Everyone has either heard about it, read it or denies ever going near one. Mills & Boon - that adolescent rite of passage from comic books to adult romance. A recent discussion on a yahoo group about Mills & Boon entering the Indian market - earlier they had local distributors - got me on a nostalgic trip to my last school vacation. It seems India is the only market where M & B has a significant male readership, elsewhere in the world some men may read it but wouldn't want to admit it.
I was around 14 when I discovered M&B at the neighborhood raddi wala. I remember being fascinated with those tales of damsels and of course, dark handsome men. I would choose the books based mostly on the front cover men.
It took about a year for me to get over the fascination with M&B – but not before it managed to add to my vocabulary the word ``tumescence’’. The sentence went something like, ``her hands slipped and touched his tumescence''. I can still feel the goose bumps that I got every time I read the word, but unable to explain the reason. The dictionary was of no help – it gave the meaning as ``a swollen part or organ''.
A late bloomer – I think it was only a couple of years later that I actually understood what had swollen up – lol
I was around 14 when I discovered M&B at the neighborhood raddi wala. I remember being fascinated with those tales of damsels and of course, dark handsome men. I would choose the books based mostly on the front cover men.
It took about a year for me to get over the fascination with M&B – but not before it managed to add to my vocabulary the word ``tumescence’’. The sentence went something like, ``her hands slipped and touched his tumescence''. I can still feel the goose bumps that I got every time I read the word, but unable to explain the reason. The dictionary was of no help – it gave the meaning as ``a swollen part or organ''.
A late bloomer – I think it was only a couple of years later that I actually understood what had swollen up – lol
2 comments:
That's interesting. I had the same experience with M&B. My first M&B, if I remember right, was this Silhouette romance book called "Sun Lover" (my sister's). The story was like all the standard M&B stories: the younger girl, virgin-like, honest, hard-working, virtuous, the guy, older, richer (he owns a shipping line!) yada yada, you know the rest.
The interesting thing was when I read this book was that, like you, I didn't even know what sex was, or rather, I had no clue about the exact mechanics of it. And this book had not one, not two, but four full-fledged sex scenes (well, not all of them were full-fledged, in two of them the girl stops him mid-way, she is convinced, you see, that he doesn't love her, and so like all virtuous women, she puts a stop to the sex, when the "rush of desire singing through her veins" has lessened, somewhat -- and this happens generally when the guy is undressing). And I had no clue to what exactly was happening, when the girl realizes that the guy wants to "make love" to her, I had no clue what "make love" really meant, when they started removing their clothes, I had no idea why they were doing that, and when they "finally came together in a blinding light" (yes, those were the words, I'm not joking), I kept wondering how they did that. At the same time, I remember feeling oddly excited as I read those passages, and I kept re-reading them.
I'd say that "tumescence" is rather explicit for M&B; I remember phrases such as "his manhood", "the soft core of her womanhood", "the most intimate part of her body". LOL.
Btw, did you know that M&B authors are give templates for writing? The template covers things like how many kisses, sex scenes, yada yada -- and the authors are asked very strictly to adhere to the guidelines (some of which, I'm sure, include the use of words like "tumescence"). And that the sales of the books jumped up dramatically when one of the M&B editors came up with the concept of the "punishing kiss"? :-)
I remember my M&B reading period was also the summer between IX and X. I borrowed a few books from a neighbour who was a cohort but from a diff school.
I was tempted by the cover and was curious because a number of girls and women in the neighbourhood were reading these books. Also the 2 neighbourhood libraries were full of these, but I never say guys ever browsing that cabinet.
I had just finished reading most of the Hardy Boys books and was looking for something diff.
And M&B WAS different.
I remember
the first book I read was set in Greece. I was more fascinated by the surroundings described in the book than by the goings on in it!
By the time I had finished 3 books, I discovered Arthur Hailey and it was good-bye M&B.
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