Happy Pi Day!
My life has been interesting lately. I visited Purdue, it was fun. They're all nerds. I drove Rusty home. We got a flat. My PC is dead, I'm using my mom's laptop. Now on to the real purpose for this entry.
I have spent my life monitoring life around me. Exploration of the unknown is my reason for living. Therefore I decided to observe one of the important cultural phenomenon of the day. I took one for the team to see what it was all about. That's right, I read a ton of romance novels. Following is my dissection of the genre.
Romance novels have become something of an icon today. You see the pink everywhere you go. Under the sedate pink covers? Pictures of women in torn clothing. That's right. Bodice rippers. But why? What do these things have in common? Why are they popular? Well here are my observations on this subject.
I have learned several things from these books. First, there are a thousand and one euphemisms for various parts of the human body. Some of them are humorous, and the rest are ludicrous. My personal favorite? "His longest finger." If you need to think about it, go back to high school and take sex ed again. Or just hang out in the honors dorm for half an hour. You'll get a real education then.
Another thing I learned was that everyone in Regency England was either titled, rich or both. Or some lowly orphan who turns out to be titled and rich in the end. With all these dukes and earls running around it's unclear where the servants come from. I have a few hypotheses. First of all, there is the possibility that they take turns. The servants today might be the gentry tomorrow. After all there is a rather high proportion of gentry exhibited and this would be one way to explain why every fifth person is a duke. Also, when you add together the gentry and the servants you get a population higher than the land could support. This leads to my last two ideas. First, The servants are all androids who don't need to eat or sleep. This would explain their efficiency and perpetual availability. Finally, everyone in Regency England was schizophrenic. Therefore the servants are all part of some widespread delusionary system shared by the populous outlined in these books.
Also, there are some demographic problems. Every female, young or old. is a virgin when she first has premarital sex with her titled hero. On the other hand, the titled hero has scads of sexual experience. Where he manages to get his experience is beyond me as all females are virgins. There seems to be an excess of widows, but those are usually virgins too. (Having married a man too old to do anything in the bedroom in these frightful days before Viagra.) So this leaves our hero with a lot of experience and no partners. The obvious answer? All of the romance heroes are actually bi. They get their experience from the other prince charmings. I guess they take turn pretending to be the female. This would also explain the existence of the clubs that the hero seems to frequent. Also, all this unprotected sex never seems to result in STD's unless you are an old whore.
This leads me to the existence of actresses and other whores. They all seem to have hearts of gold. Or they are evil and pox ridden. Most of them are long-lost daughters of the gentry. (As of course, everyone in Regency England was gentry. You just had to figure out where your family was.)
Also, all of these heroes/heroines are orphans. They are loners who are liked by no one, yet somehow seem to go to parties every night. How anyone gets any dancing done at these balls is beyond me. All of the females are standing, neglected, by the wall wishing they could dance. Meanwhile the men are all skulking in the corners because it would be too scandalous for anyone to dance with them. It would also ruin their image to ask. Therefore all balls in Regency England were the equivalent of an awkward jr high prom. But with more cloth on the dresses. Also all of these people are either amazingly good looking or dreadfully ugly. Their looks don't really matter as they all get happily get married in the end. Also, the marriages are always faithful which compounds the problem of the gaining of sexual experience in the males.
Another conundrum is the lack of children. They have to be somewhere, but you never see them. They seem to pop onto the scene as full adults ready to get married. There are a couple of possibilities for this. First, the period necessary for maturation was different then. Second, all children (and most of the elderly) are servants (solving the problem of where servants come from). Third, the schizophrenic delusions of the adults render the children invisible.
In conclusion, why are these so rampant in today's culture? These romance novels seem to be popular because they appeal to the secret dream of (most) little girls. In that dream a prince swoops down on his white destrier and saves her from her life. He is rich, handsome, titled and good in bed. He will be faithful to them, give them lots of perfect children and shower them with attention. They will all live happily ever after with nothing bad ever happening. This leads to a lack of personal growth in everyone in Regency England and explains why everyone left for America. (They had to get away from the fluffheads.)
