I’ve been thinking quite a bit about romance novel virgins after reading the latest At The Back Fence about some of the most common sexual roles for heroines, including Adele Ashworth’s spirited defense of her decision to make the married heroine in Duke of Sin a virgin.
To tell you the truth, I’m kind of sick of virgins in romance novels. Orgasmless widows are tiresome too. But to me, virgin widows are the worst. Virgin widows and women who have sex with the hero, break up with him and then remain chaste until he comes back (oftentimes years and years later) are characters that make me want to snarl and gnash my teeth.
It didn’t start out this way. When I first started reading romance novels—and I mean actively seeking them out, instead of turning to my sister’s collection of old-skool romances out of desperation when my book-buying budget ran out—everything was fresh and new. Extremely naïve debs from days gone by I didn’t have a problem with. Girls were a lot more sheltered back then. Eventually, however, I noticed an odd, rather disturbing pattern emerging in almost all the romance novels I encountered, regardless of the period setting: all the women were virgins. If they weren’t virgins, their previous love lives had been unequivocally horrible. You name it: childhood sexual torture, rape, abusive ex-husbands, impotent ex-husbands, lousy boyfriends who couldn’t find a clitoris with a flashlight, a magnifying glass and a couple of bomb-sniffing dogs—the heroines weren’t allowed to come or even so much as cream their panties watching the hot stableboy muck out the stalls before the heroes showed up with their magical Fleshy Sword of Pleasure +10. If the heroines weren’t virgins and had experienced orgasms in the past, it was only because the heroes had generously bestowed them, but once the heroes leave, the poor heroines are left in a holding pattern. Do not pass go, do not find another orgasm, do not collect $200.
(On a related note: I am also bloody sick of traumatic de-flowerings. I am tired of how the heroines go from “bring the morphine drip STAT” agony to eye-rolling ecstasy in 60 seconds. I’m not asking for strict realism in my romance novels, but please, some variety would be nice. Not everyone’s first time involves pain, not all girls have intact hymens, and reading about a virgin heroine whose first time is beyond stellar is much more believable if penetration was merely uncomfortable instead of a sea of stabbing, searing, tearing pain.)
Many romance novel authors seem to turn themselves inside out and stretch all credulity to create physically untouched heroines whose counterparts are, more often than not, immensely slutty men who slide their dicks into anything remotely moist and warm. Not only that, but if there are female villains, they are usually sexually voracious creatures. What does that say about the state of the sexual double-standard, eh? The authors probably don’t mean to reinforce the old Madonna/Whore dichotomy or imply that women who enjoy sex for its own sake are all morally corrupt, but that’s the collective message one could easily come away with after reading a few hundred romance novels. This message is hammered home hardest in the contemporaries featuring the heroine who doesn’t take another lover (or only one or two phenomenally lousy ones) after breaking up with the hero. One Pamela Burford Harlequin Temptation I read some years ago literally got flung against the wall when the divorced heroine admitted she hadn’t slept with anyone else after divorcing the hero, while the hero had had no trouble getting laid.
In short, many romance novels do not allow women to be independent sexual entities, while the men definitely are, and the unfairness is provoking, to say the least. I understand the appeal of an “untouched” heroine, one whose world is only really and truly rocked when the hero comes along. I dig that fantasy. But isn’t part of the fantasy also how the hero’s world is only really and truly rocked when the heroine comes along? So how do romance novel authors achieve this without glutting the market with virgin heroes and legions of heroes whose ex-wives all suffered from vaginismus?
By utilizing the emotional component, of course, and by making the sex that much more explosive because of the heightened emotions. Oftentimes the physical chemistry is portrayed as being out-of-control hot, so hot that the sexually experienced hero is often at a loss. So why don’t more romance authors utilize this method on heroines too, especially in contemporary novels or historical romances with sexually-experienced heroines? I don’t know. Possible reasons probably include laziness, adherence to tradition (whether conscious or unconscious) and the belief that it’s OK for a guy to be the hugest whore in the world but that it’s icky for a girl to have had multiple sexual partners and, God forbid, actually ENJOYED the experience.
