A mid-18th century illustration of Richardson’s Sir Charles Grandison: Grandison rescues Jeronymo
Jamie as a young Scots farmer (a memory of himself from Outlander, Season 1, Episode 2, Castle Leoch)
I attended (went to?) a superb talk on Sir Charles Grandison sponsored by the Digital Seminar group at Eighteenth Century Studies, and found it so stimulating I managed to take good enough notes to at least give the gist of the talk, and then compare what was said to contemporary startling instances of male virginity (in Outlander, my current addiction). What was particularly valuable about Dr Rebecca Barr’s talk was how she related the misogynistic anger at the core of male virginity (weaponized, a way to control women) not only to characters in novels (St John Rivers in Jane Eyre), but also to what we saw in Brett Kavanaugh.
Gentle friends and readers,
Have you guessed what Grandison and Fraser have in common? both were virgins on their wedding nights. Yes.
I today attended a very interesting Open Digital Seminar (zoom lecture and meeting) today sponsored by Eighteenth Century Studies, a talk delivered by Dr Rebecca Anne Barr, Lecturer in Gender and Sexualities at the Faculty of English, at the University of Cambridge, “The Good Man on trial, or male virginity and the politics of misogyny.” It fascinates me because the pattern she uncovers is the same one found in Outlander for the two top heroes, Jamie Fraser and his eventual son-in-law, Roger Mackenzie Wakefield, and helps explain what I thought paradoxical oddities of attitudes in women readers especially (but also men) towards sexuality in other heroes of today’s historical romances. As usual this is by no means all Dr Barr said; it is only an outline with the particulars I could get down in my notes.
Rebecca Barr argued (and demonstrated from Richardson’s Sir Charles Grandison) that by a combination of mood techniques (including humor) that male virginity is used to create rhetorical and actual power for men to control female sexuality. Unexpectedly perhaps this characteristic usually demanded of women before marriage, and thus associated with women, when found in, indeed insisted upon by a man, enables him to persuade women to accept his power over them. “Male virginity becomes “a key constituent of an intrinsically reactionary arsenal of public virtue.” I think most people who have read Grandison remember that Sir Charles was a proud virgin and after marriage chaste man. What was startling was Ms Barr went on to display a photograph of Brett Kavanaugh a couple of days after Christine Blasey Ford, under oath, accused him of leading a group of male fraternity members at a party to strip and gang-rape, or (as the individual case might be) humiliate her. The photograph was said to have caught Kavanaugh insisting he was a virgin until he married.
This is not the photograph Dr Barr showed, but another where we see how he yelled during the hearing, so fiercely angry did he let himself become (on whose advice I wonder? — click to enlarge)
I had been told but forgotten that with his wife to one side of him, and Kelly Conway on the other, he vehemently asserted that he could not have done such a deed because he was a virgin. His description of himself in high school and college as an intensely shy, sensitive, moral young man (=good) was a show-stopper. He was asserting an intense femininity of himself, aligning himself with a “feminine niceness” — at the same time as he spoke in an enraged, choleric voice, shouting his words, to make chastity the bedrock of (his and all) male goodness. A man who did lead a group of fraternity guys to rape women who were so foolish as to come to their parties.
Clarissa (Saskia Wickham), (1991 BBC Clarissa, scripted David Nokes)
Dr Barr asserted that in Richardson’s Clarissa, the rake is the worst sort of husband; in Grandison, chastity and virginity guarantee the best sort of husband. She went on to talk of how in Clarissa Charles Hickman, it is suggested, is a delicate chaste man, mocked and ridiculed by Anna, he is as part of his character a gentle, kind, loving and protective husband. (A little later she said that Mr B in Pamela II anticipates Sir Charles.) This derision of Hickman was (in effect) echoed by Terry Eagleton who in his famous book on The Rape of Clarissa wrote an acerbic dismissal of Sir Charles; bluntly he remarked that in a patriarchal society it does not matter if the man is chaste or not. There is no price, no value put on a man’s virginity, such a virtue would be a personal characteristic with no general inference; this critic was repulsed by this assertion of Sir Charles. Ms Barr disagreed and argued that Richardson’s ploy here is more relevant than ever even if such a virtue is kept silent. Hickman, yes, is made a joke out of, he is despised by Anne as meek; she does not know whether to pity or laugh at him; he looks guilty like someone who committed a fault.
