213. The Books That Made You Romance Readers, and Super Honest Brave Sharing Time

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Sarah Wendell:  Hello, and welcome to episode number 213 of Smart Podcast, Trashy Books.  I’m Sarah Wendell from Smart Bitches, Trashy Books, and today I have you guys!  Yay!  I have listener voicemail.  I have voice memos.  I have books that have turned you into romance readers.  I also have some email messages to share with you, including one inspired by our episodes with Em-, Emily Nagoski that is incredibly brave and honest, and I’m very honored that I get to share it with you.  This podcast is going to be a lot of fun for me to put together because I love hearing from you, so thank you in advance to everyone who has called our voicemail number or emailed me.  It’s so cool to hear from you and to hear how much you like the show, so thank you for that!

If you’re looking for cool things to do and you’re thinking, I would like to buy some books and I really like the iBooks store, you can go to iTunes.com/DBSA.  That’ll change soon to update to the new name, because if there’s one thing that I’m really good at it’s renaming podcasts several times over the history of a show, but anyway, we have our own iTunes store.  It’s really cool.  You go to iTunes.com/DBSA and there’re all the episodes, plus some of the books that we’ve talked about, so if you are an iTunes or iBooks user, this should totally, totally rock your world.  You can also find all of the episodes and all the books we talk about at smartbitchestrashybooks.com/podcast, because I know all of you are doing other things while you listen, and then we talk about a bunch of books, and then you’re like, I need to buy that book, because you know what happens when I actually produce the episode?  I buy, like, half the books.  It’s so perilous.  You don’t understand the peril!  The peril I face here!  Not really.

And finally, one more thing, we have a Patreon, and you are awesome if you’ve had a look at it.  It is Patreon.com/SmartBitches.  I still can’t even tell you how many times I had to practice saying that, because slash-SmartBitches is something that makes me just stutter like crazy.  If you’ve had a look at our Patreon or you’ve supported the show, thank you for that.

And now, without any further delay, on with the podcast!

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Kate:  Hi, Sarah.  My name is Kate, and I am a long-time listener of the podcast and a reader of the site.  I love the podcast and the site.  Please keep it up.  I’m sure you hear that all the time, but for real, love it.  Also, thanks for setting up the Patreon.  I’m so glad that I get to feel like a small part of the awesomeness in the community and all the stuff that you guys do, so that’s really awesome!

I am calling in to answer your question about what book made me a romance reader, and I’ve been meaning to do this for a while, but I’m forgetful.  So, the book that made me a romance reader was called The Hidden Heart by Candace Camp, and I don’t remember exactly how old I was when I read it.  I’m going to ballpark somewhere around fifteen, and it was just – [gasps!] – oh, my God!  This is amazing!  It was like that!  The heroine was a governess, and she was feisty, and she wasn’t going to take any crap!  And I don’t care if you’re a duke!  And listen, dude!  And it, it was just awesome.  She was so self-assured, and it was wonderful to see a character in a book that knew what she wanted out of life and went after it, and I was hooked.  Right from that very first book, The Hidden Heart by Candace Camp, I was hooked, and I have now been a romance reader for over fifteen years, and I devour all the books, and I love your podcast, ‘cause it keeps me in a constant supply of excellent book recommendations.

Also, I really like it when you tell the people that are exercising that they should keep going, ‘cause I am often exercising, and you seem to say that just at the time when I need to hear it, so thanks for that as well!

Thanks to you and all the Bitches for the wonderful site and the podcast, and I really enjoy it.  And Sassy Outwater for the really awesome music that has broadened my horizons and introduced me to great, great things.  So thanks a million.  You guys are the best!  Have a great day!

Sarah:  Well, that made my day!  Thank you, Kate!  I promise I will keep going with the site and with the podcast.  I can’t even tell you how much I enjoy doing the podcast?  Like, it’s so much fun.  It’s a long process, and I’m still learning how to do it better, but it is so much fun, and I’m really, really glad that you get so much out of it.  I also work out listening to podcasts, so I completely understand the, oh, my God, I’m so over this, please can I get off the treadmill? feeling, and then someone goes, oh, you should keep going!  Oh, okay, thank you!  So, if you’re on the treadmill or on the elliptical or doing the things that you do – maybe you’re lifting something.  If you’re lifting something heavy and then putting it back down, awesome!  Keep going; you can totally do that!  Thank you for calling in.  That totally, totally made my day, and you are very welcome for all of the posts and books and mentions and things that have increased your book budget, ‘cause, um, yes, it’s equally perilous for me too.

On to our next voicemail!

Lander:  Hi, Sarah and everyone there on the Smart Bitches team.  This is Lander from Fairbanks, Alaska, and this is my response to the question posed in the two hundredth podcast episode:  What is the book that turned you into a romance novel reader?  So I’ve always been a voracious reader, and I’ve always loved romantic subplots, but for whatever reason I never dove into the world of romance novels.  I think part of it is that at some point I got a perception that I was not really the target audience and just never investigated further.  I did read some online erotica.  In my early teens, I found this group writing self-insert Star Wars villain erotic fanfiction with convoluted plots, mostly revolving around the authors having outlandish sex with everyone from Darth Maul and Palpatine to rather obscure characters like Prince Xizor from the Shadows of the Empire Nintendo 64 game.  Entertaining and, sadly, now lost in the bowels of the Internet, but not really what turned me into a romance novel reader.

What ended up doing that was a book called Aphrodite, Undressed by M. Bonneau.  M. Bonneau is actually a childhood friend of mine, someone who I’ve known since we were both, like, five years old, so when I found out she was writing romance novels I decided I’d give one a try.  Not really my usual wheelhouse, but what the hell?  And I loved it!  I loved the characters, I loved the flirting and the sighing and falling in love and that it was just a story about people finding something beautiful, not about world-ending calamities or Ye Olde Grande events.  So, yeah.  That was the book that grabbed me, and I’ve been a romance novel reader ever since.

