# Is There a Taboo on â€œMay-Decemberâ€ Romance Stories?



## adam smith (May 27, 2010)

*Is There a Taboo on “May-December” Romance Stories?*

First, off: I’m a newbie here, and I apologize if this is the wrong Forum to raise this question, but I was wondering if there is some kind of taboo right now in the publishing industry against stories that involve affairs between adults and adolescents?

  I finished a novel about a year ago in which the heroine is very slightly ‘under-age’ when she has a consensual affair with a much older man.  (Specifically: The girl is 15 years and 11 months, in a State where the legal age of consent would be 16 years.  In other words, she is just young enough to make the relationship technically against the law – which is an essential element of the plot.)

  I have sent out about a gazillion query letters to Agents, and I haven’t been able to generate any interest, so I’m just wondering if I have stumbled into some kind of “forbidden territory” here or am I just a lousy writer?  (I don’t claim to be the next Hemingway, but I thought I knew how to string together a coherent paragraph.)

  Oh, and for what it’s worth, other than the age thing, the story is pretty tame. There are no explicit sex scenes, no violence, no nudity, and very little vulgar language.  In comparison to, say, Nabokov’s “Lolita,” my story should be pretty much PG-rated -- or PG-13 at the most  

  Thanks in Advance.


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## Sam (May 27, 2010)

Hi, Adam. I moved your thread to Writing Discussion. You'll get better feedback here. The Writers' Workshop is for posting excerpts of your work for critique. 

Interesting question. Unfortunately I don't know the answer, but I'm sure someone here will.


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## Ilasir Maroa (May 27, 2010)

In the publishing industry?  Now that I know of.  What genres have you been pitching the story as?  Obviously not Romance, since by your description it wouldn't sell in most Romance imprints.  General fiction?


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## Linton Robinson (May 27, 2010)

Not really.  There are classic novels by Nabokov and Burgess with nymphet sex.   And some recent ones as well.

Older men, younger women.  The other way around is fairly rare, though there is the film "Harold and Maude".

I don't think you have that much to worry about, though it could make it a little more "rejectable" than the next piece.

And no, I don't think Romance genre would be the best market.  But my guess is, you knew that.


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## alanmt (May 27, 2010)

The film American Beauty flirted with this line, with critical success.

I wouldn't call this a "May-December" romance, though.  It sounds more like a "March-July" or "April-August" romance, depending upon the age of the guy.

It is a risky endeavor, depending upon your treatment of the subject.  Unless the artistic merit is simply stunning, publishers in our politicized society may be a bit reluctant to publish something which may be seen as glorifying or encouraging statutory rape.

And of course, the obvious question that came to my mind from your synopsis is: What is wrong with this guy that he didn't have the maturity and self-control to wait one month until she is legal?  16 is the legal age here in Montana, but to my mind, the established adult who wants to have an "affair" with a youth of that age, no matter how seemingly mature and emotionally advanced they are for their age, has to be struggling from his or her own mental health problems and/or is dangerously self-centered in allowing his/her sexual desire to fuel disregard for the teenager's best interest, including his/her emotional and social development.  Of course, maybe these issues are a central theme of your novel, I don't know.


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## Mike C (May 28, 2010)

I read a YA/Adult novel a while back that had a relationship between a 15 year old student and her teacher - so I'm guessing no taboos as such, except maybe for personal morality issues of agents (do agents have morals?) which seems unlikely.


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## Linton Robinson (May 28, 2010)

> do agents have morals?



An agent has 15% of a moral


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## Loulou (May 28, 2010)

Hey Adam,

This piqued my interest since I'm in quite a similar literary boat to you. 

Just completed - well, two months ago and have since edited many times - my novel and am at the writing to agents stage. It's tough. No, tough isn't a tough enough word. 

My story may well be a little more shall we say controversial (for want of a better word) in that the two main characters (who are also a May/December couple, she being twenty years older) find out into their relationship that they're brother and sister. Before I set out I never thought this would be too much of an issue (many novels deal with such issues) but I've had two rejections where the agent used the words 'brave' for my subject matter, and I believe 'dangerous.'

Like you Adam I'm trying to target the right agent, reading up on individuals at great length, trying to perfect that all-important synopsis. I thought that having had maybe a dozen or so short stories publsihed in some pretty mainstream places would help me get read. But no. It's a tough industry to crack. I'm told (by a friend lucky enough to have had a book bought by Random House) that a lot is about who you know and networking and 'being in the right place.' That's hard when you're nowhere near London where a lot of this goes on.