But Richardson is careful to align and attribute to Sir Charles all other usual male characteristics: physical bravery, virility when tested, wealth, intelligence, the prestige of rank, socially able. His kin all around him adore and value him, and call him “a good man;” this “womanly private virtue” becomes a sort of weapon in his repertoire to assert his superiority to other men and to the women involved with him. They have to come up to his chastity, themselves be just as “good.” This is not a form of feminism, or femininity but “triumph of discipline,” all the more because it is asserted he has a hot temper, is proud, not naturally timid at all. In this way the male is exalted, and the women all around him made to dwindle into fallible people.
Philip Skelton, one of Richardson’s correspondents, responded to this portrait by demanding that Grandison “be persecuted” and be paired with a “bad woman” (of course the worst trait given a woman is drunkard so she should be a drunkard, slattern), and if Sir Charles is able to cope with such women, it will make him a favorite among female readers. (Whether Skelton was alive to the irony of this I couldn’t tell.) Ms Barr pointed to passages in Grandison where we are told Sir Charles would have agreed with God to annihilate the first Eve and produce a second one, and she suggested that Harriet is the second best in the novel. Sir Charles loved Clementina first. Richardson’s correspondents, Catherine Talbot and Elizabeth Carter (two friends) also voiced that less than moral attitudes would characterize women’s responses to Sir Charles’s women — they saw other women as wanting to possess Sir Charles themselves. Ms Barr reminded us that in Jane Eyre, St John Rivers is a austerely chaste man who appeals intensely to Jane, but who would suffocate her with his intensity and offer her a torturing kind of love; he could become an unnatural tyrant over her. Bronte is showing us how such a good man oppresses a heroine. Male virtue here is weaponized when virtue (self-control) extends to virginity; it can be an excuse for male virulence, male rage, his frustration is implicitly sympathized with.
Dr Barr ended her talk around this point; she has written a paper on this topic, which will appear in the next issue of Eighteenth Century Studies; the paper is part of a book project.
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Jamie and Claire (Caitriona Balfe), “The Wedding Night” (Outlander, Season 1, Episode 7)
There was time for a question and answer period through chat or through making yourself un-muted and visible. I just found it irresistible to tell of how Jamie Fraser turns out to be unexpectedly a virgin when it is time for him to marry Claire — in order to rescue her from the probable beating, torture, imprisonment and rape by the evil villain of the first books and seasons of Outlander, Black Jack Randall. By contrast, Claire has been married and at first she is supposed to be teaching him. He does not need much instruction: it turns out he has kissed and “made out” many a girl; they just didn’t consummate. Why not, we are not told. Ms Barr was right because this state of gentle purity does give Jamie a special status — especially because he has all other male traits, and he says and makes good his promise to keep Claire safe as long as she stays by him.
Brianna (Sophie Skelton) beginning to understand that Roger Wakefield (Richard Rankin) wants an engagement and marriage as the price of a relationship with him (Outlander, Season 3, Episode 4, Of Lost Things)
I also realized that the second generation hero of the romances, Roger Wakefield, exhibits a similar superiority and gets to control Brianna, Jamie’s daughter by Claire, because he will not have sex with her unless they become engaged and are about to be married or married. She wants to be free and have sex with him as she pleases and then return to university to finish her degree. If they feel later they want to continue the relationship, fine. If not, fine. She has committed to nothing, with no promise of fidelity either. Well, he’s not having that, and they quarrel fiercely over this. Needless to say, Roger wins — after all Brianna will and cannot force Roger to fuck her. Slowly and surely, Roger comes to dominate Brianna (mainly because she wants a relationship with Roger and can only have it on his terms) though she struggles against his asserting her right after they are “handfast” (have a private ceremony between themselves with God presumably looking on). And then she is punished because now alone she is quickly raped when she attempts to go into a tavern and be accepted as an equal human being to the men there.