Sarah:  Hey, Lander, that’s seriously cool!  And if you are listening and wondering what this book is, this is a Regency romance published in 2014.  Aphrodite, Undressed is book one of the Scandalous Hunt Family and is about an orphan heroine who needs to support her family, so she takes up dancing with a mask on in a brothel, as you do, and an utterly bored, rakish hero finds her and finds her fascinating and also kind of likes the other one who’s not wearing a mask and is super proper, and of course he has no idea they’re the same person, so if that’s your catnip I will have links in the podcast entry as to this book and where you can buy it.  And thank you for calling, Lander!  That’s awesome!

And now, more voicemail, because this is so much fun, I can’t even tell you!

Katie:  Hi, Sarah!  Congrats on two hundred eps.  Would die without the podcast.  Love it so much; it’s like my weekly treat.  The first romance I read was – [laughs] – Kiss an Angel by Susan Elizabeth Phillips.  I was probably thirteen.  I was on Nantucket with ten or twelve of my extended family.  I was the only kid, and my aunt and my older cousin had been giggling and reading aloud these, like, steamy sex scenes while we were all in the car, and my ears perked up.  I was like, what’s that, and where can I find it?  And my aunt put her copy, after she finished the book, of Kiss an Angel down in the living room, and I stole it.  I stole it, and I read it – [laughs] – for the entire rest of the vacation.  I just read it over and over and over again, and it is, it is crazysauce.  It’s arranged marriage contemporary.  He is, like, the last of the Romanovs and also, like, the lead performer in a circus, and she has to come along, and he’s like, you’re spoiled, get to work!  And then she’s, like, working her ass off and is a showgirl, and there’s this really great ripping of the fishnets scene!  Yeah, basically what I remember besides, OMG, it’s the hot sex, was just how incredibly sucked in I got.  I just was in a whole different zone.  I literally could, phys-, it was physically difficult to peel my eyes away from the pages.  And, yeah, that was, like, the only Susan Elizabeth Phillips that, that clicked for me, but I’ve been reading romance ever since, so I’m indebted to her.  And I’m indebted to you guys.  Thanks for keeping the dialogue alive and for being advocates for our genre.  Much appreciated.

Sarah:  Okay, so the fact that there were people reading the scenes aloud in the car made me laugh so hard, but I’m also wondering now if for the, I don’t know, three hundredth episode?  Two hundred and fiftieth episode?  I should do a survey as to how old you were when you discovered romance, because there are so many people that discovered it at, like, twelve or thirteen.  I was probably on the later side of teenagedom?  Teenagehood?  I was probably fifteen or sixteen.  I’m trying to think back to high school, which is all a somewhat anguished blur.  But you are definitely not alone in having Susan Elizabeth Phillips be your gateway drug.  And thank you for the compliments to the podcast!  I am really, really glad to hear any time that the site or the podcast has helped people find good things to read.  There is no better feeling than having made a good book recommendation.  Like, it’s the best feeling, I swear.

All right, more voicemail.  Are you ready?  You ready?  Okay, good, ‘cause here’s more:

Katie:  Hi, Sarah.  This is Katie from New Jersey.  Thank you so much for the blog and the podcast.  Thank you for taking reading seriously and pleasure seriously and reading pleasure seriously.  The book that made me a romance reader was Johanna Lindsey’s Defy Not the Heart.  It would have been either the very late ’80, like, ’89 or ’90, maybe, and I was probably a romance reader already, because I was really curious about romance novels, and I really wanted to read one, but I was, like, a, you know, I was, like, thirteen, fourteen, and, I mean, my parents wouldn’t even buy me Sweet Valley High books when I was younger than that, so it was a little bit difficult to get ahold of one.  It’s not like I had, you know, one of those mythical moms or aunts or grandmothers who, you know, had an incredible library of romance novels that I could pilfer from.  Like, they were not available.  But somehow, you know, I had some cash on hand and we were going on vacation, and so, you know, there’s this concept of, like, things that are acceptable to read at the beach versus things that aren’t you know.  You could read at the beach what you wouldn’t read in real life, and we were going to North Carolina to the beach, so I decided that I was going to buy a romance novel.  So I bought Defy Not the Heart with the Fabio cover, and I remember, I remember reading it on the beach and it being very windy.  I remember that it was medieval, a medieval setting, and that at some point the hero – this is after they’ve had sex for the first time, but the hero goes to a prostitute to learn –

Sarah:  Y’all, I do not know why the recording cut off at that moment, and I don’t know what happened to the recording, but I couldn’t edit it out because it’s like the worst place for the recording to drop, right?  Like, he goes to a prostitute to learn what?  What?  What would a hero portrayed by Fabio have to learn?  Knitting?  Does he need to know how to make pasta sauce?  Like, what did he need to learn?  And I, of course – it has been way too long since I’ve read Defy Not the Heart, so if you know what he went to the prostitute to learn, you should email me at [email protected], or you could totally call and leave a voicemail and say, I know, I know!  And it’s 201-371-3272.  Also, if you don’t remember Defy Not the Heart, Defy Not the Heart is the one where they’re medieval, and the original cover, Fabio has this woman in this red velvet dress, and she’s sort of sitting on his lap, but he’s wearing purple tights, and they’re very, very tight tights, because Fabio and quadriceps, and so he looks a little ill, like maybe he doesn’t have any circulation going on in his legs, probably ‘cause she’s, you know, crushing his manful manroot, but the best – [laughs] – the best part is the description on the back page, because there is nothing that says medieval, Old Skool, Johanna Lindsey than this.  Okay, are you ready?