However, in the hands of a skilled author, it’s possible to make annoying archetypes like the Orgasmless Widow into believable, sympathetic characters; Loretta Chase, for one, did it twice in Mr. Impossible and Captives of the Night. What makes her Orgasmless Widows interesting, however, is how both of them enjoyed the sex but were left unfulfilled, only to have their husbands make what enjoyment they had seem wrong and shameful. This is a much more nuanced take than the army of sexually sadistic and/or impotent hubbies usually inflicted on the average Orgasmless Widow.
I’m not saying I dislike these romance novel conventions enough that I’m going to make a buying decision based on the state of the heroine’s purity. I do reserve the right to relentlessly make fun of these archetypes when I encounter them, and if they’re done poorly, they’re definitely grounds for docking the final grade a point or three. In fact, now that I think about it, I want to propose a standardized scale for rating how good a job authors do when portraying the heroine’s sexual (in)experience. I’m going to call it the “Bitch, Please!” scale, with the unit of measurement being a BP (yes, it’s metric—an extremely exasperating justification for a heroine’s virginity may rate a kiloBP, for example). It’s based on how often the book makes me say out loud or think emphatically “Bitch, please!” when the author explains why Priscindella Prissypants has been married for six years yet doesn’t even know where her vagina is located, much less what to do with her clitoris. For instance, Amanda of The Real Deal gets at least 50 BPs for her unduly stankeriffic bisexual husband and her beyond-rotten childhood, while Holly of Where Dreams Begin rates only 8 or so BPs.
So, think the BIPM will be adding BPs to the International System of Units any time soon?
Sheila Bishop’s A Speaking Likeness (1976) has a widow (with a young daughter) who had a good marriage including the physical side. In this book, it was the hero whose first marriage sucked. This gem of a book isn’t nearly long enough, and certainly worth looking for in the used book stores.
Fun rant. Although I haven’t read widely in the historical romance subgenre, I don’t have a problem with orgasmless widows. Maybe that will change.
What bugs me is the contemporary reunion stories where the heroine (and sometimes the hero!) haven’t touched anyone in the twenty years since they last set eyes on each other when they were still teenagers. It just seems ridiculous. And I don’t think I’m that hard to please, in that I can cope with a few unsuccessful relationships.
I also hate the “oh, I had a wonderful marriage with my deceased husband…except for all the times he beat me” books. The ones that start off with a widow who looooves her deceased hubby, but when they meet the oh-so perfect hero they conveniently start remembering that oh, he really was a jerk, or oh, remember all the times he slapped me? or oh, even though he loved me he was a closet case so we never had good sex… I get so tired of those. It is so rare to find a book where the widow or widower actually had a good loving marriage the first time, and still think of their deceased spouses in a loving way after the hero comes along.
Oooh, oooh! I forgot. As god is my witness, I once read a book (the title and author have long escaped me) where the heroine was still a virgin after having TWINS! As I recall it was a ‘okay, tee-hee, I’ll have your babies’-type thing for either a pal or a gay hubby (can’t remember), and the heroine was in-vitro’d and then delivered via C-section. Needless to say, the hero was verrrry shocked. And of course, despite the in-vitro and cooch tampering that must have happened as a result of her pregnancy, she still had ye olde hymen of steel. That was definitely a wall-banger…
Twins?!? No, I don’t want to know—a book like that would raise my blood pressure, which I’m trying to avoid.
I think the BP Scale is a great idea—I think many of us have been using it casually for years, but the time has come to formalize it.
I don’t have a problem with virgins. I have a problem with orgasmic virgins and the inevitable let’s everyone have one at the same time crap. That seems to be the rule in most romance novels that I’ve read.
I would have to say I don’t have a problem with any type of plot point; I have issue with how the writer writes it and if they can pull it off.
Virgin!widow worked for me in DOS and in A Woman’s Virtue by Liz Carlyle but it hasn’t worked in other books. I blame the author not the plot point.
Adultery has worked in some books but as a whole I don’t like it. There are times I can over look it, which again is the writer.
Virginity is something I generally expect since I read mostly historical novels and they just weren’t ho’ing around at that time. Well not the ‘lady’s’. Contemporary virgins are harder for me to swallow but again the writer has to sell it to me.
I am not going to write off a book because it has a plot point I disliked in another book, well maybe if the same author writes it ;).