Roger does suffer terribly. Later in the evening, Brianna is raped by Stephen Bonnet, and when, having discovered Brianna has returned to her parents, Roger seeks her there, Jamie and Brianna’s cousin, Ian, think he is the rapist, beat him ferociously, and sell him to the Indians. So Roger is enslaved and humiliated and treated horribly for a long time. But when the ordeal is over, he has won.
Similarly Jamie is persecuted because Black Jack Randall is homosexual and deeply attracted to Jamie and captures him, and beats, tortures him, threatening to rape and kill Claire; he shatters Jamie (this is what torturers do) and rapes him to the point that Jamie loses his sense of an identity, and agrees to accept Randall. So Skelton’s demand that the male paragon be persecuted as part of the complex icon here is repeated in the 21st century.
Jamie’s Agon (Outlander, Season 1, Episode 16: To Ransom a Man’s Soul)
It may be that Hickman is made fun of, is “a comic figure” with little power over Anna Howe, whom he is pathetically grateful to marry. But it was noted that “if Lord G, Charlotte Grandison’s husband, is similarly ridiculed” for not being able to control his wife or stop her from domineering over him; nonetheless. “the marriage disciplines her.” She must accept pregnancy and breast-feeding his child. He is “second best to Charles, whom Charlotte would have married if Charles has not been her brother.”
Several other people offered ideas and parallels to Sir Charles in eighteenth century characters and twentieth. Richardson is “re-fashioning the rake,” and making a “new culturally attractive” moralized “Christian” icon. Carol Stewart offered the idea that by presenting a male this way you detach heterosexuality from agency. A character can be forceful and active and not heterosexually involved with anyone.
Dr Barr responded that there is a “heterosexual pessimism” at the core of this kind of icon; heterosexuality is not presented as good for people; sex is distrusted; we are committed to love and to sex, but it is not necessarily in our best interests to be sexually active; it can be against our interests; the best thing you can do is resign yourself. You end up with a resigned or deflated happiness. Harriet is a second best choice. The sexual life of Sir Charles and Clementina is deeply troubled.
This reminded me of the attitude towards sexuality in J.L. Carr’s A Month in the Country where sex causes anguish and grief, especially to homosexual or emotionally vulnerable and tender men. It can lead to heroines marrying someone who is non-congenial and with whom life is a form of deprivation.
The self-tortured James Moon (Kenneth Branagh) (1987 A Month in the Country, scripted Simon Gray)
There was talk of the second Eve or Lilith as an icon in 19th century fiction. That these underlying complexes of feelin suggest why Sir Charles is attractive to women readers — or was. George Eliot is said to have loved the novel. There is an eroticism in this femininity, or feminine aspect of a man. I know this to be true of Sam Heughan as Jamie Fraser.
I also know in the case of Winston Graham’s Ross Poldark, the readership is ferocious in denying that he raped Elizabeth Poldark — they dislike intensely any reference to any liaisons he may have had before he marries Demelza, and in the book any hints that he has affairs while an M.P in London are kept very discreet. It should be said that most of males in the Poldark series show no trace of homosexuality; they and the women characters, though, have strong same-sex friendships.
