There’s been the most terrifically funny thread over at the AAR group list.

We’ve been talking about virgins in books, and why a lot of romance readers seem to hate them. My thing is, I don’t mind virgins, as long as the hymen isn’t a replacement for their brains, and they’ve at least dated.

It doesn’t matter if you’ve never had sex, unless you’re living in outer Mongolia, you will know that the vagina isn’t just for bleeding out of. Or at least you should.

I’ve read lots of Linda Howard books that featured older virgins in them, but they never bothered me at all, but then again, she’s a good writer.

This question from one of the AAR posters, caught my eye:

how would you feel about a heroine who not only was a virgin at say 32, but had never dated? Do you feel that such a thing would be completely implausible given the right circumstances?

Let’s say bad role models for parents, fear, self-loathing, mistrust of men, lack of opportunity because the heroine was busy raising her sibling that sort of thing?

This was part of Lynne Connolly’s answer to the above question:

I’d think she was nuts.

That woman seriously cracks me up.

I’ll tell you how I’d feel, I wouldn’t effing read it, no matter who it was written by. I hate too much virginity-based drama in a book, and if a contemporary woman had gotten to the age of 32 without so much as a sniff of a man (without the benefit of being a nun) then you could safely assume that she would have some deep issues to resolve first. apparently there are 30 year old virgins who have never dates, who are fully adjusted, but I simply don’t want to read about them in a romance I’m not interested in reading a romance book with that amount of emotional baggage. Does that make me shallow? Possibly.

I found this comment quite amusing:

I’m sorry, I do not think there are any books out there with these “stupid” contemporary heroines. I enjoy virgin stories, I actually look for contemporaries that feature them, and I have to say I have NEVER seen or read one with a virgin that had “No Clue Whatsoever” about sex.

Usually, she just has never HAD sex. Please, SOMEONE, give me a titIe that features a contempory virgin that is stupid…

Come on guys, some of you must have examples that you can cite. Our Mills and Boon, Tender and Modern romances are just full of those kind of heroines. Which is why I stopped reading them years ago. Although every now and then, I do get sucked in by Emma Darcy, who’s books I generally hate, but for some reason still read. I’m sure there’s a name for this affliction.

This comment incensed a couple of people:

How on earth do you get to 32 without even being tempted? I’d assume she was exceptionally obese, ugly as sin, or just nasty, I think, to have put men off for so long. Or maybe she was a nun, or part of a very strict religion, or there was something psychological wrong with her.

This poster wasn’t overjoyed by that comment, she responded:

This is a horrible thing to say. So everyone who’s older and who hasn’t fucked someone, is in your book ugly, obese, nasty, a nun, or nuts. Way to alienate people. And even worse, way to make them feel even worse about themselves than society has already done.

I’m sorry, but was it bad that I laughed at this point? Tee hee.

Anyway, the conversation then moved onto Pseudo Virgins, you all know the type right?

This was my contribution:

I think what’s actually much worse than a virgin who doesn’t know what her hoo ha is for, are the so-called ‘experienced’ heroines who have never experienced an orgasm prior to the hero’s arrival.

As somebody I believe mentioned earlier, I really hate it when an author goes to the trouble of giving the heroine a sexual past, only to go and spoil it by suggesting that her previous lovers wouldn’t have known their arse from their elbow.

Granted me and my hubby got together just before I was able to become a fully-fledged slut, but I still remember enjoying sex prior to meeting him. I’m sure I’m not alone in this, so why do so many authors go down that route so often?

God, I can’t tell you how much ‘virgin’ widows/divorcees annoy me.

Anyway, the conversation went slowly downhill from there. One of the AAR regulars commented that she was offended by the fact that people would dare call contemp virgin stories stupid, just because she liked them. She insisted on taking every comment personally, like a few AAR readers are wont to do, every now and then.

This is what she had to say after I posted that I personally hate virgin stories with heroines who had never even so much as dated:

But, see, I WOULD enjoy that type of book. And it offends me to have people call those storylines stupid. I don’t come on this board and say that vampire storylines or vampires in general are “stupid” because I don’t enjoy those types of stories.

Talk about oversensitive. I’ve been hating vampire stories for a while now, and don’t mind saying so, I certainly couldn’t give a flying fuck if anybody decided they totally disagreed with me.

I love best-friend-to-lovers romance books, but it wouldn’t occur to me to take offence if somebody else thought they sucked hairy balls. Does that make me a freak?

It still amazes me that people get so het up about these things, when there are so many other things to take umbrage with. Like racism in publishing for instance… *g*

Anyway, for anybody who’s unsure about my stance on this, let me clarify: I hate contemporary storylines with thirty year old virgins who have never dated, and don’t know what their vagina is for.

Dontcha just love the romance community?