And the people whining about OMG DOS misled me! Ashworth TRICKED me! and so forth and so on need to get over it. It is a book and ten to one she wasn’t doing anything other than writing her story. Of course this is why I stopped posting on the ATBF message board for this month cuz I wanted to slap some people silly for being stupid whinny asses.
uh end rant 😉
Initially I didn’t have a problem with orgasmless widows either. But after reading literally dozens of books in a row in which the widows all had terrible sex lives, I started to get irritated. This is in contrast to heroes, who typically either have happy former marriages or, if they’re unhappy, it’s not because of the bad sex life per se but because the ex-wife is a lying, cheating slutbag. One notable exception is Robert Cambourne in Laura Kinsale’s My Sweet Folly, in which the hero’s ex-wife played some truly unpleasant games with his head and used sex to that end.
And E.D’Trix: You think your twins are bad? I’ve read a Harlequin in which a woman has a secret baby with the hero—AND SHE REMAINS A VIRGIN. Apparently they made out once when she was a teenager, he spooged a bit on her thigh and bam, pregnancy. This book merited a wallbang and about 20 kiloBPs, a new record for me. I mean, I know it’s possible for a girl to get pregnant without the guy ejaculating in her, but really: dude spooges ONE TIME outside of her body, and she gets pregnant, AND it’s a secret baby? Words cannot describe the incredible badness of the whole thing. Thank god the hero wasn’t a cowboy vampire, or I might really have lost it for good.
Very funny rant. This made my morning. I agree with you on all points. Would you consider letting me borrow the Pricendella Prissypants name for a fanfiction piece I’ll be writing in the near future? That is too priceless not to put into a parody.
I wrote a character who is a widow with very loving memories of her husband. The sex life was bland, but not horrible and she didn’t really muse about it much until the hero commented. I think it’s sort of sad that many of the widow characters are written with a hatred for their dead husbands. It seems to me that one who loved and loved well in a previous marriage would have a lot to offer in the relationship that came later.
I have to agree with one of the previous posts. That whole orgasming at the same time is so lame.
Sybil—
I agree with you that most of the time conventions are okay as long as the author does them well. I just find it a bit disappointing when favorite authors don’t attempt to forge new ground, and instead rely on old standbys. And new authors? If it is a super-virgin widow, chances are, unless something else in the storyline hooks me, I won’t read it to see if it is better than average.
And Candy—
That is freeakin hilarious! A virgin pregnant due to some errant spooge?? Please tell me it took place in a hot tub. Was her name Mary? That would have made it golden in my book! Sometime you just gotta wonder…
First of all, great site—definitely becoming one of my favorites!
Gaffney’s Wild at Heart features a young widow who had a satisfying sex life, AND who has more experience than the hero. But then again, Gaffney is one of those writers you can count on to challenge stereotypes and the status quo in general.
Then again, some of us who defended Gaffney’s To Have and To Hold on AAR were accused of being akin to KKK members, so I don’t blame authors solely for the sexual double standard, but readers and editors/publishers, as well. When people who hadn’t even read Susan Donovan’s Public Displays of Affection condemned the heroine as a “slut” for one reckless sexual act before she was married, I realized how far we still have to go.
And as far as Ashworth’s new book goes, that was the first book of hers I read, and it felt quite rough and uneven to me. I haven’t read enough Romance to be disgusted with the virgin widow character; I was just reacting to the incongruity of a woman Vivian’s age with her strong sensual and sensuous instincts NOT having expressed them earlier. Her character just wasn’t consistent as written, IMO.
As usual, I wonder why this convention keeps appearing, and it so does. It’s like the cowboys and the angsty vampires and the secret babies. GAWD I cannot stand the whole secret baby oeuvre. Why? Why>? Whyyy?
Anyway, I think the virgin heroine experienced a surge (HAR) because it is a simple way to establish a climax, and add extra value to the sexual encounter(s). For example, in the case of a long-time-between-humpy-hump heroines, the heroine won’t have sex with anyone until there is a Deep Emotional Attraction (TM) and the fact that there hasn’t been anyone (or anyone since the last Deep Luuuurve) is a way of amping up the value of the first sexual encounter of the hero and heroine. She wouldn’t let this happen if it didn’t MEAN something.
If sex in a romance novel is supposed to be an emotional climax as well as a physical climax for both the hero and the heroine, it’s certainly well-established if not easier for the author to make the hero the one who never felt the emotional climax when he’s had his sexual climax (until the heroine) while the heroine never had the sexual climax because she was never full engaged emotionally (until the hero).