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St John Rivers (Andrew Bicknell, very handsome, brooding, absolutely chaste (1983 Jane Eyre, scripted Alexander Baron, probably the best of the 20th century adaptations)
The meeting concluded with bringing up a global dimension. We were reminded by one of the people who introduced the session that St John Rivers is a missionary going to Africa to convert African people to Christianity. He wanted Jane to be disciplined to be part of his imperial project. Jane, though, says the demands of such a role would have killed her and much prefers to return to Rochester to make a home for herself and him. That missionaries are aggressively destroying the identities of “other” people, and St John would have regarded Jane’s death as “collateral damage” in the way the US regards all the native peoples we destroy. In some post-colonial formulations, these “other” people become “spectral bodies” who will then be dominated.
This made me remember the fate of some of the Native Americans or Indians that the Frasers interact with in Drums of Autumn, and that the woods of North Carolina are haunted by the revenant of Otter-Tooth, a young man once called Roger Springer, who came from the 20th century back to the 18th and was assimilated into an Indian tribe, was killed “as a troublemaker” and now is an apparently grieving ghost haunting both present and past.
I may be overdoing these parallels, for, as we move away from Richardson’s Sir Charles Grandison, Bronte’s St John Rivers, and the hypocritical thug-rapist, now Supreme Court Justice, Brett Kavanaugh, we lose sight of Dr Barr’s central core point: literature’s male virgins have a peculiarly misogynist anger at their core. Perhaps one of the differences in more humane 20th and 21st century literature is that homoeroticism and homosexuality form part of the complex of sexuality openly shown to be part of male iconic characters.
Jane Eyre (Ruth Wilson) (2006 TV JE, scripted Sandy Welch)
Ellen
Reveries Under the Sign of Austen, Two 
The prospectus:
https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/odsecs-6-rebecca-anne-barr-tickets-115891539715#
“The Good Man on trial, or, male virginity and the politics of misogyny”
About this Event
In Sir Charles Grandison, or, The Good Man (1754), Samuel Richardson created a character who was not merely a good Christian gentleman, but also attractive and worth emulation – and a virgin until marriage. Throughout eighteenth-century literature, and beyond, fictions which appear to follow women’s desires and narrative are undergirded by the prompts and prerogatives of male heterosexuality. This talk examines the rhetorical power of male virginity in making ‘good men’ and the gendered politics of such representations. In this deliberately partial genealogy, I argue that male virginity is a key constituent of an intrinsically reactionary arsenal of pubic virtue. In these case studies militant forms of manly exceptionalism are used in order to subordinate women and to halt virtue’s perceived ‘feminine drift’. From Milton to Grandison, from Jane Eyre’s St John Rivers to the 2018 testimony of Supreme Judge Brett Kavanaugh, I argue that literature’s male virgins have a peculiarly misogynist anger at their core.
In the Outlander books, Jamie explicitly explained why he was still a virgin. As I recall, his father advised him not to dishonour any women or make bastards, especially if he was not in a financial position to ameliorate the damage done.
Thank you. I had forgotten the rationale. Roger’s rationale is that when he is serious about a girl, he will not have sex with her until they are engaged – which is rather paradoxical. These rationales do not erase the cultural motive actuating the fictional trope.
Someone remarked: “Interesting view of Grandison. 18th Century Incel? (except voluntary of course).”
I don’t understand what the word “Incel” refers to in that sentence. According to an online dictionary, men who decide to be virgins do so voluntarily. Neither Grandison nor Fraser (nor Wakefield) remain virgins; once they marry, the characters are fully sexual; they are also sexually faithful to their wives. But there are male characters in other books who do withhold sex from their wives; Ghandi famously did so.
I should say that I put this summary on my Austen reveries blog and here because Grandison is said to have been such a favorite book of Austen’s; we know she makes fun of it as the only book available to read in NA; i read somewhere that she and Cassandra had a copy of Clarissa in their room at Chawton.
Ellen
I should mention that it’s sometimes said Mr Knightley is a character modeled or much influenced by, say inspired by Richardson’s portrait of Grandison — except Austen is so tactful. I see as many differences between them as similiarities, though I must say people used to ask if Mr Knightley could be a virgin.
