....And Then The Fandoms Came

So, a rant/post/discussion came up on The Saucy Wenches Book Club talking about the format and cliche's that a lot of the erotica novels follow nowadays. One of the rant points, I guess that's the best way to describe it, was that the 98-99% of the time the heroine of the story is a virgin. And me, personally, I have no issue with the heroine being a virgin. I have more issue how her virginity is actually treated. A lot of the times when, from what I've seen, when the heroine is  a virgin, her virginity either treated as a prize or some way to make her "special" or more important to the hero (because, y'know, it's not like she has a personality or deserves to be loved it for it; it's the amount of people she has or hasn't slept with that makes her really worth it). The state of her virginity is also used to distinguish her away from other women in the story typically, i.e. the woman who also wants the hero and who the heroine has to "fight" in order to keep him.

To go further, the heroine is painted as pure, "light", good, etc., her virginity or sexual experience being major part of this and her personality making up the last, small amount. The "competition", on the other hand, is the complete opposite--she's not a virgin, enjoys sex, knows what she likes, she's "evil". This can also come into play in Interracial Romance Novels if the "bad" character being racist is added to her personality. 

And when the heroine does finally lose her virginity, more than likely, to the hero, it's the most magnificent experience she's ever had--not because she's with a partner that she loves/trusts/want to sleep with, but because the hero is just that good. Now, I wouldn't want to dismiss the idea of having a great or enjoyable "first time", but it's the fact that it's told as if the heroine wouldn't be able to be pleased by any other man but the hero that irritates me. But that's expanded upon better in the original article (linked below).  

But yeah, that's how I feel about that. 

Source (My Tumblr) (Note: This version is much shorter than here. LOL)

Original Post (The Saucy Wenches Book Club)