Have I given any advice or just rambled? I think the latter. But I will say good luck, Adam. Ultimately it should be about the quality of the work and not just the subject, but sadly the subject (theme/plot/story) is what an agent reads first and then might not even give the actual chapters a chance.


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## Linton Robinson (May 28, 2010)

Ah, May-December INCEST.   I always admire a young woman with guts.


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## adam smith (May 28, 2010)

Loulou:

  If you are getting replies that describe you as “brave” and “dangerous,” then you and I probably are in the same boat.  I have, of course, gotten a thick stack of form-letter rejections, but every once in a blue moon I get one that says, basically: “This seems like a very good story, but it’s just not right for me…”  In a way, these are even more frustrating that the form letters!  And then I have also gotten a few that seem to be damning with faint praise; stuff like …“this is an ‘interesting’ premise …”  or “…X and Y seem like ‘unusual’ characters …”

  I will tell y’all what I’m going to do:  Since my question seems to have generated some interest and some well-reasoned replies, I’m going to go out on a limb and (a) provide a little bit of personal information about myself so that y’all can see where I’m coming from, and (b) present a very brief outline of a hypothetical story that is vaguely similar to mine, but different enough to minimize any possible plagiarism issues.

  (a.)  I am in my 60’s, my wife is in her 30’s (we’ve been married for more than 10 years), and we just recently had a baby.  So to me, obviously, “May-December” seems completely normal, and maybe I’m tone-deaf to other people’s moral sensitivities in this area.  That’s why I’m looking for advice.

  (b)  Consider the following outline of a hypothetical story and tell me how likely it is to outrage the “Vice & Virtue Police”  ……     

  15 year old Ann and 60 year old Bob are marooned on a deserted island – Robinson Crusoe style. (How they got there is irrelevant, but it wasn’t their fault).  Fortunately, Bob is an ex-Special Forces guy who knows all about survival skills, and there is a cave on the island, so they are not in any immediate danger; they prepare materials for a signal fire and then settle into the cave to await a rescue plane.  But weeks go by and the search plane never comes, so they gradually adapt themselves to a Paleolithic existence.  They get to know each other very well, and in fact they come to like each other, and once in a while they even flirt a little bit, but the relationship never goes beyond holding hands. …. But one day, Bob comes down with a mysterious illness, characterized by delirium, fever, and chills; he seems to be freezing to death.  In desperation, Ann leads him into the cave, wraps the two of them up in the goatskin blankets and does everything she can think of to warm him up (Use your own imagination!). … Bob recovers, but two weeks later, Ann misses her period, and then she starts getting sick in the mornings.  At this point, they look at each other and say something along the lines of: “What the Heck!  We are stranded here, maybe forever, and the damage is already done, so we might as well enjoy ourselves.”  Then, to make up for lost time, they start ****ing each other like minks with a crack habit. …… A month later, a plane flies over and they are rescued.  …. But as soon as they get back to ‘civilization’ Bob is thrown into jail on multiple counts of statutory rape, and Ann comes under intense pressure from her family to have an abortion.  …. (You can write your own ending, which could be either a sad ending or a happy ending.)


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## adam smith (May 28, 2010)

Do you happen to recall the title and author of the novel?  Maybe I could back-track and find out the name of the agent.  THANX.



Mike C said:


> I read a YA/Adult novel a while back that had a relationship between a 15 year old student and her teacher - so I'm guessing no taboos as such, except maybe for personal morality issues of agents (do agents have morals?) which seems unlikely.


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## Ilasir Maroa (May 28, 2010)

Okay, the fact that Bob is 60(!) might be a little bit off-putting.  If he were 45, mimicking the age difference _you_ have experience with, things might be different.  I'd also point out that strenuous physical exercise in Bobs condition might not be the best way to go.  _Bob_ may be special forces, but I have a hard time buying that this is the first thing to pop into Ann's head.  It's just a very odd sort of relationship to spring up between a 15-year-old and a 60-year-old.  Depending on their brithdates, it could be more or less believable.  There's also the issue of Bob not seeming to suffer any sort of regret/worry over this.  "Oh hell, let's just do it!" is not exactly the attitude that most readers or industry professionals would take.  There'd have to be a lot more agonizing, especially if they jump straight from holding hands to screwing "like minks with a crack habit".  I'm not really critiquing your story here, but when they consider the underlying sentiments behind this story, the ones that your summation generates aren't going to be the most palatable.  That's not to say that a May-December romance, or even May-December sex is too dangerous for the industry, but you _do_ have to be careful in how you present the emotional/psychological/moral aspects of the story.