Austen is said to have read Grandison to the point she knew parts of it by heart
Since so many romances are cited here, I am also wondering if anyone can cite other male characters who persist in virginity until marriage?
Ellen
I should add it was patently obvious that Kavanaugh made a career in high school and his fraternity at Yale of leading gangs of elite males in gang-raping and humiliating girls foolish and naive enough to go to their parties. This one victim, Christine Blasey Ford, who came forward so bravely became a target of death threats and her career is said to have been ruined.
Tyler: “I never thought Sir Charles in any way less of a man than others, despite his virginity. I can’t think of any male characters in literature who persist in virginity until marriage, but this is largely because such things were not made plain in literature. There certainly were historical cases of women who complained of husbands not touching them soon after they were married, though I can’t remember who they are now. In these cases, however, the husband was either still a boy or perhaps gay.
Of course, there are saints who were virgins but they are mostly medieval and before the 18th and 19th century we are discussing.
Tyler”
My reply: Thank you for this reply because it prompts me to say the point was he’s not less of a man; he’s behaving that way as a way of controlling women and gaining higher status. The parallel with St John Rivers – and Ghandi as a real life example are to the point, and the larger cultural idea is this is what a thug like Kavanaugh used to deny that he could rape anyone. And got away with it. I thought of James Fraser as an example of just what she said (a way paradoxically of giving him higher status, extra respect — on the FB page some women immediately said he had remained a virgin because his father told them this way he would not risking ruining any girl’s reputation!); he’s raped himself and yet remains an utterly masculine (and not feminist) icon. Roger Wakefield is a soft version.
It’s what such behavior means in the way of social manipulation that the paper was about. Also heterosexual pessimism: in these books sexuality is a trouble; it makes for anguish for many, it’s something whose circumstances do not bring much happiness, but resignation.
I don’t think your citing of Ghandi is relevant here. As I understand it, his relationship with his wife was perfectly normal until his father lay dying. He had kept vigil by his father’s bedside for some considerable time but eventually abandoned his father’s deathbed to spend time with his wife, having sex. When he went back to his father’s bedroom, the old man had already died. G. saw this as a vile act of betrayal, that he had abandoned his father in the latter’s last moments through lust for his wife. It was his lack of self-control and what he saw as the triumph of self-indulgance over duty that horrified him and he spent the rest of his life doing penance for this lapse.
I’ve read otherwise. One can rationalize something — I see in Ghandi’s behavior to women much misogyny. Of course this way he controls his wife — why is sex bad anyway? Yes he had not been there for the death, but for the rest of his life have no sex. It’s part of this distrust of sexuality in the first place.
Mary Cantwell wrote:
Knightley as Grandison makes sense in a lot of ways – Grandison did spend a lot of time lecturing the women within his circle on morality and ethics, Grandison somewhat less hectoring maybe and better control of his temper.
I’ve just recently been jotting down some similarities between characters in Grandison and Clarissa (have not read Pamela) with characters in Austen’s novels.
I had thought that Anna’s mother’s trying to force her to marry Hickman was similar to the Elizabeth Bennett/Mr Collins situation, with Anna/Elizabeth women finding the men laughable. Grandison’s sister also has a male suitor, Lord G, whom she laughs at and Grandison is trying to push her to acceptance of this suitor. In both cases they have to learn not to ridicule their spouses and have to learn respect. (Anna gets there I think when Hickman comes to the aid of Clarissa/ I thought this had shades of Darcy rescuing Lydia but not quite as dramatic).
I had not considered the male virginity issue except that I wondered about Knightley and Brandon’s virginity. Surely men of their age would not be virgins? And were they virtuous only in not seducing high born women while going to prostitutes? Richardson was extremely blunt when explaining how underprivileged women were forced into prostitution and did not cut men any slack for hiring prostitutes. I am fascinated with his views that women should be allowed a safe place to go in England to avoid prostitution … he suggested (via Grandison) that Protestant convents be established.