Reina seethes with rage over her fate: taken captive by the knight Ranulf – a golden giant of a man – who has pledged to deliver her to the nuptial bed of the despised Lord Rothwell.

Okay, so she’s mad, and he’s got to deliver her in his purple tights.  Probably not going to fight for her rights.  Ah, Johanna Lindsey.  I do have to say, though, the idea that there are certain books you’re allowed to read on the beach is really interesting, ‘cause it never occurred to me that way, but it’s totally true.  So, so many times the idea of being a “beach read” is a pejorative.  It’s like, oh, well, you know, it’s meaningless stuff that you read, and for me, a beach read has a very specific set of requirements.  I have to be able to pick it up and put it down.  I have to not want to be crying in public, so I don’t want anything that’s going to rip my heart out.  I generally like something light and funny and engaging that is, like I said, easy to enter and exit should I be interrupted, especially ‘cause if I go to the beach I have young humans with me.  So I, I know that beach reading is a pejorative.  For me, beach reading has a very specific set of requirements, but I’d never thought of it as, you have permission to read things on the beach that you don’t otherwise read.  Now, I think everyone should be able to read whatever the hell they want, regardless of whether or not they’re on the beach, but that’s really interesting.  And thank you very much for calling.  I am so sad that the recording cut off, but at the same time it’s like, he went to the prostitute to learn…what?  What, what did he learn?  What was it?  I don’t know, and I’m very sad that I don’t know, and I’m sorry that you don’t know!

But let’s move onto the next voicemail:

Candice:  Hi, Sarah, this is Candice.  I’m a big fan.  I listen to you guys every Friday on the way to do my radio show, Shuffle Play.  I’m calling because I was responding to the first romance request, and my first romance – well, it might not have been my first, but it was definitely the one that got me hooked – was Both Sides of Time by Caroline B. Cooney.  It’s a YA about a girl in 1995 named Annie who ends up going through time and falling for this young heir to a railroad fortune, and it had all the Caroline B. Cooney crackishness to it.  Like, and it’s, it’s so addictive, and it featured, you know, balls and pretty dresses and, you know, love that can’t be, and I was so into it, and there were three other sequels.  There’s some inconsistency later on, but I still loved the book, and it just made me seek out all the YA romance at my public library and brought me from, you know, reading, like, the Baby-Sitters Club and American Girl series to going to the third floor where all the teenager books were kept.  Thanks for the podcast.  Have a great weekend.

Sarah:  This is the first I’m hearing of Caroline B. Cooney, and I have looked her up on Amazon, and she has many Scholastic Classics, and they all have a lot of positive reviews, and I feel like I’ve missed out on something huge.  I love time travel!  Time travel is the best!  Oh, my goodness!  So there’s a whole bunch of them!  Oh, this is so cool!  Thank you so much, Candice, and if you have read Caroline B. Cooney and you want to recommend a particular book of hers, please email me at [email protected], or you can call us at 201-371-3272, because I am about to go down the massive rabbit hole of backlist, which is sort of a, you know, it’s an occupational hazard.

And if you would like to leave a voicemail and tells us about the book that turned you into a romance reader, I totally want to hear about it!  Again:  1-201-371-3272.  Or you can email me a voice memo from your lovely, fabulous smart phone at [email protected].  Either way, I would really love to hear about the book that turned you into a romance reader, because, well, I’m going to go buy more books now.  This is all very selfish enterprise, of course.

Okay, now I have some listener email, which is awesome, because, well, we’re going to talk about more books, and that’s why we’re all here, right?  Okay.  This email is from Jennie:

Jennie’s email:  Dear Sarah,

I have two romance origin stories.

My first romance novel was Beloved Honor by Mallory Burgess [Sarah:  Bur-jess or Bur-guess – I’m guessing it’s Bur-guess].  I had my mom buy it for me at the grocery store one summer in high school in the mid ‘90s because the cover was pretty.  After that, I tried a few others (a contemporary and a western historical) but wasn’t feeling it.  Fast forward to my sophomore year of college, end of fall semester, I was at the thrift store to avoid studying by buying cheap sweaters and saw something magical on the book pile – BELOVED HONOR WAS PART OF A SERIES AND THERE WERE MORE.  So I read the rest of the series, but didn’t pick up any other romance.

Fast forward a decade to 2009 where I’m all grown-up and working as a youth services librarian, and I read and love The Season by Sarah MacLean (does the romance world know/remember her first book was a YA?  Still a romance, but with smoochy times, not sexy times).  I loved it so much that I was very excited when her next book came out, but when I went to preorder it, I saw that it was a mass market adult romance.  Still, I loved The Season so much I was willing to genre hop to follow the author, and the rest is history.  A monster was born!  From Sarah I went to Tessa Dare’s Spindle Cove and Julie Anne Long’s Pennyroyal Green and then all over the place.

One thing that was very hard for me when I was getting into romance was figuring out where to start – the genre is SO BIG it can be really daunting to a newbie.  But now that I’ve found my feet and am a definite romance reader and fan, I’m back to where I started – picking up books at the grocery store because the cover is pretty.

Thanks for the great podcast.

