Sexual Integrity: Balancing Your Passion with Purity
One of Purity's enduring memories is a one-night stand with a virgin midshipman due to leave on the next tide: Mark touched her cheek, smiling down at her. She's amazingly honest with her one true love Mark, telling him he isn't the first by a long shot, and he does the very untypical bodice ripper hero thing and says paraphrased , "Yeah, I've slept around, too, so I have no cause to be angry. We're square now and I love you, that's all that matters.
To each their own and extra points to those who had actually read it , but I think it got slapped around unfairly. IMO it was a great and fun story set in Regency England that didn't rely on marriage wagers, spies, on-the-shelf spinsters, wallflowers, wuvable teddy bears in rake's clothing, or a hero or heroine who just happens to have siblings or friends that will get their own books over the next few years. That in itself would recommend it. The fact that it has a likable albeit slightly dumb heroine who goes through Hell to triumph in the end, as well as plenty of vivid characters and some thrilling action and tender romance are bonuses.
I'm definitely reading the rest of Purity's trilogy. I hear there was yet another massive outbreak of squeamish book cooties at the Smart Bitches a few months ago.
Sexual Integrity
Good Lord, get a spine. Onto the TBR shortlist it goes. View all 35 comments. In between we witness the epic tale of Purity, a woman so beautiful many men desire her, they would ravish her, control her and kill for her And it's a good one. Janette Seymour was a deft storyteller, quickly pulling me in with Purity witnessing a beautiful encounter of a couple making love and later sh The tale of Purity Jarsy part I begins with the the horrors of the French Revolution and ends in France after Napoleon's final defeat.
Janette Seymour was a deft storyteller, quickly pulling me in with Purity witnessing a beautiful encounter of a couple making love and later she sees the macabre slaughters of the Revolution. Purity is left orphaned and shaken in the aftermath. Mark "You may kiss me--here" Landless is the object of Purity's devotion. Much older than she, he is her appointed guardian, but he also shares a hidden bond with his ward.
Mark is a placeholder, we never see through his perspective. He is a scar-faced blue-eyed soldier who duels for Purity's honor, hurts her cruelly and the finally marries her. Her relationship with Mark is one of the weaker parts of the book, but since there are two sequels their romance will undoubtedly develop further. Purity has many men before being with her true love, and each experience shapes her uniquely: There is a touching one night romance Purity shares with a soldier doomed to die at sea, and a sweet love affair with wounded Gypsy boxer.
If the hero was more interesting, this might have detracted from the story, but since he wasn't, I just enjoyed the ride and didn't worry about the romance. As Purity says to herself I'm paraphrasing "She would come to Mark a complete woman. The story's pacing is a bit un-even, because most of the juicy parts are packed into the first third. But the author is skilled enough to make most of it enjoyable, even if the ending is a bit flat. Purity's Passion is a romance only because at the end of the book the female protaganist is united with the man she loves.
Otherwise, it's a soapy, door-stopper historical epic, typical of 70's and 80's. Readers-mostly women-from all walks of life used to openly enjoy these pulpy paperbacks with kaleidoskopic covers.
They were taken to fantastical worlds where the heroines' beauty got men so carried away with mad lust that they'd have her Now, not unlike tobacco cigarettes which I never smoked , bodice rippers are banished to the darkest corners, reviled in public for the unwholesome filth they contain.
Like a smoker relegated to puffing away in a cold alley, bodice ripper readers are banished to Romancelandia Siberia. And that's really a shame, because these books are a lot of fun! View all 10 comments. This has got to be the most rape-riddled novel I've ever read, and yet perversely, one of the least graphic. The heroine has sex with at least ten different men before the end of the book, only three willingly. When the clothes start falling off or being torn off, the author goes all poetic, so that Purity is either ascending the peaks, looking out over the Promised Land but only entering with her beloved Mark , or descending into the abyss and flinging herself into the flames of helll with the This has got to be the most rape-riddled novel I've ever read, and yet perversely, one of the least graphic.
When the clothes start falling off or being torn off, the author goes all poetic, so that Purity is either ascending the peaks, looking out over the Promised Land but only entering with her beloved Mark , or descending into the abyss and flinging herself into the flames of helll with the villain. Pretty tame, for all the lovemaking and raping going on. As it is, I don't think we ever become sufficiently engaged with either of the protagonists to empathize particularly, which is another reason the book fails, in my view.
You root for Purity, but only because you'd feel sorry for anyone who suffered as she did, not because you form any particular attachment to the character. She's pretty much an atomaton, suffering time and again and going on like a robot to the next person who'll abuse her without much emotion or trauma, never even gaining the street smarts to be suspicious of strangers offering too good a deal.
As for the hero, I actually disliked him all through, so why would I root for them to get together? Maybe the PTSD is why she is so emotionless, but it doesn't make it easy to empathize with her. And you'd think after she is raped for like the twentieth time some of her rapists abuse her repeatedly she'd be beyond sanity. At least, you'd think, she'd reach a point where she finally starts making some attempt to defend herself, instead of going all helpless victim. She only fights back once, and seems to regret it after the fact. Moreover, after witnessing and experiencing the worst kinds of cruelty, there are occasions when she sees others falling victim to the same evil, the same mob mentality, and she doesn't act.
