within four years of marriage. But your related point about the couple needing time together does resonate with me, because I often think the same thing when the heroine ends the book pregnant. Like, why is that a bad thing — why can’t they have three or four or even five years together before the family arrives (assuming they make that choice)? I wonder how readers split on this question. Clearly it’s not simply a matter of religion or personal experience. Is it partly conditioning by the genre itself — that we’re so used to seeing kids in the picture that the genre seems incomplete without them? I wonder.
I was thinking today about Linda Howard’s Mr. Perfect. Although I have quite a few issues with the book, it’s one that focuses very explicitly on the sexual protection issue (condom and bc pill) for a decent part of the first section, even though Sam asks Jaine to marry him as soon as they’ve had their first sex together. It’s an interesting mix of the “sex only with love and marriage” thing and a conscientious effort to be sexually “safe”.
I seriously need to know the characters are aware of the potential consequences of unprotected sex–either by doing something during the scene, or coming to their senses immediately after.
I have always dealt with the protection issue in my contemps (mostly category) in a manner appropriate to that set of characters. But then, I do write about people the reader could actually know, living out easily recognizable lives. I’m also one of those annoyingly logical types who mutters, “But…but…” at every plot hole in a movie or TV show.
Because I do demand consistency within the world the writer creates, my own included. Since I set my stories in a real world, my characters absolutely deal with stuff like responsible sex and child care and morning breath and, yeah, going potty sometimes…because, amazingly, love happens in spite of all that.
Of course I realize my version of romance isn’t everybody’s, but these are the stories I need to tell, and I make no apologies for my uber-traditional marriage-and-babies HEA (or any other aspect of my storytelling). Can’t write to please everybody, after all.
As a reader, however, as long as the story elements and character choices are consistent to the world the author’s created, I’m perfectly willing to go along for the ride. For me, it’s not about taking issue with particular elements as much as the author’s handling of them. As long as it’s logical, I’m good.
I’m going to be a bad blog reader and admit that I haven’t read all the responses, but I just wanted to say that this:
For me the fantasy goes beyond the romantic moment to encompass my entire investment in the characters and their story – as individuals and as a couple.
pretty much encompasses both how I read and how I write. If I’m writing a contemporary, you can bet if there isn’t a condom mentioned at least in passing, there’s a damned good reason for it. For me, it’s just common sense.
Now, my current WIP is set in the mid-sixties and I have my heroine using a condom which is a complete anomaly for the time period and I realize it. But it’s not political correctness driving the decision, it’s an emotional issue that lies at the heart of why the heroine behaves the way she does.
There are all kinds of stories out there and all kinds of reasons that drive character behavior. But there has to be consistency and reason, otherwise, you just end up throwing a lot of readers out of the entirety of the story, not just the love scenes.
Barbara said: “Now, my current WIP is set in the mid-sixties and I have my heroine using a condom which is a complete anomaly for the time period and I realize it.”
I’m not sure why this is an anomaly. Although the Pill was around, it was still relatively new, and not that easy to get prescribed simply for birth control. There was a LOT of condom use going around at the time, probably more than the pill, until things got more liberal.
Back then, it wasn’t something a doctor would prescribe to a young unmarried woman without further justification. So, these unmarried young women would usually say they had irregular periods, or severe cramping, or some other reason than, “I want to prevent pregnancy.”
I recall my mother finding out I was on the pill (and I was in college in the mid-60’s) and she said, “Now I’m going to worry about you,” when she should have been saying, “I won’t have to worry so much.”
Although, just as we deny our parents ever had sex, I suppose they deny that we ever did the deed–especially back in the 60’s where marriage was considered a prerequisite for sex by the ‘older’ generation.
It may have been ‘make love, not war’, but it wasn’t unprotected love.
There was a LOT of condom use going around at the time, probably more than the pill, until things got more liberal.
But would it have generally been something controlled by the woman? Especially if it’s a “nice girl?” We can see the reaction even now, to how women being proactive about their sexuality can be regarded. A lot of women of the time period would have left something like that up to their partner rather than take control themselves.
That’s why I think of it as an anomaly.
Ah, Barbara — thanks for the clarification. I read it as the usage was the anomaly, not the procurer. In that case, yes, it’s probably less likely that the woman would be the one going into the drugstore to buy them.
At least, not until later, when the ’sexual revolution’ took root.
I have my hero and heroine use condoms in my contemporaries and will do so again when I write more contemps, unless STDs no longer exist (everybody hum along: Dream a little dream with me…).
An author doesn’t have to go into detail, but not even mentioning it, or avoiding the concern afterward if the characters don’t use them is writing an unrealistic character, as far as I’m concerned. I incorporated putting a condom on into the foreplay in one book, and had the heroine fret about pregnancy and STDs after an unplanned encounter in another (then she made it clear to the hero that he wasn’t getting any more without proper protection–which he brought in dozens the next time). It was true to the characters in both cases.