Sarah:  You are definitely not alone in being intimidated by the enormousness of the romance genre, and the hardest thing for me is when someone I don’t know comes up to me and says, I would like to read a romance.  Which one do you recommend?  I, I don’t, I don’t know; you need to tell me what you like.  So based on what you like, for example, Jennie, I would want to make sure that you know about Kate Noble, especially The Summer of You, which is my favorite of her books, and also Jennifer Ashley, specifically The Madness of Lord Ian Mackenzie.  It’s a little bit more angst-y, but it has that deep emotional resonance and some compelling characters, much like Tessa Dare and Spindle Cove.  And I’m guessing that if you’re aware of Tessa Dare that you’re aware of Courtney Milan, but in case you’re not, you need to go read everything Courtney Milan’s written, because that will totally be your thing!  And also Theresa Romain, specifically the Season For series?  [Holiday Pleasures] They’re all holiday romances, they’re all Regency, there’re house parties, there’re nerd heroines, there’s terrific dialogue, so if you haven’t had any of those, those totally might work for you.  And while most of these have been European historicals, I also want to make sure to mention Beverly Jenkins’ Destiny’s Embrace, which is the first book in the Destiny trilogy, which I love all the ways, because there’s a road trip and California history and a heroine who takes no crap, and it is an American historical, but there’s so much to enjoy in all of Beverly Jenkins’ backlist, particularly in that book.  So, that was a long list of recommendations.  And I totally get not being able to figure out what to read first when you wander on into the genre and there’re sixty bazillion books.  Also, thank you for being a librarian.  It is a much needed and much misunderstood profession, and thank you for what you do!

Okay.  This next email is from Jacqueline, and it might make you cry, so if you’re driving or you have currently something in front of you that requires you to be able to not see through tears, you should probably skip this or hit pause or just grab some tissues.

Jacqueline’s email:  Dear Romanceland Queen Goddess Sarah:

Sarah:  Now, that’s the part that’s not going to make you cry; that’s the part that’s going to make me turn red.  [Clears throat]  Thank you.

Jacqueline’s email:  I’ve got a wee bit of a conundrum, one that needs your brain-thoughts to help sort out.  You see, you might not have guessed this but…I’m a romance novel fan!  Shocking, right? 

I’ve been reading this genre since I was 13, back when my mom literally threw Elizabeth Hallam’s Yesterday’s Flame at me and said, “Dammit Jacqueline, READ THIS THING, YOU’LL LOVE IT!”  Bless my momma, because up until that pointed I haaaaaated reading. 

See, I was and still am Dyslexic. 

Reading was like the Brain Olympics for me, so it was something I thought only the smart humans did…and I definitely wasn’t one of those.

My mom tried every damn thing to get me to love books but nothing stuck…until she starting pushing romance books at me.  One afternoon, on her 67th millionth billionth time bugging me about it, I thought, “FINE!  I’ll show her!  I’ll just open chapter one and stare at the first page!”  But then magic happened, because suddenly…I WAS READING! 

I mean, what 13 year old could resist “Now that is what I call a handsome man!”  That’s one hell of a cracktastic opening sentence.

Sadly, I lost my mom on March 4th this year to a blood clot, and I’m still not right in the head about it.  But in my grieving process something amazing happened while filming the Dear Mom letter video for my YouTube channel.  (Shameless plug, Fangirl Musings; a channel where I review romance novels and romance Asian dramas.  Okay, back to the letter.)  [Sarah:  And y’all, I will so have a link to that; do not worry.]  While reenacting the above scene for the video, I opened that copy of Yesterday’s Flame and found something Earth shattering.  [Sarah:  Okay, people, grab your tissues.]

My mom, little cute dork that she was, had secretly written a tiny note to me on chapter one of that book.  As you can imagine, I keep a lock of her hair on that very page displayed in my house.  I just had to share that story and photo with you.  And yes, if you wanna include it or any of this in the podcast, feel free.

Sarah:  Oh, Jacqueline, I’m going to cry.  I’m already crying.  And I’m going to share the picture in the podcast entry, but I’m so, so sorry, and your mom sounds amazing.  Okay.  Now we have the conundrum part.  Everybody got your tissues?  Okay, you, you, you should be clear from now on.  I need a tissue, and the cat is on the tissues!  Damn it, Wilbur.  [Sniffs]

Jacqueline’s email:  Okay, that’s the backstory of my road to romance novels.  And so it brings me to my conundrum/question/internal crisis.

I’ve read a total of 474 books since I started this hobby.  [Sarah:  Wow!]  Obviously, I can and do enjoy reading…but my problem is that those are ALL romance novels.  My question is, IS that a problem?  You see, I’ve tried reading other books.  Pew-pew laser guns and dead-body-figure-it-out and brain-munching-zombies…you name the genre, and I’ve tried it. 

And every darn one of ‘em bored the doo-doo out of me. 

I’ve tried different authors and different stories, and every flip-floppin’ one of them was a snoozefest.

I’m a Ride or Die romance reader, and sometimes I feel soooooo stupid for that.  I’m not ashamed of romance novels!  Hell, I made a video telling its critics to kindly fuck right off.  And yet, because romance is the only fiction I can and do read, does that make me a dumb-dumb?  Should I feel guilty about that?  Maybe I’m doing books and the reading community a disservice by ONLY reading this particular type of fiction.  After all, don’t all of the Smart Bitches on your site also have other reading tastes? 

And yet, here my fat ass sits, stuck in the Romance Only boat.

Are there any other readers out there who have this issue?  Because literally the ONLY other things I enjoy reading are nonfiction, with lots of autobiographies and Mary Roach-style reads. 

But every other romance fan I know has at least one other favorite genre, but not me.

PLEASE QUEEN-GODDESS SARAH, HELP A BITCH OUT ‘CAUSE SHE’S MORALLY CONFLICTED.

