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立 政 治 大 學
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N a tio na
l C h engchi U ni ve rs it y
Chapter 2
Sex, Pleasure and Romance in These Texts
Romance provides a standard of sex for readers, causing these readers to accept and judge sex in a similar way. As Gayle S. Rubin presents, there is a distinction between good sex and bad sex, which is also emphasised by Nicholas Sparks, who uses an artistic form to express this idea. Sparks follows the hierarchies that Gayle S.
Rubin presents, holding obsessive moral value to judge sex. Rubin defines what good sex and bad sex are:
According to this system, sexuality that is ‘good,’ ‘normal,’ and
‘natural’ should ideally be heterosexual, marital, monogamous, reproductive, and non-commercial. It should be coupled, relational, within the same generation, and occur at home. …Any sex that violates these rules is ‘bad,’ ‘abnormal,’ or ‘unnatural.’ (Rubin, 13-14)
In Sparks’ romances, sex is completely good, which is ‘normal’, ‘natural’,
‘heterosexual’ and ‘vanilla’. All the sex in these three books represents a ‘healthy atmosphere’, reflecting that sex is so natural and wonderful. In these three romances, love always happens at first sight, no matter whether the protagonists are teenagers or adults. ‘Love at first sight’ seems so beautiful and romantic, but is it also a little animal? Covered with love, sex is no longer criticised as animalistic behaviour.
Accordingly, following the logic of these romances, is love the best reason to enjoy sex?
‘Romantic’ is an aesthetic word transforming blind impulse into poetic passion, and the use of language decorates impulsive love, making it transcendent. ‘I love you’
is the most direct way to speak of love, but simply saying love is not enough, since
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many women like this to be loaded with more importance. Sparks’ language usually stresses that the meaning of men’s existence stems from women, like the repetitive naming of the woman as the man’s ‘reason’, ‘hope’ and ‘dream’. Sincere praise is what women long for the most, and Sparks’ words are often filled with emotions, but simultaneously show precise constraint towards sentimentality. Romantic words, as the best weapons, push women into a tamed condition. After receiving abundant praise, women easily feel cheerful and content, unconsciously wanting to become the female tender protagonist who can acquire the man’s limitless love. As Evans put it:
‘the ‘romantic,’ a term previously associated with the wild and the untamed, came to possess an entirely opposite meaning: the form through which sexual desire and attraction could be appropriately organized and sanitized for domestic consumption’
(273). In order to keep the patriarchal society functioning smoothly, something that can maintain patriarchy has a reason to exist. As the Frankfurt School presents, popular culture ‘maintains social authority’ (Storey 85). Romance is one kind of popular culture and it plays a crucial role in maintaining social stability, especially regarding gender relationships. Romance provides people’s relationships with a rule which needs to be followed by one who wants conventional love. If one person tries to break the rule, people will argue and debase him or her without specific reasons because it violates the rule.
Sparks’ romances are like beautiful textbooks teaching how to have a good relationship. Culture gives the sexual game a beautiful name called love. The process of attraction makes people feel that they are different from animals. Normal sex needs a process of pursuit, drastically emphasised by love’s culture. In these three Sparks romances , sex would be classified in Gayle Rubin’s ‘good sex’ hierarchy.
Nevertheless, is this a trivial problem within them? Even though Sparks’ romances are
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contemporary works, some of them are still infused with an exaggeratedly traditional gender ideology. In The Notebook, the female protagonist, Allie, only has a sexual relationship with Noah, the male protagonist, in her whole life. Before she meets Noah again, she has some boyfriends and even a fiancé, but there is no sexual discourse between them. This is indeed a modern fairy tale, teaching the lesson that people be monogamous, but does not tell you why. When Allie meets Noah again and passionate love has grown in their minds, she has a confession:
‘Noah, you’ve never asked, but I want you to know something.’
‘What is it?’
Her voice was tender.