I’m getting far afield of your post so back to the issue, i.e., male virginity as a means of controlling women. This is a new concept to me. The preacher in Rain comes to mind. I do catch a very RC priestly vibe in Richardson. I give him great credit for understanding the female position and vulnerability and the talent for making female characters come to life. I never felt from him that he blamed women for their sexuality, that sort of primitive animal feeling that a woman is evil because her sexuality overpowers the male. I find him to be very sympathetic to women. Now I am seeing that in Grandison he has created a character who is all about women so long as he is their spiritual guide and he keeps his (sexual) distance from them.
A very good blog and much to think about. Thank you.
I replied:
Dear Mary,
Thank you for this reply. It’s an old consensus that Austen’s model for Mr Knightley was Sir Charles Grandison and a significant difference is Austen has the literary tact to put across an exemplary male without making him into an offensive paragon, which to many readers Grandison becomes after a while. There has been a move lately (among the various topsy-turvy readings of Austen’s novels) to argue that Mr Knightley is meant to be a villain: that’s what the woman who wrote JA, Secret Radical says. The suggestion that Knightley might be a virgin (and even Darcy) comes from the older assumptions that there is little sex in Austen – one must admit there is little overt sex. But nothing in either book suggests this about them: they are moral men, live ethically just lives.
I admit I had not thought about this aspect of male virginity – as a weapon to control women, to gain high status, as the overt norm is to ridicule a man who is not macho male, which seems to include aggressive and even predatory sex (with women and men). But one can never think too much about the difference between what is said, and what is thought. The example of Kavanaugh brings this out in the open — on top of which of course he was probably also lying — all the evidence that was presented (and a good deal that was repressed even more) suggests a thug-type in elite male circles.
In Outlander this controlling of women is seen much more clearly in the second generation: Roger Wakefield is not a virgin, but he is a chaste man, and when he is serious about a woman he does not want to have sex with her until they are engaged. This does leave it open that he may have sex with women whom he is not serious about, and that road leads to exploitation and dismissal and contempt (perhaps) the woman imagined. The only way Brianna can have the relationship with him she wants is to get engaged and that means promising marriage.
I wish I could remember other instances of male virgins — when I’ve come across it I have been perplexed (let’s say) but not noted the character’s name or book to remember it. I am now remembering that one Jane Austen sequel I read had a male virgin for the hero — maybe it was My Jane Austen summer. I’m not sure. But I did think to myself there is something going on here that needs explanation and felt also there was something 21st century and deeply conservative, somehow paradoxically patriarchal about this. Barr’s paper laid the line of thought out.
Ellen
I have been reminded by Tamar Lindsey that Joseph Andrews remains a virgin until the end of the novel when (presumably) he consummates with Fanny.
I replied: “Why thank you, Tamar. Yes, and it paradoxically gives Joseph Andrews’ status, makes him more invulnerable to Lady Booby’s advances). Henry Fielding was no feminist and in most of his novels he presents the opposite of what was the usual truth: women who lie about rape (Tom Jones), women who are predatory monsters (Lady Booby in Joseph Andrews, Lady Bellaston in Tom Jones); his mockery of Richardson’s Pamela in Shamela may be read as turning the tables on the myth and insisting it was all calculated hypocrisy (a sham). His last novel, Amelia, shows a considerable change of attitude (it was written after he read Clarissa), and the soliloquy of Anne Boleyn in his Journey from this world to the next shows surprising empathy with Anne Boleyn.
I have been trying to remember more 20th and 21st century works.
Ellen
Thanks to Tamar Lindsey, a list of virginal heroes, compiled 3/97-11/13
https://allaboutromance.com/virginal-heroes/
[…] to suck his penis; she lied continually during those hearings. How did Trump find her — and the thug-rapist pseudo-virgin Kavanaugh? why the Federalist Society. Listen to Senator Whitehouse of Rhode […]
Dorothy Gannon:
“Very interesting topic, Ellen. Funnily enough, I just finished reading the second of Laurie R. King’s Sherlock Holmes/Mary Russell series, A Monstrous Regiment of Women.