With all my dorky-dorky fangirl love, 

Jacqueline

Sarah:  Okay, Jacqueline, we totally don’t know each other, but I would totally hug you right now if you were in the room!  You are not a dumb-dumb, and there is nothing wrong with you for only wanting to read romance.  You and I are actually very similar.  I very cautiously step outside of romance.  Maybe I read a romance, heavily, heavily themed romance mystery or something’s that fantasy with a heavy romance theme, but I’m only looking for romance and, like you, nonfiction.  So there’s nothing, nothing wrong with you at all.  You are not doing anyone a disservice by only reading the books that you like in the genre that you like.  You’re doing yourself a disservice by questioning your own intellect, because you are a very smart person, and there’s nothing wrong with only reading romance.  And I’m sure that among the listeners right now are many people who are probably raising their hands – hopefully not in the car, ‘cause you’re going to hit the ceiling of the car – going, me, me, me!  Oh, yes, me too!  You’re definitely not alone.  And even if you were, on this hypothetical reading island, you were the only one, there’s nothing wrong with that, because you have got an unlimited megapile of books to read, because we’re not running out of romances anytime soon!  There is nothing at all wrong with you.  You are not a dumb-dumb, you are quite awesome, and you should keep reading romances as much and as often as you like.  Thank you for sharing the story of your first romance and for sharing a little bit of your mom with us, but most of all for giving me permission to share this picture, because it’s so beautiful, and it’s so awesome, and – [deep breath] – oh, my goodness.  I’m going to cry some more now.

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Sarah:  Okay, I have two more email messages, one that is a query and one that is a long and detailed but incredibly brave and, I think, important response to some of the episodes with Emily Nagoski.

So first, this is from Kate:

Kate’s email:  Do you think the Regency period would continue to be such a draw if Jane Austen had never published a single work?  Does the continuing legacy of her work increase modern readers’ interest in her time period?  Do you think another period in history would have a similar following if that period had a contemporary author in the “canon” of literature?

Sarah:  Yeah.  I think we would be reading the Regency because it’s not just Jane Austen that created this fascination but it was also Georgette Heyer and authors like her who wrote a number of books all set in that very limited time period.  I think the never-ending Regency fascination is as much attributable to Heyer as it is to Austen, and there’s a lot to unpack into why we read the Regency so much.  As Kathe Robin from RT has said many times, we’ve been reading about it about four times longer than it actually existed.  But yes, I think the Regency would still be fascinating for readers, especially romance readers, and I actually have another email that has a theory as to why that is.

Jill Smith emailed me recently.  She was also catching up on the podcast, and this is her theory.  Not only do you have Jane Austen and Georgette Heyer, but you also have the rules of courtship that are requiring all of these courtships that, to take place essentially in public.  As she wrote:

Jill’s email:  (The modern writers actually tend to bend this a lot more than they probably “should,” but eh.)  The fact that these intensely meaningful emotional moments are going on in full view heightens the intensity.

Think of Capt. Wentworth penning the most powerful love letter in all of literature in full view of a group that includes his sister, his former intended’s mother, and the very woman he’s writing to.  Or take just about any ballroom scene where country dances not only have dozens of other people whirling around but force the partners to dance briefly with other people as well.

This public, “could get caught at any moment” scenario intensifies the vulnerability of the characters and gives what looks like a very quiet love story an almost thriller-esque danger to it.

Anyway, as my mother would say, “That’s my theory and I’m sticking to it.”

Sarah:  I think Jill has something there.  There is definitely something about the public portrayal and the public display of courtship, and between Austen and Heyer, there’s so much basically foundation on which to build that we can keep building within this genre for ages and ages and ages.  So thank you for emailing me, and I hope that answers your question at least a little bit or somewhat or, you know, gives you a little bit more to think about.

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Sarah:  Okay, this letter is from Linda, and I want to start by saying that this is a very frank and explicit letter about pain during sex and specific medical conditions that we don’t really learn a lot about, or at least I didn’t.  So I want to start by thanking Linda for giving me permission to share this letter.

Linda’s email:  Dear Sarah,

I just listened to your podcast interview with Emily Nagoski – Cross Stitching and Neuroscience and fist-pumped through the entire half hour!  Is it weird to fist-pump your way through a podcast about pain during sex?  So I have a story to share, and it is definitely going to be TMI.  Part of it is pretty depressing, but it has a happy ending!  Also, it is absurdly long.  Hopefully, it makes up for it by being a little entertaining.

I have vulvodynia and vaginismus.  Probably one of those conditions led to another, but which came first is anybody’s guess.  I’ve had the diagnosis for a few years but I’ve had the conditions for at least a decade.  I remember ten years ago, someone put a finger inside my vagina for the first time, and it felt like a hot poker.  I had no idea that this was abnormal… After all, romance novels have taught me that the first time always kind of hurts, right?  To be clear, this was a perfectly consensual experience.

I did eventually drag myself to see a doctor a few months after that.  I was a university student, so I went to see a doctor at the school clinic.  That female doctor gave me awful advice: she told me it was perfectly normal!  And it hurt probably because I just wasn’t into it that much.  So really, all I needed to do was get a boyfriend, take it slow, and it’ll be fine next time.  But I was to come back and see her if it really hurt next time.  She didn’t even recommend using lube!

bangs head on desk

So, I dutifully went out and got a boyfriend (not really).  I did start a relationship with a classmate shortly after.  And we took it very slowly.  And when the time came to try penetration… Nothing happened!  Despite all our efforts, there was no way anything was going into my vagina without power tools being involved.  And it wasn’t fun, at all.

A couple of years later, I went to the clinic again to consult a doctor.  My relationship was in tatters at that point, partly because we both graduated and were heading in different directions, and partly because we stopped even trying to have sex months ago.  I got a different doctor than last time, and she (somehow all my university clinic doctors were female) recommended I get a vaginal exam.  I believe the words “pap smear” were also mentioned.