However, I have to say, I find it difficult to suspend belief when some historical novels’ unmarried heroines aren’t virgins upon meeting the hero. There was only one – an Eloisa James novel,“Potent Pleasures,” where the hero deflowered the heroine at a masquerade, and she had to deal with feelings of having been violated until she met the hero again years later (and no, she didn’t get it on with anyone else in between) – where I felt and empathized with the no-longer-virginal heroine. She had to deal with the very real personal AND the possible social consequences of her new status. In short, she was ruined and she knew it. And she dealt -and eventually lived happily ever after – with he who did the deflowering, who never found a woman equal to his mystery woman, hence the emotional climax that comes from getting his jollies with the One Who He Was Meant To Be With.
Therein lies my problem with unmarried nonvirgin heroines: was it possible for a woman to have sex, avoid pregnancy, get married, and fake the “pain” of virgin status? Was there enough sexual knowledge passed in secret that women could get their monkeys thumped and yet pass themselves off as virgins upon marriage?
In a contemporary novel, however, I have an even more difficult time when the heroine IS a virgin. I mean, junior high school kids paly spin-the-bottle for blowjobs. Whenever I encounter a virginal heroine who doesn’t address the reason why she’s still a virgin at age thirty-whoo, be that reason religious, moral, or whatever, and it’s not like I care WHY I just care that she addresses it, I have a hard time buying it. And don’t even get me started on the heroines who are slightly overweight according to their own estimation yet are hot according to everyone else’s, yet haven’t had sex because they are “fat.” That gets a metric ton of BP’s.
I read it when it came out so I can’t remember much about it. BUT didn’t she ‘run’ away to a small town and hide away as a widow. So it isn’t like she could be screwing men without the town knowing about it.
And yes widows can screw around in that time period, but not in small towns and not when you are trying to make your living off your flower business. And in her mind she was still married. So where I can see her wanting to get laid, I can’t see her doing it if she felt it was cheating or if she thought in any way shape or form was going to hurt her business.
But like I said I can’t remember much about it. I should reread it and use it as my ‘guest bitch’ review.
Robin: Oh yes, readers and publishers definitely have to bear part of the responsibility too. As Ashworth noted in her article: Virgins sell. Clinch covers sell. Secret babies sell. And society in general is still a lot harder on women who are sexually active than men. I haven’t read Duke of Sin, but after reading My Darling Caroline and Stolen Charms I swore off Ashworth forever, since both books were thisclose to getting Fs. I enjoy reading her non-fiction pieces and she seems like really smart dame, but her books just don’t do it for me.
I agree with Sybil. Good authors can take any kind of plot point and make it work; I just wish that the virgin widow, orgasmless widow and overaged virgin (in contemporaries) weren’t so damn overused.
E.D’Trix: No, the Magically Potent Spooging didn’t happen in a bathtub, it happened on dry land. I want to say “treehouse” but I don’t trust my memory on that one.
Sarah: Horny kids are horny kids, and I think despite the strict supervision some girls managed to sneak away for some Good Times. One Barbara Samuel book addressed this, though I can’t remember which one. It was a medieval, and the girl who fooled around was a secondary character; the heroine’s stepdaughter I believe. She didn’t do everything, but let’s just say that she was a virgin only in the most technical sense of the term. I bet if the girl was highly-ranked and rich enough and she didn’t get herself pregnant, and the marriage was strictly for creating alliances, that people managed to hush it up and look the other way.
Fooling around was almost definitely a lot more common among the poorer classes, I think. I think there’d be a lot more leeway for fooling around in Old West settings too. I remember reading that in rural areas in 19th-century America, when a guy came a-courting from afar and there wasn’t a spare room available, he got to sleep with his sweetheart but with a plank separating the two of them in the bed. I don’t know if it’s an urban legend, but if it’s real, I doubt a plank would stop a couple of horny teenagers from fooling around quietly.
One thing: I don’t know how all these girls go through ALL their lives without feeling urges or fantasizing about being kissed and held. No crushes, nothing—even their thoughts are pure as driven snow, to which I say BULLSHIT, because even really sheltered girls have fantasies, tame though they may be.
But generally I say yeah, in historical romances I don’t have problems with women in their late 20s or early 30s still sporting the Hymen of Steel. What bugs me more about historicals are the virgin widows and orgasmless widows.
