As I’ve noted, I’ve been reading the Anita Blake books and watching season one of True Blood. In both of these, the heroines started off quite sexually inexperienced – Sookie was a virgin, Anita had had just one sexual relationship. In Sookie’s case, she’s started sleeping with Bill – a vampire, and thus the first person she’s ever met who she can be completely comfortable with because of the impact of her special abilities. At the end of four books, Anita has kissed a few guys but that’s it – she’s even not sleeping with the man she thinks she might marry, because she’s convinced that she isn’t going to that until she has the commitment, after having had her heart broken.
However, this has caused a bit of a dilemma for me. A couple of years ago, I read a couple of the later Anita Blake books, so I am well aware that this changes, and Anita ends up with a variety of sexual partners. Then a few days ago, I read a collection of Sookie Stackhouse short stories and so I now know that Sookie also ends up with a variety of sexual partners, and in one short story has a one-night stand with a werewolf she’s just met.
So we have two characters who started off virginal or near to it and who had no real regards to their sexuality, and eventually they turn out to be quite comfortable with their sexuality and end up with quite the collection of lovers and exes. In the case of Anita, this is explained by the fact that she ends up with something called the arduer, and she must have sex to get rid of it – a lot of sex. Not sure if there is any explanation for Sookie’s change, apart from her developing and maturing and finding more potential lovers.
This combined in my mind with the contention in Beyond Heaving Bosoms by the super-smart ladies behind Smart Bitches, Trashy Books that a romance heroine must either be a virgin or not be able to enjoy sex until she encounters the hero. Here’s a quote from the book that tells where my head is going with this: “The sexually experienced woman in fiction still raises hackles and creates uncomfortable associations with uncleanness, the threat of infidelity and more degeneration.” The book goes on to tell some very real truths about romance, and the position of the woman compared to the man in this part of the relationship at least (particularly when almost always the man has HEAPS of sexual experience, and oftentimes the romance begins with him just seeing the heroine as his latest score on the way to a life of no-commitment).
Let’s face facts – this isn’t something that just happens in books. In the Real World, a woman who had a number of sexual partners is still seen as somehow loose or not quite right or just waiting for a real man, whereas in men it’s almost celebrated. How many people are looking at the current Tiger Woods situation and thinking that it makes Tiger ‘more human’, as if he wasn’t before.
I can’t see why this is – it’s not fair that there’s a double standard. And it’s sad to see it prevalent in the literary world. Why shouldn’t a woman who’s confident with her sexuality (whatever it is) be free to live her life happily making the choices that she wants. If she’s not hurting anyone, particularly herself, why can’t she see who she wants to see, sleep with whoever she wants to sleep with, without tags of whore or floozy or cheap being thrown at her?
My thoughts were coalesced this morning when I read this blog about a terrible story from America. A thirteen-year-old girl committed suicide after she was convinced her life had been ruined when she sent a naked picture of herself to a boy. How sad, that a girl with her whole life before her concluded it wasn’t worth living because she’d cheapened herself, become a whore for exploring her sexuality.
I was devastated when I read this, because I know myself how easy it is to have other people’s perspectives impact on your sexuality. I grew up Catholic in the 70s and 80s, and so was taught that sensations like this were wrong and evil. There were times when I felt so shamed by how I felt, the things that I did with boys that I liked, that it turned into panic attacks whenever a man showed any interest in me and resulted in me still being a virgin and very unsure of myself when I met my husband at the age of 28. It’s something that even after ten years of marriage, I still struggle with – that it’s perfectly natural to have sexual desire, to want to be pleasured and to pleasure.
So now I think that we as writers have a duty to portray female sexuality as a positive thing. We need to put role models out there for young girls and young women who are feeling desires and needs that don’t seem to conform to society’s belief of what a good woman is. I look at my three female heroines in the Balance of Power trilogy – Maggie Shaunessy, Ione Hammond Gorton and Bernadette Haraldson – and I’m proud that I’ve created three women who are comfortable with expressing their sexuality. They’ve had lovers previously – they aren’t ashamed of it, they aren’t going to apologise for it, and they’re happy that experience means that when they find the men they want to spend their lives with, they’re able to enjoy the sexual element of their relationships.
Hopefully one day, all women will be able to freely be who they are, without any judgements.