For better or for worse, I will remember that exam for the rest of my life.  The clinic had an intern doctor (or Baby Doctor, as I call her in my head), so she got to perform the exam under the supervision of the Full Doctor.  After settling me onto the bench with the stirrups and draping a sheet over my legs, the Baby Doctor showed me a speculum and described how it would be used.  She even helpfully pointed that the speculum was the smaller size.  Of course, that smaller speculum is bigger than anything that has ever been in my vagina, so my mind was not at ease.  Next, she began the exam by poking my outer vulva with a Q-tip.  This went okay: not pleasant, but not painful either.  Then, she used her finger to poke my outer vulva, following the path of the Q-tip.  This also went okay.  Reassured, she proceeded to put her index finger tip into my vaginal opening.  And all hell broke loose.

It would be much cooler to claim I levitated, jumped off the bench and ran home with my bare ass hanging in the wind.  But alas, no.  Instead, I cried.  Not quiet, dignified sobs.  Not silent tears leaking out the corners of my eyes to soak into the pillow.  Nope, I cried giant sobs that came with absolutely no warning.  I don’t think my mind was even that distressed, even though it did hurt like hell.  For example, I noticed through my sobbing that the Full Doctor leveled an accusatory glare at the Baby Doctor and hissed “What did you do??”  And I also noticed the Baby Doctor looking completely bewildered and stammering, “Nothing!  I just touched her!”  I would’ve laughed if I wasn’t so busy crying and gulping air.

After a few minutes, I calmed down a tiny bit.  Still crying, but no longer with giant heaving sobs.  So the Full Doctor kicked the Baby Doctor out of the examination stool and took over.  At this point, everything around the vagina was super sensitized.  Even the Q-tip, which provoked no previous reaction, made me sob.  Eventually I asked them to stop and give me a few moments to myself.  I’m not sure who was more grateful to conclude that exam, honestly.

Once I sorted myself out, the doctors came back.  The Baby Doctor apologized profusely.  The Full Doctor diagnosed me with vaginismus.  She didn’t have a treatment plan but gave me a prescription for Lidocaine and vague instructions to masturbate with it.  She also told me that I should pause sexual activities with my boyfriend for a few weeks while I figured this out.  I almost laughed and told her that wasn’t going to be a problem.  I didn’t tell her that we don’t have sex anymore.

Isn’t this depressing?  I promise it will get better!  I didn’t follow the treatment plan, such as it is because I didn’t see how it was going to help.  And I couldn’t find many resources to describe what was happening and why it was happening.  A few months later, my boyfriend and I broke up, finally.  And as a parting shot, he told me that he just couldn’t deal with my objections to sex.  That somehow I must have subconscious inhibitions which made sex painful for me, and he didn’t know how to fix that.

bangs head on desk

Yeah, I know.  As if I wished all this pain on myself to fulfill some kind of weird self-loathing!  As if I didn’t try to go see a medical professional who utterly failed to give me any useful advice.  As if I wasn’t trying to figure it out for both our benefits.  As if it was all my fault that the sex sucked!  As if I was depending on him to fix anything!  The list goes on…

bangs head on desk again

Ah youth!  I don’t want to vilify him: he wasn’t mean or violent, just young and self-centered.  It’s a pretty common affliction for people in their early 20s.  But we don’t talk anymore, and I’m sure he still doesn’t understand why I refused to stay friends.

So anyway, at this point, I was 25 and convinced that I was going to be sexless and single for the rest of my life.  Even if I didn’t want a relationship, my “problem” meant that I can’t go out and hook up either.  And since I had no diagnosis nor prognosis, what was the point of getting into a relationship?  Everything would just go sour and end like that last relationship mess.

I was pretty fatalistic and bitter in my 20s.

Okay, so that’s even more depressing than before.  But I did promise everything ends happily.  And it started with the woman who is my best friend.  We met in grade 10, and stayed friends ever since.  We’ve drifted apart and come back together over the years, as good friends do.  And when we meet up, we talk for hours.  During one of those long talks, sex came up.  And we spoke in detail.  What we liked, what we didn’t like.  I was single, but I had some experience with my ex-boyfriend.  She had been dating someone for years although they didn’t cohabit yet.  And we both confessed that penetrative sex sucked because it hurt like hell.

The confession was like a veil lifting.  Sure, neither of us had any solutions, or even diagnoses.  But we weren’t alone!  Yup, we were probably abnormal.  But hey, at least we were abnormal together!  And we started talking about sex every time.  Not obsessively, but the topic always came up when we got together every few months.  At one such time, she told me that her family doctor had told her about a program being run out of the city hospital to treat vulvodynia.  And her doctor thinks she has vulvodynia and would benefit from the program.  Then she sent me a link: http://mvprogram.org/

I can’t stress how much reading the website blew my mind.  I read the list of symptoms and ticked off almost everything.  This was an actual diagnosis!  And there was a treatment plan!  There were statistics!  And research!  Testimonials!  All the information I had been missing and searching for!  It was… well, every kind of metaphor about seeing for the first time, seeing colour for the first time, seeing the sky for the first time, etc…Okay, it wasn’t that incredible.  But it did give me hope.

I was 29 and angry at everything.  I stopped reading romance novels because every sex scene pissed me off and every happy ending made me sad for myself.  So I needed something to change.  And now I finally had a path to follow.

I did the whole referral procedure: telling my family doctor I needed a referral for this program and enduring another vaginal exam.  Then yet another vaginal exam with the gynecologist in charge of the MVP, who poked me with a Q-tip and a video probe, using lube this time.  My, how technology has improved over the years!  She thankfully did not make me watch the live feed, but I had to rate my pain from 1-10: 1 being irritating, 10 being unbearable.  Just about everything was between 7-10 for me.  Then the doctor put away her tools and told me two things:

“There’s nothing wrong with your vagina.  Everything looks normal.”