I didn’t have a problem with Duke of Sin and actually really liked it. Although she was sensual, I could totally believe her not having been with anyone before the hero because she needed that emotional connection and I did believe she didn’t have it before. And in contemps, although there are many women losing their virginities before meeting The One, there are just as many who still want to wait and so I don’t mind the virgin so much, though I do hate the virgin for virgin’s sake. And I know a few who to sex is just a meh thing.
And my opinion is subject to change when I read a book that drives me nuts that has these things. So maybe I should do what I’ve been doing and just shut my mouth. I understand, but personally, I’m still enjoying what I’m reading most of the time.
Gawd Candy, I totally dig you.
Hymen of Steel – BWAHAHAHA.
And yeah, Nicole, you hit exactly what I meant: virgin for virgin’s sake in a contemporary is jarring for me.
Candy do you still have Stolen Charms? I want it! Only Ashworth I don’t have ;).
What did you not like about MDC? I have it on my tbr pile.
“because even really sheltered girls have fantasies, tame though they may be. “
I so agree with you here but I go back and forth on the orgasmless widow part.
In many cases, wives weren’t suppose to enjoy sex. I mean depending on the time period and where the historical is taking place. Your mistress was who you fucked, your wife was your duty. And lady’s didn’t want it. So I think I can go with the ‘discovering the joys of sex’ with the right man.
Because of course the hero is the man who always makes sure the woman comes, always goes down on her and never ever expects head in return. That is another thing I so don’t get… to me back then (if not now days), I think a whole hell of a lot more men were getting head than women.
I remember a stretch I had once where every book I read featured the dreaded “almost virgin.” :angry:
You know these gals. These are the ones who have sex one time, with one partner – and said partner naturally tells them they’re frigid and terrible at sex. So even though this guy is always an eeeevvvviiiillll creep – the dumbass heroine believes him. So she remains celibate for like 10 years, and the minute the hero whips out his incredible wang she’s having mulitple screaming banshee orgasms.
Whew – I feel better now. Glad I got that out of my system 🙂
Wendy, I read that same thing just the other night!! Drove me nuts. Um…I think in this day and age that women DO know that sex can be good. Though I do think some don’t care to explore getting better sex, but I think they know it’s out there. The whole first guy telling them they’re frigid and bad just drives me nuts. And it’s from an author I tend to like even as I know she does so many things wrong, but even this drove me nuts.
I was going to write something in regards to Sybil’s last paragraph, but decided it would be TMI about my sex life. lol So I like talking about sex…
I was already falling out of my chair reading the rant, and then I started in on the comments! “Get their monkeys thumped”?! Sarah, you’re killing me.
Outstanding rant. The double standard is one of my pet peeves, too.
Come now nicole… really is anything TMI 😉
Sybil: Unfortunately, I no longer have my copy of My Darling Caroline. It was donated to the library in the Great Purge of ‘03 when I moved and anything that wasn’t a rock-solid keeper was thrown to the dogs. (If dogs = Friends of the Library, that is.)
I think my problem with Ashworth is that I don’t like her writing style, period. She and Liz Carlyle both have have writing styles that can be summed up in two words, and those words are “Zzzzzzz” and “GAH!” For me, anyway; given how well they’re doing, obviously they’re doing it right for a lot of other people. I just remember feeling really impatient with both Stolen Charms and My Darling Caroline and feeling extremely irritated with the characters. I can’t remember plot specifics.
Oh, and the disproportionate oral sex ratio in romances is totally indicative of a) who’s writing these books, and b) their target audience.
And Nicole: DUDE. On this website, I’ve talked about fondling my SHAVED, GAY FRIENDS. I think anything you say cannot even compare to the sheer scale and horror of that piece of TMI. So spit it out, lady!
Okay..Sybil *g*
Sybil: “Because of course the hero is the man who always makes sure the woman comes, always goes down on her and never ever expects head in return. That is another thing I so don’t get… to me back then (if not now days)…”
Well duh..isn’t that what the guy is supposed to be like? *g* Not that I don’t give head on occasion, but it’s not expected.
nicole: the TMI didn’t live up to the build up… really I think you might need to spit out something better
heeee
Candy: damn, it was worth a shot. I don’t even think I am going to like Stolen Charms but since I CAN’T find it I WANT it.