Some of her school chums start a "club" that humiliates and more or less rapes a mentally challenged young man, threatening the lives and livelihoods of his family if he doesn't go along.
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Purity utters a token objection, but does nothing further to stop it. Later one of her friends is forcibly deflowered, and she still does nothing. Her reasons are explained and oh so sensible, but there's really no excuse for not trying to stop something she knows is wrong. So I didn't particularly like this character. She was just weak, morally, physically, and intellectually.
And then, one of her rapists is her Twue Wuv, her guardian, who pretty much treated her like dirt her whole life, sent her to that school where her "chums" were so abusive even though she tries weakly to tell him she hates the place, abandoned her to an abusive husband, but she wuuvs him anyway.
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He goes all mad dog after learning about all the other rapes, assuming without asking for her explanation that she must've been willing, so he rapes her. She runs away, but a year later, she goes back to him and, without any hint of remorse from him, pledges her undying love and begs him to hire her on as a servant, if nothing else.
I tasted bile at this point. From there on it's "Oh, my darling" this and "My sweet love" that, all billing and cooing and being insanely happy, even though I doubt any reader has any reason to think that Mark is the least bit likable, let alone lovable. Oh, he feels bad that he raped his true love and all that.
You see he did it because she reminds him of another man who had the first woman he ever loved, so he was getting back at that guy. Yeah, that explains it and makes it all better. And then, after he promises that he understands and accepts that she had sex, both willingly and unwillingly, with other men, he goes and does it again, when he learns that she slept with the villain, even tho he knows the man forced her to do things against her will before.
He walks away from her. When he finally deigns to come back, she rushes into his arms, again without ever seeking even a hint of remorse or apology for his abandonment. He's a creep and she's a doormat. It wasn't that out of line at the time of publication, to be fair; back then readers tolerated a lot more telling she felt sad that her husband was leaving her but she was too proud to let him know rather than showing She used a rough hand to scrub away a tear as she watched him go. She'd never let him see her cry. It may not be fair to hold this against the writer, but the style does help to distance the reader from the emotional content of the story.
Then again, as I said, if it had been less distancing, it might be too much, given all the heroine is made to suffer. There are two more books in the series, and I bought the whole series, so I guess I'll end up reading them all, just because I'm too compulsive to leave a story half told. Purity's Passion is a bodice ripper from the late 70's and boy, does it have a lot of bodice ripping going on!
Our heroine, Purity, lives on the estate of a debauched marquis during the French Revolution. After witnessing the horrors of revolutionary citizens, she is raised by her old nurse until she is rescued by Mark Landless, the cousin of the former marquis's wife. He takes the blossoming teenager to England and enrolls her in a girl's school, not realizing that there are some kinky girls th Purity's Passion is a bodice ripper from the late 70's and boy, does it have a lot of bodice ripping going on! He takes the blossoming teenager to England and enrolls her in a girl's school, not realizing that there are some kinky girls there.
Purity barely escapeds with her virginity intact, but after seeing Mark the Love of Her Life in a compromising position with a maid, she runs out and marries the only other man she knows who turns out to be a real rotter.
Sexual Integrity: Balancing Your Passion with Purity, with June Hunt
And so it goes. She runs in and out of bad situations, frequently naked at one point she runs naked into the streets and is picked up by a mysterious man who just happens to be passing by, looking for naked young women, I guess. She and Mark keep meeting and leaving each other. When it finally looks like they will be happy, there is a HUGE misunderstanding. Why is it that when one of the partners must choose to believe the person they love and adore more than anyone on the earth or the person who has lied and schemed against them through the whole book, that one will choose to believe the bad person?!
There are two more books after this one. It is a true bodice ripper and I do enjoy this genre. However, I'm not sure I can follow this deathless love across continents, from England to Algiers, to the Potomac to a royal coronation, and all the misunderstandings, and the "I slept with someone else because I thought: A you were dead; B he threatened to kill you if I didn't submit; or C I was so lonely and needed comfort.
Aug 02, Circa rated it it was amazing Shelves: Janette Seymour took every great old school bodice ripper trope, threw it into a whirlpool of rape with a dash of relentless damsel-in-distress torment and Purity's Passion is what sprang from the purple prose mess. It is epic and it was everything I wanted it to be. Balancing Your Passion with Purity Find: Remember your first real crush … the flush of your face, the pounding of your heart, the shortness of breath at your first touch?
Your heart was filled with excitement at the anticipation of holding hands and receiving a sweet goodnight kiss. What you think is love turns out to be lust… an illusion of relational intimacy … a counterfeit of the lasting love that sustains a relationship.
Too late, you learn there are great differences between lust and love. The Bible tells us …. Read more and get a free download on Sexual Integrity. Listen Online Email Sign Up rainforest creative writing ks2 http: Listen via our Broadcast Mobile App. Connect Facebook Twitter Newsletter Signup.