My future work may entail further exploration into this realm, or I may move onto another avenue: westerns. Please let me know which you would prefer.
I have spent my life monitoring life around me. Exploration of the unknown is my reason for living. Therefore I decided to observe one of the important cultural phenomenon of the day. I took one for the team to see what it was all about. That's right, I read a ton of romance novels. Following is my dissection of the genre.
Romance novels have become something of an icon today. You see the pink everywhere you go. Under the sedate pink covers? Pictures of women in torn clothing. That's right. Bodice rippers. But why? What do these things have in common? Why are they popular? Well here are my observations on this subject.
I have learned several things from these books. First, there are a thousand and one euphemisms for various parts of the human body. Some of them are humorous, and the rest are ludicrous. My personal favorite? "His longest finger." If you need to think about it, go back to high school and take sex ed again. Or just hang out in the honors dorm for half an hour. You'll get a real education then.
Another thing I learned was that everyone in Regency England was either titled, rich or both. Or some lowly orphan who turns out to be titled and rich in the end. With all these dukes and earls running around it's unclear where the servants come from. I have a few hypotheses. First of all, there is the possibility that they take turns. The servants today might be the gentry tomorrow. After all there is a rather high proportion of gentry exhibited and this would be one way to explain why every fifth person is a duke. Also, when you add together the gentry and the servants you get a population higher than the land could support. This leads to my last two ideas. First, The servants are all androids who don't need to eat or sleep. This would explain their efficiency and perpetual availability. Finally, everyone in Regency England was schizophrenic. Therefore the servants are all part of some widespread delusionary system shared by the populous outlined in these books.
Also, there are some demographic problems. Every female, young or old. is a virgin when she first has premarital sex with her titled hero. On the other hand, the titled hero has scads of sexual experience. Where he manages to get his experience is beyond me as all females are virgins. There seems to be an excess of widows, but those are usually virgins too. (Having married a man too old to do anything in the bedroom in these frightful days before Viagra.) So this leaves our hero with a lot of experience and no partners. The obvious answer? All of the romance heroes are actually bi. They get their experience from the other prince charmings. I guess they take turn pretending to be the female. This would also explain the existence of the clubs that the hero seems to frequent. Also, all this unprotected sex never seems to result in STD's unless you are an old whore.
This leads me to the existence of actresses and other whores. They all seem to have hearts of gold. Or they are evil and pox ridden. Most of them are long-lost daughters of the gentry. (As of course, everyone in Regency England was gentry. You just had to figure out where your family was.)
Also, all of these heroes/heroines are orphans. They are loners who are liked by no one, yet somehow seem to go to parties every night. How anyone gets any dancing done at these balls is beyond me. All of the females are standing, neglected, by the wall wishing they could dance. Meanwhile the men are all skulking in the corners because it would be too scandalous for anyone to dance with them. It would also ruin their image to ask. Therefore all balls in Regency England were the equivalent of an awkward jr high prom. But with more cloth on the dresses. Also all of these people are either amazingly good looking or dreadfully ugly. Their looks don't really matter as they all get happily get married in the end. Also, the marriages are always faithful which compounds the problem of the gaining of sexual experience in the males.
Another conundrum is the lack of children. They have to be somewhere, but you never see them. They seem to pop onto the scene as full adults ready to get married. There are a couple of possibilities for this. First, the period necessary for maturation was different then. Second, all children (and most of the elderly) are servants (solving the problem of where servants come from). Third, the schizophrenic delusions of the adults render the children invisible.
In conclusion, why are these so rampant in today's culture? These romance novels seem to be popular because they appeal to the secret dream of (most) little girls. In that dream a prince swoops down on his white destrier and saves her from her life. He is rich, handsome, titled and good in bed. He will be faithful to them, give them lots of perfect children and shower them with attention. They will all live happily ever after with nothing bad ever happening. This leads to a lack of personal growth in everyone in Regency England and explains why everyone left for America. (They had to get away from the fluffheads.)
My future work may entail further exploration into this realm, or I may move onto another avenue: westerns. Please let me know which you would prefer.