Maybe it is just me but I am very pro blow-job but I also have some control issues so go figure. But I don’t get why it is such an issue as far as romance novels go. And I can think of maybe one friend that would go eeeewwww at the mention of it. Then again I have been thinking that maybe I just hang out with slutty people.
“Then again I have been thinking that maybe I just hang out with slutty people.”
Bwahahahaha! Glad to be one of the slutty…
I don’t think I have any friends who would go “ewwww” at the thought of giving blowjobs. Actually, one bachelorette party I attended had us competing to show our skillz on bananas (the prize was a vibrating rubber duckie, heh heh). The woman who performed the hair tease on her lucky banana won the prize.
So yeah. Hooray slutty friends! And TMI! More TMI for everyone!
awwww duckies are my fave. In fact my kitchen is decorated in ducks.
just saying…
Sorry Sybil. I’ve been around too many people lately who are prudes. Not here, though. Just that I’m on the receiving end ALL the time (I mean ALL the time *stupid grin* I love my husband), but he only occasionally gets it.
I’ve got slutty friends, but I also had a roommate in college who wouldn’t let her bf masturbate. Now, I’m pretty sure he ignored her, or at least I hope he did, but really…she was nutty. Never did ask her if SHE masturbated. And then there’s the one who had nothing against having lots of drunken sex, yet the idea of masturbating or having/using toys disgusted her.
I feel neglected. My slutty friends don’t talk. They just slut.
there there nicole… we shall be your slutty friends
LOL I think this thread has gone a touch off topic
No such thing as OT in these here parts, Sybil.
And here’s a real-life conversation I once had (witnessed, actually, since I was too busy laughing to contribute anything meaningful) between a couple of my Slutty Friends:
Friend 1: Guys need to realize that they need to go. really. slow. during anal sex. We are not the Holland Tunnel. You are not allowed to zoom through willy-nilly.
Friend 2: I hate guys who think they only need to use a tiny bit of lube before they start doing it. No. WE NEED LUBE. LOTS OF IT. If you’re not drowning in lube, you haven’t used enough.
Friend 1: Yeah, and then there are the guys who are so clueless, you need to tell them “HEY! Blood is not a lubricant!”
Friend 2: Neither is raging diarrhea.
***Friend 1: Yeah, and then there are the guys who are so clueless, you need to tell them “HEY! Blood is not a lubricant!â€
Friend 2: Neither is raging diarrhea.***
Oh. My. Gawd. Splutter! I think I just damaged my own uvula… As an editor of *ahem* erotic romances, I will forever think of this when editing a trip down the brown highway of luuuuurrve.
LOL!! What a conversation!
OMG…I’m never going to think of anal sex the same way again.
Was it here that had the post about anal being the new virginity thing? I’m constantly seeing it in erotic romance…and usually without lube. I wonder sometimes if the authors have even tried it, or just do it for something “different”.
As someone who (I cannot believe I am admitting this) had a dream last night that she had anal with Prince William from England, I am crying at this conversation.
The Brown Highway of Lurrrrve!? We are not the Holland Tunnel? Dear God, I’ve hurt myself.
Also, according to my unconscious, Prince William is horrible at anal sex.
Heh. Let’s see what THAT yields on the Google!
GOD this is the best comment session EVER. I’m not sure anything can top Sarah dreaming of Prince Willy poking her chocolate starfish.
Man, you guys totally took this conversation off in its own direction!
Great rant and totally agree with your frustration. I like Ashworth, but I haven’t yet read DOS because of this little point. I know a lot of people don’t think it’s such a big deal, but it gets old.
Oh, and the plank thing is true. It’s called a bundling board and the phrase “bundling up” came from it. There is a short piece on it at http://knowledgenews.net/moxie/culture/bundling-valentines-2.shtml
“GOD this is the best comment session EVER.”
And you owe it all to virgins, widows, anal sex, and swallowing.
Or have we gotten to the spit or swallow part of the program yet? I forget.
You know, we didn’t make it to spitting or swallowing. Or pineapple juice, etc. Or shaving or Aunt Flo or umm…I’ll shut up now since these are WAAAAY off topic.
Oh…and the virgins who are afraid it won’t fit. Or even worse, the almost virgin who’s afraid it won’t fit. My gawd, woman, you’ve done it at least once before. I certainly didn’t think that my first time.