‘There’s never been another, Noah. You weren’t just the first. You’re the only man I’ve ever been with. I don’t expect you to say the same thing, but I wanted you to know.’ (121)
This dialogue reflects that invisible sexual control is still concealed in some women’s minds. The concept of lacking ‘another’ may make the love more beautiful or create more favour from the male’s side. Although sexually liberal feminists have endlessly promoted the idea that women need to release sexual oppression and develop the ability to have sexual autonomy, some women still cannot get rid of the concept that getting a good man requires a ‘pure’ body in exchange. We cannot say that this is because some women are still too conservative and not open-minded enough in the belief that some men still have a great desire to control their female spouse’s sexual life. Maybe this is a little unfair to men. To be more specific, not only to men but also to women, the possession of desire results from a set of complicated emotions which cannot be completely controlled easily. Therefore, for a woman, the thought of having more ‘exchange value’ cannot be easily erased. Even people who have open minds
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towards sex do not necessarily take that open attitude to every lover or ‘friends with benefits’. Humans exchange all the time. The difference between animals and human beings lies in the complicated thoughts and unexpected behaviour of human beings.
Another typical example of women’s sexual oppression is revealed in Dear John. The female protagonist, Savannah, who has a strong insistence of chastity,
cannot accept other college students’ casual sex lives:
‘I [Savannah] mean, when I see two people heading off on a walk like this, I am thinking, Oh, that’s sweet. I’m not thinking they’re going to hook up behind the dunes. But the fact is, sometimes they do. I just never realize it beforehand, and I’m always surprised when I hear about it later.
I can’t help it. Like last night, after you left. I heard about two people here who did just that, and I couldn’t believe it.’
‘I [John] would have been more surprised if it hadn’t happened.’
‘That’s what I don’t like about college, by the way. It’s like a lot of people don’t believe these years really count, so you’re allowed to experiment with…whatever. There’s such a casual view about things like sex and drinking and even drugs. I know that sounds really old-fashioned, but I just don’t get it. Maybe that’s why I didn’t want to go sit by the fire like everyone else. To be honest, I’m kind of disappointed in those two people I heard about, and I don’t want to sit there trying to pretend that I’m not. I know I shouldn’t judge, and I’m sure they’re good people since they’re here to help, but still, what was the point? Shouldn’t you save things like that for someone you love? So that it really means
something?’
I knew she didn’t want answers, nor did I offer any. (89-90)
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From Savannah’s words, she has expressed her strong dislike for and judgment towards those who have casual sex. From her viewpoint, sex needs to be taken seriously, and those who just enjoy sex and do not think too much of love or relationships are disappointing. To Savannah, love is ‘sweet’, but casual sex is bad;
sex should be cherished. Savannah’s reactions represent a typically traditional concept of sex in a patriarchal society, which is a system demanding sex operates to rigid rules.
Savannah’s concept is not simply inborn but has developed in her living environment.
Her parents both graduated from top five colleges and provided Savannah with abundant educational resources. Sometimes, more education equals more oppression, due to which people need to disguise, pretend and conceal the most instinctive part of being a person, which belongs to one kind of animal. Savannah and Allie are both passionate and lovely female characters, but their similarity is a conservative attitude towards sex. They do not insist only on marital sex, but do insist that they would only have sex with someone they love. The love that they want is mature, passionate, pure and profound.
What Savannah and Allie follow is a traditional sexual system developed gradually. Sexual ideology is the product of different cultures. As Rubin mentions in
‘The Traffic in women’: ‘Sex is sex, but what counts as sex is equally culturally determined and obtained. Every society also has a sex/gender system—a set of arrangements by which the biological raw material of human sex and procreation is shaped by human, social intervention and satisfied in a conventional manner, no matter how bizarre some of the conventions may be’ (32). Sexual worlds have been organised, and to follow it is not necessarily bad because individuals do not need to have much courage to resist an established system accepted by most people. Almost every society has a sexual system in order to keep that society stable. In Sparks’
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fiction, there are still some moral accusations concealed in the characters’ interactions.