“You are a good candidate for the program.  We can help you.”

It’s amazing what a few sentences can do on your outlook, doesn’t it?

We had a chat and talked about all sorts of useful things.  For example, how pain in the vulva doesn’t actually mean there’s physical harm in the area; how vaginismus can make the pain worse because it increases the pressure in the vaginal entrance.  And how the fear of sexual pain can translate into a rejection of all physical and emotional intimacies in a relationship.  That lit up a few light bulbs.

It’s funny how Sex Ed in school teaches you about all the possible diseases you can get from unprotected sex.  But teaches you absolutely nothing about how to have good sex or a functional relationship!

I received a schedule for the 6 week program that started at the beginning of summer.  There was pelvic floor physiotherapy, group cognitive behaviour therapy, meditation sessions and lectures.  There was a binder of printouts and studies and diagrams.  For a nerd like me, it was information heaven!

I also had to buy vaginal inserts, a set of 7 wax candles of increasing girth.  For use during physiotherapy.  That was kind of embarrassing.  At least I could go to a pharmacy shop, not a sex shop.

So, the pelvic floor physiotherapy!  I too, had biofeedback sessions.  I did not have a wand that lit up… I assume that wand goes inside the vagina, and that makes me want to hide under my desk.  So I’m grateful I had the electrodes taped to my lady parts instead.  And I watched the spikes and the ramps and the valleys I created with my pelvic floor muscles.  Years of subconsciously clenching my pelvic floor muscles made them incredibly strong.  Learning to relax them was the hardest part.

Can I confess something?  I love my physiotherapist.  More than anyone else in the program, she spoke my language.  She rolled her eyes when I told her about my encounter with that first doctor, the one who told me the first time was supposed to hurt a little.  She told me that my vagina was stretchy enough to accommodate a baby coming out, so a penis going in wasn’t going to tear anything.  She showed me how to put an insert inside and held my hand as I breathed through the pain.  And she was the first person to put her thumb into my vagina in almost a decade…

Man, there is something surreal about sitting up on an exam bench on a Wednesday morning, pantsless.  My knees drawn up around my ears.  This middle-aged lady talking to me while putting her thumb in my vagina.  My ankle hurting because I had sprained it recently.  I was trying to keep my knee up without putting any pressure on my ankle.  And she was saying something about the pain should only come in the first centimeter or so, and asking me if that was true.

All I could think was: this person has her thumb in my vagina!  Her thumb is in my vagina!  I have to go to work later and her thumb is in my vagina!  I don’t even put my own thumb in my vagina!  What is even happening!

Then she told me that I had to put my own thumb inside my vagina.  And I had to do this every day or every other day.  Followed by the inserts.  I had to teach my lady parts that nothing bad happens when something goes is inside.  And I had to relax my pelvic floor and breathe.  That’s how I would learn to manage the pain.

After years of ignoring my lady parts, suddenly having to touch them almost every day was weird.

And there were other problems… Now that I was sorting out my physical problems, I also started to figure out what I really want.  It turns out that I do want a relationship, and I do want everything that comes with it.  But… After years of not dating and avoiding most physical intimacies, how does one even go about dating?  And what do you say to a potential date about the whole penetration problem?  Do you bring it up?  When do you bring it up?  On the first date?  How do you bring it up?  What do you say?

The problem with only learning about romantic relationships from Romance novels is that you expect every relationship to lead to sex.  Not just any sex, intercourse.  Sure, there’re some hand jobs and other things in between, but eventually everything leads to penetration.  It’s too bad The Countess Conspiracy wasn’t published yet.

When I brought up this ball of tangled issues, the MVP gynecologist gently reminded me to give myself permission to “just date.”  Don’t anticipate the sex too much.  Just date.  Kiss and make out if you want to, but it’s okay to not have sex.  I have my issues with the gynecologist, but this remains the best advice any doctor has given me.

For once, I took the doctor’s advice and relaxed.  The diagnosis and the physiotherapy were already helping by giving me a name and solutions to the pain.  I was getting better, becoming more open and leaving the bitterness behind.  I even started reading romance novels again!

There were some other changes in my life in addition to participating in the MVP.  I got a new job and I moved out into my own place.  I started rock climbing and loved it.  And there was this cute new boy at work who also loved climbing.  We hung out throughout the summer and we went climbing together.  A week before my 30th birthday, we kissed on the beach.

A few weeks after the kiss, I lost my virginity.  I stumbled through the whole vulvodynia talk with him like a drunken sailor a few weeks before.  “Umm, I don’t really… I mean… I haven’t really ever… Not that I didn’t want to.  But it hurts.  I have this thing where it hurts.  Here!  Look at this pretty binder of papers I have!”  I almost ran away after throwing the binder on the bed, except I was butt naked and in my own house!  But it all worked out.  He was super accepting of my limitations and open to doing other things.  It was my idea to try penetration, and I didn’t really feel anything: we had to use so much lidocaine that I was numb.

I’m making the sex sound horrible!  It’s not, I swear!  There are many, many other fun things available even when penetration is not on the menu often.

Anyway, before this letter crosses the line from novella to a full on novel, we got married 5 months ago!  Then we moved halfway across the world, and now I’m learning German.  I’m still managing the vulvodynia and vaginismus.  Penetrative sex still pretty much sucks, and using lidocaine means he has to wear a condom.  I don’t know how we’re going to get pregnant when the time comes, although I assume people have managed with bigger obstacles.  And I’m terrified of a baby coming out of my vagina, no matter what my physiotherapist said.  But it’s no longer a thing that is preventing me from living the life that I want to live.  That is a huge improvement.

