A Little Wilder, Please

Scene: A young woman enters the plain room where the meeting is held, obviously nervous. She carries with her an oversized purse and adjusts her glasses on her nose as she cautiously makes her way toward the circle of folding chairs. She takes the only empty seat, lifting her hand in tentative greeting to the other members of the support group. 

Hey. Hi. Um…my name is Edie. What else am I supposed to say? Oh, yeah. My name’s Edie, and I am a prude.

[She looks around.] Should I…just keep talking? Okay. Sure. I can do that. I’m really good at talking.

So, like I said, I’m a prude. Which sounds an awful lot like “prune,” and that just makes me think of wrinkly old ladies who wear a lot of purple.

I mean, I love purple—my shirt is purple, see?—but I’m not old. Or wrinkly. I’m only twenty-five. My generation has a lot of issues, but one thing we sure don’t have a problem with is sex. We love sex. Sex is awesome. We have it with all sorts of people in all these different ways, and there are toys for everyone and videos of us banging on the Internet and, like, nothing is taboo. Nothing. I feel so desensitized to it, though. All the sex. I can read about anything, talk about anything—ménages, exhibitionism, BDSM, whatever—and only think, “Meh.”

And still, I’m actively seeking out sex.

Wait, no. That’s not what I meant. Hold on— [She rummages in her bag, which covers her entire lap, until she pulls out a thin, black tablet device.] This. This is what I mean. I’m reading romances, and the best romances have sex in them, right?

But the thing is, for me it’s not about the bedroom acrobatics or the who-can-put-what-where-before-the-other-cries-when. Me and my generation, we’re immune to that sort of stuff, probably from watching too much porn. So the sex in these romances needs to be totally off the charts to grab my interest, because I’ve seen it (and maybe done it) all, right?

No. Just…no. Which is why I’m here. [She adjusts her glasses again.]

I’m here because the first romance I recognized as such was that between Laura Ingalls and Almanzo Wilder in These Happy Golden Years. The Little House books are staple literature, especially for a Midwestern girl like me. I was probably around six or seven when I first read THGY, and the stories spanning Laura and Almanzo’s courtship—starting peripherally in The Long Winter and culminating with The First Four Years—are the only books in the series I’ve reread. More than once. Because those books give me a case of the happy sighs.

I still think about Almanzo Wilder all the time. Well, not all the time, obviously. [She laughs, awkwardly.] But that love story is so sweet and real, and I could totally see him falling in love with her and her with him and it was awesome!

Almanzo Wilder, surprising wonk hottie extraordinaire.

[She realizes she’s gotten too excited, her voice climbing in pitch and volume. Clearing her throat, she sinks a little in her seat.]

Anyway, the point is, Almanzo Wilder, if he were a romance hero written by a modern author today, would be so incredibly wonky. No, really. He’s a farmer living and working with his brother—named Royal, of all things—and even though he’s all short and quiet and loner-like, he goes and saves the whole town from starvation by risking life and limb in a blizzard to get food and stuff from some weird guy who’s got food to sell but lives far away. And then he starts chauffeuring this chick back and forth and they talk about his farm and his vehicle, and there are calling cards involved, and stilted flirtation, and lots of awkward silences, and then BAM! the serious romancing starts.

[She is too excited again. Not that she cares.] I’m just gonna put this out there: I think they probably had good sex. Yeah. I said it. I think Laura and Manly—which is an awesomely wonky nickname, right?—had good sex. It wasn’t in those pages, but there’s subtext there, and that subtext is like, “He was manly all the time. Heh.”

…But you’re wondering what this has to do with me being a prude. (I told you I was good at talking.) It’s simple. Now, as an adult, I want to read about the fictionalized Almanzo Wilders and know that they find good love and good lovin’ with women who embrace the fact that these men are a little different.

The sex itself doesn’t need to be the different part. That good sex I think Almanzo and Laura had? I bet a lot of it was missionary. And I bet it rocked their worlds.

Maybe I’ve seen too much raunchiness on the web, and so I don’t look at threesomes and immediately think, “Ooh, sexytimes, they are a-happenin’!” And there are all those positions that look like I would need ten years of yoga flexibility training to master; it’s not hot for me to read about things I can’t possibly-maybe-someday-fingers-crossed do. …I’m looking at you, balancing-on-a-motorcycle sex.

I like normal, good ol’ fashioned, Almanzo Wilder sex. In my books, in my head, et cetera. Where the man can be a titch off but the romancing is always spot-on.

Anyway, yeah. [She shrugs, sliding her e-reader back into her purse.] I’m Edie. I know just about everything there is to know about sex, but I’m a prude. And that’s my wonky little secret.

So. [She looks around the room, eyebrow arched.] Who’s next?

End scene.

About Edie Harris

Edie Harris writes erotic and historical romances. Read more >
This entry was posted in Life & Wonk and tagged , , , . Bookmark the permalink.

7 Responses to A Little Wilder, Please

  1. Thanks for this! The universe is so strange. I haven’t seen anything on Wilder at all for awhile and then last night the monthly meeting of our Liberal Arts college’s Friends of the Library had as their author-guest Kelly Ferguson, who read the first chapter of her travelogue/memoir “My Life as Laura” where she searches for her self by reliving Laura Wilder’s journey. I was intrigued by the first chapter, so got the book and look forward to reading. And then this morning in my Google Reader is this post. *cue Twilight music*

  2. Ruthie Knox says:

    Ha! Awesome post, Edie. My introduction to Wilder was all ass-backwards: the first one of her books I ever read was a paperback copy of The First Four Years that was kicking around my house. It was clearly from one of the children’s book lines, with children’s-book-looking cover art, but . . . not a children’s book. I had NO IDEA what to make of that book when I read it at age eight or nine. Then, a few years later, I read Little House in the Big Woods, which is 180 degrees in the opposite direction. Collectively, those two books put me off Wilder for good. But I have a feeling that if I revisited now, I’d enjoy the books with Manly in them. I remember The First Four Years being kind of plain-spoken and honest and a little bleak, what with the endless string of disasters. Just my kind of romance!

  3. Edie Harris says:

    Angela: Weird coincidence! …Or is it? :P I will say, living in Iowa as I do, I’ve been to the Laura Ingalls Wilder Park & Museum in Burr Oak, Iowa. Not because of any great, pressing fangirl need to visit it, but I think there was a convenient rest-stop nearby? We’d been driving for a while. However, the tour was great…after we hit the restrooms.

    Ruthie: The First Four Years is totally dark—I can’t imagine reading it first in that series! Their daughter, Rose, wrote a series of supposedly children’s books, as well, that I read when I was in middle school, and while her own romances weren’t as epic, I found myself intrigued by the glimpses of Laura and Manly through their daughter’s eyes. It still looked, to me, like they were really in love. Which, being an avid romance reader by that point, I loved.

  4. Serena Bell says:

    Love this … such an eloquent ode to sweetness and wonkiness–and it REALLY makes me want to go back and read? re-read that book. I’m also going to spend most of the rest of the day snickering over “… that subtext is like, ‘He was manly all the time. Heh.'”

  5. Pingback: “Wonk-O-Mance” & Me | Edie's Blog

  6. Amber Skye says:

    This was very cute! And, you know, I remember a few “wonkomance” books from my teen-YA days. I wonder if that was a sign of the times or whether YA just gets to have more fun. Because, seriously, they get the cooler covers! We grown-ups need to step it up…