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## The Backward OX (May 28, 2010)

Loulou said:


> It's a tough industry to crack. I'm told (by a friend lucky enough to have had a book bought by Random House) that a lot is about who you know


I find myself amazed when I realise this is the first time in the nearly three years I’ve been coming here that this most evident factor in publishing has been raised.

It’s just like any other business, or in fact any relationship, business or otherwise, between two people. It ain’t what you know but who you know.

I’m just amazed that more hasn’t been made of this fact in discussions between writers, instead of all the constant agonising over the perfect query letter.


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## mary-l (May 28, 2010)

For what it's worth, here is a quick&dirty list of some famous May-December marriages that were (apparently) fairly successful for both partners, along with the ages:

Charlie Chaplin & Oona O'Neill    ...........  17 and 54
Will & Ariel Durant   .........................      15 and 28
William O. Douglas & Cathleen Heffernan  22 and 67
Edgar Allen Poe & Virginia Clemm ........   13 and 27
Tony Randall and Heather Harlan  .......... 25 and 75
Antonio Machado and Leonor Izquierto ... 14 and 34
Grover Cleveland and Frances Folsom ...  21 and 49

And of course, singer Loretta Lynn got married at age 13 to a much older man, but apparently that marriage was pretty rocky.

The Chaplin / O'Neill marriage comes closest to what adam is suggesting. According to Wikipedia, the marriage lasted 34 years and produced 8 children.


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## Linton Robinson (May 28, 2010)

Don't forget Anna Nicole Smith


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## moderan (May 28, 2010)

And Xavier Cugat/Charo


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## Ilasir Maroa (May 28, 2010)

_The Tale of Genji_ provides a disturbing, but not entirely similar example.

You might also give this a look.  (By clicking that link, you thereby absolve me of all liability for loss of time and/or sanity resulting from any content therein.)


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## Linton Robinson (May 28, 2010)

One thing I got a huge kick out of was after the film "Entrapment", in which Sean Connery and Catherine Zeta Jones were paired as a heist team, and then couple, there was the usual outpouring of rage from bitter femnazis about it--this unrealistic pairing, male subjection fantasies, yada yada.
A couple of months later Zeta Jones, in real life, married Michael Douglas.  Not only was he older, but he's not Sean Connery, for crissakes, he's sideofmeat Michael Freakin' Douglas.
That shut 'em up for awhile.


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## Linton Robinson (May 28, 2010)

But I'm probably not the guy to ask about this. The last woman I lived with was 25, the last woman I had sex with was 17.


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## Loulou (May 29, 2010)

Hey Adam,

Sounds like an intriguing story.  I think the key here is how you've handled it much more than anything.  This could very very easily be gratuitous and perhaps this might be what puts agents off.  I'm not saying it is, just musing.  What would intrigue me about such a book is how this situation affects the characters, how they handle any guilt/love/suffering, how they grow/fall as a result etc etc.  Any sex for the sake of sex would put me off.  Sex should be elevated as much more than that in literature.  I've tried to make clear when 'selling' my book that it's poetic, lyrical, literary.  Though it's a very erotic novel the sex is an essential part of the story in that when the characters discover they're siblings it destroys them slowly, the guilt, the wanting.  So it's a tragedy.  How does yours end Adam?  You were quite vague.  I think such stories can never (and should never) end 'happily.'

Here's my synopsis if anyone wants a read.  Feel free to crit.



*The Art of Wishing*​​*Louise Beech*​​*A synopsis*​​ 

Diabetic Amy, child of a long line of lone mothers, writes children’s stories and believes in wishes.  She writes them on notepaper and puts them in her Wish Box until they come true.  Joe, her younger lover, studies statistics, dismisses such beliefs and his history is littered with all the siblings and aunts and uncles Amy craves.  

These differences are exciting but it’s the similarities that eventually destroy their lives.

The intense relationship is shattered when Amy’s long-abandoned childhood wish for a brother is suddenly realised.  After her leukaemia diagnosis Joe gets tested so he might donate bone marrow.  

Their blood is a perfect match; they are brother and sister.

Forty-three years earlier Joe’s father Will had his first sexual experience with older woman Anne, not knowing she got pregnant with Amy.  

Growing up without family affected Amy greatly – her children’s books explore loneliness – and aged eight she wished for a brother ‘to have messy yellowy hair and to know just how I like to fight and to love me like a real sister without saying I should be more girly or anything like that and we can play scrabble when mum’s not here.’