Allie and Savannah are young, so their attitude for sex is affected by the living environment. However, another example is the female protagonist in Message in a Bottle, Theresa, who is a mature, divorced woman with a 12-year old son. She can
accept sex with no marital limit, representing that even though she is so mature, she still lives in the framework the society provides. A short dialogue in Message in a Bottle shows Theresa’s attitude towards an affair:
Garrett listened as she [Theresa] spoke, not saying much. When she finished he asked, ‘And you said you were married once?’
She nodded. ‘For eight years. But David—that’s his name—seemed to lose heart in the relationship, somehow…he ended up having an affair. I just couldn’t live with that.’
‘I couldn’t, either,’ Garrett said softly, ‘but it still doesn’t make it any easier.’ (127)
The fact that Theresa could not forgive an extramarital affair demonstrates her sexual attitude – an insistence on monogamy. Marriage is not a ticket for Theresa to have a sexual relationship, but a man with a marriage is the most useful weapon to resist a relationship. Theresa’s and Garrett’s thoughts are similar, believing in pure and sincere feelings and stressing the importance of trust, which connects them, but also ruins their relationships. Theresa knows Garrett because she finds his message in a bottle written to his dead wife, which touches her profoundly and invokes her full curiosity and desire to know this man. After much struggle, Theresa finds Garrett but she does not have the courage to tell him. Instead, she just lets their relationships develop naturally and slowly. However, after Garrett discovers the truth, this event becomes their main reason for their break-up. His angry mood cannot be controlled:
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‘Why should I listen? You’ve been lying to me ever since I’ve known you.’
‘I didn’t lie! I just never told you about the letters!’
‘Because you knew it was wrong!’
‘No—because I knew you wouldn’t understand,’ she said, trying to regain her composure.
‘I understand all right, I understand what kind of person you are!’
Her eyes narrowed. ‘Don’t be like this.’
‘Be like what? Mad? Hurt? I just found out this whole thing was a charade, and now you want me to stop?’
‘Shut up!’ she shouted back, her anger suddenly rising to the surface.
He seemed stunned by her words, and he stared at her without speaking. Finally, with breaking voice, he held out the letters again.
‘You think you understand what Catherine and I had together, but you don’t. No matter how many letters you read—no matter how well you know me—you’ll never understand. What she and I had was real…’
He paused, collecting his thoughts, regarding her as if she were a stranger. Then, stiffening, he said something that hurt her worse than anything he’s said so far.
‘We’ve never even come close to what Catherine and I had.’ (Message in a Bottle, 316)
This dialogue is like that of a regular couple’s quarrel, reflecting many humans’
over-emphasis on a one-to-one relationship, the value of which has been taught everywhere; in families, schools, and through several kinds of popular culture. This culture creates a situation in which many relationships end because of another
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person’s existence. After Garrett finds the truth that Theresa has the letters written to his dead wife and knows about his past passionate love, why does he feel so angry?
The desire for preserving the past precious love is easily understood, but is it worth using this to hurt the present lover? The past relationship with Catherine has
unconsciously blocked Garrett’s way to starting a new relationship without
considering the past and comparing one woman with another. Human beings’ shackles are usually created by themselves, and Garret and Theresa’s angry mood can be seen in daily life, especially in the post-industrial society. People’s focus usually lies in relationships, and many people take serious attitudes towards ‘love.’ Ironically, love does not usually increase after being testified incessantly because truth is cruel.
However, the triangle relationship is still used as a main dramatic effect in romances. If there are only two people in a fiction, its dramatic effect will decrease and readers will not be so excited to see the development of their relationship. The
‘other’ one is a crucial stir to evoke readers’ emotions and immerse them in the plot. It does not matter whether this ‘other’ is even alive; their existence is necessary for the plot’s function. In Sparks’ romances, the arrangement of triangular relationships gives female readers full pleasure. He has created a simulated reality in which people can see those that they love get happiness, creating ‘true love’, which lies in seeing lovers have a happy life, which is not necessarily so in real life. Sparks’ romances fulfil female readers’ desire for choosing a ‘good guy’, and their choices are so wonderful and difficult. In The Notebook and Dear John, the female characters both have two perfect men to choose from. Sparks’ structure fulfils what women want and completes women’s dream. Although these three books have tragic endings, the process
immerses female readers in an aesthetic wonderful world, where women play a crucial role and the female is the centre of the world. These romances give readers a
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visual identity in an imaginary space.
