As I read one of Lora Leigh’s latest novels, Guilty Pleasure, I have a reoccurring thought. What is up with the mid-twenty year old female virgin?
Let me elaborate. I have read dozens of contemporary novels (many of them by Ms. Leigh) where the heroine is still a virgin at twenty-seven and is involved with a hero who has copulated more times than a frog catches flies in the Louisiana bayou. And for some reason, this is supposed to be okay. I’m not saying that a woman shouldn’t wait to have sex, but it’s 2010. The pill has been around for forty-five, fifty years. The people who preached ‘free love’ are grandparents now, it seems that the virgin heroine is a bit outdated.
Not only that, but why are 99.9% of their heroes experienced and sometimes borderline-gigolo lovers? I know that if I was in a heroine’s spiky stilettos and was confronted with a man with a list of previous lovers longer than my hair, I would have to question his ability to connect with me beyond the bedroom, and for a mintue pause and say, eww, I don’t find that attractive. Of course that is reality, and in fantasy I would brush aside those concerns and formulate a plan to “save him.” Prove to him that by allowing him to be the first, the bond will be stronger. Because that obviously worked with his first.
In the historical novels it is a given that the hero would be more experienced, that was the way things were. But just once I would love to see a widowed heroine who knew what she wanted in the bedroom and was not afraid to show the hero a few tricks. I know that there must have been a couple somewhere in the 1400’s that had fantastic sex and it did not involve the heroine’s eyes bulging in shock as she had to look away with a blush after her first glance of a naked man.
But as I rant about the innocent/gigolo storylines I come to my real query. Where are the male virgins? Where is the twenty year old male who waited until the ‘right woman’ came along before indulging his carnal needs? Where is the hero who knew the first time he saw our fair heroine that she was the one for him, and did not attempt to move beyond from what could never be by loosing himself between the thighs of another? The modern heroine is supposed to be a strong, intelligent, independant woman who doesn’t need a man to be complete, where is that hero?
Some would say that there isn’t a market for it, I say it would be as refreshing as a glass of chilled reisling. Some would also say “Well where is your virtuous hero?” And I would respond, oh, but I have one.
Yes, Dex is my sweet, hunky, twenty-something year old male virgin. He sits and pines for Astrid as he gathers the courage to ask the lovely shopkeeper out. Unfortunately for Dex I have nine other heroes who are demanding their stories be written first, and as they are part of two series, he will have to be patient. Yes, these heroes are experience, but so are their women.
But fear not my pure, untouched friend, your day will come, and until then I will muddle through the sea of lily white, highly educated(in all areas but male/female physical relations) maidens who beg for the grungy touch of a well muscled, charming hero who couldn’t wait to lose his cherry.
I hear you, why do I keep reading them? The answer to that is I do not know. It wasn’t mentioned on the back cover blurb, because if it was, I would not have picked it up.