I’m not sure I want to read about a contemporary heroine who thinks so little of herself that she doesn’t even take basic precautions.
Oh, and about women and condoms in the 60’s…they were in machines in drive-in restrooms (mens and womens) and other likely places. Plus there were “female” alternatives like foams, creams, and suppositories, And women did use them, with varying degrees of success.
I’m both.
It depends on how the characters are presented in the story.
For some… the use of a condom is their reality. It fits with characters and the world in which they live. The author has made it so. That being said, if the author has set it up to be that way, and then doesn’t follow through, then I have an issue.
I’m anti- if the culture or world in which the author creates has a certain expectation.
Just think, Back with the Spartans..it’s fact that it was considered a crime to be celibate. If you have an author creating a world where sex has its own rules and she has a character that cannot be justified in bucking those rules…then she/he has lost me. I’m not saying the character CAN’T buck the rules because that is great conflict. I’m just saying if the author doesn’t follow through with making me believe the why of it…or why not… it makes an impact.
So, for me, it’s both.
It all depends on the author and how she’s set up her story’s rules.
First I want to thank everyone for your really thoughtful comments!
As long as it’s logical, I’m good.
This seems to be the crux of it, I think. The question is, what’s logical?
For those of us who want to seem some awareness of the potential consequences on unprotected sex in contemps, whether it’s explained in terms of the way the author builds his or her world or from the perspective of the characters themselves (the heroine protecting herself or the couple knowing the possible outcomes), perhaps we focus on the logic of the author’s worldbuilding. Whereas for readers who don’t want to expect condoms, perhaps there’s a different sort of logic implied that’s related to the perceived aims of the genre vis a vis what’s “romantic.”
And it makes me wonder whether some authors who don’t supply condoms figure that readers who require them will import them into the story and readers who don’t like them won’t have to see them. For me that can backfire, especially if I’ve got a heroine who is very clearly set up as independent and not looking to start an immediate family. And in so many Romances, the couple hasn’t really known each other very long before they’re in bed, which adds to it for me, even if I know they will end up together in the end.
Which is sort of interesting, I think, because I certainly am not bugged by being spared all the bathroom habits of the characters. Although I would argue that’s of a very different character, since UTIs are not a normative part of the genre like babies are, lol. Which may ultimately be the difference for me — that babies are so prevalent in the genre it’s as if it’s no big deal for a heroine to risk pregnancy, because she’s with “the one” and, hey, they’ll be having a passel of pups in an epilogue soon, anyway. Which may be the case. But maybe it feels more like the author’s choice than the reader’s to take that risk if there’s no talk of protection before that magic epilogue.
Either way, I think it’s an interesting dilemma, because whether readers are expecting condoms or not wanting them, we are *all* IMO importing certain expectations into our reading (perhaps even the same ones), even if those expectations have different characteristics.
Good Grief, what about this? Now THIS would definitely pull me out of a story. Came from a site called “Inventor Spot.”
“Ever been in the middle of an intimate rendezvous and wish you didn’t have to fumble with the noisy hard to open packaging condoms come wrapped in? Well how about getting rid of the packaging all together and just spraying on a condom? That’s right, a spray-on condom!
A German inventor, Jan Vinzenz Krause, has invented a spray-on condom that allows men of all sizes to have safe sex. The spray-on condom prototype measures a man’s size (really big, big, average, small, really small) and then covers his penis in liquid latex providing him with a proper fitting condom. With this innovation men would no longer have to feel discriminated against by condom companies who tend to only sale condoms for the average sized Joe.
How does the spray-on condom work exactly? A man places his penis in a chamber. He then presses a button and a pump squirts out liquid latex through some nozzles onto the man’s penis in about 20 seconds. If 20 seconds seems like a long time to wait the good news is that the inventor is working on shortening the time to about 10 seconds.
How does the condom come off? The rubber dries on quickly after it is sprayed on and is then ready to use. When no longer in use the spray-on condom can be easily rolled off and thrown away just like a regular condom.
Sounds like a miracle right? Well, it all depends on your point of view and what it takes to ruin the mood for you. It isn’t exactly the most romantic thing to bring into the bedroom. In fact although this invention would help do away with having to deal with condom packaging there would still be a machine involved and the machine isn’t exactly quiet. It hisses.”
And for the record, are you pro-condom or anti-condom in contemporary Romance? Or does it not matter to you at all?
If it’s a contemporary, I’m pro-birth control. Condoms are good, but I’ll ignore the reality of STD’s if the h/h will at least make sure she’s on the pill and he’s not the Duke of Sluts. (Or is the CEO of Sluts in a modern book?)
To me condom usage shows intelligence and concern for one’s partner, so I like seeing them. I don’t need a detailed description of putting it on. A quick one-sentence mention, or at least a ‘clean up the packages in the morning’ bit. Or the author can include the act of putting it on. Done right, it can be pretty good foreplay in and of itself. Just include it somehow, and I’m a happy reader.