Although in this thesis I argue that Sparks and other romance writers deliberately consolidate monogamy as superior, I do not mean to suggest that it is wholly worthless. In human culture, any society needs a system to keep a balanced society. In the sexual field, monogamy can be very oppressive, but equally, it could be the origin of pleasure for some. Where there is a rule, there are many exceptions.
Rules make games become more interesting, and transgression is more exciting and tantalising. Conflicts also make love become more attractive and relationships closer.
In addition to the repetitive pleasure of waiting for love before having sex, another crucial theme for Sparks is the importance of the ‘first’ time, including love at first sight, first love and first sex. It is not just an ideal of aesthetic projection; it reflects the importance of ‘first’ effect. Women’s first sexual experience profoundly affects how they face sex and love. To women, sexual discourse means a strange thing entering the body. In order to get real pleasure, getting rid of painful feelings is
important. If a man is not tender and attentive enough, the woman that he makes love with cannot get pleasure. Even more terribly, making love becomes a nightmare to the woman. Sparks’ male characters are all tender and attentive to women’s feelings and needs; the characteristics most women want.
In The Notebook, Allie and Noah’s first sex is with one another. In Dear John, John is the first man whom Savannah has a sexual relationship with, but the reverse is not true for John. In The Notebook, the description of their first sex is just one sentence: ‘They spent hours together talking about their dreams—his of seeing the world, hers of being an artist—and on a humid night in August, they both lost their virginity’ (14). Allie’s first sexual experience radically affects her and leads her to look for Noah’s image whenever she meets a man. A sentence reflects on how Noah’s
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existence affects her relationships with others: ‘But in every boy I met in the next few years, I found myself looking for you, and when the feelings got too strong, I’d write you another letter’ (118). The real sexual description focuses on their first sex after their reunion. At that time, Allie has a fiancé, which becomes a barrier for Noah, trying deeply to control his desire for making love with Allie. Repression is the most powerful foreplay. The more people repress, the more pleasure they get.
The depiction of Allie and Noah’s foreplay and sex are poetic, evoking readers’
desire at the same time:
He ran his tongue along her neck while his hands moved over the smooth hot skin of her breasts, down her belly, past her navel, and up again. He was struck by her beauty. Her shimmering hair trapped the light and made it sparkle. Her skin was soft and beautiful, almost glowing in the firelight. He felt her hands on his back, beckoning him. …With a little tempting frown, she pulled him closer, but he resisted. Instead he lowered himself and lightly rubbed his chest against her, and she felt her body respond with anticipation. He did this slowly, listening as she made soft, whimpering sounds while he moved above her.
He did this until she couldn’t take it anymore, and when they finally joined as one, she cried aloud and pressed her fingers hard into his back.
She buried her face in his neck and felt him deep inside her, felt his strength and gentleness, felt his muscle and his soul. She moved
rhythmically against him, allowing him to take her wherever he wanted, to the place she was meant to be. (124-126)
Though there are not many sexual scenes in Sparks’ romances, his words are filled with temptation, easily evoking female readers’ desire, which may not be so
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easily evoked by men in daily life. As pornography represents those beautiful
women’s sexual discourse with men, they can satisfy men’s sexual desire on an image level, and Sparks’ words can stimulate women’s sexual desire through the tempting process. When Allie and Noah enjoy each other’s caress, readers enjoy similar feelings when reading these passages.
women’s sexual discourse with men, they can satisfy men’s sexual desire on an image level, and Sparks’ words can stimulate women’s sexual desire through the tempting process. When Allie and Noah enjoy each other’s caress, readers enjoy similar feelings when reading these passages.