Since the series has been out for years, I had heard beforehand that Holmes and Russell end up as a couple (frankly, the reason I resisted reading it). I was finally convinced to do so by the splendid reading of Jenny Serlin, audio narrator for the Mary Russell books; however, after being won over by King’s writing, I was curious as to how she would mate the confirmed bachelor to a young 20th century woman, no matter how brilliant she may be.
In the end, King manages to pull it off quite well (many echoes of Harriet Vane/Peter Wimsey here), however, she does seem wary of marrying Mary to a virgin bachelor, for we learn in the opening of the second book that (spoiler alert) that Holmes has had a son, no longer living. As with the Sayers Wimsey/Vane novels, King seems hypersensitive to the balance of power between the two characters; Holmes superpower is his intelligence, but Russell is a match for him in all but age, experience, and he’s careful not to use any advantage.
Of course the Holmes of the original series was a (virgin?) bachelor, but with, presumably, no romantic entanglements.
I’m curious to know if you find 20th or 21st century stories that boldly go ahead with a virgin male, without its being comic.
Dorothy”
My reply:
Dorothy, you don’t mean to say that Sherlock Holmes in this novel by Laurie R. King is a virgin? I ask because in the second novel you say Mary learns that Sherlock has a son.
I have never read any Mary Russell books, though I’ve heard of them. I feel something of the original astonishment I felt when I first began to come across male virgins in 20th century novels by women. I have never thought that Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes is a virgin; granted, in those stories I have read he does not seem to have a female — or male — partner, but that is part of the particular group of characteristics (or so I thought) so typical of detective mystery stories.
See my blog where I outline the characteristics of mysteries as elucidated by Andrew Marr:
https://ellenandjim.wordpress.com/2020/10/08/distinguishing-detective-from-spy-from-sorcerer-stories/
If I thought about it at all when I was younger, I might have said he’s a gay man, or a man not keen on sex, or an usual solitary type, intellectual, using drugs &c. A bachelor, and later there is something homoerotic between him and Watson.
20th and 21st century stories: Well Tamar has cited a bunch through a URL; I’ve already cited Outlander: but Jamie has had sexual experiences, he has just not “gone all the way,” and he has no problem learning quickly with Claire the first night (she’s been married 5 years). Funny the way that fans dislike being told something “out of the way” about their favorite characters. Those Outlander readers who have come to my blog went back and found out that in the book Jamie said he was a virgin because his father told him not to ruin any girl. That takes care of that; they can dismiss any further thoughts. And Roger Wakefield is not a virgin; he just does not want to have sex before an engagement with any girl he means to be serious with, a position that contains a number of contradictory assumptions (and is misogynistic since it’s clear he would be willing to use sexually any girl he is not engaged to,
except of course he is such a sweet gentle young man, we cannot imagine him hurting any woman. He automatically tries to protect women (we see in the 20th and then the 18th century)
Ellen
In Mary Stewart’s 1970s Arthurian novels, the narrator, Merlin, is a virgin until he falls in love with Nimue. The Crystal Cave (1970) where he is brought up is an equivalent to Sophia Lee’s The Recess (1783); it is one of The Hollow Hills (1973), which serves as a portal rather like the Standing Stones in Outlander (Craig Na Dun in Scotland, near Inverness). Stewart’s third title is The Last Enchantment (1979). Merlin is an outsider … not just human in the way of Stewart’s naturalistic characters.
Dorothy Gannon again:
“Ellen,
No no – I don’t meant to say Laurie King’s Sherlock Holmes is a virgin. As I attempted to say in my post, King neatly evades the virgin bachelor question by letting the reader know that Holmes has had a son, now deceased (though we have to wait till nearly the end of the novel to find out with whom). It seemed to me that she very definitely, very specifically, wanted to take the virgin bachelor off the table early on.