Growing up Joe lost his mother prematurely to cancer, and arriving after a stillborn sister meant he fought for his alcoholic father’s affection and attention.

Joe’s bone marrow donation helps Amy recover from cancer but the sibling revelation tears them apart; he is willing to keep it a secret and continue as lovers but she can’t.  

So Joe volunteers at a lion rehabilitation project in Africa for four months, his lifelong ambition; Amy finishes her children’s story _The Lion-Tamer Who Lost _and it’s published to some acclaim.  

While apart they switch decisions.  Amy realises she wants Joe, that he’s _not_ the brother she wished for but the lover she failed to.  Caring for sibling lion cubs Lucy and Chuma, Joe decides he loves Amy enough to be the brother she wants.  

He finds her on a book tour, offering to be ‘the brother she wished for.’  She instead seduces him and they make love.  Joe is killed in a car crash on the way back home afterwards.  

Eventually Amy seeks out their father Will and when he realises she’s his daughter it’s an emotional union.  The story ends with Amy reading her latest book to her niece Lola now she has a family, one Joe brought together in spite of wishes.  

At each chapter’s start are quotes from Amy’s book, _The Lion-Tamer Who Lost_, the story of Ben whose parents die in the car crash that destroys his legs.  Lions visit Ben at night and he tames them as he recuperates.  This further addresses the main theme of lion-taming versus lions in the wild as a metaphor for freedom and restriction in relationships.


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## adam smith (May 29, 2010)

First of all, I want to thank everybody who has contributed to this discussion; I am finding it very useful!  Let me address a few specific points that people have raised:

*Ilasir:*  The thing about “ … ****ing like minks with a crack habit…” was supposed to be facetious and a deliberate exaggeration.  Sorry about that; I forgot how difficult it can be to convey sarcasm via the Internet.  And also, the hypothetical synopsis that I posted was very over-simplified. In my actual story, there are *NO* explicit sex scenes, and there is just enough sex taking place in the background to (a) get the girl pregnant and (b) set the guy up to be charged with multiple felonies.  

  Also, the first sexual encounter (the one where the guy is delirious and doesn’t even really know what’s going on) occurs about half-way through the book.  Before that I have spent thousands of words trying to establish the facts that (a) These two people have been alone together in this wilderness-survival situation for many weeks, they have already faced several dangerous, life-threatening situations together, and they have spent hundreds of hours talking to each other;  they probably know each other better than the average married couple.  (b) The girl has an extremely strong personality, and is nobody’s fool. At one point she tells the guy a story about how an older man had tried to hit on her when she had just turned 13, but: “ … I told him to stuff it up his ass, and after that he left me alone.”  In other words, she is perfectly capable of deciding what she wants and doesn’t want.

*Loulou:*  You asked about the ending.  Once they get back to civilization, the guy starts making plans to put his entire life savings (a few hundred thousand dollars) into a Trust Fund for the girl and the baby.  But then he finds out that he is about to be arrested, and a friend warns him that every penny he has will go for lawyers fees, and he will end up bankrupt even if he is eventually acquitted.  Conversely, if he tries to defend himself, he will almost certainly be convicted and all his money will go for fines and court costs.  The next day he is found dead.  The authorities say that it was an accidental death, but the girl (and the reader) realize immediately that he must have committed suicide in order to ensure financial solvency for the girl and the baby.

*Anybody:*  I think you folks are correct that I need to narrow down the age difference in order to make the story more plausible and also to make the guy a more sympathetic character.  I can’t do much with the girl’s age; they are in a State where the age of consent is 16, and therefore she *has* to be slightly under 16 so that a crime can occur.  But I could make the guy a little bit younger. It would be very easy to make the guy 55 years old, but anything younger than that would require some major plot changes.  Do y’all think that 55 would work?  

  Yesterday, somebody on this thread mentioned Charlie Chaplin and his wife (ages 17 and 54).  I already have a scene in my story where the characters are talking about Humphrey Bogart & Lauren Bacall as an example of a May-December couple. It would be very easy to modify that scene to include a discussion of Chaplin and mention the ages so as to set the reader up with the idea that if 17 & 54 occurs in real-life, then 16 & 55 is not too out of line in fiction.  Comments, anyone???

  Thanks again.  a.s.


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## spider8 (May 30, 2010)

I think agents are interested mainly in money. But I think they also have confidence problems. i.e. If they're good at marketing crime fiction, they may not want your book even though they think it may be a good'un. Personally, I think a book that is controversial will sell. Make the girl just post-pubescant, perhaps.


