Remaking the virgin hero
Back in 1979, during the first wave of popular romance criticism, Ann Barr Snitow claimed that “virginity is a given” in the mass-market category romance. Things changed for heroines some time ago; in...
View ArticleHere’s to Mrs. Robinson
As the 1960s progressed, mainstream media looked warily at a changing American sexual culture. In 1960 the Food and Drug Administration approved the marketing of Enovid, the first oral contraceptive,...
View ArticleRomance in black papers
I solidified my love for books secretly reading my mother’s historical romance novels at 11 years of age. Nothing is unusual about this experience except that I was a young African American girl...
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