Chloe Ford: Reading romance as a teen was better than sex education
I started my romance reading adventure around the age of thirteen. I’d grown up watching my mum read almost addictively. I swear she could read up to ten books a week. We’d always drop into charity shops and supermarkets to see what books were on offer and she didn’t try to disguise what she was reading, proudly displaying her Mills & Boon books with the risqué front covers, all bodice ripping and topless godlike men. The range was huge from pirates to kings and princesses to shirtless doctors to billionaires. But they all had one thing in common – that delicious treasure of seeing two people fall in love.
My curiosity grew during my teenage years when I stumbled across a pile of well-read books under her bed and snuck one away. I still remember it today – a marriage of convenience to an Earl to save a poor damsel’s reputation from a leering Count. The Earl was never going to touch the poor, frightened girl. She would be free to live a lavish lifestyle in his stunning mansion. But of course, she fell dangerously in love with this kind and handsome stranger. Whatever should a girl do but try to seduce him? It read like sugar. That’s what I love about romance. It takes great skill to write a book the reader cannot put down.
Although enlightening at that age, it taught me more about women’s bodies than any sex education class ever did. It is well known that sex education at school teaches teenagers about the mechanics – the how, why, when and what might happen if you get it wrong. I’m sure there are plenty of discussions regarding the content of those sessions and maybe they’re more informative now than they were back when I was at school. One thing was for sure though; maybe for the right reasons, maybe for the wrong, they didn’t teach about women’s pleasure.
In fact, until I started reading romance novels, I genuinely believed sex was purely for the man’s pleasure or for making babies. DON’T HAVE SEX, was still the message being hammered home back in the early 2000s. Romance changed that mindset for me in a really interesting way. You might think it made me intrigued to discover and set upon a journey of sexual depravity. Very wrong. No. I became extremely fussy. Boys at school were no comparison to the Viscounts, the Greek doctors and the billionaires from within my books. Let alone when Edward Cullen came along.
I’m sorry – do you have your own estate? No? You forgot your lunch? Leave me be!
You alright? Wanna sit together at lunch? had nothing on, You are the tether in which my world revolves. Promise to be my wife or it will make my life unworthy of living.
These boys lacked finesse. They didn’t have the words to woo me. Half the time, they could barely get themselves dressed. I wasn’t going to waste my precious time with boys my own age when I could simply get lost in my books. Did I have crushes? Of course, I did. But I made them into more than they were. I imagined them sweeping me off my feet with grand gestures and unrealistic words of ardour.
When they acted contrary to this – I lost all interest.
Romance books felt like a letter, a lesson, from the women who wrote them to say, this is what you deserve, this is the sort of man you want. As I grew up, I realised not all of these expectations were realistic. I had to give up my dream of marrying a Duke with small fortune, a country estate and that splendid London terrace in Mayfair. Heartbreaking! And I probably wouldn’t find myself a vampire who would bite me and make me eternal. Devastating!
But I didn’t give up many of the key values: respect, honour, dedication and most importantly – pleasure. So, here’s to the men written by women who taught me not to accept anything less than what I deserve from a young age. You saved me from a ton of heartbreak.
Work Trip is the hilarious workplace enemies to lovers rom-com by Chloe Ford, published by Head of Zeus on the 24th April 2025