After seeing your first post, I’d been musing about the writer’s task in making a virgin hero believable, appealing, etcetera – or, making the decision, as King did, that it couldn’t be done with a particular hero. (Side note: my take on Holmes has always been was that he was for whatever reason a confirmed bachelor, uninterested in women/sex. I’ve always thought of the original Holmes as being a bit of an iceberg, to be honest, and that unwavering impression has stayed with me – until reading King’s version; I thought she made him believable, while seeming to stick closely to to the gestalt of Conan Doyle’s original.)
But your examination of the topic makes we wonder about how other writers, especially the modern, take on the male virgin as a character.* Haven’t read the Outlander books, just viewed the first two television seasons, and I thought the topic neatly handled; the hero is not one jot less appealing or attractive, it’s even sexy.
Interestingly, after reading your blog today, where Ursula Le Guin’s Earthsea series is mentioned in Andrew Marr’s listing of mystery/fantasy “thrillers” it suddenly struck me that, coincidentally, I’d just finished reading or rereading the first four books of the series – which does have a virgin hero.
It seems to me that modern authors are careful to emphasize a more modern, feminist power dynamic – judging by this very small sample.
Dorothy”
My reply: “It is an interesting topic because the trope (male hero as virgin until marriage) sheds light on a number of connecting issues. I like your word of “careful:” modern authors are careful to emphasize … feminist power dynamic …” They are not writing from within first and foremost, but with an awareness to sell and today it’s far more common to hear protests against depictions of women as victims (they assume that means the person is weak and that’s has ever been a no-no) and satisfaction in empowerment no matter what for or how.
I did come across more virgins (as I have it on my mind): in fantasy: Mary Stewart’s modern Arthuriad, which is written in the historical realistic mode insofar as this is possible, are narrated by Merlin, about whom the point is made he’s a virgin. Again referencing something not timebound, in myth the figure who is virgin can be presented as stronger. To be get involved sexually is to render yourself emotionally vulnerable, in bed physically vulnerable: think of the goddess Diana who is a huntress and powerful – -and scary, determined. It is not irrelevant that she’s a huntess and men are scared of her. Underlying this is the idea that as long as a woman is a virgin she has not lost power; give yourself to a man and you yourself join the unsafe. Spenser’s Britomart is the same type. Think of Adonis, Narcissus. Now that links back to the patriarchal taboo that women must be virgins, but remember Galahad — an Arthurian figure stronger by his virginity. Diana Wallace who describes these Stewart novels in her The Woman’s Historical Novel, British, 1900-2000, does suggest that there is something to be looked at because Stewart makes such a point of this. Eventually Merlin does have sex, with a Nimue, and things go badly afterwards. This is Stewart’s version; there are so many different ones nowadays.
Yes I incline to the idea that Holmes prefers to remain detached.
I’m also watching the superb French TV series, A French Village. By the fourth episode we meet a young man named Antoine who rises to be a leader, naturally has some leadership qualities, but he is also naive about social life and what’s valued and has too much integrity to last. Turns out he is a virgin when we first meet him. Perhaps a bit old for this but maybe not, and we see him move into his first encounter with one of our heroines; the film is not graphic and we then see them afterwards. He didn’t do so well, and feels ashamed or peculiar, and she is all forgiving or it doesn’t matter. This is a case where all we are talking about does not obtain. The last thing he is thinking of is dominating any woman. We are simply watching a young man grow up, but it is interesting this is made a point of and that he is presented as curiously psychologically invulnerable in some ways.
Ellen
Loraine: “Yes, or more simply, male virgins are saints, female ones are losers. But it isn’t really that simple, I know, and she makes a good case. I hadn’t remembered Kavanaugh saying that: how weird.[St. John is going to India, not Africa, but I’m nit-picking].”