Oh and my best friend: she went through the program a few months after I did.  And last summer, she married her long time boyfriend.  They are managing too.  We trade jokes about doing our exercises regularly.  Or rather, not doing them as often as prescribed.  I don’t think anything in my story painted me as a very obedient patient, right?

Romance novels have been a big part of my life.  I first discovered them when I was 14.  I don’t remember the book name, but it was a Western, and it had a sex scene.  Reading that sex scene suddenly made all the male and female reproductive organ diagrams make sense.  I remember feeling slightly ashamed that I didn’t put two and two together before.  Hmm, should that be putting 1 and 0 together instead?

But the line of virgin heroines tripping merrily to their deflowering with some slight bleeding, and thereafter no problems whatsoever still stirs up resentment in me.  Is it too much to expect a Romance novel to feature a heroine who experiences pain during sex?  Are there even any that come close?

I have read books where the heroine experienced abuse and trauma in the past, which can include painful sex.  How to Lose a Duke in 10 Days comes to mind.  However, with the correct lover, the pain stops.  For me, it was the exact opposite.  I haven’t experienced abuse or trauma, yet it still really hurts.  And the right lover makes it better, but the pain doesn’t magically stop.  So what does that mean?

Turns out, it just means life is unfair.  Yeah, yeah, I’m getting it now.

Anyway, I don’t have any answers about how much obligation novelists have to teach sex ed to teenagers around the world.  And the modern Romance novels are featuring much more diverse casts.  I’m also digging the decline of the magic wang that makes everything better!  Yay for books that reflect more reality!

I look forward to hearing more awesome podcasts, reading more hilarious reviews and buying more amazing books from the Books on Sale list.

Linda

Sarah:  So I emailed Linda back, and I said that I was deeply, deeply honored that she would share this with me and really impressed with her perseverance, and I asked if I could share the letter with people through the podcast, because I imagine that there might be other people who are listening who feel as isolated and, and as alone and who might benefit from hearing about this.  And she said that she would be honored to share her story.  She knows that, she says:

Linda’s email:  I know that hearing a story like mine would’ve helped me immensely before I had a diagnosis – at the least it would’ve given me something to Google!

One thing: I have primary vulvodynia – where I have always had genital pain.  Well, maybe since post puberty?  At least since I’ve become sexually active.  There are also lots of women who have secondary vulvodynia – where you are happily having sex all your life and then one day, it just starts to hurt.  I’m not sure which type is worse, and really there’s no need to compete: both suck!  There is some research into whether primary and secondary conditions have two different causes, and may warrant different treatments.  But right now, there aren’t enough statistics to reach a conclusion either way, and patients receive the same treatment.  However, most of the research papers on the topic are published in the last 5 years, so it’s still a really new field of research.  As Emily Nagoski would say, “that’s patriarchy for you!” 😛

Sarah:  I also have a link from Linda about additional information about severe vaginismus and vulvodynia, but most of all I want to say thank you, because I am, like I said, really honored that she would share this information, and I hope that this has been helpful or at least illuminating for you.  I honestly don’t know if it is in the future to see a romance novel depicting painful sex that isn’t cured by, you know, successful and careful attentions from the, the perfect man and his magic thunder stick.  I know romance deals with a number of painful and potentially embarrassing and difficult-to-talk-about subjects.  I’m thinking immediately of Toni Blake’s book Whisper Falls where the heroine has Crohn’s, and it’s acute and awful, and she’s constantly struggling with it.  I would like to think that romance could portray this.  I would definitely like to know that it’s possible, and if you can think of any romances where the heroine has had problems like this that aren’t magically solved by, you know, the perfect hero and his perfect thunder stick, please let us know!  I would really love to hear about it.

And if you would like to email me, you can email me at [email protected].  You can call and leave a voicemail about anything you desire, including the book that made you into a romance reader.  That number is 1-201-371-3272.

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I want to thank everyone who left a voicemail and emailed me, so thank you to Kate, Katie, Lander, Candice, Hayden, Kate, Jennie, Jacqueline, and Linda, and Jill, and also Kate.  There’re a lot of Kate’s.  It’s like Kate, Jennifer, and Sarah.  Isn’t that strange?  I mean, it may be my age, but everyone I know is either Kate, Jennifer, or Sarah.  Anyway, thank you guys for contacting me, and if you’d like to do the same, I really welcome hearing from you.

And if you’d like to support the show, we have a Patreon at Patreon.com/SmartBitches.  For as little as one or three dollars a month you can help me immeasurably with making sure that all episodes have transcripts and that my equipment doesn’t eat the audio like it has twice this year.  Argh!  So annoying!  So if you’ve already supported or had a look or shared the link, thank you.  But most of all, thank you for listening.  It is so much fun to produce this show, and I love hearing how much you enjoy it, so thank you for that.

Our music is produced by Sassy Outwater.  You can find her on Twitter @SassyOutwater.  This is a group called Three Mile Stone, and this track is called “Snug in the Blanket.”  You can find them on their website, on Amazon, or on iTunes, and I will have links in the podcast entry about not only the books we talked about but also some of the links and the music, because that’s where all the cool stuff happens, right?

We also have our own iTunes page.  Did you know that?  It’s so cool.  iTunes.com/DBSA, which is probably going to change, but for now that’s where it is.  You can find recent episodes, books for the iBooks store, and everything you need to subscribe to the podcast on iTunes if that’s how you roll.  Which is cool, because however you listen is most excellent.

So on behalf of everyone here, including both of my cats and the dogs, who are currently staring at each other on the floor – it’s about to get noisy – we wish you the very best of reading.  Have a great weekend.

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