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## adam smith (Jun 1, 2010)

spider8 said:


> I ... (SNIP) ... Personally, I think a book that is controversial will sell....(SNIP)......


 
I am trying to walk a fine line here.  On the one hand I *DO* want to be controversial, but on the other hand I don't want to gross people out.  Ideally, I would like to create a situation where a few readers see the male protagonist as a villain (pedophile / child-abuser / whatever), but the majority see him as a basically good guy who got caught up in a difficult situation through no fault of his own, made some bad decisions and some good decisions, and ought to be left alone, but instead he is being unfairly persecuted by a puritanical government.

By the way, just as a real-life example of how insane we have become in the USA on this whole "child abuse" thing:  There was a true story in the news a few weeks ago about a 30-something woman in Nevada who was just sentenced to LIFE IN PRISON for having a 13 year old boy touch her breast!  The whole country has just gone berserk on this issue;  maybe it's different in England, I don't know. (Obligatory disclaimer: The woman sounds like a world-class slut, and I sure wouldn't want her hanging around my kids, but life-in-prison is absurd!)

I have been pondering on the age-difference problem in my story all weekend, and I think I might have come up with a way to get the guy's age down to 49 at the beginning of the story, and then he will turn 50 a few weeks later (on the same day that the girl turns 16; they happen to share a birthday).  Forty-nine is the absolute limit though.  I just can't make him any younger than that without totally throwing away the plot and starting over.


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## Linton Robinson (Jun 1, 2010)

> There was a true story in the news a few weeks ago about a 30-somethingwoman in Nevada who was just sentenced to LIFE IN PRISON for having a13 year old boy touch her breast!



Hell, I'd have given her my bicycle and catcher's mitt and all my money.


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## spider8 (Jun 2, 2010)

I totally agree. Sometimes these 'victims' are lucky little bastards.


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## Kat (Jun 2, 2010)

Not Mike but...

I read Before  I Fall awhile ago. It does have a section where an underage girl  has sex with her overage teacher. Although age difference isn't that  far. But also deals with some other taboo-ish topics like underage drug  use, drinking and driving, theft, suicide.... it's a YA book. 

I can't recommend the book, it annoyed the heck out of me even though I  did manage to finish it. It does get decent reviews on Amazon so there  are plenty out there that like it. But anyway you can see if you can  find the agent


In some states the age of consent is 18, making her closer to that would help reduce the ick factor. There is a huge maturity difference between 15 and 17, often physically also.


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## Ilasir Maroa (Jun 2, 2010)

Kat said:


> Not Mike but...
> 
> I read Before I Fall awhile ago. It does have a section where an underage girl has sex with her overage teacher. Although age difference isn't that far. But also deals with some other taboo-ish topics like underage drug use, drinking and driving, theft, suicide.... it's a YA book.
> 
> ...




You weren't a fan of Before I Fall?  Hmm... I haven't read it yet, but I was planning to.  I think I read the first chapter and t wasn't terrible.

Anyway, one problem is the Everywhere is Calirfornia trope in the media, where the age of consent is 18 wherever because that's what it is in Cali.  A lot of people I know don't realize 18 isn't the nationwide AOC, so your average reader is pretty likely to see even a 16-year-old as well below it.  Obviously 16 is better than 13, but when the older person is 50 or so, there's still going to be a lot of squick.


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## Kat (Jun 3, 2010)

Ilasir Maroa said:


> You weren't a fan of Before I Fall?  Hmm... I haven't read it yet, but I was planning to.  I think I read the first chapter and t wasn't terrible.


 
OT

I wasn't awful. The writing was fine, very fitting for the audience but not completely dumbed down. It had some great parts but then it just got  predictable and annoying. She's living the same day over and over again  and it gets drawn out to the point that as a reader you're like die  already. Plus I didn't like the way that certain things were dealt with  but more as a parent than a reader. It delves into underage drinking,  drinking and driving, sex, drug use, theft and other things. And the  only thing that was really frowned upon in the book by the characters  was sex. 

That drove me insane and didn't seem to fit with today's society. I did a  quick poll among another forum that I visit and well according to the standards in the book most of us are whores. Plus it didn't really deal with bullying which was a pretty strong sub-plot. It didn't seem resolved enough so that it was in the end it was a meaningful contribution. 

And then I hate to give reviews like this when people say they were wanting to read the book. I would hate to turn you off of reading a book that you may love, we all have different tastes. I would just say don't pay for it, get it from the library or paperback swap.


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